Harry Flashman and the Invasion of Iraq (12 page)

“Harry, would you mind if we tailed your car north along the highway?” he asked. “We’ve tried to get up the road several times but the police roadblocks always turn us back.” I couldn’t fathom whether the man was brave to the point of stupidity, or simply insane. Here he was surrounded by every creature comfort known to man, with the perfect excuse to avoid the oncoming melee, yet all he wanted to do was get himself, unarmed and unescorted, into the thick of the fighting. However, it made precious little difference to my life if some news reporter wanted to put himself in the line of fire, and anyway they were paying for the tucker, so I readily agreed.

Some time later, replete with dozens of canapés and deserts lining my gut, we set off into the night back towards Camp Gibraltar, with the ITN reporter and his cameraman glued to our stern in their silver 4x4. With no military pass in the window, their status as civilians was made transparent by the letters “TV” stuck on the bonnet and doors of their car in black masking tape. Sure enough, as we passed the first Kuwaiti police checkpoint on the highway north, flashing blue lights appeared in our mirrors and the ITN crew was stopped. We pulled up hard and reversed back towards them. I bailed out and remonstrated with the local plod, explaining that we were on our way back to 42 Commando and the camera crew was travelling with us. The policeman clearly didn’t believe a word of it, for he motioned everyone to get out of the cars and began babbling in Arabic into his radio. Fortunately for us, his controller seemed to think it was a perfectly acceptable set of circumstances, for when the reply came over the radio a few moments later, he stepped back, saluted smartly, and waved us on our way with a smile. The ITN man broke into a broad grin and shot me a wink as he jumped back into his 4x4, and we roared off up the highway. At the turn-off to Camp Gibraltar they sped on into the night; the last I saw of them was a grateful wave emanating from the passenger side window. A couple of weeks later I heard the pair had been killed in crossfire between Iraqi troops and a US armoured column during one of the first actions of the war. Brave buggers - it’s not the sort of job I would ever volunteer for, and it makes one appreciate the risks the media take to get the great British public ringside seats of such a punch-up.

The following morning, still feeling smug from my dramatically improved rations in Kuwait, I arose late, choosing to avoid breakfast and focusing instead on enjoying a leisurely cup of tea in the QDG lines. The camp was surprisingly quiet considering we were on 48 hours notice to move - but then all the preparations for war had been completed and there was very little to do other than wait for the “go” signal. Squads of Marines ran past, some carrying kit and weapons and others in shorts and T-shirts. Brigade Recce Force troops fiddled with their vehicles and machine-guns. Soldiers sat in the shade of camouflage nets, stripping and cleaning their weapons. The only clue to the advanced likelihood of action was an increased buzzing overhead from the motors of the US and British unmanned drones - pilotless planes used to take aerial photographs of enemy territory. It was still fairly early in the morning when we heard the crump of a huge explosion several miles away, and a rushing noise in the sky overhead. It may strike you as odd, reading these notes years after the war, but I thought little of it at the time and neither did my peers; we were well used to flashes and bangs on the horizon and the roar of jets overhead, and Camp Commando retained its air of quiet preparation, at least for a short while. It was only when I made my way back to the ops room that I discovered the explosion had been a Scud missile landing, and more missile strikes had been reported from Kuwait City. Saddam had launched a pre-emptive strike at the coalition and I knew it would precipitate our invasion. Sure enough, the signal arrived from Brigade just minutes later: the assault would begin that night.

As word spread, the camp erupted in a frenzy of last-minute activity. Throughout the day, all non-essential equipment was placed in storage. Our personal kit was placed into civilian hold-alls and dumped inside the empty shipping containers which just a few short weeks ago had brought weapons and ammunition to Kuwait. I waved a fond farewell to the last of my creature comforts as the steel door slammed shut, and prayed I would be reunited with my worldly goods sooner rather than later.  Weapons were mustered, ammunition issued, accommodation tents dismantled, equipment checked and re-checked, rifles cleaned and tested one last time. As the sun dipped towards the horizon, lines of Marines trudged through the sand to a corner of the camp to form up in a vast, hollow square.   In the centre, perched on a trestle table, the commanding officer addressed the assembled mass. Other men, I am sure, found his speech inspiring. For myself, it cemented my view of Royal Marines officers as criminally insane and served only to loosen my bowels. For several minutes he talked about relying on one another, trust, unquestioning loyalty to one’s comrades, maintaining momentum, and absolute commitment to the task in hand. The only task I was concerned about was getting out of this mess with my skin intact, but self-preservation seemed far from the minds of 42 Commando that night. He left us with an old Gurkha expression, which I retain to this day as a psychological scar: “Lose money, lose nothing. Lose pride, lose much. Lose courage, lose everything.” The Marines loved every word of it, they even cheered the irrepressible old bastard at the end, the bloody fools! I stood frozen to the spot, knees knocking, hoping for divine intervention to prevent the impending madness. It never came, of course, and shortly after sundown, laden with weapons and equipment, we trudged through the eastern gate of the camp and out to the landing site to await the American transport helicopters. The war was about to begin.

NOTES

1.
The unit to which Flashman refers is the Queens Dragoon Guards (QDG), the self-styled “Welsh Cavalry” on account of their strong regional recruiting base. Many of the squadron’s vehicles can be seen flying the Welsh flag.

2.
Milan: a medium-range anti-tank missile.

3.
LCAC: Landing Craft, Air Cushioned - i.e. a hovercraft.

4.
UMST: Unit Manoeuvre Support Troop. A small, mobile unit within a commando group which can rapidly bring additional anti-tank and machine-gun capability to reinforce a position.

5.
US ration packs are more usually referred to as MREs, an abbreviation of “Meals Ready to Eat”. Universally unpopular, they are frequently referred to as “Meals Rejected by Everyone”.

6.
CR: Confidential Report.

7.
QM: Quarter Master.

8.
HE: High Explosive.

9.
“Gen” is Royal Marines slang for “genuine”, i.e. “not exaggerated”; “Pukka gen” is an even more emphatic version.

10.
G1: manning/personnel.

11.
The Claymore mine is a simple device consisting of an oblong piece of plastic explosive measuring roughly six inches by twelve, in which several hundred ball bearings are embedded on one side. Designed to provide perimeter security or for use in ambushes, it is detonated either on command or by trip wire; anyone standing the wrong side of the mine is riddled with high-velocity ball bearings.

12.
BGE: Battle-Group Engineering Officer.

5

As the last glimmer of daylight disappeared over the western horizon, laden down by a huge rucksack and with my webbing pouches stuffed to bursting, I shuffled out into the Kuwaiti desert once again, along with the rest of 42 Commando. Despite the crushing pain in my shoulders I took a quiet moment to look about me, for an entire battle group on the march is not an everyday sight. As far as the eye could see, hundreds of Marines were lining out in the desert, sporting sufficient arms and ammunition to raise Cain. Most of them had passed out of training years earlier, while many of the NCOs had been with the Corps for over a decade. For all of them, this was the zenith of years of service, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put endless training and countless exercises into practise and wage war on a legitimised enemy.
(1)
One look at their faces told me all I needed to know - morale had never been higher. Had they been given the choice between a holiday in Barbados or boarding the helicopters into Iraq, I had little doubt that every man in the Unit would have cheerfully jumped onboard his helicopter. I felt a crushing sense of claustrophobia and wondered, not for the first time, how on earth I had got myself into this fix.

Many of the Marines were carrying in excess of 120lbs on their backs and some were carrying considerably more (notably the heavy machine-gun crews whose equipment weighed in excess of 150lbs), so once we reached the helicopter landing site no-one needed any coercing to ditch their packs and sit down. My experience of military undertakings, whether exercises or operations, is that they invariably involve long periods of hanging around waiting for activity and this one was no exception - our flight was not due to commence until shortly before midnight so I had several hours to kill. It was a perfectly calm, clear night, with just an occasional cloud above us to obscure the Milky Way and the lightest of breezes blowing over the desert. The landing site was almost eerily quiet; most of the men were fiddling with their equipment, eating rations, or taking the opportunity for a nap, but almost nobody was talking. Somewhere off to a flank a short wave radio was tuned to the BBC World Service which was giving a blow by blow account of the “shock and awe” bombing campaign which was raining down on Baghdad. I listened for a moment to accounts of Tomahawk missiles pounding military installations and hoped the Al Faw Peninsular was also getting a softening up before our arrival. (It was, too -I discovered later that the gunners of 29 Commando pumped over 17,000 artillery shells into the area before we arrived, God bless ‘em.) Thoughtful soul that he was, the QM had dumped piles of ration packs and water bottles around the landing site, which was a bloody marvellous piece of foresight on his behalf since none of us knew when we would get our next meal, so I shovelled a boil-in-the-bag dinner into my face before crawling into my sleeping bag and dropping into a fitful doze. I awoke a couple of hours later to the beating of rotor blades and the landing site erupting into a frenzy of activity. It seemed the arrival of the American cabs had spurred everyone to get up and get going, but one look at my watch told me that we wouldn’t move for at least another hour so I hunkered down in my sleeping bag and attempted to sleep for a little while longer.

I gave up the unequal battle some time after 10 p.m. Asides from the disturbance of the comings and goings around me, my nerves wouldn’t allow me to sleep and I became increasingly on edge as the moment of our departure drew nearer. Eventually it was time to board the choppers and I squeezed into the rear of the behemoth with the rest of my stick, listening as the advance wave of helicopters departed into the night sky, carrying the men of Brigade Recce Force and various Forward Air Controllers and the like. Shortly afterwards our own engines began to whine and the rotors started to turn above us. After the rigours of the rehearsals there was an air of tension among the men - as a rule I’m not a religious fellow, but I said a few prayers before take off, I don’t mind telling you. A couple of minutes later the rotors were spinning at full speed and the aircraft began its customary shaking. I readied myself for liftoff then listened in delighted disbelief as the engine note dropped sharply, the shaking stopped, and the rotors began to slow down. A couple of minutes later the helicopter stood silent again, with its cargo of Marines chattering nervously among themselves, all wondering what the problem could be. In a moment of wild optimism I wondered whether the whole operation had been cancelled. What a stroke of luck that would have been - but of course it was nothing more than wild fantasy on my part. Eventually word came from the aircrew that one of the helicopters in the advance wave had gone down. They weren’t sure whether the crash had happened in Kuwait or in Iraq and were waiting on more information from the squadron commander. The obvious inference was that the thing had been shot down, so I guessed that the lift was on hold until the anti-aircraft threat could be properly assessed. A few minutes later, still with no news, the aircrew ushered us off the helicopter and we filed silently across the sand back to the holding area once again.

I collected another boil-in-the-bag meal and ate it lying in the darkness, listening once again to the World Service. My aspirations of the invasion being called off were immediately dashed as it became apparent that US forces had already breached the Iraqi border in several places, and UK forces were reported landing in the south east of the country. This was a veiled reference to 40 Commando and it made difficult listening for the Marines of 42, whose job it was to protect their flank and prevent an Iraqi counter-attack. For one Captain H Flashman, it was enough to know that while the bullets were already flying, I was nowhere near them. As far as yours truly was concerned, the longer we stayed safe and snug in Kuwait the better. For the moment at least, there seemed little prospect of us going anywhere.

Eventually a more complete picture emerged of the helicopter crash. Far from being shot down over Iraq, the crash had been caused by either pilot error or mechanical failure (I had my opinion of which it might be, as I’m sure you can guess) and had happened on Bubiyan Island, a flat, featureless mass just off the Kuwaiti coast which rises barely six feet above sea level, and which was currently playing host to the artillery pieces of 29 Commando, many of whom had seen the fireball as the helicopter hit the deck. Tragically, eight of our number had been onboard, including the charismatic officer commanding Brigade Recce Force. Mad as a hatter, like most of his breed, his devil-may-care attitude made him hugely popular in the mess and with the men of BRF. News of the crash brought a sombre air to 42 Commando that night, but it did nothing to reduce the growing impatience of the Marines who were desperate to get out of Kuwait and get stuck into the fighting in Iraq.