Groups and Single Decorations for Gallantry
Almost immediately the trench came under fire from a depth position, previously unseen to the south. The Prisoners of War had to be controlled quickly due to the numbers involved (5 soldiers/4 prisoners) and the pressure of the situation. They were therefore treated roughly as some still resisted, and all were bound with plasicuffs. Corporal Byles then organised a full re-org on the position despite being under effective enemy fire from 5 enemy in depth. He began to engage the enemy and killed 2. A further 1 was killed by chain gun from a Warrior call sign, and the other 2 played dead and were subsequently captured. After a few moments W22, commanded by Sergeant Broome, arrived on the position. At this point Corporl Byles and Private Beggs left the rest of the section to rejoin the other dismounts from his Platoon. They then assisted on the re-org conducted by W33A.
Throughout the whole contact Corporal Byles showed immense professionalism under pressure. He showed bravery in the face of the enemy and strong leadership qualities in leading a dangerous assault against a larger enemy position. He is certainly a credit to his Platoon, Company and Cap badge and it is my belief that he should be recognised as such.’
Mark Richard Byles was born in Portsmouth in 1970. Having joined the British Army, he transferred to the 1st Battalion, Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment in June 2003 and was deployed with an advance party of his unit to Iraq in early April 2004. His battalion’s seven month tour of Iraq in 2004, during Operation Telic 4, would be a highly notable deployment under the command of Lieutenant- Colonel Matt Maer, during which a number of very high profile and dangerous events took place; the Battle of ‘Danny Boy’ and the ‘Siege of CIMIC House’ (CIMIC House was the HQ of British led Civil Military Co-operation) most significant amongst them. In addition, the battalion conducted Operation Waterloo, clearing insurgents from Al Amarah. Large numbers of gallantry awards were won, including Private Johnson Beharry’s Victoria Cross. During that tour, the 1st Battalion, Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment Battlegroup faced the most constant period of conflict of any British Army unit since the Korean War. 1 Mechanised Brigade, within which the Battalion served, fired more small arms ammunition in those six months than the British Army as a whole did in thirty years in Northern Ireland. This Battlegroup in Maysan Province faced over one hundred contacts in one day alone and close to 900 over the duration of the tour. Every member of the Battalion on this operation was in some form of contact. To quote the Commanding Officer, ‘That in itself made it a tour like no other’.
Into the crucible
Stationed at Camp Abu Naji, Al-Amarah, Iraq, for the duration of the tour, the battalion’s role was to police Maysan Province, of which Al-Amarah is the capital, assisting the Iraq Civil Defence Corps (ICDC) maintain law and order. In implementing this, the earlier operations in Kosovo were intended to serve as a model: a combination of foot patrols, Land Rover patrols and Vehicle Check Points, or VCPs. However, the battalion assumed command of the Province from 1 Light Infantry on Sunday 18 April just as a major backlash against coalition forces by the Mahdi Army loyal to Muqtadar Al-Sadr was getting underway. The situation deteriorated rapidly, with repeated violent attacks in Al Amarah itself and the repelling of an attack on a joint PWRR / Light Infantry patrol in the nearby town of Majar Al Kabir.
Corporal Byles’ role whilst in theatre was that of dismount commander - commanding troops following their deployment out of the back of a Warrior tracked armoured vehicle - in C Company. His comrade in C Company, Private Sewell remembered being faced with the reality on the ground soon after arrival: ‘We were deploying on what we believed to be a peace keeping operation. That idea lasted approximately 24 hours. On arriving at the base location, C Company, along with B Company 1 Light Infantry were deployed to the city to deal with an incident that turned from bad to worse in a short space of time... The contact was a definitely a planned ambush on the coalition force callsigns [callsign denoting a group of soldiers] as they moved through the location at that time. Unluckily for the enemy, I don’t think they were expecting such an aggressive response. If you talk to anyone involved in the contact, they would tell you that the rooftops were crawling with numerous gunmen equipped with a range of weaponry from AK-47s to RPGs. Once everyone had returned to base, there was a different atmosphere amongst the men, especially C Company as we were in the thick of it.’ (Dusty Warriors by Richard Holmes refers)
The contact referred to by Private Sewell occurred near CIMIC house: an ambush of Sergeant Danny Mills’ multiple had come under small arms fire, RPG and grenade attack; a Snatch Land Rover was set alight; and Corporal Williamson had been hit. The nearby Rover Group of Lieutenant-Colonel Maer rushed to the scene of the contact to help extricate the stricken unit, but they themselves became pinned down. As news of the battle filtered back to camp, Warrior W10, containing Byles was called in to aid in the relief effort, Private McAllister of 7 Platoon, alongside Byles in W10 that day remembers the events unfold: ‘Straightaway the CSM says to us: ‘Get into two groups, one who’s got ammo, one who hasn’t.’ The blokes who had, including me, gave our details to the flap sheet... I was in W10, in the back was Pagey my platoon sergeant, Corporal Byles, Kenny Bosch, myself, and the company medic Phil. Moments later we were rolling towards town. We crossed the bridge to get to the main situation at Yellow 3. We could hear small arms fire outside. The boss and Fongy the gunner were observing in the turret, we were under quite heavy contact by now when I heard the boss shout: ‘Fongy, enemy behind the wall’, followed by a burst of co-ax. I remember feeling very hot. I was sweating uncontrollably but quite pumped up as well. We could hear RPGs and small arms whizzing past... Soon after Cporporal Byles saw some enemy to the rear of our wagon. Without hesitation he shouted ‘Open the door, open the door,’ and as the door opened I remember everything becoming louder. For a split second I thought ‘F.....g hell this real, we’re getting out here.’ Suddenly we heard whoosh followed by the explosion that rocked the wagon. The RPG hit below the door. The blast blew off a road wheel, and pushed the whole door up... The next thing I knew Mensah was taking us back to Abu Naji, W10s back door still open.’
With W10 out of the battle, the rest of the relief force barrelled on to the ambush site where the disparate groups and their casualties were assisted to safety in priority order. Matt Maer later observed, ‘As a team we had been in contact for two hours and suffered 30 per cent casualties. It was only tea time on the first full day of our tour.’
The ambush on 16 April had given an early indication of the strength of the Mahdi Army in the town but by the end of April almost every patrol was being ambushed and the police were either absent or, at worst, actively siding with the enemy. On 1 May, a major series of RPG attacks on a platoon heading to extract a foot patrol in Al-Amarah led to Private Johnson Beharry being awarded the V.C. and soon afterwards Maer decided that ‘the Mahdi Army had to be taken down in Al-Amarah’; his opening move on 3 May was to launch Operation Knightsbridge, a resupply of CIMIC house using tanks. This was followed up shortly afterwards by the similar but even bolder Operation Waterloo with tanks and air support on 8 May which also involved a plan whereby Byles’s C Company would ‘sit on the junction at Red 11 which had good fields of fire and wait for them to have a go. If they bottled it they would lose face in front of the local community. If they fought they would lose. Either way they would win.’ During the operation, the eight Warriors - one of which contained Byles - pushed towards CIMIC house. As the battle gathered in intensity, an enemy mortar team with infantry support came into action from close to the OMS (Office of the Martyr Sadr). Matt Maer gave orders to advance on the building and as dawn broke Corporal Byles section ‘went through it like a dose of salts’. A vast haul of weapons was recovered, ‘from your average AK to aircraft mounted missiles’ and the area was secured by clearance patrols who found evidence of Spectre’s (American AC-130 air support) handiwork, ‘Dismembered bodies lay around on the ground, their rifles and RPGs beside them.’
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