Chinook pilot's DFC
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Chinook pilot's DFC
Mods - hope this is OK to post on the basis that it's genuinely interesting and relevant tale about an amazing bit of flying (though there is a mention of the new book it comes from, which I wrote, at the bottom). If not, please accept my apologies and delete.
It's the story of Major Mark Hammond, a Royal Marine Chinook pilot who won the DFC in Afghanistan for some very impressive flying on two IRT rescue missions:
MAJOR MARK HAMMOND DFC
ROYAL MARINES
When soldiers are hurt, it is to the helicopter pilots that their comrades turn. Injured men need urgent medical assistance and the only way to achieve this is through aerial evacuation. This means – more often than not – arriving in a hot LZ, with enemy fighters blazing away at you with machine guns and RPGs.
Mark Hammond is something of a rarity; a Royal Marine Chinook pilot. But his flying – leading the Immediate Response Team (IRT) and Quick Reaction Force for the Operation HERRICK Helmand Task Force, based at Camp Bastion – was in the best traditions of his elite Corps.
Like the other Chinook pilots and crews, and the surgical teams who travelled with them, Maj Hammond regularly put his own life in danger to save the lives of others.
I joined the Royal Marines in 1989, aged 21, went through Commando training, became a troop commander and then specialised as a pilot, joining what was 3 Commando Brigade Air Squadron in 1994, later re-commissioned as 847 Naval Air Squadron in 1996. I trained on the Gazelle, transferred to Lynx and then was lucky enough to have an exchange to the States, where I flew Cobra Attack Helicopters. I now fly Chinooks.
We went out in early 2006 to do prelim ops associated with the build-up of Camp Bastion before the main force, 16 Air Assault Brigade with 3 Para, came out. We spent two months ferrying engineers, troops, stores and equipment out to Bastion and various other places, flying six to eight hours every day. But there was no trouble, it was a milk run. Our sister flights from 18 and 27 then rouled through, and while we were back in the UK it started hotting up.
We deployed back out to Afghanistan at the end of August, and the whole situation had changed. Our guys were holed up in district centres in towns throughout Helmand, like Musa Qala, Naw Zad and Kajaki in the north, Sangin below them and Garmsir down to the south. The guys were on the ground in bandit country, basically.
We were based at Kandahar, from where we’d carry out regular resupply runs or assist in the rotation of troops in the district centres. And we had a forward base at Bastion, with Chinooks forming the IRT and the QRF. You would do a certain amount of roulemont, rotating through on a cyclical basis, spending a number of days doing the tasking lines, and then you’d go forward to Bastion and do a number of days on IRT or QRF.
Pretty much wherever we were going was a fixed site – you’re going into the same landing zone every time. You can approach from different routes, and you can come in from different angles, but your ultimate destination is the same. And the Tellytubbies are not stupid. They know where you’re coming, so they’ll set up and wait. They’ll have a pop at you on the way in and the way out and if you spend any more than 30-60 seconds on the deck you’ll get mortared. A Chinook is a 99ft long helicopter and while it’s not that slow – it will top out at 140-150mph – it’s a big and relatively easy target. Though we have one of the best defensive aid suites on British helicopters for missiles and we wouldn’t go anywhere without Apache top cover. They’re very good, the Apache boys – there’s a lot of mutual respect between us… they’re keeping us alive, and we’re going into the zone. And, believe me, our respect for the guys on the ground is 10 times greater, because they’re sat there being shot at 24 hours a day. At least we get to go back to relative safety.
On the night of 6th September, Maj Hammond and his crew were holding the IRT standby when the Sangin base was attacked with mortars and small arms. One soldier suffered a critical, life-threatening injury. The IRT aircraft, accompanied by a pair of Apache attack helicopters, was scrambled to retrieve the casualty. As he lifted off, Hammond knew of intelligence reports that the Taliban intended specifically to target Chinook helicopters using the Sangin landing site, and that anti-aircraft weapons were in place.
September 6 is not a day I’m ever going to forget.
I’d been in theatre for about a week. The guys we’d replaced had been taking some fire – just after we arrived they took a round through an engine cowling. So everyone knew the danger. It wasn’t an exercise. We were going to be shot at.
We had the Kajaki mine incident early afternoon, where we’d sent two IRT helicopters out to Kajaki because unfortunately members of 3 Para had moved into a minefield. The lads went out to try and give assistance but due to the steepness of the slope, the Chinooks couldn’t land. It was reported in the press that the downwash of the helicopters had set off mines, though it didn’t, but there were still five casualties and one fatality – Cpl Mark Wright GC, who unfortunately died after being extracted.
Cpl Wright won his medal – the equivalent of the Victoria Cross, awarded for actions of extraordinary bravery carried out when not in the teeth of battle – after he and other soldiers were injured in a minefield; he had continued to reassure and encourage his men, despite having suffered severe injuries which would soon claim his own life.
I came up IRT at about 1600hrs. The helicopter has a full medical and surgical response team in the back – they can operate on guys in the air – and its protection, say 10 people in all. There would normally be four or five of us… myself, my co-pilot and two or three crewmen who can operate guns on the sides and the ramp. The IRT is there 24 hours a day, on short notice to move during both day and night.
At about 1700hrs we had a call and we legged it across the road to the command post to find out what was going on. Lt Col Stuart Tootal, CO 3 Para, ran that…a very good officer, he was awarded a DSO. We were told that a soldier from the Royal Irish, LCpl Luke McCulloch, had taken shrapnel to the head in a contact in Sangin, and was in a bad way. He was a T1 casualty, which means he will almost certainly die if he isn’t reached and given proper medical help within the ‘golden hour’.
Obviously, every time you send a helicopter out to an event like this you are risking the aircraft and the lives of the people on board. The other end of the stick is that we want to get our people out and save their lives if at all possible. It ends up being a call for someone of the rank of Lt Col Tootal. If there’s an ongoing, full-scale battle it may be that we simply can’t go. But things were reasonably quiet, so we were given the go-ahead to launch.
It’s not something you can do immediately. The medics need briefing on the injuries, the Apaches need briefing so they can clear you into the zone, you need to co-ordinate with the ground call signs reference your approach direction and when you’ll be there. Sangin was between 20 and 45 minutes away, depending on the route we took.
Flt Lt Mark Daffy, a very good operator, was my co-pilot, sitting in the left-hand seat, doing the navigation, the comms, monitoring the engines, telling you where you’re going. Our Number Two crewman was Sgt Dan Baxter, manning the guns on the right hand side. Sgt Sam Hannant was my Number One down the back, operating the ramp and manning the ramp gun.
It was dusk as we arrived at Sangin, and I remember seeing outgoing fire from the position, friendly troops firing tracer at the enemy. According to the guys on the deck, we were fired on as we were trying to get in, though I have to say I don’t really remember that because I was concentrating on getting us on to the landing zone. As we landed, one of the Apaches said, ‘You might want to hold off for a minute, it’s getting a bit warm in there.’
I said, ‘Actually, it’s a bit late…I’m already in the zone.’
We loaded up the casualties, lifted out and I remember Dan shouting to me that we were taking fire to the rear right so I broke right to come over the top of it. I saw the rounds coming up through the 11 o’clock, big fat tracer within a few metres of the aircraft. The Chinook is armoured but Dan and Sam were stood at the side door and ramp, very exposed. They fired at the position that was firing at us, and that keyed everyone in down on the ground. Within a few seconds, you could see this huge weight of fire bearing down on the Taliban position, and that was that for them.
We climbed up to height to keep it as smooth as possible, hot-hoofing it home as fast as the cab would take us. Meanwhile, the surgical team was in the back, operating on LCpl McCulloch, trying to save his life… a full surgical procedure in a speeding helicopter, starting a few moments after they’ve landed in a hot LZ under fire. I was mega impressed with the surgical team. It’s easier for us flying the thing – they have to sit in the back watching the rounds go past the window and there’s nothing they can do.
Unfortunately, they did not save his life.
We landed back on and I remember speaking on the mic, and saying, ‘Good job, lads – we’ve done it. We got him out.’
Then the doc came back on board, put the headset on and said, ‘Sorry, guys, he died on the ramp.’
It was a real downer. I remember just shouting some expletives down the microphone. It just wiped the crew out for a bit, because we’d tried so hard to get him out. There’s been the elation of getting in and out, and no-one’s been hit, and then… But you have to crack on. We lifted to reposition to our parking spot, thinking we would go down and be back on short notice to move. So we landed on and we’d just started refuelling when an old mate of mine who flies Apaches, Lt Cdr Dave Westley,jumped aboard and stuck his head through the hatch. ‘There’s another one in Musa Qala,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to go straight away.’
With Musa Qala, the district centre was even tighter, more enclosed by houses, than Sangin. The lads there had just been mortared and taken fire and there was a T1 casualty who had taken a gunshot wound through the neck. And various other people had been injured as well.
The ground commander wanted us to go in from the north-east, so we had a quick brief with the Apaches – this is our route in, this is your call to say the zone isn’t hot, and so on. We went out, climbed up, we were wearing night vision goggles by now because it was dark, and we dropped down to low level just on the outskirts of the town.
The only available landing site was directly adjacent to the compound that had just been attacked. As Hammond approached, his aircraft was engaged from numerous firing points.
I was 50ft up, with houses below, trying to get in, and it all kicked off. It’s a cliché, but it really did go into slow motion. I remember Dan calling, ‘RPG!’ and a few moments later Sam called, ‘RPG!’ Subsequently, I saw the video footage shot from the Apaches above us – it shows one grenade passing 10ft above the aircraft and the other one passing 10ft below. If either had hit us, that would have been curtains. And there was a lot of small arms fire coming our way, too. But I remember there was no shouting, no screaming, it was immensely calm and professional from all the boys.
Sam and Dan suppressed the RPG firing points with their M60s, which was some brilliant shooting – 50ft up, at night, on the goggles, doing 120 knots, while I’m throwing it around all over the place, and they took out the two firers, both of them. They were RAF crewmen, specialists in the job; the RAF gets a bit of stick from time to time, but these boys were extremely impressive.
Then we felt a shudder through the air frame. Mark turned around to me and said, ‘I think we’ve hit a bird.’
At night, with all this firefight going on around us.
I said, ‘I think we have, yeah.’
And it did feel like a bird, but then Mark said later that he’d seen something flash up in front of the cockpit.
We were still trying to get in to the zone but then both the ground call sign and our Apache escort gave the codeword to abort the landing and go round. It was just too hot. There was stuff flying around everywhere. I was on short finals to come into the approach, just slowing down, just bringing the nose back up so that I could put the rear wheels on. About a quarter of a mile out. I contemplated ignoring them and just going down, but if they’re telling me not to there might be something I don’t know. We climbed back up to height and I spoke to Dave on the radio and said, ‘Listen, we’re going to have to go home and rethink this because it is not working, not with RPGs flying around.’
So we went back and got into the CP with Lt Col Tootal. We subsequently learned that we shouldn’t have gone in from the north east because that’s where most of the Taliban commanders lived. They have sentries that stay up all night on watch to make sure that the important guys don’t get snatched. They had a Dushka, a 23mm anti-aircraft weapon, plus a load of machine guns in fixed positions to make sure that they are protecting their commanders, so it wasn’t a good route in.
The casualty had stabilised down to a T2, because they’d managed to sort out his neck, but he still needed picking up. I remember, we came off the cab and the medics were all sat down the back. Their boss was a colonel – he was pretty ashen-faced, and I had a smoke with him. We were sucking down this smoke, and I said, ‘You do realise we are going to go back?’
He took just about the longest drag I’ve ever seen, stubbed it out and said, ‘Yeah, I thought we might.’
And he just walked off. Immensely brave – one, for just sitting in the back of the helicopter and getting shot at and, two, for then cracking on with your job, trying to save lives. Amazing guys, absolutely amazing.
We were given a lot more assets, and it became a deliberate operation. We had a gun group out in the desert, so we had an artillery fire plan. We also had an A10 tank buster, which was going to do its business, and they were calling for other assets as well.
It was while we were planning all this that the engineer who’d just been looking over my helicopter came over. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said, ‘but you can’t take that one. It’s got four bullet holes in it.’
One of which had gone up through the blade root – that was our ‘bird strike’. Another had gone through a blade in the rear and another had hit somewhere just above Mark’s head. That aircraft was obviously out of commission.
Maj Hammond’s citation says: “At this stage, it would have been simple for him to declare that the threat was too high to return, and, indeed, the risks were so extreme that he was put under no pressure to do so. However, without hesitation he decided to attempt another recovery using a new aircraft. His flight commander was able to witness first-hand Hammond’s calm decision making and leadership of the joint force planning for the recovery mission.”
I spoke to the crew and asked if they were happy to go back. They all said they were. We added a Number Three gunner, Sgt Spence Donnelly, and launched off.
As soon as we got near, the enemy started firing at us again. There was the DC, then a safe zone, and anything in there was fair game. The civilians had all left, it was just baddies surrounding our guys 24/7, like a siege. So the A10 let them have it. The A10 has a bad reputation with friendly fire, but if you want to quieten someone down then it will. And it did. It just ripped the place apart. It has a 30mm cannon with a phenomenal rate of fire, and it levelled the opposition. I remember looking to my right as we were flying up and just seeing a glow where a big Tellytubby ammo dump was going up. It was amazing.
We dropped down to low level again.
People ask me, ‘Weren’t you scared going back into Musa Qala for the second time?’ To be honest, the only thing I was worried about was making sure that I didn’t pork the landing up. A Chinook has a lot of downwash and you’re coming into a dusty zone. If you get the landing wrong you end up in what is called ‘brown out’ where you can’t see the ground. If I ended up having to go round again we would have lost the element of surprise.
We took some incoming, but nothing hit the cab this time. We did the landing, got the casualties on board and we were facing south. We were in the zone for 30 seconds, tops.
There was a big building to my right and Dan, my Number Two, said, ‘Which way do you want to go out?’
We were going back out over my right shoulder. I said, ‘I want to go left.’
He said, ‘Don’t you want to go right?’
That was the shortest way out.
I said, ‘No, there’s a building there. I’m going to go left, over my left shoulder, back round and out.’
He said, ‘OK.’
So we lifted off and I went over my left shoulder and round and back out over the desert that way. We climbed back up to height, got the lad home and he survived.
One of the Apache guys said to me afterwards, ‘Did you see the RPGs?’
I said, ‘No…what RPGs?’
He said, ‘It’s a good job you didn’t go right when you took off.’
If we’d taken the shortest route, the belly of the Chinook would have been exposed and the whole helicopter would have been right in front of two RPG firers. Somebody was obviously looking after us that night.
We landed and the great thing was…it’s a military thing, an infantry thing…whenever we landed with a casualty, Colonel Tootal and the RSM were there at the back of the ramp to help get the casualties off, which meant a lot to everybody.
And everyone started winding down. People react differently to stress. I smoked a lot of cigarettes, we’d all sit around and try and get back into a normal state of mind. You talk through what happened, have a cup of tea, smoke some more cigarettes, watch a movie, listen to some music, maybe write a letter home. There’s a lot of banter and p***-taking, though obviously it would have been different if we had lost the casualty – it was awful losing LCpl McCulloch, that really did affect us. But as soon as you get your next task underway it’s…not forgotten, exactly, but put to the back of your mind.
Eventually you realise that you’ll have to do it all over again tomorrow, so you have to get some sleep.
You tend not to think about your own mortality. I never thought, My number’s up, I’m going to die here. Maybe when I do, I will, if that makes sense? Before you deploy, you think about what’s going to happen if you croak it, but you could be hit by a bus. I ride motorbikes, and I’ve felt more danger on a bike with someone pulling out in front of me than I have with flying helicopters in Afghanistan – maybe that’s the way my mind works, I don’t know.
We did seem to attract a lot of RPGs. By the end of the two-month tour – they’re short because of the dangers of pilot fatigue, when you’re flying eight to ten hours a day – it became a bit of a running joke between myself, Dan and Mark Daffy. Whenever an RPG was fired, at least one of us was in the targeted helicopter. We couldn’t work out who the RPG magnet was. My money was on Mark Daffy!
Maj Hammond’s DFC was richly deserved, according to his citation. “His personal example to his crew was outstanding,” it says, “and the confidence that they placed in his leadership and ability was clear and humbling. Any one of the three separate engagements on the night of 6th September would have been sufficient to shake most men, but Hammond remained calm and dedicated throughout.”
Getting a medal was strange: whatever I did, I know all of the other blokes on my flight would have done. There were a lot of very brave things that went on in the aviation world out there during my time – the Apaches looking after us did some amazing stuff – that were not recognised. Mark Daffy was sat beside me the whole time and got nothing, though Dan Baxter got a Mention in Dispatches and Sam got a CJO (Commander, Joint Operations’ Commendation).
When you get an award like this you get a host of congratulations letters coming through. My old CO, a two star General, wrote me a very nice letter saying, effectively, remember that your medal is for the crew. And he was spot on. I was the captain, I’m the one that gets to wear it and put the DFC after my name and meet the Queen, but it is for everyone who was on board those helicopters that day.
I think peoples’ understanding and comprehension of what is going on out in Afghanistan is lacking. People only know what the media gives them and sections of the media only tend to report certain things in certain ways. Stories about our blokes doing a great job, and aren’t they very brave, don’t seem to sell papers. They want to read about people being abused, or supposedly under-funded kit, or kit that doesn’t work. Or Chinooks setting off mines – that was rubbish. One of my mates was quoted as saying we were flying ancient helicopters. He never said it.
I believe in the mission in Afghanistan. Your standard Afghan wants peace. He just wants to make sure that his kids don’t get blown up and that he can eke out a living in his patch of desert which he hand tills. Him and his mates have hand-dug a 14-mile irrigation ditch to get water to this little patch of dirt, and they all just want peace and stability.
I believe people need to understand what the guys are going through out there. You come home and you see David Beckham and Posh Spice all over the papers and the telly and you think, You have completely lost the plot here, people.
I find it difficult to believe that people are more interested in what Posh is wearing rather than a soldier paying the ultimate price, but that’s the way it appears sometimes.
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Extracted from In Foreign Fields - 25 Heroes of Iraq and Afghanistan In Their Own Words
It's the story of Major Mark Hammond, a Royal Marine Chinook pilot who won the DFC in Afghanistan for some very impressive flying on two IRT rescue missions:
MAJOR MARK HAMMOND DFC
ROYAL MARINES
When soldiers are hurt, it is to the helicopter pilots that their comrades turn. Injured men need urgent medical assistance and the only way to achieve this is through aerial evacuation. This means – more often than not – arriving in a hot LZ, with enemy fighters blazing away at you with machine guns and RPGs.
Mark Hammond is something of a rarity; a Royal Marine Chinook pilot. But his flying – leading the Immediate Response Team (IRT) and Quick Reaction Force for the Operation HERRICK Helmand Task Force, based at Camp Bastion – was in the best traditions of his elite Corps.
Like the other Chinook pilots and crews, and the surgical teams who travelled with them, Maj Hammond regularly put his own life in danger to save the lives of others.
I joined the Royal Marines in 1989, aged 21, went through Commando training, became a troop commander and then specialised as a pilot, joining what was 3 Commando Brigade Air Squadron in 1994, later re-commissioned as 847 Naval Air Squadron in 1996. I trained on the Gazelle, transferred to Lynx and then was lucky enough to have an exchange to the States, where I flew Cobra Attack Helicopters. I now fly Chinooks.
We went out in early 2006 to do prelim ops associated with the build-up of Camp Bastion before the main force, 16 Air Assault Brigade with 3 Para, came out. We spent two months ferrying engineers, troops, stores and equipment out to Bastion and various other places, flying six to eight hours every day. But there was no trouble, it was a milk run. Our sister flights from 18 and 27 then rouled through, and while we were back in the UK it started hotting up.
We deployed back out to Afghanistan at the end of August, and the whole situation had changed. Our guys were holed up in district centres in towns throughout Helmand, like Musa Qala, Naw Zad and Kajaki in the north, Sangin below them and Garmsir down to the south. The guys were on the ground in bandit country, basically.
We were based at Kandahar, from where we’d carry out regular resupply runs or assist in the rotation of troops in the district centres. And we had a forward base at Bastion, with Chinooks forming the IRT and the QRF. You would do a certain amount of roulemont, rotating through on a cyclical basis, spending a number of days doing the tasking lines, and then you’d go forward to Bastion and do a number of days on IRT or QRF.
Pretty much wherever we were going was a fixed site – you’re going into the same landing zone every time. You can approach from different routes, and you can come in from different angles, but your ultimate destination is the same. And the Tellytubbies are not stupid. They know where you’re coming, so they’ll set up and wait. They’ll have a pop at you on the way in and the way out and if you spend any more than 30-60 seconds on the deck you’ll get mortared. A Chinook is a 99ft long helicopter and while it’s not that slow – it will top out at 140-150mph – it’s a big and relatively easy target. Though we have one of the best defensive aid suites on British helicopters for missiles and we wouldn’t go anywhere without Apache top cover. They’re very good, the Apache boys – there’s a lot of mutual respect between us… they’re keeping us alive, and we’re going into the zone. And, believe me, our respect for the guys on the ground is 10 times greater, because they’re sat there being shot at 24 hours a day. At least we get to go back to relative safety.
On the night of 6th September, Maj Hammond and his crew were holding the IRT standby when the Sangin base was attacked with mortars and small arms. One soldier suffered a critical, life-threatening injury. The IRT aircraft, accompanied by a pair of Apache attack helicopters, was scrambled to retrieve the casualty. As he lifted off, Hammond knew of intelligence reports that the Taliban intended specifically to target Chinook helicopters using the Sangin landing site, and that anti-aircraft weapons were in place.
September 6 is not a day I’m ever going to forget.
I’d been in theatre for about a week. The guys we’d replaced had been taking some fire – just after we arrived they took a round through an engine cowling. So everyone knew the danger. It wasn’t an exercise. We were going to be shot at.
We had the Kajaki mine incident early afternoon, where we’d sent two IRT helicopters out to Kajaki because unfortunately members of 3 Para had moved into a minefield. The lads went out to try and give assistance but due to the steepness of the slope, the Chinooks couldn’t land. It was reported in the press that the downwash of the helicopters had set off mines, though it didn’t, but there were still five casualties and one fatality – Cpl Mark Wright GC, who unfortunately died after being extracted.
Cpl Wright won his medal – the equivalent of the Victoria Cross, awarded for actions of extraordinary bravery carried out when not in the teeth of battle – after he and other soldiers were injured in a minefield; he had continued to reassure and encourage his men, despite having suffered severe injuries which would soon claim his own life.
I came up IRT at about 1600hrs. The helicopter has a full medical and surgical response team in the back – they can operate on guys in the air – and its protection, say 10 people in all. There would normally be four or five of us… myself, my co-pilot and two or three crewmen who can operate guns on the sides and the ramp. The IRT is there 24 hours a day, on short notice to move during both day and night.
At about 1700hrs we had a call and we legged it across the road to the command post to find out what was going on. Lt Col Stuart Tootal, CO 3 Para, ran that…a very good officer, he was awarded a DSO. We were told that a soldier from the Royal Irish, LCpl Luke McCulloch, had taken shrapnel to the head in a contact in Sangin, and was in a bad way. He was a T1 casualty, which means he will almost certainly die if he isn’t reached and given proper medical help within the ‘golden hour’.
Obviously, every time you send a helicopter out to an event like this you are risking the aircraft and the lives of the people on board. The other end of the stick is that we want to get our people out and save their lives if at all possible. It ends up being a call for someone of the rank of Lt Col Tootal. If there’s an ongoing, full-scale battle it may be that we simply can’t go. But things were reasonably quiet, so we were given the go-ahead to launch.
It’s not something you can do immediately. The medics need briefing on the injuries, the Apaches need briefing so they can clear you into the zone, you need to co-ordinate with the ground call signs reference your approach direction and when you’ll be there. Sangin was between 20 and 45 minutes away, depending on the route we took.
Flt Lt Mark Daffy, a very good operator, was my co-pilot, sitting in the left-hand seat, doing the navigation, the comms, monitoring the engines, telling you where you’re going. Our Number Two crewman was Sgt Dan Baxter, manning the guns on the right hand side. Sgt Sam Hannant was my Number One down the back, operating the ramp and manning the ramp gun.
It was dusk as we arrived at Sangin, and I remember seeing outgoing fire from the position, friendly troops firing tracer at the enemy. According to the guys on the deck, we were fired on as we were trying to get in, though I have to say I don’t really remember that because I was concentrating on getting us on to the landing zone. As we landed, one of the Apaches said, ‘You might want to hold off for a minute, it’s getting a bit warm in there.’
I said, ‘Actually, it’s a bit late…I’m already in the zone.’
We loaded up the casualties, lifted out and I remember Dan shouting to me that we were taking fire to the rear right so I broke right to come over the top of it. I saw the rounds coming up through the 11 o’clock, big fat tracer within a few metres of the aircraft. The Chinook is armoured but Dan and Sam were stood at the side door and ramp, very exposed. They fired at the position that was firing at us, and that keyed everyone in down on the ground. Within a few seconds, you could see this huge weight of fire bearing down on the Taliban position, and that was that for them.
We climbed up to height to keep it as smooth as possible, hot-hoofing it home as fast as the cab would take us. Meanwhile, the surgical team was in the back, operating on LCpl McCulloch, trying to save his life… a full surgical procedure in a speeding helicopter, starting a few moments after they’ve landed in a hot LZ under fire. I was mega impressed with the surgical team. It’s easier for us flying the thing – they have to sit in the back watching the rounds go past the window and there’s nothing they can do.
Unfortunately, they did not save his life.
We landed back on and I remember speaking on the mic, and saying, ‘Good job, lads – we’ve done it. We got him out.’
Then the doc came back on board, put the headset on and said, ‘Sorry, guys, he died on the ramp.’
It was a real downer. I remember just shouting some expletives down the microphone. It just wiped the crew out for a bit, because we’d tried so hard to get him out. There’s been the elation of getting in and out, and no-one’s been hit, and then… But you have to crack on. We lifted to reposition to our parking spot, thinking we would go down and be back on short notice to move. So we landed on and we’d just started refuelling when an old mate of mine who flies Apaches, Lt Cdr Dave Westley,jumped aboard and stuck his head through the hatch. ‘There’s another one in Musa Qala,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to go straight away.’
With Musa Qala, the district centre was even tighter, more enclosed by houses, than Sangin. The lads there had just been mortared and taken fire and there was a T1 casualty who had taken a gunshot wound through the neck. And various other people had been injured as well.
The ground commander wanted us to go in from the north-east, so we had a quick brief with the Apaches – this is our route in, this is your call to say the zone isn’t hot, and so on. We went out, climbed up, we were wearing night vision goggles by now because it was dark, and we dropped down to low level just on the outskirts of the town.
The only available landing site was directly adjacent to the compound that had just been attacked. As Hammond approached, his aircraft was engaged from numerous firing points.
I was 50ft up, with houses below, trying to get in, and it all kicked off. It’s a cliché, but it really did go into slow motion. I remember Dan calling, ‘RPG!’ and a few moments later Sam called, ‘RPG!’ Subsequently, I saw the video footage shot from the Apaches above us – it shows one grenade passing 10ft above the aircraft and the other one passing 10ft below. If either had hit us, that would have been curtains. And there was a lot of small arms fire coming our way, too. But I remember there was no shouting, no screaming, it was immensely calm and professional from all the boys.
Sam and Dan suppressed the RPG firing points with their M60s, which was some brilliant shooting – 50ft up, at night, on the goggles, doing 120 knots, while I’m throwing it around all over the place, and they took out the two firers, both of them. They were RAF crewmen, specialists in the job; the RAF gets a bit of stick from time to time, but these boys were extremely impressive.
Then we felt a shudder through the air frame. Mark turned around to me and said, ‘I think we’ve hit a bird.’
At night, with all this firefight going on around us.
I said, ‘I think we have, yeah.’
And it did feel like a bird, but then Mark said later that he’d seen something flash up in front of the cockpit.
We were still trying to get in to the zone but then both the ground call sign and our Apache escort gave the codeword to abort the landing and go round. It was just too hot. There was stuff flying around everywhere. I was on short finals to come into the approach, just slowing down, just bringing the nose back up so that I could put the rear wheels on. About a quarter of a mile out. I contemplated ignoring them and just going down, but if they’re telling me not to there might be something I don’t know. We climbed back up to height and I spoke to Dave on the radio and said, ‘Listen, we’re going to have to go home and rethink this because it is not working, not with RPGs flying around.’
So we went back and got into the CP with Lt Col Tootal. We subsequently learned that we shouldn’t have gone in from the north east because that’s where most of the Taliban commanders lived. They have sentries that stay up all night on watch to make sure that the important guys don’t get snatched. They had a Dushka, a 23mm anti-aircraft weapon, plus a load of machine guns in fixed positions to make sure that they are protecting their commanders, so it wasn’t a good route in.
The casualty had stabilised down to a T2, because they’d managed to sort out his neck, but he still needed picking up. I remember, we came off the cab and the medics were all sat down the back. Their boss was a colonel – he was pretty ashen-faced, and I had a smoke with him. We were sucking down this smoke, and I said, ‘You do realise we are going to go back?’
He took just about the longest drag I’ve ever seen, stubbed it out and said, ‘Yeah, I thought we might.’
And he just walked off. Immensely brave – one, for just sitting in the back of the helicopter and getting shot at and, two, for then cracking on with your job, trying to save lives. Amazing guys, absolutely amazing.
We were given a lot more assets, and it became a deliberate operation. We had a gun group out in the desert, so we had an artillery fire plan. We also had an A10 tank buster, which was going to do its business, and they were calling for other assets as well.
It was while we were planning all this that the engineer who’d just been looking over my helicopter came over. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said, ‘but you can’t take that one. It’s got four bullet holes in it.’
One of which had gone up through the blade root – that was our ‘bird strike’. Another had gone through a blade in the rear and another had hit somewhere just above Mark’s head. That aircraft was obviously out of commission.
Maj Hammond’s citation says: “At this stage, it would have been simple for him to declare that the threat was too high to return, and, indeed, the risks were so extreme that he was put under no pressure to do so. However, without hesitation he decided to attempt another recovery using a new aircraft. His flight commander was able to witness first-hand Hammond’s calm decision making and leadership of the joint force planning for the recovery mission.”
I spoke to the crew and asked if they were happy to go back. They all said they were. We added a Number Three gunner, Sgt Spence Donnelly, and launched off.
As soon as we got near, the enemy started firing at us again. There was the DC, then a safe zone, and anything in there was fair game. The civilians had all left, it was just baddies surrounding our guys 24/7, like a siege. So the A10 let them have it. The A10 has a bad reputation with friendly fire, but if you want to quieten someone down then it will. And it did. It just ripped the place apart. It has a 30mm cannon with a phenomenal rate of fire, and it levelled the opposition. I remember looking to my right as we were flying up and just seeing a glow where a big Tellytubby ammo dump was going up. It was amazing.
We dropped down to low level again.
People ask me, ‘Weren’t you scared going back into Musa Qala for the second time?’ To be honest, the only thing I was worried about was making sure that I didn’t pork the landing up. A Chinook has a lot of downwash and you’re coming into a dusty zone. If you get the landing wrong you end up in what is called ‘brown out’ where you can’t see the ground. If I ended up having to go round again we would have lost the element of surprise.
We took some incoming, but nothing hit the cab this time. We did the landing, got the casualties on board and we were facing south. We were in the zone for 30 seconds, tops.
There was a big building to my right and Dan, my Number Two, said, ‘Which way do you want to go out?’
We were going back out over my right shoulder. I said, ‘I want to go left.’
He said, ‘Don’t you want to go right?’
That was the shortest way out.
I said, ‘No, there’s a building there. I’m going to go left, over my left shoulder, back round and out.’
He said, ‘OK.’
So we lifted off and I went over my left shoulder and round and back out over the desert that way. We climbed back up to height, got the lad home and he survived.
One of the Apache guys said to me afterwards, ‘Did you see the RPGs?’
I said, ‘No…what RPGs?’
He said, ‘It’s a good job you didn’t go right when you took off.’
If we’d taken the shortest route, the belly of the Chinook would have been exposed and the whole helicopter would have been right in front of two RPG firers. Somebody was obviously looking after us that night.
We landed and the great thing was…it’s a military thing, an infantry thing…whenever we landed with a casualty, Colonel Tootal and the RSM were there at the back of the ramp to help get the casualties off, which meant a lot to everybody.
And everyone started winding down. People react differently to stress. I smoked a lot of cigarettes, we’d all sit around and try and get back into a normal state of mind. You talk through what happened, have a cup of tea, smoke some more cigarettes, watch a movie, listen to some music, maybe write a letter home. There’s a lot of banter and p***-taking, though obviously it would have been different if we had lost the casualty – it was awful losing LCpl McCulloch, that really did affect us. But as soon as you get your next task underway it’s…not forgotten, exactly, but put to the back of your mind.
Eventually you realise that you’ll have to do it all over again tomorrow, so you have to get some sleep.
You tend not to think about your own mortality. I never thought, My number’s up, I’m going to die here. Maybe when I do, I will, if that makes sense? Before you deploy, you think about what’s going to happen if you croak it, but you could be hit by a bus. I ride motorbikes, and I’ve felt more danger on a bike with someone pulling out in front of me than I have with flying helicopters in Afghanistan – maybe that’s the way my mind works, I don’t know.
We did seem to attract a lot of RPGs. By the end of the two-month tour – they’re short because of the dangers of pilot fatigue, when you’re flying eight to ten hours a day – it became a bit of a running joke between myself, Dan and Mark Daffy. Whenever an RPG was fired, at least one of us was in the targeted helicopter. We couldn’t work out who the RPG magnet was. My money was on Mark Daffy!
Maj Hammond’s DFC was richly deserved, according to his citation. “His personal example to his crew was outstanding,” it says, “and the confidence that they placed in his leadership and ability was clear and humbling. Any one of the three separate engagements on the night of 6th September would have been sufficient to shake most men, but Hammond remained calm and dedicated throughout.”
Getting a medal was strange: whatever I did, I know all of the other blokes on my flight would have done. There were a lot of very brave things that went on in the aviation world out there during my time – the Apaches looking after us did some amazing stuff – that were not recognised. Mark Daffy was sat beside me the whole time and got nothing, though Dan Baxter got a Mention in Dispatches and Sam got a CJO (Commander, Joint Operations’ Commendation).
When you get an award like this you get a host of congratulations letters coming through. My old CO, a two star General, wrote me a very nice letter saying, effectively, remember that your medal is for the crew. And he was spot on. I was the captain, I’m the one that gets to wear it and put the DFC after my name and meet the Queen, but it is for everyone who was on board those helicopters that day.
I think peoples’ understanding and comprehension of what is going on out in Afghanistan is lacking. People only know what the media gives them and sections of the media only tend to report certain things in certain ways. Stories about our blokes doing a great job, and aren’t they very brave, don’t seem to sell papers. They want to read about people being abused, or supposedly under-funded kit, or kit that doesn’t work. Or Chinooks setting off mines – that was rubbish. One of my mates was quoted as saying we were flying ancient helicopters. He never said it.
I believe in the mission in Afghanistan. Your standard Afghan wants peace. He just wants to make sure that his kids don’t get blown up and that he can eke out a living in his patch of desert which he hand tills. Him and his mates have hand-dug a 14-mile irrigation ditch to get water to this little patch of dirt, and they all just want peace and stability.
I believe people need to understand what the guys are going through out there. You come home and you see David Beckham and Posh Spice all over the papers and the telly and you think, You have completely lost the plot here, people.
I find it difficult to believe that people are more interested in what Posh is wearing rather than a soldier paying the ultimate price, but that’s the way it appears sometimes.
[FONT=Arial]
Extracted from In Foreign Fields - 25 Heroes of Iraq and Afghanistan In Their Own Words
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A quick Google :
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Foreign-Fiel.../dp/1906308071
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Foreign-Fiel.../dp/1906308071
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A quick GOOGLE search on the book title brings up this.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Foreign-Fiel.../dp/1906308071
I suppose it's a bit like any Parkinson interview, "Oh, by the way, Michael, I'm writing a book".
Bit of self advertising.
Maybe a good read all the same.
Holyflyer beat me to it.
A bit about the author here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006...sandpublishing
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Foreign-Fiel.../dp/1906308071
I suppose it's a bit like any Parkinson interview, "Oh, by the way, Michael, I'm writing a book".
Bit of self advertising.
Maybe a good read all the same.
Holyflyer beat me to it.
A bit about the author here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006...sandpublishing
Last edited by taxydual; 5th Sep 2008 at 19:50. Reason: Added the Grauniad link
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This is in no way meant as a knock on the good Major's actions but how come its usually the handling pilot/aircraft Captain that gets a DFC whereas everyone else in the crew often receives 'lesser' awards?
Aren't all crew members on an aircraft part of a team responsible for the safe and effective operation of the aircraft, especially SH aircraft where the eyes and actions of the rear crew are essential when operating in confined and hostile areas?
Aren't all crew members on an aircraft part of a team responsible for the safe and effective operation of the aircraft, especially SH aircraft where the eyes and actions of the rear crew are essential when operating in confined and hostile areas?
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THS
I suppose the old adage 'No stick, no vote' may come into it.
I know what you mean though, WW2 Fairey Battle, crew of 3 on suicide mission against some Belgian bridges. VC's for Pilot and Nav, Zilch for LAC Air Gunner. None of them made it back.
I suppose the old adage 'No stick, no vote' may come into it.
I know what you mean though, WW2 Fairey Battle, crew of 3 on suicide mission against some Belgian bridges. VC's for Pilot and Nav, Zilch for LAC Air Gunner. None of them made it back.
taxydual}
Absolutely, TD. I've had the privilege of speaking to a Battle rear gunner who did survive, somehow! His sole defence against ME109s-a pair of Lewis guns. As the barrels could not survive the rate of fire he and his colleagues felt obliged to utilise, the order came down the line to prolong the barrels' lives by reducing their return fire! Plus ca change! The scandal of which you speak, no VCs for LACs, still rankles strongly with him to this day.
None of them made it back.
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Isn't it about time someone from the RAF wrote their Iraq/Afghanistan book? I've read quite a few Marines/army/Army Air Corps accounts now. Some give great praise to the RAF Chinook crews (Apache Dawn,for example); some are pretty disparaging about the RAF (eg the one about Iraq by a Royal Marine pilot).
Having read all the medal citations/honours and awards etc in the likes of RAF News over the last couple of years, there has to be an important RAF story to tell.
Having read all the medal citations/honours and awards etc in the likes of RAF News over the last couple of years, there has to be an important RAF story to tell.
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Chug
30 odd years ago I was introduced to Sgt Thomas Gray's niece. I mentioned that I had just been posted to Leeming and the barrack block I lived in was Gray Block, named after her uncle. She totally stunned me when she produced from her handbag HIS ACTUAL VC.
AFAIR, it was on it's way to be presented to a museum.
Boy, was I stunned.
30 odd years ago I was introduced to Sgt Thomas Gray's niece. I mentioned that I had just been posted to Leeming and the barrack block I lived in was Gray Block, named after her uncle. She totally stunned me when she produced from her handbag HIS ACTUAL VC.
AFAIR, it was on it's way to be presented to a museum.
Boy, was I stunned.
Below the Glidepath - not correcting
but how come its usually the handling pilot/aircraft Captain that gets a DFC whereas everyone else in the crew often receives 'lesser' awards?
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Mark Daffy was sat beside me the whole time and got nothing
inditrees
It's amazing how fast "WE" turns to "HE" at the subsequent BOI.
AA
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Tourist,
As someone who has taken control from the then CinC STC, asked the then CDS to leave the flight deck and said NO to Mrs T: I can only say "I CONCUR".
PS All of the above accepted my decisions without question.
As someone who has taken control from the then CinC STC, asked the then CDS to leave the flight deck and said NO to Mrs T: I can only say "I CONCUR".
PS All of the above accepted my decisions without question.
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Sorry Monty, was not near a computer yesterday. I am Dan Collins, the author of the book (in my defence I did say that, and it went to the mods first to make sure they were OK with me putting the post up.) Previously just an interested lurker but obviously not trying to hide anything, do too much of a 'Parky'.
LOTA - you're right, there have been some very impressive RAF actions and I'm currently working on a second book which should contain some of those. There are two RAF personnel in this book - Sqn Ldr Sammy Sampson DSO and Fl Lt Matt Carter MC - but it is mostly soldiers and marines, probably reflecting the nature of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (there are just more of them involved).
The Helpful Stacker - Mark did heavily praise the door gunners and everyone else involved and I know he felt mildly embarrassed to have been selected from the crew.
thanks all for interest
Dan Collins
LOTA - you're right, there have been some very impressive RAF actions and I'm currently working on a second book which should contain some of those. There are two RAF personnel in this book - Sqn Ldr Sammy Sampson DSO and Fl Lt Matt Carter MC - but it is mostly soldiers and marines, probably reflecting the nature of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (there are just more of them involved).
The Helpful Stacker - Mark did heavily praise the door gunners and everyone else involved and I know he felt mildly embarrassed to have been selected from the crew.
thanks all for interest
Dan Collins
The individual actions of the crew are effectively combined to drive a successful outcome based on sound decision making by the Captain.
Don't forget the old joke:
MBE = My Bloody Efforts
OBE = Other Buggers' Efforts
CBE = Crew's Bloody Efforts
More seriously, I recall taking part in an extensive operation where the Boss thoroughly deserved a CBE but, because he already had an OBE (for some very sneaky surveillance operation), he received no award, but the second-in-command very properly on the Boss's recommendation received an OBE, and various others down to JNCO level received MBEs and BEMs.
Jack
Don't forget the old joke:
MBE = My Bloody Efforts
OBE = Other Buggers' Efforts
CBE = Crew's Bloody Efforts
More seriously, I recall taking part in an extensive operation where the Boss thoroughly deserved a CBE but, because he already had an OBE (for some very sneaky surveillance operation), he received no award, but the second-in-command very properly on the Boss's recommendation received an OBE, and various others down to JNCO level received MBEs and BEMs.
Jack
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Dan Collins
I do not know Dan Collins, so this cannot be taken as a blatant plug, but I do recommend Ppruners have a look at some of the other books he publishes. Particularly the way the police service is being torn apart by the same government that is running our forces into the ground.
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Dan
Thanks for your comment; I'm familiar with the gallantry of both Sammy Sampson and Matt Carter - fantastic stuff (the blokes who were with Matt also deserve some recognition and I hope this is reflected in the book!)
I will look out for it; blatant plug or not!
Thanks for your comment; I'm familiar with the gallantry of both Sammy Sampson and Matt Carter - fantastic stuff (the blokes who were with Matt also deserve some recognition and I hope this is reflected in the book!)
I will look out for it; blatant plug or not!