Sniper Elite (23 page)

So, early afternoon on the fourth day we got word that the Army Chinooks were on a routine admin run and would pick up and deliver us to the US FOB.

It didn't take us long to organise our kit as it had already been packed and placed for a quick departure four days earlier; all we really had to do was blow the dust off. Unfortunately our patrol was down a member as one of the boys had rolled his ankle and couldn't walk. We were now five and JB picked up the extra responsibility of being the patrol medic along with his normal 2IC tasks.

Not long after arriving at Anaconda we conducted a few patrols trying to get this target of ours, and then found out through American intelligence sources that he was in Pakistan. Plan B: let's do some combined operations with the Americans to sort out some of these bad guys.

Our first combined operation was to try to create a bit of a stir and flush out the bad guys. The troop was split, half leaving just after dark, as we had a long way to walk to be in position by first light; the other half left very early in the morning but still under cover of darkness. The night sky as usual was very clear, there was no moon and the air was cool, almost perfect conditions for the walk. There was enough ambient light from the stars for our NVGs to capture and magnify, so we could see. Light pollution in Afghanistan isn't a problem, which means you can see thousands more stars than you've ever seen before.

It took some time but finally we started to climb a very steep and treacherous feature. We all had heavy packs as usual so the going was slow. It was a relief to reach the top and we went into all-round defence, then the two patrol commanders decided where each patrol would be positioned. From where we were we had very good OBs onto a very wide wadi, and a prominent vehicle track running from left to right.

Our patrol was responsible for the northern and the southern arcs; the other patrol, which had moved behind a feature to our flank, was responsible for the western arc but they still had observation down towards the south as well. Our other two patrols got into position on the high ground on the other side of the wadi, which was over 2 kilometres wide at the mouth. It was the end of August and the night air was freezing up in the mountains. We started observing long before daybreak with the hand-held TI, looking to pick up human movement.

That morning the Americans drove out in a different direction in their Humvees and came up behind us but on the other side of the green–about 2.5 kilometres from our position. On the way in they questioned a few local leaders to get a feel for the situation. Their presence was sure to be noted and this would help stir up the hornet's nest. However, by 11 a.m. we were still sitting in our position in the hot sun with nothing much happening. I was starting to think it might be a dud. As we sat there baking, JB suddenly said, ‘Look at that!'

Three Taliban fighters were heading down the road in the direction of Americans. They were on our side of the wadi travelling east to west. Immediately we took up position behind our sniping rifles. Hoady and I had .338s, and SG had the 7.62 mm SR 25. There were two Taliban up front who looked like a protection party for the guy in the rear, about 10 metres behind them. This guy was on a mobile phone, possibly organising his fighters to hit the Americans. They were wearing chest rigs partially hidden under waistcoats but openly carrying AKs. They had no idea we were there.

We waited until they got into what is called ‘the killing ground'. There was nowhere for them to go or any real cover to hide them. There was an old ruin about waist high on one side of the road but we made sure they moved past it before we engaged them. This was our first sniper ambush and we didn't want to screw it up. When they approached the ground of our choosing, we each checked the elevation and windage settings against each other and all came up with pretty much the same. Range–550  metres, wind direction was left to right, wind strength appeared to be approx 12 km/h judging by the speed of the dust produced by their feet and the flapping of their clothes. We were also shooting from an elevated position and compensated for that also. The PC gave the call over the radio, ‘Ready, ready!…ready, ready!…Ready!…Stand by…Fire.'

We all squeezed off a round at the same time. But all three rounds missed–we had misjudged just how strong the wind was. It could easily have gusted up to 18–20 km/h, and pushed the rounds slightly off to the right of the target. I was in the same boat as Hoady and hadn't shot moving targets with the .338 before. The muzzle velocity is a lot higher than a 7.62 mm, and trajectory is flatter. This would give you a different point of aim to the 7.62 mm. I shouldn't have aimed off as much.

The enemy darted towards a small creek line. As we fired a second shot I hit one guy in the chest; the round went straight through one of his AK magazines, which burst open. He was hurt bad but still managed to dive into the ditch with one of the others. The bloke to the rear who was on the mobile phone had turned and run towards the ruins. I focused my attention on him. When he stopped he was crouching on the western corner with his back to us. I realigned rapidly and adjusted my scope for the range; he was bobbing up and down with my crosshairs on his back. As I squeezed off a round he moved again slightly, and the 252-grain projectile went through his right shoulder. At first I thought I'd missed because I saw a dust cloud where the round hit the wall in front of him. ‘Shit, he's still moving.' Then he got down and started crawling at the base of the wall. He was still in plain view. ‘As I tracked him through my scope I started my breathing cycle, then squeezed off another round that entered the back of his head.

One of the other lads who was watching through his scope said, ‘Targets down, mate.' I didn't see the round strike, due to the recoil, but as I continued with the shot follow-through and brought the crosshairs back onto the target, I could see he was motionless. By now all three fighters were down.

We stayed behind the rifles for a bit in case some others came along. A bloke came by on a motorbike and paused briefly when he saw the bodies. He then he took off like a bat out of hell.

It wasn't long before the Americans got back to us on radio: ‘There's a vehicle coming towards the three dead guys. The vehicle's occupants are Taliban and they're coming to pick up the bodies.' The Americans had changed their position so they could observe up the valley. Sure enough, a Toyota Hilux with six guys in it came along the road. Through the windows we could see several weapons. They almost drove straight past the bodies but an older guy in the back started tapping the window and pointing. The car stopped and reversed with the Taliban looking out the windows. Right then the Americans sent a volley of 40 mm grenades, which burst all around the vehicle. By that stage I was lined up on the driver, Hoady was lined up on the rear passenger and SG had the guy in the back tray.

The Hilux driver planted his foot in an attempt to get out of there. Once again we all fired at the same time. I thought we'd missed because the car kept on going forward, but then slowly it drifted off the side of the road to a stop. There were still other targets inside the car so we neutralised those also.

In the other patrol to our flank one of the guys had a 7.62 mm machine gun that he'd broken down to fit in his pack for the walk in. He started to engage the car as well. But by then they were all dead; apart from the guy in the back tray they had all been shot in the head–all from about 470 metres away. Our response was a sense of satisfaction that we'd done the job to the best of our ability. In fact, it was a great result because one of the guys killed was the eastern commander of the Taliban in that area.

Now there were nine bodies out there. So the silly buggers sent out another vehicle to bring them in. The Americans said, ‘We've just heard there's a white van coming through. It's got Taliban in it also and they're coming to pick up the bodies.' This time there were only two guys, and when they stopped they both got out.

The Americans engaged again, which made these guys run for cover, so we engaged the fleeing targets but missed. They were running full pelt for the ruins and we had to get them before they got there. One guy jumped the wall of the ruins to get inside. He promptly showed himself again but was moving around. I fired and hit the target but I wasn't confident of a good hit as I saw a splash of dirt in front of him. The round actually went through his side, missing all his vital organs. He then found the only real bit of cover that the ruins gave him. Every time he showed his head we pinned him down. The other guy also found some cover but showed himself at the wrong time and paid the price. It was now getting late in the afternoon.

At this stage the Americans said it was time to go home and drove up towards the location of the bodies. We packed up our gear and came out of the hills to RV with the Humvees, as they were our ride home. We tried to get down the hill as fast as possible to get there first to conduct a tactical investigation but they beat us to it. The ANA, who were with the Americans, had gone through all the dead fighters and pilfered their AKs, ammunition and their webbing, and anything else they could find of importance.

We were not impressed, as this equipment could be used to build up an intelligence picture. The American medic was treating the guy who I'd shot and he was questioned shortly after and then released with a handful of antibiotics and a change of dressings. They thought it was best to let him go to see what would develop.

We cleaned the area up and got on the back of the cars to drive back to Anaconda. It was important for us to stay off the roads because of the imminent threat of IEDs. This was slow going and when we were about 1,500 metres outside the American FOB we got ambushed by a handful of fighters with small arms fire. We were broadside onto the enemy and the green, and to our right was a large steep feature. We only had one way to go. We expected the Americans to employ the usual vehicle-mounted drill to pepper-pot forward: one vehicle would fire while the other got into a position where he could engage, then the  other would move. Instead they stopped, turned all their guns towards the enemy fire and threw everything they had at these fighters.

A couple of enemy rounds landed about 10 metres in front of our car so I instantly got out, presenting a smaller target. I jumped down behind my .338 and started observing to find a target to shoot. One of the boys was shouting at me but I didn't hear him. It wasn't until I got back into the car that he said to me, ‘Don't ever do that again. You've got kids, mate.' I replied, ‘What are you talking about?'

It turned out that one of the bad guys had pinged me and his rounds were kicking up all around me. I didn't see them. But there wasn't any other cover because we were on a slight slope and they could obviously see more than we could.

The American JTAC called in two F18s and they did two 30 mm canon runs. I don't know whether that killed anyone, but we were still receiving single-shot fire as we got back into the cars and drove to the FOB.

Back at base we contacted a debrief, and addressed a few issues. We had killed 11 that day. Our patrol was responsible for the majority and the other patrol that was close by engaged a couple of guys in the village. PF, their sniper, hit two; one crawled off wounded, the other was dead. However, we didn't spend much time congratulating ourselves. There was too much to do.

After an overnight rest we began to gear up for the next operation the following day. Little did we realise that it would turn into one of the biggest battles involving Australian troops since Vietnam.

Two days after engaging the fighters we were back out. We dropped off two of our patrols at night plus the troop HQ element at the base of a large ridgeline about 8 kilometres from Anaconda, and they inserted by foot. Our patrol plus one other drove out with the Americans and ANA during daylight. We had five armoured Humvees–three manned by Americans and two by the ANA–about 37 of us altogether, so the vehicles were choccas. Our patrol carried all the same weapons we had used a couple of days before, the .338 sniper rifle and 7.62 mm SR25, and TS, the patrol commander, and JB carried their M4s. As we moved out of Anaconda we passed through a village and drove up the valley we'd traversed on that earlier operation, all the time receiving chatter through a captured radio. This was being deciphered by an ANA terp (interpreter) and passed around the net to keep us informed about what the enemy were planning.

As we drove into the next valley the chatter became more excitable and we could see about 12 local men in the green rolling along with us watching what we were doing. This made me feel a little uneasy. As they paralleled us they were able to keep up because we were avoiding the roads as much as possible and had to negotiate obstacles in our path. We could see them getting a better idea of who and what we were.

At the end of the valley the Americans dropped us off. Tango 4, with Donno as their scout, led off towards a high feature and our patrol followed five minutes later. We were to occupy a couple of overwatch locations at either end of this feature. Basically, we were the bait to stir things up.

From the high ground we observed a fair amount of male activity in the village. One of the other patrols that had inserted that night was quite productive–they saw seven fighters trying to get into position to hit the Americans, so they engaged them and neutralised the lot at quite close range. By now the Americans had driven around the feature we were on and positioned themselves right on the edge of the village. This didn't seem to stir up too much activity, and looking back, we didn't realise it at the time, but all the fighters were probably concentrated in the valley behind us by then.

Once we closed that part of the operation down, our patrols walked down and met up with the Americans, who had driven back to pick us up. They said the interpreters had picked up a lot of intelligence suggesting we could get ambushed on the way out. We said, ‘Okay, we'll just have to wait and see what happens.' It pains me to say it even now, but we had actually become quite complacent, probably because of previous failed Taliban actions and the ineffective ambush they had organised against us two days previously.

It was mid-afternoon, and one of the PCs contacted our troop boss and told him we should find a harbour position for now and move late at night. This was good planning but the Americans objected. They wanted to drive out right away, mainly because the ANA didn't have night vision goggles. You couldn't trust them with NVGs because you'd find they'd go missing or they'd sell them. So the American commander said, ‘Look, we're going to have to drive out.'

The troop boss spoke to the American commander: ‘Think seriously about staying in location as we can have a look around at night through Predator to pick up any activity.' Predator is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platform. But the Americans wouldn't agree; they wanted to get back, so we started driving into the valley.

That's where they were waiting for us–between 100 to 200 fighters, all armed to the teeth and determined to wipe us out. Their leader, the Taliban's area commander, must have been very switched on, very quick and very hard, because he obviously took the decision in the morning to ambush us on our way back. He organised his fighters very efficiently. As soon as we were out of view he must have sent his blokes climbing up into the hills to fortify their locations and position their guns for our return.

We had been driving about 20 minutes when the ANA guy in the back of our Humvee started to tell us what chatter he was picking up. ‘They're coming towards the first ambush point.' At one stage he reported they said, ‘Don't shoot yet, wait till they get past the house.'

I said, ‘Where's the bloody house?' It could have been any number of compounds we were passing.

I got my answer almost immediately. They sprung the ambush with machine guns and mortars coming from the green to our left about 300 metres away. Our car was initially right in the centre of their fire, their killing ground. That first volley was a bit off target and no-one was hit. But with such a weight of fire coming at us we knew we were in for a good fight.

The Americans stopped the vehicles and put down quite a heavy weight of return fire but to no great effect. The bullets and mortars kept coming at us, heavy to start with but then more sporadic. Suddenly they began to engage the cars behind us. We were told what the Taliban leader had just said over the radio: ‘Kill them, kill them all.' This did worry me as I could see that we had a long distance to move before we could escape the valley–and realised that this was very serious indeed.

We were approximately 80 metres back from the road to avoid IEDs, in front of us a steep sided creek line about 10 metres deep ran from the road getting more severe the closer it got to the high feature to our right. We couldn't cross it so we had to head down towards the road and closer to the green where most of the fire was coming from. We found a crossing point 150 metres closer to the enemy, so the others increased their rate of fire to cover us across the road. Fortunately we didn't hit an IED; we would've really been screwed then. Once across we headed on an oblique angle up towards a higher point again and away from the green. But as we were doing this we started zigzagging up and down because every creek line that we came to was so washed away and so steep that we couldn't actually get the cars through it. And the higher up the slope we went, the worse the terrain got. We had no choice but to come back down towards the road again.

We could see the dust from where the Taliban were firing but we couldn't actually see any enemy. A few of the lads said they saw a bit of movement from left to right. But they were so well concealed the only thing I saw was further on down the valley when a fighter fired an RPG. I saw the dust cloud that was instantly produced from the back blast. I was straining, burning my eyes looking through my scope and the range finders trying to find a target but couldn't see a thing. They had dug themselves in really well. Some of the boys got off a fair number of 66 mm rockets using the shoulder-fired, one-shot rocket launcher. The Americans didn't seem to know what to do so we made some harsh suggestions about what we needed to do to get out of there and started to pepper-pot forward.

Suddenly we came under another heavy weight of fire. We put a lot of bullets and bombs into the air but there was not a lot of quietening down from the enemy. As we were thinking things were looking bad, it got worse and they engaged us from the high ground. We were in trouble!

The valley was about 3.5 kilometres long and we were right at the start of it when the ambush began. We couldn't turn back because they were dug in behind us. We had to press forward but we would be vulnerable throughout the whole length of the valley.

The single shots we were receiving from the high ground were getting more accurate and some of our guys started to get hit. Joe, one of the Americans in the car behind us who was firing the .50-calibre heavy machine gun, got a round through the forearm. This put him out of action so one of the ANA guys got up into the turret and made an absolute meal of it as he hadn't been trained in that weapon so he had difficulty operating it. JB, our 2IC, pulled him out of there and got behind the gun, putting down some pretty effective fire.

The cars bucked and leapt over the rough terrain but at least we were moving. However, we were now being hit from three sides–behind us at an oblique angle from where they had initiated the contact, from the left in the green and from the high ground to our right. What's more, it was a rolling ambush. As we went past and left their field of fire they would leapfrog each other, getting in front of us and setting up a position to have another crack.

It was about this time SG, the patrol JTAC, saw an Australian Chinook flying into the American FOB flanked by two Dutch Apaches. The Chinook would be no help to us as it was basically a transport vehicle, but the Apache gunships had hellfire rockets and 30 mm chain guns. They could be very effective so SG jumped on the radio and got hold of them. ‘We're in an absolute doozy of a shitfight. We need your assistance as we're taking casualties!'

It wasn't long before they came over and began to circle high above the battleground. SG told them to neutralise the threat on the high ground, then to switch their attention to the green. He gave them a couple of target indications where he'd actually seen the enemy, but then, unbelievably, the Dutch Apaches refused to drop down to firing level. There they were at 15,000 feet while we were getting hammered; apparently, they wouldn't drop below that altitude unless they really had to.

We were very frustrated–to put it mildly. They wouldn't open up on the Taliban for fear they might draw some fire themselves. SG then said, ‘We can use some of our weapons to mark where the bad guys are!' They replied, ‘Yeah, okay do that.' SG got JB to mark the enemy position using the splash from the .50-calibre rounds, which struck the hillside creating large clouds of dust. But they still wouldn't engage. SG had had enough so he told them, ‘If you're not going to engage then you might as well fuck off,' and so they did! Cheers boys!

Fortunately the American JTAC, Evan was able to bring two F18s on station. He was in my car and was frantically working with a laptop and a radio in each ear on different frequencies, talking to the pilots and calculating targets with a GPS and a laser range finder. The poor bugger was so wrapped up in what he was doing he had no awareness of what was going on around him. We got pinned down at one stage behind the car and I looked over and saw him out in the open, which exposed him to the enemy. I thought, ‘Mate, what are you doing? You'll get pinged for sure.' I ran over to him and grabbed hold of him. ‘Mate, you need to take cover.' He said, ‘What?' Then he saw the rounds landing around us. ‘Oh,' he said. ‘Yeah, yeah.'

I decided since I wasn't doing any good with the .338 sniper rifle I might as well stick with him and keep him out of trouble. He was controlling a lifeline that we desperately needed. If he was knocked over there was no-one else able to handle it. I thought, ‘Let's get him out of the open and into cover.'

There were boys shouting target indications at Evan not really knowing how much he was trying to do all at once. So we ended up bouncing from car to car all the time being chased by small arms fire and RPGs. We were running up and down the line of these cars which was spread out close to 170 metres at one stage. Evan would get a target indication, and I had a quick chat with the blokes to get more targets and then we moved on. When we noticed the rounds getting too close, I grabbed hold of him and said, ‘Let's move!' and we'd find a new position.

But there were times when Evan was relatively safe in cover, so that freed me slightly to work away from the car to try to identify a target to shoot…no luck! At one point I saw Donno doing the same. Evan organised a 500-pound airburst bomb to be dropped onto a mortar location. He gave the pilot a ‘clear hot'. The pilot replied, ‘Thirty seconds.' But because Evan was so wrapped up in what he was doing–talking to the other plane and lining it up for another run–he forgot the time and to warn us what was coming. Suddenly he shouted, ‘Oh shit, incoming!' and as soon as he said it there was an almighty
boom
about 600 metres away. We heard the whiz of the shrapnel going over our heads and thought, ‘Shit, that was bloody close.' But it neutralised the mortars and we were quite thankful for that.

He organised to drop another into the creek line in the green where some fighters were massing. I think one of the pilots had originally given him the heads up about them. Evan plotted the grid reference and relayed it to the pilot, and shortly another 500-pounder was sent steaming towards the ground. This time the bomb was set to explode on impact, neutralising the Taliban as they formed up to attack us. But we were still copping a flogging from the high ground, so Evan switched his focus.

By now we were about 90 minutes into the battle and as we reached SG's car one more time I saw a stretcher. PF had been shot through both legs and he was in a critical condition. Then I saw that SG had been shot. He was in a bad way; a round had entered his chest underneath his armpit as he surveyed the ground through his binoculars, and exited above his hip on the opposite side. His binoculars had copped a round also. The American medic–a champion of a guy–was frantically working on him. SG started developing breathing problems, which the medic diagnosed as a tension pneumothorax. This meant there was a lot of air inside his rib cage that was collapsing his right lung and pushing it to one side. So he relieved the pressure by pushing a 12-gauge canula–a very large needle–between the ribs above the lungs and into the top part of his chest cavity. Once that happened you could hear the whoosh of air escaping. SG could breathe a lot easier. They put a little tap on the canula so every now and again when the pressure built up they could release the tap, relieving the pressure.

One of the Afghan interpreters had been hit in the face, but the bullet travelled through his cheeks; it might have broken a tooth or two but otherwise he was bloody lucky.

We stopped off at the car where Donno was when suddenly a big burst of machine-gun fire came in from the high ground. It hit the car and small fragments of bullets peppered us. The PC of our other patrol got nicked on the wrist. He was holding it tightly with his right hand and screaming, ‘I've been hit. I've been hit!'