Eye of the Storm (57 page)

In my opinion, his survival story was remarkable enough to warrant a book in its own right. It saddens me, however, that he – or his publishers or other advisers – may have felt it necessary to add material to underline the heroic nature of his escape. It is clear from a comparison of the videoed debriefing with the text of the book that many of the embellishments in the latter are, at best, exaggerations, and the fact that ITV believed it enough to commission and screen a film version is, to my mind, an added insult to the men who died on that mission.

‘McNab’, the commander of Bravo Two Zero, endured weeks of privation and torture at Iraqi hands and, with his three fellow captives from the patrol, bore up under it as only an SAS soldier could. As has been said, we had learned while still in the Gulf that the surviving members of Bravo Two Zero had either been captured or, in ‘Ryan’s’ case, had walked to safety. When the war ended the four captives were handed over to the Red Cross and eventually returned to Hereford where, like everyone else who had gone into action, they all underwent debriefing. In front of the Regiment, each gave his personal account of what had happened in the desert and, later, in a succession of Iraqi gaols. Having been present at the official debriefings of the five survivors of the patrol, and having several times seen the videos made at the time, I was somewhat taken aback by many of ‘McNab’s’ anecdotes as he recounted them in
Bravo Two Zero
. What I found most surprising was that, in the book, he made no mention at all of the separate meetings he and his men had with the CO and myself, meetings during which we tried our best to persuade him to take a vehicle or, failing that, to cut down on the amount of kit he and the other seven members of the patrol would be carrying. Considering what were, I’m convinced, the results of not following our advice, I find it odd – I will put it no higher than that – that he didn’t feel the meetings worth mentioning. After all, the failure of that mission ultimately cost the lives of three men, and led to four others being captured and tortured. That’s a casualty rate of nearly 90 per cent. Moreover, the sole member of the patrol to get away was in no shape, after his epic walk, to take any further part in the campaign.

During the debriefings at Stirling Lines, there was mention of the patrol being involved in several firefight skirmishes with Iraqi infantry, and of returning fire as they fought their way out. There was no suggestion at the time, however, that they had accounted for hordes of the enemy. But in
Bravo Two Zero
, ‘McNab’ writes about having been involved in extremely heavy and dramatic contacts with Iraqi armoured vehicles and substantial contingents of infantry, actions far larger and more colourful than anything mentioned in the Hereford debrief.

He also claims that intelligence sources later established that his patrol had killed or wounded 250 Iraqis in the few days before their capture or death, a figure taken up and repeated as fact in at least one book about the Regiment published subsequently. I find this difficult to believe, however, as the claim runs counter to the largely proven military theory that in most circumstances it takes a battalion of 500 men to take out a company of 100 enemy. Normally, therefore, it would require 1,250 men to take out 250 enemy – yet ‘McNab’s’ ‘intelligence sources’ claim his patrol accounted for that number with just 8. In fact, Bravo Two Zero’s kill rate goes against all the teachings of the Royal College of Defence Studies and other military experts. Coupled with the fact that no mention was made at the official debriefing of this number of Iraqi troops being accounted for, I consider it unlikely that 250 of the enemy were killed and wounded by Bravo Two Zero.

What was much more serious, to my mind, was Bravo Two Zero’s disregard of ‘McNab’s’ own written orders, filed with Operations before the patrol’s departure for Iraq. These orders are always written, and are presented to the ops officer prior to deployment to outline a commander’s intentions during various eventualities in the field. ‘McNab’ wrote very clearly that in the event of serious compromise, and of his patrol having to resort to an escape attempt, they would head south towards Saudi Arabia.

To their south were friendly forces in the form of the two half D Squadron and two half A Squadron patrols – a total of about a hundred and thirty men and more than thirty vehicles, carrying formidable firepower and equipped with powerful communications. Yet instead of complying with his own written orders, ‘McNab’ and his men headed towards the north-west and Syria, even though they knew that a major obstacle lay in their path – the River Euphrates. It does not take an Einstein to work out that more people, settlements, industry, farms, roads and military installations will be found along a major river. To head for one in hostile territory is a recipe for disaster.

Had it only been their own lives that they were risking it would not have been so bad. But they were indirectly putting at risk the lives of all those who might be involved in attempts to rescue the missing patrol. Such missions were indeed organized by the CO once it was clear that Bravo Two Zero was in trouble, and involved both our own and American personnel. On two consecutive nights RAF and US helicopters searched for many hours in the desert area where Bravo Two Zero had been dropped and to the south – along their designated escape route. They were not to know that the reason they could find no trace of the patrol was because its members were by then miles away to the north-west.

In the end three of ‘McNab’s’ patrol never made it back, two of its members dying of exposure and one being killed in action. He named all three of them in
Bravo Two Zero
, as did ‘Ryan’ in
The One That Got Away
, even though, true to its tradition of silence, the Regiment had not released the names other than to the families. I have to say that I find it insensitive, to say the very least, that both men should hide behind aliases to write their stories, but have the poor taste to identify their dead colleagues by their real names while almost everyone else in their narratives has a pseudonym.

Both Serious (‘Cameron Spence’) and Yorky (‘Peter “Yorky’‘ Crossland’) also used aliases to write their own far-fetched versions of events on patrol with Alpha One Zero during the Gulf campaign, and both also revealed the real names of the dead SAS men. Since none of them are still serving, what possible good reason could these four men have for concealing their true identities?

Unlike the books by ‘McNab’ and ‘Ryan’, Serious ‘Spence’s’
Sabre Squadron
(1997) and Yorky’s
Victor Two
(1996) are both about the Alpha One Zero patrol that I was sent into Iraq to take over. Not unnaturally, I feature in both books, generally in a pretty unflattering light. When I arrived to take command of the patrol I knew, of course, that some of its members were going to resent deeply my way of doing things. But I was equally certain that no one was going to come out and say so. Yet in both books – which are, it must be said, among the more fanciful personal memoirs of service with the SAS in the Gulf War – the authors describe how they would approach me for what seem to have been cosy little chats, often offering advice or telling me where I was going wrong. There are detailed accounts of the arguments they had with me and even mention of almost coming to blows when I failed to act out their wonderful plans. I may as well state here, categorically, that these accounts are as fictional as their authors’ aliases – besides, it is a simple fact of military life that no one argues with the RSM. Neither book mentions me by my real name, but by pseudonyms that are, if anything, even more ridiculous than those the authors have given themselves.

Well, I can live with that, but the air of self-justification that hangs over both books also conceals the fact that much of what they contain is – to put it politely – extremely inaccurate. Memory can and does play tricks, of course, and never more so than among men who have been in stressful and often dangerous situations; even so, Yorky and Serious can’t
both
have been the first Allied soldiers to have fired a shot in anger in the land war, as both claim in wildly differing accounts of the ambush of the Gaz and the Iraqi officers in it. In addition, the Iraqis were shot before they reached the Land Rovers under their cam nets, although
Sabre Squadron
, in particular, has one of the enemy officers actually peering under the net before being blown away by the author himself.

Various other miraculous things happened on that patrol, or so Serious would have his readers believe. Among much else, he claims to have played a major role himself in the blowing of the fibre-optic cables. He obviously didn’t feel that the fact that, at the time, he was more than 50 kilometres away, searching for a landing ground with Pat, should be allowed to interfere with his narrative. I have to say, too, that both Serious and Yorky’s accounts of our patrol become even more outrageous as their stories develop, but to go into every incorrect fact, every piece of make-believe or every exercise in wishful thinking would fill an entire chapter.

I will add a footnote, however, to our attack on the Victor Two communications station by mentioning the highly colourful versions presented by Serious and Yorky. The former, alias ‘Cameron Spence’, writes that we knew
before
the attack that the bunker and fences were bomb damaged; that the situation went noisy
before
the demolition team reached the target; that four charges were laid to bring down the mast (in fact, it was three); and that he was personally involved in firefights against hundreds of Iraqis.

Yorky claims that it was he who started the firefight by firing the first rounds which killed the truck driver, who was actually taken out by Major Peter – as Pat’s driver, Yorky was in fact with the fire-support group and nowhere near the trucks (although, in a neat twist, his book describes how annoyed he felt when Peter ‘claimed’ the first kill; mind you, ‘Spence’ also has Peter stepping to the rear of the wagon and emptying a whole magazine into the back. This didn’t happen, either). He too claims to have been involved in a hectic firefight with hordes of Iraqis, and writes of watching the mast fall just seconds after the explosions, rather than several hours later. As to his behaviour during the CTR just before our attack on Victor Two, he justifies this by claiming that we were in the midst of large numbers of the enemy, and that he was acting properly while I was behaving like an irresponsible idiot bent on getting everyone killed.

I remain mystified as to why both authors felt they needed to embellish their stories, when the actual events were every bit as dramatic. I also confess to being irritated by the portrayals of me as a kind of dangerous fool, heedless of the advice of (apparently) much better soldiers around me, although I can’t say it bothers me too much, and I am content to let readers decide for themselves. What is most saddening, however, is that so many SAS books, all written under pseudonyms, have been published which contain deliberate lies, distortions and fantasies. Saddest of all, perhaps, is the fact that in reality some of these would-be supermen were far from actually being the heroes they proclaim themselves to have been in their
Boy’s Own
-style autobiographies.

If there is to be any purpose to history, it has to be written as accurately as people can recall it – otherwise its lessons, good or bad, will be lost. It is for this reason that the Regiment held the debriefings of those of its members who had fought in the Gulf, to get at the truth and thereby learn what had gone right, and what wrong. To obscure that truth by trying to exact revenge for real or imagined slights, or by awarding oneself a greater and more heroic part in events, is not only to mislead – and thus defraud – the readership, it is to debase history itself. And I can see no reason, even for the sake of writing a bestseller, why the proud history of the Special Air Service Regiment should be dragged down to the level of cheap war fiction.

To me, as to so many others who served in it, the SAS remains the finest fighting regiment in the world. To have been accepted into it was the proudest moment of my life, and to have served in it is an honour and a privilege accorded to very, very few. I know that I have been enormously fortunate, as I also know that, whatever the actions of a handful, I shall never lose my respect for the men of the sand-coloured beret.

Glossary

110
   custom-built long-wheelbase (100 inch/279cm) 4x4 Land Rover deployed on active service by SAS mobile patrols. Sometimes also known as ‘pinkies’, short for ‘Pink Panthers’, a name given to the Regiment’s Land Rovers when they were painted in a pink desert camouflage

2IC
   second-in-command

A-10
   designed and built in the USA, the Fairchild A/OA-A10A twin-jet, single-seat close-support aircraft, officially designated the Thunderbolt II, more than proved itself in the ground-attack role during the Gulf campaign, destroying literally hundreds of Iraqi tanks as well as other targets. Formidably armed and armoured, its odd looks have ensured that it is more usually known by the nickname ‘Warthog’. USAF A-10s flew numerous missions during the Gulf campaign in support of SAS patrols in Iraq, or acting on information provided by those patrols