Читать книгу Aid Memoir - Larry Hollingworth - Страница 11

The Call

I returned to the UK from my tour with Somali refugees, minus my Parker pen which I had had for more than ten years, my UN blue anorak which I had had for five years, and twenty kilos in weight. The pen and anorak were “liberated” by my driver at a halt for a wee on my way to Nairobi airport. The kilos were lost as the result of bugs picked up in “the bush.”

My first two weeks at home were dictated by a simple time and distance calculation. At least twice an hour I needed to find a toilet. A time and motions study. Fortunately, the local military medical centre near my home had on its staff a graduate of the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, he cured my loo dependency and I was then ready to move.

The situation in ex-Yugoslavia was the lead story in all the newspapers. UNHCR was the leading aid agency. Jose Maria Mendiluce was the Special Envoy. He and I had worked together in Geneva. A small, broad, urbane, and elegant Spaniard, he is a brilliant linguist with an open charm which hides experience gained as a veteran of tough tours in South America and Kurdistan.

In just over a year, he had seen a lot of history in its making. Slovenia had fought briefly and successfully for its independence, Croatia and Serbia had gone to war. The newly independent, UN-recognised Republic of Bosnia Herzegovina had been pronounced stillborn by the doctor of medicine Radovan Karadzic, who led the Bosnian Serbs. His diagnosis was faulty as was so often to be the case. The infant state was not dead, but, nor was it healthy. Its lifeblood was regrouped and separated; its limbs stretched from their sockets. But it was alive. It was now an incubator state, vulnerable and isolated. Kept alive by infusions of rhetoric and promise and by occasional injections of aid. Sarajevo, its capital and seat of government, was battle scarred and besieged, the population shelled and hungry. To alleviate the suffering, the UN Security Council on the eighth of June had voted to open Sarajevo airport for the delivery of humanitarian aid. The airport was in Bosnian Serb held territory; their tanks and soldiers were on the runway. They protested. On the 28th of June, President Mitterand, in a bold, brave move flew into Sarajevo. The airport was then deemed to be open. The Bosnian Serb forces withdrew under the watchful blue eyes of the newly appointed Commander of Sector Sarajevo, the Canadian General Lewis Mackenzie.

Madame Sadako Ogata, The High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, was determined that UNHCR, the organisation she directed, would run the airlift. Jose Maria Mendiluce, her Special Envoy, already had a man on the ground in Sarajevo. The task was to airlift humanitarian aid from Zagreb to Sarajevo to feed the starving blockaded population of 385,000. The decision as to who should operate the airlift lay with the UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. He had an offer from the United States who wished to undertake the task. With hindsight, an amazing offer, and one which, if he had accepted, would have altered the UN involvement and maybe the whole course of the war. The Secretary General gave the task to UNHCR.

A new task needed more staff. I was called to Geneva.

The British Government, very quick off the mark, had agreed to send Wing Commander Angus Morris to set up an air operations cell in the headquarters of UNHCR.

Angus is a dynamic, very switched on, silver haired, handsome RAF officer, with lots of professional charm. He is a Scot. He speaks with little or no accent, in short measured sentences. He is an officer who has perfected the art of giving orders as suggestions.

Angus and I set up an office in a small room adjacent to the UNHCR communications centre. From there we could contact Zagreb, the UK Ministry of Defence, and the military headquarters of the proposed donor nations. America, France, Italy, as well as the UK had tentatively offered aircraft for the airlift. The Americans sent a team to Geneva to join us headed by Lt. Col. Larry Smith, whom I had worked with previously when getting aid into Turkey.

The whole ex-Yugoslav operation was under the supervision of a senior UNHCR director, Eric Morris, a taciturn American. Bright, direct and reserved. Eric quickly realised that the Geneva end was becoming larger than the sharp end. He therefore decided that I should go to Zagreb and run the airlift. An excellent decision, as I knew the players in Geneva and they would know the man on the ground. It was also a great decision for me, as I am not a “corridor of power” warrior. Eric told me to contact the UNHCR Chief of Operations in Zagreb, Tony Land, an Englishman who had just returned from Afghanistan. In a short, sharp call, Tony made it clear that he was looking for—a man who will fight for refugees in the most difficult of circumstances. A man who will lie for them, cheat for them, and be a rogue for them. You are ex-army, aren’t you?—he concluded. You have the right background. I was not too sure if I was going to like Tony.

I collected a satellite telephone from “comms,” a mark one edition, it weighed a tonne, came in an enormous grey box and bore a label demanding to be handled with care. I was given a quick lesson on assembling it and a handbook which was even less clear but had the benefit of being unclear in five different languages. I headed off to Geneva airport where I was to meet up with another recruit for ex-Yugoslavia, a journalist Peter Kessler, who was going out as Public Information Officer. My first minutes with Peter were not too successful. He was waiting for me and was a little irritable. I was late. The check-in desk was closing and we were in great danger of missing the flight. I was short with him. In addition to my own kit, I was struggling with this enormous and heavy satellite phone. The Swiss, to whom time is an obsession, are never happy with late arrivals, the Swiss, to whom money is an obsession, are very happy with excess baggage. Peter and plane left without me.

I took the next flight, changed aircraft at Frankfurt, and sat next to Peter on the flight to Zagreb! Albeit he was cool and calm, I was hot and sticky. In Zagreb, I was briefed by Jose Maria and Tony. They gave me a rundown on the war so far. Jose Maria was anecdotal. He knew all the key players. Tony is like a housemaster who has a good brain but who prefers to run the school sports. He was academic and aggressive. His arms swept over the huge map on the wall. He prodded at place names, followed the course of rivers with his pen. Pointed at Corps headquarters, named Generals. I tried to take notes. But in truth, I knew where Zagreb was only because Angus Morris had pinpointed it on his map. To save my life I could not have placed my finger on Belgrade on this huge map which Tony knew so well.

– What was the name of that man again?—I asked.

– Prlic—replied Tony.

– And the General?

– Hadzihasanovic.

– Can you point out on the map again Biljana Plavsic?

– She is Vice President of the Serbska Republika.

The housemaster was getting irritable. The pupil had not done his homework. I was in danger of getting detention. I decided to nod wisely, pretend to write and ask no more questions.

Head reeling, I left the office and met Anders Levison who had set up the airport operation in Zagreb, met the first aircraft and effectively started the airlift. He is a very tall classic Swede who was eventually to wear himself out by his tireless devotion to the refugees in his charge in Zenica and Tuzla. He reluctantly handed the airlift over to me.

We were operating from an office outside the airport. On the floor below us was Colonel Mark Cook who was in charge of the British military contingent. He was later to retire and to rebuild from its ashes the Children’s Home in Lipik, Croatia.

I pestered the airport authorities and they offered us an office co-located with the airport fire brigade. It was on the tarmac, so it was easy to see each aircraft and to ensure that every pilot reported in, after landing. The airport operation was in two parts.

Some aid arrived from donor countries by road and was stored at the airport for loading onto aircraft and flying into Sarajevo. Some aircraft arrived at the beginning of each day with aid loaded at their home airport. They reported into Zagreb, flew on to Sarajevo and then returned to Zagreb for further loads. Other nations parked their aircraft at Zagreb which were loaded from the ground stocks and then flown to Sarajevo.

As the numbers of aircraft built up, so the numbers of sorties per aircraft diminished. Most of the crews were keen to fly and vied with each other for slots into Sarajevo. None were keener than the Brits. They would ensure that their aircraft were loaded faster than others, they would watch like hawks for any delay in another aircraft’s take off, and if there was the narrowest window of opportunity, they would rumble along the tarmac, slowly lose contact with the ground, and lumber into the sky. This tactic would throw out the plan and meant another nation losing a trip. The Brits were the worst for excessive zeal but they were not alone. The poor UNHCR representative on the ground would suffer the wrath of the pilot cheated out of his turn.

The enthusiasm of the aircrews was matched only by their bravery. Each and every landing, halt, and take off in Sarajevo was threatened. Many aircraft were to be pockmarked by shrapnel, penetrated by bullets and tracked by missiles. One aircraft, from Italy, was to pay the highest price. It was shot down with the loss of the crew.

After I had spent only a few days in Zagreb, it was decided that I could be replaced and sent to Sarajevo. On my last day in charge at the Zagreb end of the operation Madame Ogata, the High Commissioner for Refugees, arrived on her way to pay her first visit to Sarajevo. As her plane landed from Geneva, President Izetbegovic arrived from Sarajevo. Madame Ogata, whom I had seen in action on many previous occasions was, as usual, bright, incisive and caring. As ever, she knew who we all were and what we were doing.

The President I immediately liked. He looked a kindly but tired man. We talked about the aid, the need and the international response. On the tarmac, a few yards from where he had landed in a British Hercules C 130, was parked the executive jet of President Tudjman of Croatia—a symbol of the trappings of power of a neighbouring President. I wondered if he looked at it and asked himself: “Why me? Why my country?”

I called on the British RAF contingent who were living in a small hangar in the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) camp adjacent to Zagreb Airport in primitive conditions. The senior Brit was Wing Commander Bryan Warsnap, with longer than regulation length hair, a ruddy lined face, a voice with a gentle burr, the ideal man to send to a front-line task. Unflappable and genuine, able to smooth the feathers of ruffled pilots, to command and control by example, to appear calm almost to the point of being unaware. He was briefing Squadron Leader Steve Potter who was to fly into Sarajevo to liaise with UNHCR and the French. I envied Steve—he was going in a day before me.

My next call was to the Royal Engineers. More specifically to the quartermaster stores.

– Any chance of the loan of a British Army sleeping bag?

– Who are you?

– UNHCR.

– Where are you going?

– Sarajevo.

– OK, but you will have to sign for it.

The sleeping bag became a close friend. Thank you, RQMS.

The next day I handed over my airport responsibilities to a young UNHCR lawyer who soon handed them over to Mike Aitcheson, a veteran professional airline man. From his arrival onwards, there was no queue jumping by any nation, no disorderly behaviour, no nonsense. The airlift ran smoothly and efficiently.

Bryan Warsnap came to see me off. Steve had contacted him from Sarajevo. Last night there was heavy firing across the airport—he said. Damn—I thought—I will arrive and it will be all over. I hitched a lift with the British plane and had my first Khe Sanh experience. The flight from Zagreb to Sarajevo is dangerous for most of the way. A slow moving fully laden transport aircraft is an easy target to track and hit in a war zone where bored, trigger happy, unaccountable brigands roam the hills. But the descent to land is the most vulnerable manoeuvre. The RAF crews adapted the descent procedure used by the Americans as they landed in Khe Sanh during the Vietnam War. This involves an extremely high approach with tight turns and then an almost vertical angle of descent with a sharp pull out at what seems feet from the runway. It is a spectacular sight to watch from the ground, but to be honoured by the crew with an invitation to travel in the cockpit and to stand behind the pilot’s seat during the flight and descent is a truly exhilarating experience. You feel that you can touch the sides of the hills. The navigator indicates that it is time to put on flak jackets. The pilot, Chris Tingay, a Boys Own Paper image of a pilot, bright blue eyes, hero handsome, with a tight tough smile, points out, with his yellow chamois gloved hand, Sarajevo in the valley ahead.

Then the descent begins. Chris pushes the stick forward; the nose goes down. It is as if someone has taken away the floor you are standing on. Your ears block, your blood rushes to your head, your knees buckle. Your stomach, intestines, liver, kidneys, all never before felt, are now individual items and floating within your body. The airport is rushing towards us, surely we will penetrate the runway, not land on it. Chris pulls back on the stick, conversations pass over the headphones, the aircraft levels, the body regroups itself. The aircraft wheels hit the ground, we bounce, Chris and his co-pilot have their hands on the central controls, the aircraft is shaking, vibrating, the noise is deafening and penetrating, the huge tyres again contact the ground, the aircraft races along the centre of the runway, then the engines are reversed, the cargo lurches forward in the hold, straining against the bolts and straps. You, yourself, are holding on, knuckle white to the back of the pilot’s seat. The noise and the speed subside. The great overweight bird is now a slow-moving land vehicle controlled by a ridiculously small primitive wheel which is in the corner of the cockpit below the side window. It is parallel to the deck, not angled and is controlled by the left hand of the pilot as if his craft were a trolleybus or a tram. You realise that your eyes are wide open, your face grinning ecstatically. The crew are folding maps, flicking switches, clearing up, closing down. They have entered the most dangerous airport in the world, they have parked their winged chariot on a pockmarked tarmac. They have made themselves the biggest target for miles. They sit and wait whilst they are unloaded, already preparing for an equally spectacular Khe Sanh take-off.

Chris was later awarded the Air Force Cross for his bravery, the first medal to be given for former Yugoslavia. It’s a collective award for all the crews in the operation—he modestly and generously said on hearing of his award.

I thanked him and his crew, collected my bags, and left the aircraft through the side door and took my first steps in Sarajevo. My initial view was of the damaged Air Traffic Control Tower. Sheets of glass looking as if they would fall to the floor to impale all below. The first person I met was Amra. Red hair, beautiful eyes, and a warm smile. She took me to the UNHCR hangar. Outside were parked two Canadian APCs. The whole of the front of the hangar was open, in the top right-hand corner was the office. It was very make-shift and untidy. The rest of the hangar was either storage space or living accommodation. I walked up to the office area and saw Rick Garlock, UNHCR, American, ex-military and a man whom I had known when he was in Turkey.

– Hi—I said. His head was over the laptop computer.

– What do you want?—he replied.

– Nothing.

– Well, what are you here for then?

– Rick, it’s me, Larry. The length of the beard had thrown him, the constant stream of journalists had tired him. He introduced me to the team. I was told to find myself a place to sleep. I found a large wooden table and placed my sleeping bag underneath it.

Fabrizio Hochschild then arrived. He had been in Sarajevo since before the war began. He was in charge of the office. He and I had last seen each other in Addis Ababa. He is a young, extremely bright Oxbridge graduate, a polyglot, a thinker, and a man deservedly earmarked for the top. He welcomed me, told me to settle in, and outlined my tasks. I was to run the airport and the airlift. He was moving Rick from the airport to the city to supervise the distribution of aid.

The RAF invited me into the area of the hangar that they had curtained off as an officers’ mess. Steve Potter shared it with Flight Lieutenant Lee Doherty, a London Irish workhorse. Lee had made himself responsible for the loading and unloading of aircraft. He was unbelievable. He could do every task, from driving the most enormous forklift truck to cleaning his shoes, quicker and better than anyone else. The French, the Canadian, and the Norwegian teams who worked with him were overwhelmed by his energy. His French counterpart was a dozy pudding of a man.

No man was more responsible for establishing the system of loading and unloading the aircraft at sufficient speed to ensure that the aircraft were on the ground for the least possible time and thus least exposed to danger from shell, mortar, and small arms fire, than Lee. He was awarded the MBE for his efforts.

Recently, I met a Sarajevo driver and we talked about Lee. I remember three things about him—he said—hard work, cold showers, and Jack Daniels whisky. Lee, if ever you are looking for an epitaph that is not a bad one! Ron Bagnolo was the RAF communications king and a general Mr. Fixit, a very open, kind, and courteous man.

The team told me about the previous evening. There had been heavy firing across the airfield as the Serb-held Airport Settlement had fired on Government dominated Dobrinja. The boys told me exciting tales of the sky lit up by tracer fire, they pointed out from where shells had come and where they had landed.

I have to confess that I secretly hoped it would last at least one night more. I hoped that I would see some action myself.

The night was quiet, the firing was subdued. I spent a little time talking to my fellow occupants of the hangar. But I very much felt that I was the new boy, even though no one had been there for more than a week. So I decided that I would wait until the next day before trying to get to know everybody. I went to bed at about nine. I opened out my sleeping bag and discovered a bonus. The previous occupant had left a Maglite torch in it. I had learned that inside the hangar there was one toilet and two washbasins—to be shared between thirty people at night and maybe fifty by day. I established that most people got up at six thirty. I set my alarm for a quarter to six. I wanted to have used the facilities before the others awoke.

I slept well. I was out of the sleeping bag before six. Only one other person was up. Nonjo the cook. Whilst I washed, he made me a cup of tea. The next person up was no surprise. It was Lee.

I went across and talked to Nonjo. He is a tall, heavy, generous man with a warm sincere personality. He is employed as a driver. He is a typical well-educated, streetwise city boy. He has a great sense of humour. Nonjo had as one of his many party pieces a monologue about an old lady learning to drive an armoured vehicle. His timing is as good as Bob Newhart’s and the story is as funny with each retelling. Nonjo was to become one of my barometers. I was able to measure the morale of our staff by the mood of Nonjo and their reaction to him.

After breakfast, we were visited by the senior French officer who was in charge of the advance party of the French Marines. Lt. Col. Erik de Stabenrath and I were to become very good friends.

I then was taken to see the commander of Sector Sarajevo, General Lewis Mackenzie. If ever a man looked the part he was playing, it was him. He is a tall, broad, film star handsome man. He is tough physically and cerebrally. A fluent speaker with an enviable vocabulary he was, without a doubt, “in charge.” He exuded command and confidence. A brilliant choice. I learned that his hobby is racing cars. If I had to guess his hobby, racing cars would have been alongside sky diving or big game hunting as my first choices for him.

I took my inaugural trip into the city to visit the UNHCR warehouse at the Zetra Olympic stadium and to see the city authorities. It was an opportunity to view the devastation already suffered in the opening days of the war. The newspaper office of Oslobodjenje with the core of its tower still standing, defying the Serb gunners who can see it but whose skills are not sufficient to demolish it and symbolising to the world the spirit of the Oslobodjenje staff bowed, battered but not beaten. Daily, they produce a newspaper, regardless of the intensity of the shelling, the appalling conditions, or even the lack of proper “news.” It had a multi-ethnic staff. Sadly, it could not avoid single side propaganda which, on occasions, demeaned its excellence. Next to Oslobodjenje is the garish building, known as the “Rainbow Hotel,” built to house old people but taken over by the UN as an accommodation block. The location of one of its first ignominies. It flew the UN flag but was shelled. The UN vehicles in the car park were destroyed, the patches of white on the shattered and burned vehicles were to remind generations of UN soldiers of the first insult. We passed by the PTT building, which was the headquarters of UNPROFOR, the turning marked by an abandoned tram. On the left is the TV building. A concrete monstrosity which, pre-war, attracted tremendous criticism for its prison-like exterior. In war, it was to prove a gold medal winner. Its windowless walls, its solid exterior, its construction, rejected the Serb calling cards. It became office and studio to many international journalists and home to some.

Our first port of call was to the Municipality, a dark brown stone building next to the Presidency, to pay a courtesy call on Mr. Pamuk the director of the city. His title initially confused me, but he explained that he was the senior civil servant in the city and the district of Sarajevo. A powerful post. He was pleased to see me. My grey hairs pleased him. So far, he had been told how to run his city by men the age of his sons. We had an immediate empathy. I had neither youth nor solution. He is maybe forty-five, on a bad day he looks a little like Brezhnev, on a good day like Lord Healey. He has a craggy face, dark thick hair, prominent eyebrows, eyes which laugh a lot, and a voice honed and trained on rough tobacco. He wears a dark grey party suit. He is a product of the party but has a mind which has easily adapted to the circumstances of today. I liked him, I knew that we could work together. I promised to return later in the week when he would have in his office the committee for the distribution of aid.

We then moved to the Holiday Inn hotel, home of many journalists. We were to meet Minister Martin Raguz who was responsible for Refugee Affairs. The Holiday Inn Hotel is a magnet for Serb shells, in truth its hideous yellow outer walls would be the target of many a brickbat in times of peace. We were driven to the main entrance, made a quick dash to the front door. It was part glass, part fresh air. To the right of the entrance is the reception desk where bored staff deal with tired journalists. A notice board near the door attempts to answer the most routine enquiries. We crossed the reception hall. Our presence was noted by the cabals of media men pocketed about the bar area. We climbed the large but clumsy central staircase and turned to the right. The Minister was waiting for us in a private dining room. Martin Raguz is a young man, perhaps thirty. He is a Croat, tall, dark and presumably attractive to women. As it turned out, he was accompanied by two very attractive secretaries.

We were served a meal. My first meal away from the hangar. It was called burek, a pie with meat inside it. They were war economy portions but it was more than I expected. The Holiday Inn survives because of its clientele. The journalists are paid well, many have a generous expense account. They pay in hard currency. The hotel management is therefore able to do deals with checkpoints to bring in food to satisfy customers as voracious at table as they are on the streets.

This meeting was very important to me. It was the first time that I realised the significance of working in Sarajevo. Mr. Pamuk and I had been talking about the needs of Sarajevo. Minister Raguz was talking about the needs of Bosnia Herzegovina (BiH). The UNHCR man in Sarajevo was thus double hatted. Talking to the local authorities on Sarajevo and to the government on BiH. Martin Raguz wanted to talk about aid to his nation. He wanted us to support computer links to the principal towns, he wanted to know how much aid had been delivered to each region, how much was planned. He talked as if there was not a war raging around us, as if communications were normal. I realised that he thought that we, the UN, were better organised than we were. He was presuming that we had a great plan and a system to match. He talked about aid to those areas which were isolated. He mentioned Gorazde, the first time I ever heard the name. He asked if we could send a convoy there urgently. I left the table realising that I had a lot to learn. Feeding Sarajevo looked as if it was only half of the job.

I returned to the airport and sat with the drivers and a map. They showed me where Gorazde was. They explained that it was in Eastern Bosnia. It had been a multi-ethnic town with a Muslim majority but was now surrounded by territory which had fallen into Bosnian Serb hands. They patiently explained that to get there I would need Serb approval and that it was not in the interests of the Serbs to permit aid to enter Gorazde. The Serbs wished to starve the Muslims into submission, then to move them out to Central Bosnia, releasing the whole of Eastern Bosnia to the Serbs. My drivers showed me two other places also besieged, Zepa and Srebrenica. Gorazde was enough for me in one night.

Now that I was aware of the dual role of UNHCR, I needed to know who was who in the government as well as in the city. I began to do battle with the names. The President of Bosnia Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegovic, I could manage. The mayor of Sarajevo, Mr. Kresevljakovic was going to take some time.

My second evening was noisy. I stood with the RAF boys and the drivers outside the hangar and watched a battle begin. A tank on the Serb held hill began firing into Butmir. Government-held Dobrinja replied from behind us, Serb held Lukavica joined in over our heads, and Butmir replied. Serb held Airport settlements then fired on Butmir. The rounds flew above our heads, low enough to hear their passage, high enough to avoid frightening us. As darkness fell the tracer rounds flew like rockets across the sky. Following tracer shell is fascinating but macabre. The trace disappears at the end of the trajectory of the round, there is a delay, then an increasing rumble, and slowly flames flicker into the sky. It is at first easy to be taken in by the event and to forget the reality of the action. Perhaps at first we see it as we see a movie film. Later, when I was close enough to see the action and to hear the screams, the fascination had gone, replaced by the horror of the result and my hatred of the perpetrators.

On this second night in Sarajevo, we were reminded of our own vulnerability as a rocket exploded close to us. Its multi-head spitting shrapnel close to where we stood. Steve Potter decided that the priority for tomorrow was the building of a bunker. I went to bed tired but excited, my head reeling with “ic’s.”

Each day started with a conference at seven thirty. It was chaired by the military commander of the airport, a French officer, and attended by the heads of each of the units. UNHCR and UN Civilian Police were the “civilian” units. The runway was swept every morning before the conference by a road sweeper vehicle. The shrapnel, and the rounds, the debris from the previous night’s battle were collected and weighed. The weight was solemnly announced at the conference and the more interesting items were handed around. A light night was one sandbag full of malicious metal. The French battalion commander or his deputy, usually my friend Eric, would then brief us on the activity as seen from his positions on the roof aided by infrared night sights and the reports of his sentries and liaison officers.

Whilst we slept, the airport, like the desert and the jungle, came to life. Men, women and children from all sides would attempt to cross the airport to the “safety” of the other side. The majority of the traffic was from the city to Mount Igman. The French who were responsible for the safety and the neutrality of the airport would turn a blind eye to some attempts but were compelled to challenge the majority. The IR or heat-seeking devices would locate a large group elbowing their way across the airport. The searchlight would be switched on and the people invited to stand up. They were then returned to their own side with no further action taken by the UN. Many were escaping never to return; some wore their best clothes. The sister of my driver Zlatan, a prominent psychiatrist, was twice unsuccessful because her high heels stuck in the mud! The UNHCR, boring by comparison, briefed the group on the previous day’s deliveries and the proposed schedule.

On my first morning meeting, there were three sacks full of shrapnel and a very concerned Steve Potter who asked the Canadian senior NCO Marty, a small, stocky, blustery man with respect for no one, if he could assist in the building of a bunker.

– I’ll give you some engineers and a container. That should be a start. He referred to no one. The decision made, he was as good as his word. Before the morning was out, he had delivered a twenty-foot-long container, and “Project Potter” was underway. The RAF team provided the supervision, the Norwegians in the adjacent hangar, under a tall movement controller, Ralph Iveson provided the sweat. The Canadians provided a mechanical digger.

Steve was obviously good with Meccano sets as a child. I’ll bet he buys his children Legos. He was determined that “his” bunker would be the Hilton of bunkers. Steve did some reconnaissance for a site. He chose a spot near the perimeter fence, close to a manned observation bunker which could provide covering fire whilst we ran to the bunker. He decided that a seventy-metre dash was the furthest away from the hangar that we could risk. X marked the spot. The digging began, and a hole large enough for the container completed. Then the container was lowered into the ground. Logs were placed over the roof of it. The next task was to cover the logs on the roof with sandbags. Here we had a slight problem; we had no sandbags. The French did, but the platoon commander told us that they needed all they had to cover their own fortification which was beginning to rival the Maginot line. Ron and a senior UNHCR person liberated from the French a large quantity of the much-needed bags. It was my only contribution to “Project Potter.”

At the end of the first day, we had protection; by the end of the second, we had protection plus lighting and emergency rations. The RAF Hercules crews decided that we should have a barbecue to celebrate its inauguration. They brought in food and beer from Zagreb.

The Hercules crews deserve a very special mention. They did their job with great courage but always wanted to do more. They had a strict rotation pattern, crews and craft returning to Lyneham after a tour of four weeks. The new crews brought from the UK sufficient meat, sausages and beer for us—both international and local staff—to have a good relaxing party. We never paid for this, they did. They did many other small kindnesses. They made phone calls for refugees, they posted letters, they changed money. I particularly remember Chris Tingay and his crew once finding me looking especially tired. On the next flight he sent up two crates of Pot Noodles, with a little note: “You look weak. Take one twice a day with water.” Water we had. They were delicious, nourishing, and restored our strength. We did not always remember to say thanks at the time but a big thanks now may not be too late.