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The History Podcast
The Fort: 5. The Dirty Dash
00:14:38
Mathew Ford is missing back at the Fort. "It's a no-brainer. We're going back to get him."
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Transcript43 lines
- [00:00]
Glyn Sadler
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- [00:06]
Alex von Tunzelman
This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War.
- [00:19]
You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you.
- [00:25]
Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:39]
Glyn Sadler
14Th of 1 2007. Orders were given at 0900 for an attack on Jugran Fort.
- [00:45]
Shep Shepherd
It was the most intense firefight I've ever been involved in.
- [00:49]
Mike Cleary
We've been ambushed south. Get out the fort.
- [00:54]
Glyn Sadler
Five guys down. We've only just got there. This is going to be horrendous.
- [00:59]
Shep Shepherd
We're gonna keep on losing people if we stay here any longer. We've got to get people off this killing ground now.
- [01:10]
Glyn Sadler
I'm Glyn Sadler. I was a lance corporal attached to Zulu Company. There's no room, there's no space. We've got the river to our left and then a compound to the other side that receiving incoming from side. We've got the fort to our front, receiving incoming from that side and then various bushes and trees. Then we're receiving incoming from that as well. I was just focusing on getting the rounds down and suppressing the enemy to our right. Even the company clerk, Stevie Bright, he was involved. You know, this was a full company operation going on. I got the call to get in the back of the Viking and then get out so the rest of the Vikings could pull out. I think Sergeant Major was probably the last guy on the ground. Obviously he wants to make sure everybody's away safely.
- [02:06]
Shep Shepherd
So, yeah, I'm Shep shepherd and I was the company site manager of Zulu Company during the operation at Juggern Fort. So there's just us left now, probably seven of us, which was only me and my company runner, Stevie Bright, and the fire support team. But I've sent my vehicle back with casualties. So we're stood there then there's still fire going on. We moved back to get our backs to the river. So at least my thinking was, at least they're only on three sides and not on four sides of us. Before the last vehicle went, I climbed up on the vehicle and spoke to the commander of the vehicle and pulled his headset to one side so you could hear me and said, make sure you come back. We're still here, you know, make sure you come back. The river almost split into two and formed a shallow sand bank. It was considerable size. As time went on, I was starting to think, maybe we need to wade across to the island. Like, you know, I don't even know if it was wadeable. One of the other, the FSC team says, well, is there any cover on the island like that? And we all just looked at him. People just started to laugh, you know, because there was no cover where he was stood. It's almost nervous laughter, you know, it's almost resigning to a fate. Just as that was happening, you know, we were toying with that idea and I was thinking, we should do it or not. A vehicle came out of the water.
- [03:37]
Dave Regg
I'm Dave Regg. I was seconded to the Ajax Battle Group. The sergeant major, he was just brilliant, stocky, no nonsense, brummy. He got out his vehicle and just marched around the boys, oblivious to this stream of incoming gunfire, and organized a hasty kind of withdrawal, putting down cover and fire to get them back in the vehicles. Well, first he got the casualties back and got them out of a very difficult situation.
- [04:11]
Shep Shepherd
If you're the person who everyone's looking at, you're in command. And if you are just calm and walk around and the last thing your body's telling you to do is to be calm, you see it go all the way down. And it goes down through the troop commanders, the troop sergeants, the corporals into the Marines. And everyone is like, well, you know, the sergeant mage is obviously mad, but he's not concerned. You know, we're all right here. It's a big thing and you've got to act for ice. And it's hard, you know, it is hard.
- [04:44]
Glyn Sadler
I'm Glyn Sadler. Horrendous, horrendous. Really bad. We've withdrawn from the fort. We've come back to a reorg reorganization situation where you would start physically counting what bullets you've got left. And the word gets around that 4D is missing. So as a company, we know that the only place he could be is still back at the fort.
- [05:06]
Shep Shepherd
You know, everywhere has been checked, so he can only be one place. Even though we couldn't find him, he's got to still be over the other side of the river. We says, you know, okay, it's a no brainer, we'll go in back to get him.
- [05:21]
Chris Witts
Chris Witts. I was a captain in the Royal Marines in 2007 in command of the Viking vehicles at Juggern Fort. You know, it's not sane to Run into battle at people trying to shoot and kill you. You do, quite frankly, crazy things. And part of that goes into the level of trust that when you're in combat, when you're in battle, you can look to the left and right of you and you know 100% that these guys have got your back. They will help you out when you're down, they will save your life if you get hit, they will stop at nothing to support their fellow comrades.
- [06:05]
Glyn Sadler
We've stirred the hornet's nest now, hence the reason why I believe the sergeant major wanted to go a bit lighter, maybe take one or two vehicles to sort of dash in and dash out.
- [06:16]
Shep Shepherd
We're not trying to break into the fort now. We're not trying to assault any of the positions to the left or right of it. We've got one task here now, and that's to go and grab 40 actual players. Who are talking about now is probably five or six people around the table. They're there all over the maps and the screen set up. People are talking. Nigel says, right, we need a proper plan here. We just had our ass handed to us. Basically, the way to fire is unworkable. So we need to hammer that place before we can go back in. We need to go in there very, very small. I said, the problem we've got is it's an epic trying to turn the vehicles around. It's going to cause more problems having more manpower than it's going to create by having less. We need to formulate a plan, and it needs to be well supported.
- [07:11]
Glyn Sadler
The hierarchy, they're all trying to put a plan together. Let's get a. Let's get a section together and let's get back over there. Let's get back in a Viking. We'll just go light, less of a target. If anything, get over and we'll go and search for him. So at that point, things start to roll really quickly.
- [07:26]
Chris Witts
There's a job that needs to be done, and it's got to be done. Well, I walked into the command tent. We formulated just a very, very quick battle plan. And the battle plan was effectively referred to as a dirty dash. 4 Viking vehic 1 section of Zulu company to dash back across the river, back to the wall of the fort, Provide effectively what we refer to as a ring of steel. Effectively put the armor around the casualty, be able to dismount the section, provide immediate cover from fire, and recover. Matthew the fact that we had a marine who was isolated in enemy territory is just a nightmare scenario for any marine, any military Unit, I would imagine. And there was no shortage of sections volunteering to be the section that goes back and gets them.
- [08:24]
Jake Olufsen
So my name is Jake Olufsen, I'm 45 years old and I served in the Royal Marine Corps from 2005 through 2009. In the Corps, you'll find a lack of volunteers when the boss needs someone to go and clean a bathroom. Gone right. But especially when you've got a lad left behind. I mean, no, anybody would have volunteered 100%. There's no discussion about it. That's who we are.
- [08:52]
Shep Shepherd
I was really proud of the blokes, really chuffed. Not one bloke didn't want to go back in. You know, just brave, brave blokes.
- [09:02]
Chris Witts
We had, you know, very classically, a quick orders plan on the bonnet of one of the Viking vehicles.
- [09:10]
Shep Shepherd
Everyone was brief, knew what they were going to do.
- [09:12]
Chris Witts
Here's the plan. Here's how we're going to execute. Here's who's in command, here's who's second in command. Here's what we're going to do. Are there any questions? Okay, guys, mount up, let's roll. And remember that at 60 kilometers an hour, we're still eight minutes away from the fort. So we've got internal comms in, communications in the vehicles. So we can still kind of be working out the plan as we're running in. But for us, speed was of the essence.
- [09:38]
Shep Shepherd
Just about to go back into the river and he came over the radio, just hold. We hauled everyone back. Then he came over, just hold. We're looking at another plan that might involve a helicopter. You know, that stage, I was like, you know, we were on the banks of the river, ready to go.
- [09:57]
Chris Witts
Halfway there. So four kilometers in, we got a radio message to halt. And they had come up with an alternative plan. And they would be sending in two Apaches onto the site with Marines on the stub wings to do the recovery via helicopter instead. I'm not going to lie, I was frustrated that we had been stood down. It was risky, but both plans were risky. Both plans had pros and cons. And, you know, the challenge with any commander on the ground is they're making these decisions in an instant. They're making them with advice from experts. But these decisions weren't made over three days. Sat in a boardroom with PowerPoint presentations. These were made on the ground with people who had been awake for dozens of hours and were trying to solve a complex problem as fast as possible whilst balancing risk.
- [10:58]
Jake Olufsen
Oh, the Apaches. Unbelievable bits of Kit. So the Apache is a, is a two seat attack helicopter. I don't know if the pilot sits in the front seat or in the rear seat, but there's two of them sitting one in front of the other and there is no room for passengers. It's not designed for passengers, it doesn't take passengers, it just doesn't. It's an attack helicopter purebred, designed for one purpose only. I mean, fast air is good when you need to bring the big bombs, but the Apache can loiter and it can maintain eyes on a specific area of ground and basically stare at it. And with the accuracy of the 30 mil gun and their Hellfire missiles and that, yeah, the Apaches are just absolute game changers.
- [11:47]
Chris Witts
Yeah.
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Mike Cleary
I'm Mike Cleary. On the day of Jug Room four, I was a rifleman Marine in five Troop. I didn't know that you could use Apaches in that way at all or anything like that. As far as I was concerned, Apache was just a flying tank. You know, they were just flying warheads. Depending on the type of operation we were doing, we would get different types of air support. Sometimes, yeah, you'd have a jet overhead. They were all good. But if you had an Apache, it was just a completely different ball game because it's difficult to describe really, but you just know that they can kind of see anything and everything and the firepower that they have on them is just unbelievable. And it's right there, you can hear it there the whole time, just thudding away above your head. It's not like a jet where you might hear a little rumble every now and again. It's thudding away above your head the whole time and you just. It's comforting to be fair, to use them then as a rescue asset is ballsy shout ballsy.
- [13:03]
Shep Shepherd
Yeah.
- [13:04]
Chris Witts
It was incredibly aggressive. It was incredibly, can I say, ballsy. It was a big call. And a big call that works is way better than a lower risk call that doesn't.
- [13:17]
Jake Olufsen
When we saw the Apaches landing on the ground near us, you know, they were maybe 150 meters away, 200 meters away. Everyone looked. It was just absolutely bizarre to see Apaches landing. And it wasn't one Apache. One Apache landed and then shortly thereafter a second Apache landed. So all the lads were looking at it.
- [13:40]
Glyn Sadler
That's when one of the Apaches came and landed at Zulu Companies reorg and we didn't have any communications with them from that. I think essentially we were told to sort of stand down. So they were formulating another plan back at hq.
- [13:53]
Jake Olufsen
They landed. We looked over, went, oh, that's interesting. And then just, you know, didn't pay attention to them because we had no idea that this incredible rescue attempt was about to happen.
- [14:14]
Shep Shepherd
The fort was produced by Kev Kaur. The editor was Sue Roberts. It's a BBC Audio north production for Radio 4. You can hear the next episode now on BBC Sounds.
- [14:34]
Matthew Side
When you look at what's going on around the world, it's easy to think that we humans are incapable of living peacefully. But there are out there people who disagree.
- [14:46]
Mike Cleary
I keep going because someone has to.
- [14:49]
Jake Olufsen
Hold the line between grief and revenge.
- [14:54]
Matthew Side
I'm Matthew side, and in my sideways miniseries chasing Peace from BBC Radio 4, I'm meeting people who have radical ideas about how we can stop what feels like an inevitable slide into conflict. Listen first on BBC Sounds.
- [15:18]
Alex von Tunzelman
This is history's heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War.
- [15:31]
You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, sonny. You'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you.
- [15:38]
Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes. Wherever you get your podcasts.