Читать книгу Charlie One - Seán Hartnett - Страница 15

4 SIERRA LEONE

While all the fighting was going on, back at our operations room we listened in to the very controlled and professional communications of the assault force, and what a contrast that was to what we heard from the rebel ranks. As they tried desperately to defend themselves and communicate what was going on across their network, our jammers did their thing and rendered the attempts at communication useless. This generated further panic and helped significantly in the success of the mission.

*

In May 2000, 226 Squadron’s Light Electronic Warfare Troop (LEWT) was readying for a deployment to Sierra Leone, which was in the grips of a vicious ten-year civil war. Despite having vast mineral wealth, the country remained one of the poorest on the planet thanks to decades of war and corruption. The Sierra Leone Army (SLA) and government was led by President Kabbah. The antigovernment rebels, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), led by ‘Brigadier’ Foday Sankoh, were marching on the capital, Freetown. Trying to keep the two sides apart was the UN peacekeeping force, UNAMSIL, but it was far too under-resourced to be able to hold back the rebels. Tony Blair decided to dispatch a rescue force to extract British and other foreign nationals to safety. The mission, codenamed Operation Palliser, involved 800 men from the Parachute Regiment, led by the force commander brigadier, David Richards, and was meant to last between seven and ten days. Fifteen years later, there are still British troops in Sierra Leone.

The LEWT was a small troop, composed of about a dozen men from my regiment, 14th Signals, and they were mainly deployed with British Special Forces to provide communications, direction-finding, interception and jamming capabilities. Everyone in the LEWT was airborne-trained, and on this mission they would be deploying with the Parachute Regiment. As the rest of our regiment watched in envy, the LEWT guys moved about Brawdy camp in their stripped-down Landrovers fitted with 50mm heavy machine guns (HMG) and 7.76mm GPMGs. Kitted out in tropical warfare uniforms and jungle boots, they looked the part, and we envied them.

LEWT lacked only one thing: a communications and electronic warfare technician. However, before I could even throw my hat in for selection to join the mission, my mate Susan was chosen to deploy with them. I was gutted, of course, but quickly put it to the back of my mind and got on with my normal duties.

A few weeks after LEWT’s initial deployment, our sergeant major appeared at the door of the tech workshop.

‘We’ve received a further warning order for Sierra Leone,’ he said, addressing Jock the tech sergeant. I was in like a shot, cocky as hell, immediately listing off the reasons why I should be part of the next deployment. He stood there, expressionless, until I finally stopped talking.

‘Save your breath Paddy,’ he said, ‘you’ve already been picked. Get your ass down to the medical centre and sort out your jabs.’ A warning order didn’t necessarily mean that I would be going anywhere, just that we had to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. No one knew for sure where the mission was headed at that point, and I knew it could well be over before I got a chance to deploy. Selfishly, I was probably one of the few people hoping that the British army presence in Sierra Leone would continue.

Over the next few weeks I watched anxiously and enthusiastically as Brigadier Richards stretched his initial rules of engagement (ROE) to push the RUF back into the jungle. On 26 May, 600 men from 42nd Commando took over from the Parachute Regiment, and on 15 June Operation Palliser officially came to an end, succeeded by Operation Basilica which aimed to train and support the SLA in defeating the rebel forces. I was overjoyed at the news as it would mean a long-term commitment to Sierra Leone. I was now certain of being deployed.

Within a few days I had begun training for my first overseas deployment to a combat zone as a British soldier. This involved everything from advanced weapon training and mine clearance to jungle warfare. We were given the general background to the conflict in Sierra Leone: how Sankoh’s war effort was funded by the smuggling of unregulated diamonds, known as blood diamonds, across the border to neighbouring Liberia. Liberia was under the control of President Charles Taylor, who took the diamonds in exchange for drugs and weapons, which in turn fuelled the war.

There would be six of us from the regiment deploying as part of Operation Basilica, replacing the troops that went out initially. The day before we departed, we got our final briefing from one of the LEWT staff sergeants who had just returned from Sierra Leone. He didn’t have anything good to say:

‘First off, Sierra Leone is a shithole and I mean that in the worst possible way. There is no infrastructure to speak of. Mains electricity, clean water and sewerage systems are almost non-existent. However, on a good day you can, oddly enough, get great mobile phone coverage! Like in many parts of Africa, child soldiers are part of the conflict. Be under no illusions: a round fired by a child will kill you just the same as a round fired by an adult. Don’t hesitate, because they won’t. Drink and drugs make the rebels utterly unpredictable, so never let your guard down … One final thing: Freetown’s largest-growing industries since the arrival of the UN forces are drugs and prostitution. They are known locally as ‘night-fighters’. HIV, AIDS and every other STI you can think of are at epidemic levels in Sierra Leone, so don’t even think about it.’

The following day we would collect our personal weapons from the armoury and board the flight for Lungi Airfield, Sierra Leone.

Due to the threat of ground fire as we approached Lungi, the pilot of RAF Galaxymade a very rapid descent and hit the pothole-marked runway with an awful thud. There was no doubt about it, we were now in a combat zone – fortified British army positions, checkpoints, and British and UN helicopters dotted all over the airfield. Nonetheless, the main thing I noticed as we alighted from the aircraft was the humidity. My light jungle warfare uniform was wet through within minutes.

We travelled the thirty miles to Freetown in a convoy protected by six weapons-mounted Landrovers manned by members of the Royal Irish Regiment. Sad-looking villages and an unending number of dilapidated roadside shacks lined the route, but it was the sight of the impoverished children chasing the convoy, hoping that food would be thrown by the soldiers, that hit me hardest. Reading about poverty and seeing it are two very different experiences.

As we approached the ferry point at Tagrin, I looked in horror at what we were about to board. The lopsided rust bucket sitting with its ramp lowered on the quayside looked barely able to float itself never mind carry a full load of military vehicles and personnel across the mouth of the Sierre Leone River. After a tense and agonisingly slow voyage, we rolled off the ferry in the Kissy district of Freetown.

I was about to take a deep breath of relief when I got the stench from the open sewers and untreated sewage flowing freely in the streets. This was a city in free fall. Already bursting at the seams before the war, it was now entirely overrun with a population desperate for any sort of refuge from the rebel forces. They lived in makeshift houses, made of everything from plastic, timber and – for the lucky ones – corrugated steel. The buildings that had once been properly constructed from concrete were now scarred with shell and bullet marks and in otherwise terrible condition.

As our convoy arrived at the HQ of the SLA, where the British army Joint Task Force Headquarters (JTF-HQ) was also based, our vehicle peeled away and continued along another road until we arrived at the gates of Spur Lodge. This had once been a luxurious villa owned by some wealthy Freetown family. In more recent times it had been the HQ of the South African mercenary group, Executive Outcomes. (Talk about a euphemism!) Now it provided accommodation for the personnel from 14th Signal Regiment. The compound was surrounded by high walls and, thanks to Executive Outcomes, the building itself had bulletproof windows capable of stopping a 50mm round, and reinforced doors. Less comfortingly, though, the place was covered in signs of bullet and shell strikes; it had obviously been under attack at some point in the not-toodistant past.

We settled in nonetheless. Our operations room was located in the nearby SLA HQ building, a very nondescript room. Its main feature was the reinforced steel door with viewing hatch. Two SLA armed guards were permanently stationed at the door. Inside we scoured the airwaves in search of RUF transmissions, did our best to pinpoint their locations, and where necessary render their communications useless with jammers. My job was to keep all the equipment running with the limited tools and spares I had at my disposal. My partner in crime was a signaller known as Mule, and between us we managed to keep things ticking along nicely.

Everything was routine enough for a while. Then, on 25 August a patrol of twelve Royal Irish Ranger soldiers, led by Major Alan Marshall, ran into trouble. They were carrying out a routine inspection in the Occra Hills, when despite the concerns of the SLA liaison officer, Lieutenant Musa Bangura, Marshall ordered the patrol off the main route into an area known to be controlled by a group of rebels referred to as the West Side Boys. (Marshall believed that the West Side Boys might now be willing to disarm and become part of the peace accord.) The group of about 300 rebels was mainly composed of renegade soldiers from the failed coup of 1997 and they were notoriously unpredictable. Deep in their territory, the patrol was stopped by a truck, mounted with an anti-aircraft gun and quickly surrounded by a group of the West Side Boys. After several demands from the rebels to drop weapons, Marshall, against standing orders, ordered his men to do so. Of course, they were immediately overwhelmed and taken hostage.

They were brought to Gberi Bana where the West Side Boys, led by ‘Brigadier’ Foday Kallay, were based. Kallay realised immediately that he had a very valuable commodity, but worse still he recognised his old comrade from the SLA, Lieutenant Musa Bangura. Over the next two weeks, while all the hostages were subjected to beatings and repeated mock executions, Kallay saved his worst for Musa Bangura.

During face-to-face negotiations with the West Side Boys, the signals officer, Captain Flaherty, managed to pass on a map of the compound, including the location of where the hostages were being held, to our negotiating team. This was our first breakthrough. Then, a few days later, Kallay released five of the hostages in return for a satellite phone: a serious error on his part. While the satellite phone allowed Kallay to communicate with both the British military and the BBC about his demands for political recognition and an amnesty for the West Side Boys, it also allowed us to pinpoint his exact location.

As the safety of the hostages was made increasingly uncertain by the erratic behaviour of Kallay and his drug-fuelled troops (including demands of free passage to the UK and university places!), a decision was made in JTF-HQ in Freetown to carry out a rescue mission, codenamed Operation Barras, and Mule and I were ordered to gather as much intelligence as possible on the West Side Boys’ movements to help in the planning. When the Special Forces contingent from the SAS, SBS and the Parachute Regiment arrived, our little group took on an even more significant role in assisting them. With only six of us from the regiment deployed, it meant all hands to the pump.

SAS and SBS observation teams were in place for several days prior to the main attack and managed to pinpoint all enemy positions and the location of the hostages. The West Side Boys’ main camp had approximately 150 men, with a further 100 located on the other side of the river, Rokel Creek. The two locations were to be attacked simultaneously, with the SAS and SBS hitting Gberi Bana, where the hostages were held, and the Paras attacking Magbeni, the rebels’ other village on the opposite side of the creek, to prevent the rebels there from supporting Gberi Bana.

On the morning of 10 September at 0630, the rescue team, led by D Squadron of the SAS and supported by members of the SBS and 140 men from the Parachute Regiment, left their base at Hastings, thirty miles south of Freetown. The assault helicopters headed towards Rokel Creek, while the SAS/SBS observation teams opened fire on the base. The supporting attack helicopters laid down covering fire on both villages, while the SAS/SBS troops fast-roped from the Chinooks.

As is usually the case, this assault didn’t go entirely smoothly. The first setback occurred when the Paras dropped from the Chinook helicopters and found themselves chest-high in swamp that intelligence had failed to spot. As he hit the ground, SAS Trooper Bradley Tinnion was hit and, despite being medevac’ed to RFA Sir Percival, as we later discovered, died from his wounds. The second was that the rebels, spurred on by drink, drugs and the belief in voodoo magic, put up a much fiercer fight than anyone had expected.

For the rescue mission itself, which lasted less than thirty minutes, the official death toll for the rebels was twenty-eight killed and eighteen captured, including the leader, Foday Kallay. The assault force lost one man and had eleven others injured. However, the actual fighting continued long after the hostages had been freed, and according to the Paras and Special Forces we met after the attack, it was closer to 200 rebel forces killed and 150 captured. Clearly a message was being sent to other rebel groups that this was the British army in the field, not some rabble afraid to come after them. The message got through alright and it wasn’t long after Operation Barras that the RUF signed up to a peace accord.

On my return from Sierra Leone, and now a corporal, I had, thankfully, to wait only a few months before I was deployed again, this time to Oman on Operation Saif Sareea II, the largest deployment of British forces since the Falklands War. The entire regiment was there, with only a skeleton staff being left behind at Brawdy. I went as part of the jammer force and looked forward to another adventure in a place that was totally new to me.

We weren’t long in Oman when the attack on the Twin Towers in New York changed the security picture of the entire world. While it didn’t alter the training exercise that we were part of, it did put the wheels in motion for units of our regiment to deploy to Afghanistan. I wanted to be part of that and knew the LEWT was gearing up to be on the first assault. I headed to the tent that acted as 14th Signal’s HQ in the southern desert in Oman. I had only just entered when my squadron OC (Officer Commanding) spotted me.

‘Forget it, Hartnett, you’re not going. You’re needed here to look after the jammer vehicles. End of story.’

That was that. I would spend the next three months in Oman thinking mostly about my next posting and where I might go.