Sniper Elite (8 page)

At the bottom we conducted a head count to see if we had lost anyone as it was quite a mad dash. Happily we were all present and (more or less) correct.

There was a big contingent of US marines on deployment to Norway at the same time and, being Americans, they had brought everything: ships, landing craft, tanks, Bradley troop carriers, Humvees; you name it, they brought it. A small element stayed with us at Ose. There wasn't any spare accommodation for them so they erected their 10-man tents on the snow-covered football fields. The weather was bad but by that stage at least we had about four hours of daylight. The Americans were struggling to put these tents up in the weather so we all went out there and gave them a hand.

Some of our blokes were wearing just windproof trousers and a Norwegian army shirt for warmth. The Americans thought these blokes were not right in the head. They were probably right. The US marines were wearing white boots that they called Mickey Mouse boots. They looked like gumboots on steroids. But they had insulation on the inside and looked very warm indeed–totally different from our pussers (anything supplied by the corps or navy) ski march boots; they even had a valve in the side to relieve pressure build-up caused by altitude.

Our boots were pretty primitive, especially compared with what was on the civilian market. You really had to look after them and apply copious amounts of nik wax to keep the leather supple to stop them from cracking when they dried out. The wax added a token layer of waterproofing that just washed off or wore off with hours of use. We had to wear Gore-Tex gaiters as well to keep our feet dry. Anyway, these Mickey Mouse boots fascinated me–not very practical for soldiering in the field, but perfect for the rear echelon areas.

We participated in a two-week exercise with the rather large American force acting as the enemy, which I found to be very unfair odds. What I didn't appreciate at first was that these guys didn't like the cold, and whenever possible they would remain in the warmth of their vehicles or tents, giving us a lot of freedom of movement during the exercise. Our section came across a lot of fresh vehicle tracks during a reconnaissance, so we thought we'd follow them up to see where they led. We had a frozen lake to our left and undulating ground on our right that paralleled the base of a long feature. We used the undulating ground to conceal our movement as we tactically skied towards a set of powerlines that ran from left to right in front of us.

As we reached the powerlines that paralleled a road we looked left and saw an American Humvee about 100 metres away parked in the middle of a T-junction. The rear of the vehicle was facing us and we could see mist emitting from the exhaust as the hot fumes met the freezing air. There was also a tube-launched, optically tracked, wire command, data link, guided (TOW) missile launcher mounted on the roof and facing across the frozen lake.

Mike gave us his plan on how he wanted us to approach this vehicle. Once happy with the plan we removed our skis and the eight-man section split in half leaving a team to secure our lay-up position (LUP). The rest of us pepper-potted forward in the dead ground towards the Humvee. (To pepper-pot is to fire and move, although at this time you're not actually firing. You still provide security to the moving elements by covering the threat area as you tactically advance. It is similar to leapfrogging without actually jumping over someone's back.) Once there, Mike and I covered each other's movements to the left rear of the vehicle, rifles in the shoulder and at the ready.

The best approach to a vehicle is by using its blind spots, as the occupants are likely to be preoccupied with what they can see through the windscreen. We peered in through the rear window and could see three US marines, all asleep. Mike knocked on the driver's window. The driver opened the door with a nod and a ‘Hey man'. Mike replied, ‘We're the enemy mate, and you are now dead.'

‘Okay man, that's cool' was the reply, and the door closed.

When we got back to the LUP one of the lads told us that he had noticed some smoke coming from about 30 metres away across the road. On closer inspection we could make out a well-used side track and we decided to investigate. As we got closer we could see an American 10-man tent. There was no movement in the immediate vicinity, which allowed us to move freely to the tent. Mike opened the door and walked in. I followed with one other. ‘Damn, where'd you guys come from?' one marine said. ‘Hey guys,' said another.

Mike said the same thing to these blokes: ‘You're dead.'

‘That's cool man. You guys want a coffee?'

We declined the offer, exchanged pleasantries and then left to marry up with the troop boss. This exercise was not going to be the most satisfying. The US marines had totally given up on the idea of working in those freezing conditions. We encountered the marines a few more times during the course of the exercise, but their performance didn't improve.

We were to work alongside the US marines again on a training exercise in Kuwait after the first Gulf War. Our operational area was a town that had once housed 60,000 Kuwaitis before being blasted and ransacked by the Iraqis. The houses and other buildings were made from cheap concrete blocks and plastered on the outside. Most had four rooms inside; the front of each house had its own little walled courtyard with entry through a tin door hastily fixed into the plaster.

We conducted a lot of urban combat training there and helped train the Amiri Guard who were responsible for the safety of the Amir. These guys saw action against the Iraqis but were swiftly overwhelmed by huge enemy numbers. The massive aircraft carrier USS
Nimitz
was in dock and some of their boys joined us as we took the Kuwaiti soldiers into the field. The Americans had fitted them out in brand-new uniforms and camouflage gear complete with M16 carbines. But what we didn't realise was that there were a couple of boxes of live ammunition in this kit that they had started to load into their magazines. We were using blanks while conducting this training as a few civilians still lived in the area. Luckily someone noticed and put a stop to it before anyone was shot. The Kuwait experience was good and showed me how diverse the Royal Marines were. Seven weeks earlier we were enduring frozen conditions in Norway, and now we were sweltering in the desert heat.

Summer leave in August couldn't come soon enough. We'd had a busy year so far and it was only going to get worse. When we returned we would start our build-up training for a six-month operational deployment to Northern Ireland. The IRA hated us with a passion, and the feeling was mutual but the truth is we were the blokes in the middle with fanatics on both sides. But the Protestants were on board with the English and patrolling into a Protestant area was a welcome relief on the nerves.

Before we deployed to Northern Ireland we completed an intensive three-month counter-insurgency training course. The training camp had its own mock-up town complete with shops and other servicemen and women playing the role of local inhabitants.

On one occasion I was on guard duty at the main gate of the mock Security Forces base when a car pulled up about 4 metres away. The drill was to check any vehicle and occupants before allowing them access but when I approached I noticed that the driver was looking and acting very distressed; he was playing the part well!

My immediate thought was that the car could be booby trapped with an improvised explosive device (IED) and the driver had been ordered to drive the car into the base before the IED was detonated. I had to get him out quickly. I tried to open the driver's door but it was jammed shut. Jumping on the bonnet of the orange Hillman Avenger I stamped on the windscreen which to my surprise (and the driver's) shattered. I dragged the driver out and quickly pulled him inside the safety of the base.

All the training is captured by CCTV spread all over the mock town so that the instructors can play back videos to discuss the training with everyone. That evening they played my ‘improvised technique' which got roars of laughter from everyone.

Training included riot control, day and night patrolling, covert surveillance and lots of time spent learning about the area we would working in, or ‘our patch'.

The six-month tour was from November 1993 to April 1994, and our area of operations was West Belfast at the foot of Black Mountain. We were based in Fort Whiterock, which was regularly targeted by the IRA and the 10-metre-high galvanised iron perimeter fence had hundreds of bullet holes in it. In fact we stopped counting at 270 and every now and then a fresh one would appear.

The first significant incident happened while I was on security duties at the camp. I was on the upper level of the main gate sanger (a fortified base or tower allowing movement and observation from inside that will withstand multiple strikes from small arms fire and small explosions like grenades) as 8 Troop were about to start their night patrolling program. After checking their equipment and actioning their rifles, the first brick (a four-man patrol) started to hard target (hard target is running and zigzagging or even constantly moving and changing position and body profile to make yourself less of a target) down the 150-metre access route to Springfield Road and into the notoriously dangerous Turf Lodge area. Ten minutes later I saw a flash that for a split second I thought was lightning. Actually it was an IED attack on one of the four bricks that had just left Whiterock.

The blast destroyed a gate and blew two members of that brick across the road and into a front garden. I actioned my weapon and reported the blast. Fortunately no-one was badly hurt and after some medical care and a couple of weeks off the guys returned to work.

There were countless incidents while patrolling the streets of West Belfast. We were spat on and pelted with bricks, bottles, broken glass, rocks, wood and anything else they could get their hands on. On one occasion while night patrolling in a lightly armoured Land Rover I narrowly missed being hit in the face by a bottle that was thrown from a group looking for trouble. As we drove past them we copped mega amounts of abuse, so I turned to change my arcs to cover their movements. ‘Bang!' The bottle smashed right in front of my face on the spring-loaded Perspex shield that I was just about to push down. There wasn't a lot we could do in that situation and the locals knew it. We were there to support the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), and that was more of a police issue.

While the Catholics were supposed to be the bad guys it was a Protestant that caused us the most grief–one John Adair, the head of the so-called Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF). He had strong links with Del, one of the lads from 8 Troop. Del was a Protestant originally from Northern Ireland, and for him the conflict was personal. And it wasn't long before he put himself in a very compromising situation. Unbeknown to the rest of us, Adair had approached him and the two had come to an agreement. Soon Del was tipping him off about our movements. Adair would then organise to attack the IRA or a Sinn Fein office shortly after we patrolled past it.

The first attack was a drive-by shooting on a known ‘player' (IRA member) at a bus stop. A large number of rounds hit the shelter but no-one was injured. Then they launched two attacks on the Sinn Fein office on Andersonstown Road. On the first occasion, shortly after we had patrolled past it, a vehicle stopped and a UFF member exited and rigged up an old grenade on trip to the main gate of the office. The grenade fuse was set on instant and would have immediately detonated when the gate was opened and pin pulled. Luckily, it was found before it caused any damage. The second time they attacked that office they waited for us to get a fair way away. The UFF then drove up to the front of the office and fired an AK47 at one of the players who was on a ladder doing some repairs to the outside of the building. He was hit several times in the legs.

We reacted to the incident but once again got there too late. Suspicions were aroused and Del was placed under surveillance after he spent his leave with John Adair. He was arrested when he returned to Fort Whiterock, and spent the next five years in prison. Del was a well-liked bloke in Charlie Company and we were all shocked to hear of his arrest and the details why. As a whole we didn't condemn his actions; in fact, he gained even more respect from us even though it was the wrong thing to do.

Adair and his Protestant mates were pretty hopeless. They were the only ones who could fire 30 rounds into a crowded bar and not hit anyone! They fired an RPG at a pub on the Falls Road and the grenade hit the roof. We did find this quite funny though.

We reacted to an incident in our area of operations involving the parachute regiment. One of their vehicles was targeted by a MK16 mortar. These mortars were home-made and laid horizontally on a milk crate or some other platform that could support it to get it on target, and could be detonated from as far as 400 metres away. We provided some support and cordoned off the area to provide security and preserve the scene for forensics.

During these cordons we searched areas and people, set up vehicle checkpoints and did our best to provide security. An incident like this generally lasted a minimum of four hours, although we provided one cordon that lasted 12 hours and we had to be replaced by the other troop. They were tough on the nerves because at any time you could become a target.

In another incident a 16-year-old boy had been ‘kneecapped' in both knees with a .22-calibre rifle for stealing the wrong car. He was lured to a park then given the good news. We arrived on the scene as he was crawling backwards towards his house.

A house invasion took place while we were patrolling on foot in a particular area. They bound and gagged the occupants and then set up a firing position in a room on the second storey of the house where the window faced Kennedy Way, an uphill road. They planned to carry out a ‘sniper' shoot onto one of our patrols; in fact the patrol happened to be the one I was in.

As soon as we entered Kennedy Way and started to walk up the hill the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I was one of the two rear men in that four-man brick. The other was Grenville ‘Wadders' Waddington, who later said he also felt something unusual. This wasn't the first time I'd had this feeling so I became extra vigilant. Maybe I'd developed a soldier's instinct. But we covered each other by pepper-potting, rifles at the ready as we moved up Kennedy Way and out of view from the window of that house.

Back at Fort Whiterock it wasn't long before they told us what had happened. The occupants of the house were held under guard but near enough to the shooters to hear what they were saying. Apparently they were too scared to initiate a contact on either of us as we were covering each other too well. They could have compromised their position and got caught, or more likely, shot.

On another occasion while our four bricks were patrolling along Glen Road at night, one of the section commanders, Paul Ashcroft, found a freshly placed MK16 mortar sitting on a milk crate at the top of Ramoan Gardens orientated towards Glen Road. It was placed to hit either military or RUC vehicles that were in the area. We set up a quick cordon and two bricks aggressively followed up the command wire that was part of the firing device. All the signs were fresh, but the bad guys had disappeared.

That morning we finished our patrolling program and were picked up by the quick reaction force (QRF) using a Saxon four-wheel-drive armoured vehicle. These guys were on constant standby at Fort Whiterock. They would deploy if there was an incident and a multiple required their help. (A multiple consisted of four bricks usually with two RUC constables.) We could also use the QRF for pick-up and drop-off. This particular morning after being picked up, shattered by the intense patrolling program, we were travelling uphill in the back of the Saxon on the Monagh Bypass towards Fort Whiterock. The Mike Echoes–the military escort for the RUC–were travelling downhill in their Land Rovers at the same time. As we passed each other a MK16 mortar was fired from the side of the road and narrowly missed the rear of our vehicle but it glanced off the windscreen of the lead Land Rover. The windscreen was cracked and the mortar landed somewhere in the vacant land opposite.

I didn't realise we had been targeted until I heard the troop boss shout, ‘Contact!' We debussed and contained the area the best we could. The boys traced the command wire back to a well-known player's address. I felt extremely lucky after that as I'd been sitting on the right side of the vehicle with my back to the incoming mortar.

For us in the middle of the Troubles it was a test of nerves. It was so volatile–you could incite a crowd with just the wrong eye contact and suddenly you'd have an angry mob advancing at you throwing bricks, bottles and stones. They worked on the fact that if they didn't have a firearm we couldn't shoot them, and they knew our hands were tied by a set of very tight rules of engagement. So we had to be extremely careful how we treated a violent situation.

If one of the lads did slightly overstep the mark through sheer frustration, the mob would retaliate by becoming even more violent. If a civilian was hurt in any way it would give them licence to twist the truth and to extract maximum amount of compensation from the British Government, and of course there were always plenty of witnesses.

Most of the time we were ordered to cautiously move away from a mob and let it die a natural death without ruining public relations. But a few times we had to call on the RUC to assist in dispersing a persistent crowd. This was extremely frustrating for us, because as soldiers we didn't want to be seen to be weak and walking away from trouble. It is very understandable to me why soldiers serving in Northern Ireland or even veterans crack every once in a while. It was, however, very satisfying to catch one of these serial troublemakers out when he found himself in the wrong spot at the wrong time. I was glad to see the back end of that tour as it was very busy and wearing very thin towards the end.

I made some extremely good mates at 40 Commando. ‘Chappy' was one of them. He was in 9 Troop, Charlie Company, and is now a well-known polar explorer. He asked me to do an expedition with him that he called the Icelandic 500–the first ever ski crossing of Iceland towing sledges weighing up to 90 kilos, which carried the necessary equipment and rations to survive the harsh winter crossing. I said I was more interested in soldiering, but Chappy went on to complete the first military expeditions to the north and south poles. In 1993 Chappy and I went to Kenya and stayed with George Aggett, an ex-bootneck (slang for marine) and good friend of Chappy, on his farm that looks at Mount Kenya on the horizon, a truly magnificent view. George took us hunting a few times and fishing in their huge dam. At night there was no TV and they very rarely listened to the radio. So we mostly drank Tusker beer and spun a few yarns. While there Chappy and I took advantage of our location and travelled to Uganda and Zaire. We also saw the gorillas in the mountains before they were butchered by rebels coming through from Rwanda.