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  D (Cambridgeshire) Company was made up of the Reconnaissance Platoon of eight Scimitar tracked recce vehicles, the Sniper Platoon equipped with .338 long-range rifles and L96 sniper rifles, the Anti-Tank Platoon equipped with Javelin imaging infra-red seeker missiles, the Mortar Platoon with its 81mm mortars and the Machine-gun Platoon, equipped with general purpose machine-guns, or GPMGs, .50 calibre heavy machine-guns and 40mm grenade machine-guns, or GMGs. Back in England, the members of the Machine-gun Platoon were double-hatted as ceremonial drummers.

  Commanded by Major Charlie Calder, D Company was mostly split up between the three rifle companies, each allocated a fire support group. The FSGs were potent mobile teams equipped with snipers, 81mm mortars and Javelin missiles as well as WMIK Land Rovers armed with .50 calibre machine-guns, GPMGs and GMGs.

  Echelon Company, commanded by Captain Phill Blanchfield, whose headquarters was also in Bastion, provided the glue that held the battalion together: logistics, communications, medical and administration.

  The Royal Anglians were normally based at Elizabeth Barracks, Pirbright, in the Surrey countryside, but almost all of the soldiers came from the battalion’s four recruiting counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex in south-east England.

  Around 700 strong, the 1st Battalion was one of the two regular battalions of The Royal Anglian Regiment, which was able to trace its history back more than 300 years through the direct lineage of former regiments. Some of these regiments were heavily engaged in the nineteenth-century Afghan wars. They had won the battle honour ‘Afghanistan’, passed down from generation to generation and now emblazoned on The Royal Anglian Regiment’s Colours, the historic rallying point of an infantry regiment in battle. The Royal Anglians’ direct forebears were also deployed in Afghanistan in the 1920s and 1930s. Then, following a lengthy gap, the 1st Battalion were among the first British troops into Kabul after the 2001 invasion, doing a six-month stint there in 2002. The 2nd Battalion followed suit in 2003.

  In 2007 the 1st Battalion formed the headquarters and core fighting elements of a battle group, together with 28/143 Battery (Tombs’s Troop) Royal Artillery, 8 Armoured Engineer Squadron Royal Engineers and a Royal Marines Armoured Support Company equipped with Viking tracked amphibious armoured vehicles. An Estonian armoured infantry company and a Danish formation recce squadron were also normally part of the battle group. The Royal Anglian Battle Group was known officially as Battle Group North, and operated within Task Force Helmand, the British-led NATO formation responsible for security throughout the province. With all its attachments, the battle group peaked at a strength of 1,500 men and women, but fighting strength for most of the tour was around 1,000.

  Just over a year before the Royal Anglians deployed to Afghanistan, the British government announced in parliament that a NATO force mostly made up of British troops would replace US ground forces in Helmand. The Royal Anglians were part of the third rotation of forces deploying under this remit, taking over from 42 Commando Royal Marines. Their operation was codenamed Herrick 6, a name generated at random by a Ministry of Defence computer.

  The Royal Anglians’ mission, with the rest of Task Force Helmand, was to help extend the authority of President Karzai’s Kabul-based government into the lawless Helmand Province, part of an international effort to bring lasting peace and stability to the whole country.

  By the time the Royal Anglians arrived, Helmand had become one of the main centres of the Taliban insurgency and a symbol of resistance to the Karzai government in Kabul. After the fall of Kandahar in 2001, the Taliban were still in control of most of Helmand. Mullah Omar took refuge here after fleeing Kandahar, and the world’s most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden, spent some time in the Helmand border area in 2003.

  Helmand, in the south-west of Afghanistan and roughly 500 hazardous kilometres from the capital, Kabul, shares a southern border with the unruly tribal region of north-west Pakistan. The province consists largely of furnace-like flatlands, bisected by the Helmand River, which is flanked either side by lush vegetation known as the ‘Green Zone’. The Green Zone is an area of densely irrigated land, supporting almost 90 per cent of the local population. Depending on the season, crops of poppy, marijuana and maize reduce visibility to 10 metres and sometimes less. The fertility of the Green Zone makes Helmand Afghanistan’s largest producer of opium.

  The Green Zone, with its maze of interconnecting irrigation ditches, treelines and open fields, gives the advantage of covered movement and unlimited ambush positions. Family compounds, surrounded by almost impenetrable mud walls, delineate ancestral properties and provide considerable protection for the inhabitants and defenders. Together, the compounds form hamlets and villages, the names of which often bear no resemblance to anything on the map.

  For the infantryman, the Green Zone represents one of the most complex operating environments imaginable. It presents difficulties comparable to those faced by soldiers in the primary jungles of Malaya and Vietnam, but compounded by the density of civilian dwellings. The usual advantages of modern weapons and sensors become neutralized in the Green Zone, where the ground and vegetation force engagements at brutally short range.

  It is unbearably hot (55°C) in the summer and bone-chillingly cold (−20°C) in the winter, when the mountain-fringed flatlands can conjure up the most dramatic electrical thunderstorms to be heard anywhere in the world. It is a beautiful and terrifying place, where human behaviour echoes that of the landscape.

  Throughout history, Helmand’s inhabitants have called the place the Desert of Death.

  2

  While Biddick and A Company were battling the Taliban in Nowzad, Carver was planning the battalion’s first major offensive operation of the tour. The commander of Task Force Helmand, Brigadier John Lorimer, visited him at battle group headquarters in Camp Bastion. The two officers knew each other well and had worked together at PJHQ, the Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood in England, which was responsible for controlling UK land, air and sea operations worldwide.

  They now sat drinking coffee from polystyrene cups in Carver’s office, a section of the white-tented Joint Operations Centre separated by a thin plywood wall from the bustling operations room with its map-covered ‘bird table’, lists of troop movements and the crackle of radios as news came in from bases and patrols throughout northern Helmand. Lorimer wanted to discuss the situation at Gereshk, where the rockets and mortars the Taliban were firing into the town were getting increasingly accurate and intensive.

  Gereshk, on the Helmand River around 20 kilometres to the east of Bastion, is an old and isolated town, and an important agriculture and trading centre, with a population of 48,500. For months the Taliban had been hitting the town and its congested approach roads with rocket salvos that had killed and seriously wounded many members of the population. The locals were increasingly questioning the point of having NATO forces in Helmand if they allowed these attacks to go on. Gereshk was one of two towns – the other was Sangin, to the northeast – that were Lorimer’s priority for reconstruction. And getting anything done there was virtually impossible without significantly improved security.

  Lorimer told Carver, ‘I want a Task Force operation to clear the Taliban out of their strongholds in the Green Zone to the north-east of Gereshk, to put a stop to the indirect fire. I want to secure the entire area on a permanent basis. So once the enemy is cleared out we will need to set up patrol bases as quickly as possible. I intend that the Afghan National Army supported initially by the Worcestershire and Sherwood Forester Regiment will occupy the patrol bases when they are built.

  ‘I want your battle group to conduct the major offensive operation to clear the enemy from the Green Zone. We need to start as soon as we can. I estimate it will take about three days to clear the area. It will send a clear message to the Taliban, and to the local population, that we mean business and we will not allow the insurgents to intimidate locals or the ANA. Other than C Company, who will stay at Kajaki, you
r whole battle group will deploy. We will also use the Brigade Recce Force, three ANA companies, guns, engineers and air. US Task Force 1 Fury will launch an air assault further to the north, to fix the Taliban there and prevent reinforcements coming down.’

  Carver listened, characteristically displaying no emotion. But he immediately realized the significance of what Lorimer was saying. This would be the biggest offensive operation British forces had launched in Afghanistan in almost a century. Equally significant, it would be the first time that a deliberate clearance operation on this scale had been attempted within the Green Zone. The sometimes jungle-like Green Zone was infested with Taliban. It was extremely difficult country to fight in, giving the enemy infinite opportunities to infiltrate and set up ambushes. For that reason no previous British unit had entered the Green Zone in force except for short raids, and so for the Taliban it was a safe haven.

  One of the targets for Carver’s battle group would be the Green Zone settlement of Deh Adan Khan – known by military planners as DAK. Enjoying near-mythical status among the locals, this town was believed to be the key Taliban stronghold for their attacks against Gereshk.

  As the Brigadier flew back to his headquarters at Lashkar Gah, Carver thought about what he was being asked to do. The task excited him, and he was keen to get his staff working on the detailed planning. It would be the battalion’s first major battle, of that he had little doubt. It was not going to be easy either. He knew from intelligence that the Taliban could call on up to 1,000 fighters in the Gereshk valley area. Many were local insurgents, including farmers paid a few dollars at the end of the poppy harvest to have a go at the British soldiers. But even these could do real damage and would know every inch of the Green Zone like the back of their hands. Some were foreign fighters, trained and equipped in Pakistan. Most of these were from Waziristan, just across the border, but a few came from as far afield as Chechnya or the Middle East. Wherever they were from, Carver did not underestimate their fighting strengths, or their determination to keep the Green Zone out of NATO and Afghan Army hands.

  Carver’s other enemy was the temperature. His men would have to operate on foot for several days, over long distances, carrying up to 40 kilos of equipment: in heat that most people would find taxing if they were out for a stroll in shorts and flip flops.

  But Carver did not doubt for one moment that his men were up to the task. Over the last year he had put them through week after week of tough physical training, to build them to the peak of fighting capability and battle fitness. Most of this had been done in the UK, but the training had culminated in a demanding exercise in Kenya, where many invaluable lessons had been learnt – especially about how to handle the heat.

  Carver issued a warning order, giving the broad outline of the operation. This was to enable planning and preparation to begin within all elements of the battle group at the same time as the details were being worked out by operations, intelligence and logistics staff. This ‘concurrent activity’, a term familiar to all soldiers, allowed the frantic battle preparation before an operation to be compressed into the shortest possible time.

  As soon as they received the warning order, A and B Companies put their platoons, as well as attached fire support groups, artillery and engineers, through combat rehearsals, using a mock-up village that had been built at Camp Bastion. Most of the troops taking part went through gruelling live-fire exercises, clearing dummy compounds by day and night. They practised working with the Viking vehicles they would travel in and might fight from during the coming operation.

  The BvS10 Viking troop carriers consist of two box-like tracked vehicle units linked by a steering mechanism. With a ring-mount for a GPMG or .50 calibre heavy machine-gun in the forward unit, the vehicle provides armoured protection against 7.62 bullets, artillery shell fragments and anti-personnel mines. The Royal Anglians’ Vikings were crewed by Royal Marines drivers and commander/gunners, who remained with the battle group for the tour in Afghanistan. As with all armoured vehicles, there was never enough room in the crew compartments, especially with the ammunition, explosives and other equipment that has to be carried with the troops.

  And the almost universal experience among Royal Anglian soldiers in Afghanistan was that the air conditioning never worked. Many of the troops came to think that the stifling, cramped conditions were a way of encouraging them to jump out of the back and into the teeth of enemy fire.

  3

  Carver’s team had just over a week to plan their part of the operation, which was codenamed Silicon. They worked round the clock for several days, putting the plan together and thinking through the intricacies of coordinating for the first time a large operation in such demanding conditions. Carver, Intelligence Officer Captain Tom Coleman and the two rifle company commanders, Majors Dominic Biddick and Mick Aston, conducted helicopter recces to familiarize themselves with the terrain. Unmanned drones were flown to provide updated photographic coverage of some of the key areas, such as compound entry points and break-in areas. Nimrod MR2 surveillance aircraft bristling with hi-tech sensors were deployed to update critical intelligence. The Royal Anglian Recce Platoon was sent on to the ground to collect detailed terrain information that would be essential to the plan.

  At 1000 hours on 25 April, three days before the battle group deployed on Operation Silicon, Carver held his battle group Orders Group, or O Group, in the briefing room next to the Joint Operations Centre at Bastion. The key commanders and staff officers in the battle group, around thirty officers, warrant officers and senior NCOs, were seated in rows in front of a large array of maps and air photographs.

  After a detailed briefing from the Intelligence Officer, Carver began, ‘My intent is to find the enemy within Ops Box Thalatta, the area just to the north-east of Gereshk, in order to facilitate subsequent operations. At H-Hour we will demonstrate overwhelming force. This may cause the Taliban to withdraw without a fight. If not, we will clear the enemy within boundaries, then secure the area, in order to enable reconstruction and subsequent handover to the Afghan National Security Forces. Throughout I intend to screen both north and south to give early warning of enemy intentions and retain the ability to strike enemy that present themselves. Screens will be provided by the Brigade Recce Force in the south and the Danish Recce Squadron in the north. On D Minus One, the battle group will move to a harbour area in the north of Gereshk. Prior to H-Hour, A Company will move forward and secure an entry point into the Green Zone for B Company. B Company will then move through and begin an advance to contact from west to east. This advance will be paralleled in the south by an Afghan National Army company, and supported by attack helicopters. A Company will remain north of Gereshk, as a reserve, prepared to echelon through B Company, or conduct a strike against any targets that present themselves further east along the river. I aim to reach the five five easting by last light and then form a hasty defensive line. Overnight we will reconfigure to prepare for an assault by A Company on to Habibollah Kalay. This attack on D Plus One will be synchronized with strikes by the Brigade Recce Force and other Task Force Helmand elements further east.’

  He looked at Biddick and Aston, seated directly in front of him. ‘Once you reach the five five easting, Report Line Purple, which is the battle group limit of exploitation, you will consolidate and secure the area. This may involve advancing further east to create a stand-off, to allow the engineer group to construct patrol bases.’

  Over the next hour Carver and his staff laid out the details of how all of this was to be achieved.

  On the morning of Sunday 29 April, the day the battle group deployed on Operation Silicon, Major Mick Aston, B Company commander, sat on his camp bed in the large, white, half-cylinder-shaped tent that for the time being he called home. The mid-morning temperature was so great that he felt as if he was in a sauna, even though the tent, with its hard plastic floor, was air-conditioned by its own compressor unit. For days now Aston had been involved in frantic preparation for the op, and
was grateful for a moment to himself before it kicked off. He was worried but excited at the same time: a feeling of nervous anticipation that permeated the whole of the Royal Anglian Battle Group before the challenges of their first major battle.

  Aston was thirty-six and married with a young daughter. He had taken over command of B Company during the battalion’s Iraq tour in mid-2005. His background was not that of a typical Army officer. He had joined the Australian Army as an enlisted soldier at the age of seventeen, serving initially in a reconnaissance squadron equipped with Bell 206 Kiowa helicopters. Two years later he attended the Royal Military College at Duntroon and was commissioned as an officer. Wanting to be a Blackhawk pilot, he attempted but failed pilot training and instead went to the Royal Australian Corps of Signals. After a spell instructing in leadership back at Duntroon, Aston became bored with life in the Australian Army and decided to look for a bit more action. He married Tanya, his long-term girlfriend, and straight away they both flew to Britain. A few days later in Cambridgeshire he reported for duty with The 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment as Captain Aston of the British Army. He began to develop a formidable reputation in the Royal Anglians as a straight-talking, capable and hard-driving officer.

  Since B Company had arrived in Afghanistan, Aston had been impatient for action. Silicon was the chance he had been waiting for – to ‘get in amongst them, and just get it done’, as he was fond of telling his soldiers. And Aston was delighted that Carver had detailed his company to do the initial hard fighting – to break into and attack through the Green Zone.