Sniper Elite (19 page)

It released instantly as I pulled on the lanyard, but the aircraft was sinking so fast that I hit the roof on the inside. I could see the opening of the door, as the light was still coming through. As I reached towards the door I grabbed hold of the roping anchor point and pulled myself out. I was now about 20 metres deep and could see the bottom of the ship. I was in serious trouble. I instinctively reached down and pulled the toggle on my life vest to inflate it from a CO
₂
canister, but it just hissed for what seemed like ages. It didn't inflate because the gas had been overly compressed due to the water pressure at that depth. Initially I thought that I'd be lucky to make it to the surface, but I wasn't going to die like that. I had too much to live for.

I believe at this point your life is supposed to flash past your eyes. I did get a flash image of George and the girls. Maybe this was my subconscious telling me to get a move on. I kicked and clawed my way towards the surface. My body was making involuntary muscle movements trying to breathe and I was semiconsciously trying to stop myself. I knew if I was to take on any more water it'd be all over. My vest started to inflate around the 5-metre mark and I came up touching the starboard side of the ship.

On the surface I initially had extreme difficulty in breathing and blood was starting to reach my eyes from a cut on my eyebrow. The wind and the current didn't help either and was pushing me into the side of the ship causing seawater to splash back into my face. The ‘wateries' (divers) from 1 Squadron, had actually just exited the water after conducting a diving exercise. So we were probably lucky in that regard as most managed to get back into the water to help the survivors who were struggling with the current. It was also lucky the squadron sergeant-major (SSM) was skippering a safety boat for the divers and was also still in the water. One of our lads who was an ex-clearance diver, CW, came swimming over to help me. Still struggling for breath I said, ‘Mate, get me on that fuckin' boat!' He said, ‘It's okay mate, you're in shock.' I replied, ‘Fuck off mate, I'm not in shock. I can't breathe. Now get me on board that fuckin' boat!' He replied, ‘Okay let's have a look at you first.' He was genuinely concerned; I'd gashed my eye and the skin had been taken off much of my face. I thought I might have damaged my chest due the difficulty I had in breathing, but I'd also taken on a large amount of water. The life vest, which had finally inflated, was on top of my chest and was constricting my airways.

I was hurting all over but I was relieved to be alive so pain took a backseat. CW asked, ‘Let's have a look at your chest.' I told him, ‘Mate don't worry about it; just get me into that boat.' So he dragged me over to the boat and Cal and the SSM pulled me aboard.

Bingers and Josh (Trooper Joshua Porter) didn't make it, but eight of us did, with various injuries. I didn't blame Bingers for the accident–not then and not later. The board of inquiry said Bingers got his helmet snagged on a plastic antenna outside the door. He drowned. When Bingers came to the surface. I heard, ‘Oh shit, there's one.' One of the lads who was in the water swam over and started CPR until we got him on board our boat; then the corps medic took over. I remember noticing Bingers' stomach was quite distended, full of water; basically he'd passed away long before that. All the survivors had been picked up and there were people looking around for Josh.

We strive to be the best and Bingers was no outsider to this; he was always looking to enhance his ability to provide us with a capability that was second to none, and sometimes to enhance capability you need to push the boundaries of risk otherwise you don't progress. But unfortunately that day something went wrong, and two good soldiers died. It could have been a lot worse.

Once I had climbed the rope ladder on the side of the ship they led me to the galley. On the way I passed several matelots (naval personnel) who were sitting cradling their knees with their heads bowed and crying. I couldn't understand why they were so upset. A navy nurse tried to dress the cuts on my face. She was shaking so badly I told her not to worry about it; I would try to control the bleeding myself. I had a few cups of coffee and a yarn to the boys from the other chopper about what had happened and also general chit chat; then they took me to the sick bay. The boys on the Blackhawk behind 221 had originally thought that their aircraft was in trouble, because when ours spudded in it set off all the warning alarms in the others. They went into a mad panic for a few seconds until they saw our aircraft disappear into the Pacific Ocean.

At our debriefing, one of the first things the CO said was, ‘Were the life jackets sufficient?' We said, ‘No!' Had we been wearing our body armour we would've lost more blokes. One of the water operators back at Campbell Barracks tested it later–he put body armour on then jumped into the pool, which is only 4 metres deep. At the bottom he pulled the toggle. It slowly inflated but it didn't bring him to the surface.

That was a lesson learned. But the cost was too high.

I had been working in Afghanistan on a still secret mission for the previous five months when 3 Squadron requested I join them in Tarin Kowt for three weeks for their last patrol as they were short on numbers. Shortly after my arrival there we deployed into the field in the old LRPVs to drive to the American forward operating base (FOB), Anaconda. At the time there was quite a high concentration of enemy fighters up there and the Americans were getting hammered. We deployed as part of a big operation in conjunction with 4RAR to give them a helping hand.

We left well before the commando contingent, heading into some pretty open country that started to close in the further north we drove.

The trip from Tarin Kowt to Anaconda is a big drive so we took everything carefully as the LRPVs were gradually becoming more fragile. Early the following day we headed for a village that we needed to pass through ahead of a tight pass in the mountains. As we gradually closed on the village we started to pick up a lot of radio chatter. The interpreters said there was a lot of movement in the village; they'd picked up that we were coming and they were getting ready for a fight.

We said, ‘No worries; bring it on!' We split the troop on either side of the village and the guys on the northern side covered a large feature. This was unfortunate for some of the Taliban who from that feature tried to engage the cars. Our guys pinged them and used the heavy weapons–.50 cal machine guns and Mark 19 grenade launchers–to stop them in their tracks.

You could see them running through the hills with their PKM 7.62 mm machine guns, their old RPK Russian assault rifles and RPGs. In fact, most of their weapons were Russian made apart from the ageing bolt-action rifles. They had quite a variety of them. We've even come across jungle carbine .303s. Where they came from is a total mystery.

Most of the more modern weapons were definitely taken from the Russians–either from their dead or what they left behind. The Soviets just walked away from large warehouses full of kit, including tanks. We assessed the situation and decided that the majority of the bad guys were in the hills, as the ones that were left weren't going to fight inside the village; we decided to cautiously move through it.

The route we had selected was very tight, but it was the most direct. We did our best to avoid the outer compound walls but we finished up driving into a few of them and knocking a couple over because the vehicles aren't very manoeuvrable.

The atmosphere was becoming quite tense. Some of the vehicles were having a lot of difficulty navigating the narrow pass, and the chatter was suggesting that they were looking at coming out of the hills to hit us. But, as happens a lot, nothing eventuated.

Once again we didn't see any women in the village. If they see soldiers coming they tend to hide their women or send them out of the village with the very young kids. The male children from about 10 or 11 will hang around with the men. Whenever they can, the Taliban take them under their wing and try to groom them as prospects. Then when they come of age–very young by our standards–they give them the tools of a fighter: the AK.

Once on the other side we drove about 12 kilometres beyond the village, harboured up and spent the night there. The following morning we drove to the pass. On the way we received more chatter from the captured radio from spotters up in the hills who were keeping tabs on our progress. As soon as we got into the pass one of our guys saw a spotter, so one of the vehicles in front stopped and their snipers engaged him. I don't know whether they got him or not but once that was resolved we drove to the top of the pass. It took longer than we had expected as it was really narrow, and we broke a few CV joints. So the decision was made to spend the night up there to fix the cars and start early the following morning. The CV joints were still the weakest points of the vehicle. And the following day we blew four more getting down this particularly steep gradient. When a CV blows it's very hard to operate the steering so you've got to somehow get the vehicle to a piece of flat ground to replace it. In an emergency you can take the CV joint out and remove the axle; you have to take out all the broken pieces from the inside of the joint before you can put the CV back in place. You won't have drive to the front wheels because the axle has been removed. But if you engage six-wheel drive, both the rear axles will have traction and you will become mobile again until you have a chance to replace the CV.

Because the LRPV produced a lot of torque at low range something had to give. You weren't able to change gear going up hills because they're so heavy and the sudden loss of drive between gears would slow the vehicle down too much, then when reapplying power the weakest point of the vehicle would give in. So we had to nurse the vehicles, particularly when there was a chance of contact, because if you lose your vehicle in an emergency situation like that you're in deep shit. From 2005 the vehicle didn't improve but the drivers did, becoming more educated and more sympathetic to the vehicles.

We started the steep descent to the bottom of the pass, which took until lunch time, but we made it without a shot being fired. However, a couple of kilometres further on, the road narrowed by a wide river. From the road across to the other side of the river must have been about 180 metres to the green and a strand of tall trees. We got a bit of chatter as we came through that little area so we stopped by the river and made a decision to send a patrol into the village.

On the left, a big bank came right down to the roadside and on the right there was a little drop-off of about 10 metres to the river. The cars were moved away from this spot and some lads occupied the high ground. Our six-man patrol plus interpreter made our way on foot down over a ford then into the village. We had a bit of a scout around and talked to a couple of the locals. As we got to the end of the village we turned around to come back. That's when one of our boys on the high ground got on the radio and said, ‘There are three or four blokes across the river with AKs and chest rigs heading your way.'

From where the boys were on the hill the river came past them and went into an ‘S' bend. We patrolled with stealth to the bend. Kabes (the lead scout) and I were up front. We both stepped into the knee-deep river covering each other as we cautiously moved forward. We were almost halfway across when two armed fighters who were lying in the grass on the other side of the river bank jumped up and ran off. We instantly engaged with our M4s but the targets didn't drop.

With a sense of urgency we cautiously approached where they had been hiding and found only a long scarf that they had left behind. They had retained their weapons and their chest rigs, so we took cover the best we could while waiting for the rest of the patrol to catch up before we split to follow them. I went left with one other into the open fields where small patches of chest-high corn were growing. We kept eye contact with the other half of the patrol as we followed up in extended line. This was pretty tense since we knew there were others around–they'd sent those couple of guys to see what was going on and to report on our position.

We pepper-potted forward in case these guys were flushed out in front of us. About 40 metres into the green, Kabes caught up with one guy and engaged him at close range–about 5 metres away. He stood up in a bush, AK in hand right in front of Kabes who instantly engaged and killed. We recovered his AK and his chest rig. It was a Chinese-style chest rig with little wooden toggles used to secure the flaps of the magazine pouches–the Russians wore them as well.

The other guy must have heard the shots: he ran up the strip of green parallel to the river and came out into the open. The boys on the other side of the river engaged him with .50 calibre and 40 mm grenades, which landed around him. He was a bit of a mess and dead when we reached him.

We searched the bodies then left them for their people to bury respectfully. But while we were with the second body we discovered just how lucky we'd been. They'd had word that we were coming up through the village towards the American base so they had started digging a trench system in the strip of green to give themselves some protection. It was quite a long trench, about 50 metres. They had tied ribbons in the trees about 10 to 15 metres apart–probably positions for machine guns or RPGs. It was about a metre deep and was all fresh, so they had probably started digging it that night. They're hard workers when they want to be.

They had cut foliage between the trench and the road we'd just driven along to give them good fire lanes. It was a perfect ambush spot because there was nowhere for us to go. From a soldier's point of view it was a very well thought out ambush position.

We have had a tremendous amount of luck over the past few years, but from time to time we do get caught out, and it's usually due to a bit of complacency. The enemy does set patterns and things do go in our favour for such a long time that you forget how unforgiving the Taliban can be at times.

Once we ascertained that the other Taliban had slipped away we headed back up to the cars. But one guy, who must have been down there in the green as well, came up to our location looking for medical treatment. He reckoned he was down there farming and we shot him through the calf. Lying bastard–he was one of the guys down there all right, but he wasn't farming. It was a small 5.56 mm hole that went through his lower leg, so it must have been either Kabes or myself who clipped him as they were running away. But all that meant was that there were more guys down there; this bloke had dropped his weapon and chest rig then sneaked across the river. There was no way we could prove that he was a fighter so one of the medics treated him, gave him some antibiotics and sent him on his way.

When we moved off there was quite a long strip of urban area to pass and we did so without further incident. We spent the night about 4 kilometres beyond the green, and the next morning, while still under the cover of darkness, we drove through a narrow pass between two mountains. On the other side the Americans met us to guide us into their FOB where preparation began for the next phase of the operation.

We stayed at Anaconda for about five days before we went out and into the second phase. By this stage 4RAR's convoy of close to 40 cars had taken up what little space there was at the FOB. They had close to 120 blokes, not all shooters though: they took along a lot of support members like Q staff and mechanics; in fact it was a bit like a small mobile version of Tarin Kowt.

At Anaconda my PC had hurt his back; this meant that Gumps, who was the 2IC, would step up to take the patrol, and I moved up to take the 2IC's position. This part of the operation was purely an Australian show, and soon we were being inserted to a drop-off point in the dead of night by vehicle approximately 5 kilometres outside Anaconda. From there our SAS element would move by foot carrying packs and weapons to various OP locations throughout the mountain range to get eyes on a village for a clearance conducted by 4RAR. The operation was to last 36 hours.

We started walking. It was quite slow going as the ground was very steep. Our packs were heavy, with items like surveillance equipment, radio components, two days rations, 8 litres of water, warm gear and spare ammunition. After hours of walking we reached a dispersion point and split up. It wasn't long before we came to our final destination: troop HQ was in a good location about 200 metres behind us and could provide rear protection.

Our patrol had pretty good OBs of the eastern side of the village and to the north; the other boys went to the west of us in a horseshoe configuration. In the morning 4RAR inserted into the AO and started their sweep to clear the village, which ran up a valley and then turned left and opened up. This was the only area we could see. It took a long time before we saw the first soldiers appear from 4RAR, but we knew that they had a very large area to clear.

It turned out that they started to do it very tactically and methodically but it was just taking too long as the task they had was massive. So they decided to speed things up, otherwise it would have taken about two days to complete–with some extremely exhausted soldiers. Even by this stage I'm sure they were absolutely knackered because they were suited up with body armour that was loaded with magazines and grenades–twice as heavy as our kit.

Shortly before we noticed the first 4RAR soldiers rounding the feature to our right-hand side, one of the lads, with the naked eye, saw three blokes walking down a track towards them about 1,500 metres away. He said, ‘Have a look at those blokes down there; one looks like he has something across his shoulder, I reckon it could be an RPG.'

I could hardly see them, so I put the binoculars up and after a slight focus adjustment I could see this bloke was carrying a tube across his shoulder. There were also a couple of other guys with him who looked to be carrying rifles under their long clothing. What gave them away was the barrels protruding over their shoulders, and the fact that they were not swinging their arms. Seeing this you immediately think, ‘What's he carrying under his shirt?' It's a dead giveaway.

We adjusted the sniper spotting scope onto target, ‘Yeah, it's an RPG tube he's got.' Then you could see two rockets poking out from underneath his shirt. They got to within about 1,300 metres when Gumps engaged them with his .338 sniper rifle. He got close but missed because there was a hell of a wind through the valley and it was hard to judge its effect on the projectile. But the round landed close enough so that they knew they were pinged.

They split into two packets–two guys ran into a large creek line that stretched for about 200 metres. The older guy with the RPG went up onto a small knoll and hid in some rocks. He presented himself again and Gumps re-engaged and thought he might have winged him. We got on the radio to 4RAR and gave them an indication of where they were. But unfortunately they were preoccupied with their clearance task. There were a couple of easy kills to be had so we asked their mortars to agree to a fire mission. SG, the patrol JTAC, had eyes on and could bring the mortar fire directly onto the target. ‘No,' was the response, ‘We'll conduct the fire mission because our JTAC has recorded a few targets in the area.' We said okay, if the mortars are off target, our JTAC can help your guys adjust. ‘That's not necessary,' they said.