Lifeline in Helmand Extracts

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LIFELINE IN HELMAND RAF Battlefield Mobility in Afghanistan

by

Roger Annett

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First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Pen and Sword Aviation An imprint of Pen and Sword Books Ltd 47 Church Street Barnsley South Yorkshire S70 2AS Copyright © Roger Annett 2010 ISBN 978 1 8884 274 8 The right of Roger Annett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

The views and opinions expressed in this book are those of the author and contributors alone, and should not be taken to represent those of HMG, MoD, the RAF or any government agency.

Typeset by David L Hemingway Printed and bound by CPI UK Pen and Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Pen and Sword Aviation, Pen and Sword Maritime, Pen and Sword Military, Wharncliffe Local History, Pen and Sword Select, Pen and Sword Military Classics and Leo Cooper.

For a complete list of Pen and Sword titles please contact PEN AND SWORD BOOKS LIMITED 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England E-mail: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

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Contents

Author’s Note ........................................................................................................7 Foreword ................................................................................................................9 Glossary of Acronyms ........................................................................................11 Chapter 1

Dress Rehearsals..........................................................................15

Chapter 2

Towards the Airbridge ..............................................................41

Chapter 3

Afghanistan, Theatre of Conflict ..............................................58

Chapter 4

Kandahar Base ............................................................................77

Chapter 5

Hercules into Action ................................................................109

Chapter 6

Forward to Camp Bastion ........................................................121

Chapter 7

Operation Diesel........................................................................137

Chapter 8

Air Resupply ..............................................................................150

Chapter 9

Joint Operations ........................................................................162

Chapter 10

Links with Home Base..............................................................188

Chapter 11

Where is All This Getting Us? ................................................205

Chapter 12

Getting On With the Job ..........................................................217

Chapter 13

Reliefs in Place ..........................................................................237

Chapter 14

On and On … and On ..............................................................261

Index ....................................................................................................................279

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Author’s Note

This book is about people at war, with the focus on Royal Air Force men and women of all ranks and trades, operating alongside partner Services from many nations in combat air-supply in Afghanistan.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the conflict, the military in this narrative have taken an oath of allegiance to the Crown – to do their duty, no matter what. That means long periods away from home base and loved ones, in an alien environment and among a populace where the welcome is uncertain, and where the threat of hostile fire is ever-present. And they go back time and time again.

The Americans and the British entered this theatre in 2001 and many of the air and ground crews, medics and support personnel in this story have returned there every year since. That takes a special commitment, and courage. Of course, the same or greater demands are made on the ground troops posted to this vicious and frightening battle, including those from the RAF Regiment, the Army and the Royal Marines who have contributed to this narrative. Many of them are airmen too, serving either in the supplydropping transports, or flying in vulnerable helicopters on air-support operations.

I am hugely indebted to the serving men and women who have shared their experiences with me for this book. My special thanks go to ‘the Boss’ of 27 Squadron ‘C’ Flight, and the Media and Communications Officers of RAF Odiham and Lyneham, Flight Lieutenants Leigh Shaughnessy and Louise Daly – all three exceptionally helpful in getting the project started and completed. Thanks are also due to their chiefs at Air Command and the Ministry of Defence for their assistance in steering the book through the hoops of contractual and other processes. One of those was Group Captain Andy Turner, who not only contributed the Foreword, but also, along with the Boss, my son and my painstaking wife, kindly took the time to read and edit the manuscript in draft.

Roger Annett

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Foreword

Roger Annett’s Lifeline in Helmand is a vivid account of one of the most challenging operations that has been undertaken by the UK in the contemporary past. Set in one of the most beautiful and beguiling parts of the world, among an ancient and honourable people and pitched against an illusive, fleeting and tenacious enemy who is not particularly disposed to respect either the Geneva Convention or the Law of Armed Conflict, the trade in blood and treasure is tangible, but the purpose is deeply honourable.

Operation Herrick, the UK Government’s name for military operations in Afghanistan, blends the very best of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, the British Army and the Royal Air Force into a tight-knit force under the command of NATO. The endeavours of the UK Armed Forces are more often than not audacious, but always highly courageous, where the enemy is constantly battered, bruised and always kept on the back foot. While the kinetic tit-for-tat has the international media’s interest, our focus is not the enemy but the population for whom peace, stability and self-determination, which have so rarely been tasted, are deeply sought.

In this dusty mêlée, the unparalleled bravery and energy of the men of 42 Commando Royal Marines stands out a mile. The marching motto that ‘there is nothing that a small band of determined men cannot achieve’ rubs off and acts as a talisman and a sort of moral compass for the RAF Chinook and Hercules Forces deployed in Afghanistan. It drives our tenacity to get essential food, water, ammunition and fuel into the remote and sometimes isolated forward bases, it is a critical impetus when on immediate-response standby to extract casualties, it propels the planning of deliberate operations at the vanguard of Task Force Helmand’s operational design and it drives

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the RAF machine at Odiham and Lyneham to maximize Chinook and Hercules effort in the field.

In Lifeline in Helmand Roger Annett has captured all of this, in a style that shines a light on a very great deal of detail of daily life. The narrative tracks a small group of Chinook crews, who will ultimately adopt the prestigious mantle of 1310 Flight on arrival in ‘the Stan’, from the early part of 2009, and follows them through their tour of duty. It starts as they transition through their pre-deployment training in Scotland, follows them along the Airbridge into ‘theatre’ and reflects on their trials and tribulations throughout their tour. It sets out their feelings and thoughts, the bravery and self-doubt, and is a window on their raw ability to pilot and crew the mighty ‘Wokka’ around the dusty high-altitude deserts of Southern Afghanistan. It is an honest account of life on the front line, drawing the reader into the cockpit and across the deserts of Helmand, but above all it is an important account of the bravery and courage of the crews of the UK Chinook Force.

Group Captain A.M. Turner OBE MSc BA MRAeS RAF Officer Commanding RAF Odiham UK Chinook Force Commander

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CHAPTER 1

Dress Rehearsals

Autumn/winter 2008/9 Chinooks in the snow Soon after a December dawn, a team of mechanics swarms over a trio of RAF Chinook helicopters standing massively in line astern on the Lossiemouth dispersal. The upwind aircraft has its twin rotors roped down against the freshening breeze off the Moray Firth, but the other two are being made ready for flight. Engine-covers are lifted off, electronics checked for gremlins and hydraulics tested for leaks. These heavy-lift machines, painted drab green and designed for the battlefield, will soon be ready for action in the Scottish snow.

In an Operations Room fifty yards across the grass from the tarmac, there’s an air of expectancy – a score or more aircrew in olive-green flying-suits are making final preparations for their morning missions. Accompanied by ground-crew, they ferried the three Boeing support helicopters up from their Odiham base at the weekend, two days ago – four bum-numbing hours from Hampshire at 6,000 feet. These are the young men and women of ‘C’ Flight, 27 Squadron RAF. In a couple of months, the flight will be thousands of miles away in Central Asia, on yet another ten-week deployment in southern Afghanistan, operating, along with some 8,000 other British servicemen and women, in the NATO-led force tasked with establishing security in Helmand – a province getting on for the size of Scotland, and in its northern parts even more mountainous. For many of those in the Ops Room, this will be their first trip – others will have been deployed up to five times already. ‘C’ Flight was last there from March to May, sweating on the plains in 35 degrees

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LiFeLine in HeLmAnd

Celsius – this time, it will start off icily cold, with temperatures in the mountains dropping to as much as 25 degrees below. That’s why, as part of their Pre-Deployment Training (PDT), they’re up here for five freezing days in the Scottish Highlands.

‘C’ Flight has the use of a large, square, briefing table, a line of cupboards, aircrew lockers, a sofa and chairs, and a laptop computer installation.

Shelving runs along one wall, laden with the accumulated clutter of a flight office: aircraft operating manuals, lunch-bags and domed olive-green helmets next to a hot-water urn for tea, coffee and packet soup. The chat is about yesterday’s airborne exploits, football results, and the after-effects of an epic curry dinner in Elgin.

Pinned to a cupboard door alongside an array of maps is a poster depicting a Chinook barrelling along a mountain valley at low level. The caption commends the joys of helicopter ‘BLADE SLAP – because jet noise is boring’.

There’s always some rivalry between rotary crews and ‘fighter boys’, and ‘Lossie’, home to four squadrons of ground-attack Tornadoes, is the largest and busiest fast-jet base in the RAF. Two crews – each with two pilots up front and two crewmen in the rear cabin – finish their pre-flight briefing before gathering up maps and helmets and clattering through the door to the airfield. They’re off on the early mission, a two-ship formation patrol up to Cape Wrath, 100 miles to the north-west on the farthest tip of Scotland. Alongside their operational tasks they’ve been asked to look out for the National Park Warden’s collie that’s gone walkabout. As part of their route Crew-room poster - RAF Lossiemouth (Crown Copyright 2010) lies over the sea, they’ve struggled into green rubber survival suits – trudging in heavy-duty flying-boots out to their machines, they look not unlike deep-sea divers.

‘C’ Flight Commander, ‘the Boss’, a squadron leader with four Afghan detachments already under his belt, gathers another pair of crews around the table and starts the briefing for the second mission of the morning: In line with what we’ll be doing in Helmand, it’s to be a simulated Deliberate Ops sortie, in support of an overt show of force by our

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dRess ReHeARsALs

ground troops. It’s designed to let the hostiles know what the British Task Force can rustle up when it wants to. (‘Simulated’ conditions and procedures are real, but without actual participants and equipment other than the crews and their Chinooks.) He reads from a sheet of A4 lifted from the printer: We’ve been allocated Air Mission Request 10/01. It calls for a highreadiness pair of Chinooks to carry out practice supply deliveries, reconnaissance, and casevacs in the front line. We’ll be operating in the Cairngorms Search and Rescue Box – the SARBOX. He indicates the map on the wall: The box is twenty miles square and gives us plenty of scope to fly the Cabs at low level above the snowline. Just right for the Helmand mountains.

This sortie’s designed to be an exercise in comms between the two crews in the pair as well as between the pilots in front and crewmen in the back – and also with Ops Control. They’ll throw emergency tasks at us mid-mission. Of course it’ll be me making the calls, using the FM to simulate the secure radio. But remember, these calls and tasks may well be mocked-up today, but in a couple of months they’ll be for real. [‘Cabs’ – Chinook crews spend a lot of their time driving the Army around.]

The Boss is to fly as Number Two in the formation – it will be led by a flight lieutenant who, because of his chiselled features and powerful build, is known to all as ‘German’. Many of the Chinook aircrew sport nicknames on their flying-suits – it’s to relax the formality and, with it, the tension.

German takes over the briefing, reading from the Tasking Sheet, which out in Helmand would be issued jointly with the Army: For the purposes of the exercise, simulated factors will be as follows.

Friendly forces are positioned in the north-west of the SARBOX. We’ll get support from the Army Apaches today – they’ll give us a shout of ‘Madras’ if a landing-site is hot, and ‘Korma’ if it’s safe to go in. Any incoming groundfire is to be reported to Playmate on UHF – and a full contact report on secure radio to the simulated operational base in Helmand. For real, when breaking away, make every effort to keep Playmate in sight, and avoid going blind. And if either of us gets lost, the RV point is Glenmore Lodge estate.

[Apache – Army Air Corps (AAC) AH64 attack helicopter.]

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Chinook crew – kitted out and ready to go (Photograph by POA (Phot) Tony Leather, RN © Crown Copyright/MoD, image from www.photos.mod.uk)

[‘Playmate’ – Other aircraft in the formation.]

He then reads from a sheet of local met reports, issued by the Tain weather centre: Surface wind 280 degrees at 10 knots gusting 15 to 25, and 30 at higher levels. Within 10 kilometres of the airfield, broken cloud from 2,000 to 18,000 feet – later in the day, showers with the chance of thunderstorms and cumulonimbus. Outside those, visibility should be good – but icing will be a distinct possibility within cloud.

That gets everyone’s attention – icing in cloud is a real hazard for helicopters.

The trick is basically to get out of it as soon as possible. Hot engine oil pumped around the air intake, together with windscreen heating, gives the Chinook some protection, but ice on the rotor blades dramatically reduces lift, and the only sure way out of it is to descend – not usually an option in mountains: Remember, safety height in the SARBOX is 6,500 feet. The best direction for lower ground is to the east and the north.

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