Post by Admin on Apr 4, 2005 3:10:38 GMT -5
SAS Reveal Narrow Escape from Death
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By IAN McPHEDRAN
TWO SAS soldiers were pinned down for 18 hours by enemy fire in a botched assault in which 30 Americans were wounded on day one of operation Anaconda in northern Afghanistan.
For the first time, the SAS has revealed how its soldiers survived the most intense fighting since the battlefields of Vietnam by using their bare hands to dig massive holes in the earth to protect themselves and the wounded.
"I was lying on my back in my hole looking up and the tracer fire was criss-crossing like the laser alarm systems you see in the bank vault in a movie," said a senior SAS officer.
Included in this exclusive account is how the US has awarded 30 Purple Hearts and four Bronze Stars from that day and yet, so far, no Australian has been decorated.
It comes as Defence Minister Robert Hill announced 150 SAS soldiers in Afghanistan would return home in August to be replaced by another group, some of who have already served one four-month term.
A 45-year-old Perth father of two, SAS Warrant Officer Clint P (we can't name him) said he knew he was in trouble soon after choppering in.
The time was 6.45am on Saturday March 2, first day of the assault to launch Operation Anaconda.
"We hadn't moved 100m from the choppers when we started taking fire," he told News Limited during an interview at SAS headquarters in Perth.
"There was no cover and 82 people were looking for some. We didn't understand what was out there."
WO P and SAS signaller Jock W believe if they had not been evacuated at midnight the entire force would have been wiped out the next day.
"I was lying in my hole watching a B52 fly over at 20,000ft with its bomb doors open and hearing the pilot say 'bombs gone'. I remember hoping he had got it right and I had more than 17 seconds to live," he said.
The Americans were aiming at al-Qaeda positions a few hundred metres away but he feared pilot error.
The strategy behind the failed operation was to block a large contingent of enemy fighters in the Shahi Kot valley by massing troops at either end.
But the enemy had predicted Anaconda and evacuated the caves above what was to be WO P's landing zone.
The operation stemmed from SAS patrols scouring the area around Objective Remington since January.
They finally got a break when they observed a large al-Qaeda force.
Remington contained what was thought to be an al-Qaeda force of between 100 and 250 fighters located in two villages in the valley.
The main effort was to be from the north by Northern Alliance forces supported by US and allied forces.
By the time the contingent left the helicopters the Afghan force at the other end of the valley had fled.
"Two hours after the event we heard they had packed their bongos and gone home," WO P said.
The enemy was dug in on the eastern ridge, but thanks to the angle no one was hit during the opening salvos.
The two SAS men hit the ground and began digging in.
As mortar rounds exploded WO P frantically used his fingers to dig a 45cm deep hole in the moist clay.
His SAS comrade Signaller W used his knife to dig in as their position came under intense heavy machine gun and small arms fire.
"I will always carry an entrenching tool in future," WO P said.
Things got worse when the SAS soldiers noticed a force of about 26 enemy fighters on the opposite or western ridgeline.
"We killed some of them but then started taking fire from that side as well," he said.
Air strikes were called in but Apache helicopters were forced back after taking some big hits. But B52 bombers hammered the al-Qaeda positions.
"Before the dust had settled they were out shooting at us again. They were even waving at us.
"It was a little disappointing."
A fight for life against a cruel enemy
In this rare series the SAS talk for the first time about how the Americans blew the opening day of Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan. IAN McPHEDRAN reports.
USING his bare hands Warrant Officer Clint P had dug a hole big enough for three men.
By the end of the afternoon the creek bed had been completely dug out to protect a large and growing number of wounded. They were packed in like sardines.
"If a mortar had landed in there it would have been carnage," he said.
The warrant officer said after the first hour it was apparent he was now involved in a pure fight for survival.
Technology was faulty - even the radios were failing.
Several US soldiers who had climbed the ridge to get under the enemy fighters were forced to use a runner to get messages to their commander on the valley floor.
Late in the afternoon the enemy let rip with a massive eruption of fire.
"It went on for 20 to 25 minutes."
At one point a US sergeant who was a veteran of the Black Hawk Down debacle in Somalia in 1993 joined Warrant Officer P in his hole.
"This is f...ed up," he told me.
"It is worse than Mogadishu."
Warrant Officer P believes if the company had stayed until next morning they would have been wiped out.
Nearing dusk, AC-130 Spectre gunships saved the day with a withering barrage of fire that subdued the enemy.
That allowed Black Hawk helicopters to come in under cover of darkness and extract the wounded at 8pm - and four hours later the rest of the company.
Neither Warrant Officer P or a colleague, both attached to the unit as liaison officers, received a scratch during the daylong battle.
Warrant Officer P spent his day's allowance on Lotto tickets.
He didn't win and reckons the allowance nowhere near compensated for that day's work.
"When nutss are trumps your training takes over," he said.
Operation Anaconda was supposed to take two days - it went on for 12.
Six hours after this battle a US Chinook helicopter was shot down and Australian troops helped save 36 US soldiers.
The US force was made up of a lot of 18 and 19-year-olds, all eager but inexperienced.
Planning was thorough, but the grim experience of the US company and its SAS liaison staff showed intelligence was fundamentally flawed.
A couple of hours before Warrant Officer P and his 81 comrades were dropped at the southern end of the valley to act as a blocking force they were told enemy numbers might be higher than expected.
"The general said 'you will have a busy time'," Warrant Officer P revealed.
Enemy numbers jumped from 100 to 500, but turned out to be many, many more.
Some estimates put the true figure at 1000 hardened al-Qaeda fighters dug in on the high ridges waiting for their prey.
Warrant Officer P learned later that Afghan and Russian forces had landed a large force in a similar spot nearby during the Afghan War in the 1980s and had been wiped out. A 1992 book called The Bear Trap details the operation and the landing zone.
Either US intelligence hadn't read the book or they didn't believe al-Qaeda fighters would use the same tactics as the mujahideen had used to devastate the Russians.
In their account, Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf and Major Mark Adkin provide a chillingly familiar account.
On that mission 10 helicopters were supposed to deposit a battalion of troops in a valley to attack enemy positions.
"They [allied forces] miscalculated badly in selecting a landing zone on a flat, open plateau ... within range of high ground held by mujahideen. Three helicopters crashed while the others disgorged their troops under intense crossfire from both mujahideen positions.
"In the open ground the commandos were badly cut up and demoralised. By nightfall there was nothing left of this battalion, all were either killed or captured."
While intelligence was found wanting so was the US aerial bombing effort.
For some reason US aircraft unloaded just 10 per cent of the firepower they were supposed to drop on enemy positions before the operation began.
Sergeant Matthew Boulliaut received the Distinguished Service Cross for his role.
So far neither of the two SAS men have been given a medal.
"I would have liked a couple more Aussies with me," Warrant Officer P said.
To top off a tough day at the office his first an earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale interrupted his sleep back at base.
"The whole hangar was shaking, I thought it was going to fall in on me."
Force profile:
- The Special Air Service Regiment based at Campbell Barracks, Swanbourne near Perth, was formed in 1957.
- It has 500 members and a motto of "Who Dares Wins".
- The regiment operates three sabre squadrons, two war fighting and one counter terrorism.
- Its aim is provide commanders with small, highly specialised teams achieving disproportionate results.
- 42 SAS soldiers have been killed on duty: 32 in training including 15 in the 1996 Townsville Blackhawk tragedy and 10 on operations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By IAN McPHEDRAN
TWO SAS soldiers were pinned down for 18 hours by enemy fire in a botched assault in which 30 Americans were wounded on day one of operation Anaconda in northern Afghanistan.
For the first time, the SAS has revealed how its soldiers survived the most intense fighting since the battlefields of Vietnam by using their bare hands to dig massive holes in the earth to protect themselves and the wounded.
"I was lying on my back in my hole looking up and the tracer fire was criss-crossing like the laser alarm systems you see in the bank vault in a movie," said a senior SAS officer.
Included in this exclusive account is how the US has awarded 30 Purple Hearts and four Bronze Stars from that day and yet, so far, no Australian has been decorated.
It comes as Defence Minister Robert Hill announced 150 SAS soldiers in Afghanistan would return home in August to be replaced by another group, some of who have already served one four-month term.
A 45-year-old Perth father of two, SAS Warrant Officer Clint P (we can't name him) said he knew he was in trouble soon after choppering in.
The time was 6.45am on Saturday March 2, first day of the assault to launch Operation Anaconda.
"We hadn't moved 100m from the choppers when we started taking fire," he told News Limited during an interview at SAS headquarters in Perth.
"There was no cover and 82 people were looking for some. We didn't understand what was out there."
WO P and SAS signaller Jock W believe if they had not been evacuated at midnight the entire force would have been wiped out the next day.
"I was lying in my hole watching a B52 fly over at 20,000ft with its bomb doors open and hearing the pilot say 'bombs gone'. I remember hoping he had got it right and I had more than 17 seconds to live," he said.
The Americans were aiming at al-Qaeda positions a few hundred metres away but he feared pilot error.
The strategy behind the failed operation was to block a large contingent of enemy fighters in the Shahi Kot valley by massing troops at either end.
But the enemy had predicted Anaconda and evacuated the caves above what was to be WO P's landing zone.
The operation stemmed from SAS patrols scouring the area around Objective Remington since January.
They finally got a break when they observed a large al-Qaeda force.
Remington contained what was thought to be an al-Qaeda force of between 100 and 250 fighters located in two villages in the valley.
The main effort was to be from the north by Northern Alliance forces supported by US and allied forces.
By the time the contingent left the helicopters the Afghan force at the other end of the valley had fled.
"Two hours after the event we heard they had packed their bongos and gone home," WO P said.
The enemy was dug in on the eastern ridge, but thanks to the angle no one was hit during the opening salvos.
The two SAS men hit the ground and began digging in.
As mortar rounds exploded WO P frantically used his fingers to dig a 45cm deep hole in the moist clay.
His SAS comrade Signaller W used his knife to dig in as their position came under intense heavy machine gun and small arms fire.
"I will always carry an entrenching tool in future," WO P said.
Things got worse when the SAS soldiers noticed a force of about 26 enemy fighters on the opposite or western ridgeline.
"We killed some of them but then started taking fire from that side as well," he said.
Air strikes were called in but Apache helicopters were forced back after taking some big hits. But B52 bombers hammered the al-Qaeda positions.
"Before the dust had settled they were out shooting at us again. They were even waving at us.
"It was a little disappointing."
A fight for life against a cruel enemy
In this rare series the SAS talk for the first time about how the Americans blew the opening day of Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan. IAN McPHEDRAN reports.
USING his bare hands Warrant Officer Clint P had dug a hole big enough for three men.
By the end of the afternoon the creek bed had been completely dug out to protect a large and growing number of wounded. They were packed in like sardines.
"If a mortar had landed in there it would have been carnage," he said.
The warrant officer said after the first hour it was apparent he was now involved in a pure fight for survival.
Technology was faulty - even the radios were failing.
Several US soldiers who had climbed the ridge to get under the enemy fighters were forced to use a runner to get messages to their commander on the valley floor.
Late in the afternoon the enemy let rip with a massive eruption of fire.
"It went on for 20 to 25 minutes."
At one point a US sergeant who was a veteran of the Black Hawk Down debacle in Somalia in 1993 joined Warrant Officer P in his hole.
"This is f...ed up," he told me.
"It is worse than Mogadishu."
Warrant Officer P believes if the company had stayed until next morning they would have been wiped out.
Nearing dusk, AC-130 Spectre gunships saved the day with a withering barrage of fire that subdued the enemy.
That allowed Black Hawk helicopters to come in under cover of darkness and extract the wounded at 8pm - and four hours later the rest of the company.
Neither Warrant Officer P or a colleague, both attached to the unit as liaison officers, received a scratch during the daylong battle.
Warrant Officer P spent his day's allowance on Lotto tickets.
He didn't win and reckons the allowance nowhere near compensated for that day's work.
"When nutss are trumps your training takes over," he said.
Operation Anaconda was supposed to take two days - it went on for 12.
Six hours after this battle a US Chinook helicopter was shot down and Australian troops helped save 36 US soldiers.
The US force was made up of a lot of 18 and 19-year-olds, all eager but inexperienced.
Planning was thorough, but the grim experience of the US company and its SAS liaison staff showed intelligence was fundamentally flawed.
A couple of hours before Warrant Officer P and his 81 comrades were dropped at the southern end of the valley to act as a blocking force they were told enemy numbers might be higher than expected.
"The general said 'you will have a busy time'," Warrant Officer P revealed.
Enemy numbers jumped from 100 to 500, but turned out to be many, many more.
Some estimates put the true figure at 1000 hardened al-Qaeda fighters dug in on the high ridges waiting for their prey.
Warrant Officer P learned later that Afghan and Russian forces had landed a large force in a similar spot nearby during the Afghan War in the 1980s and had been wiped out. A 1992 book called The Bear Trap details the operation and the landing zone.
Either US intelligence hadn't read the book or they didn't believe al-Qaeda fighters would use the same tactics as the mujahideen had used to devastate the Russians.
In their account, Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf and Major Mark Adkin provide a chillingly familiar account.
On that mission 10 helicopters were supposed to deposit a battalion of troops in a valley to attack enemy positions.
"They [allied forces] miscalculated badly in selecting a landing zone on a flat, open plateau ... within range of high ground held by mujahideen. Three helicopters crashed while the others disgorged their troops under intense crossfire from both mujahideen positions.
"In the open ground the commandos were badly cut up and demoralised. By nightfall there was nothing left of this battalion, all were either killed or captured."
While intelligence was found wanting so was the US aerial bombing effort.
For some reason US aircraft unloaded just 10 per cent of the firepower they were supposed to drop on enemy positions before the operation began.
Sergeant Matthew Boulliaut received the Distinguished Service Cross for his role.
So far neither of the two SAS men have been given a medal.
"I would have liked a couple more Aussies with me," Warrant Officer P said.
To top off a tough day at the office his first an earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale interrupted his sleep back at base.
"The whole hangar was shaking, I thought it was going to fall in on me."
Force profile:
- The Special Air Service Regiment based at Campbell Barracks, Swanbourne near Perth, was formed in 1957.
- It has 500 members and a motto of "Who Dares Wins".
- The regiment operates three sabre squadrons, two war fighting and one counter terrorism.
- Its aim is provide commanders with small, highly specialised teams achieving disproportionate results.
- 42 SAS soldiers have been killed on duty: 32 in training including 15 in the 1996 Townsville Blackhawk tragedy and 10 on operations.