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The History Podcast
The Fort: 6. Call Sign: Ugly
00:14:51
The Apaches' mission changes: Prevent Mathew Ford from being captured by the Taliban.
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Transcript34 lines
- [00:00]
A
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- [00:41]
B
Our mission changed. Our mission then was to prevent Matthew Ford from being captured by the Taliban. And so we set about looking for the enemy.
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C
I'm Ed Basie. I was a former Apache pilot with the UK forces. Tom and I set up race patterns. One of us flying inbound slowly, ish, one flying outbound really quickly, so that by the time I broke off from the target, he was already inbound. And then I would tank it back out. So we just kept this running fire going. And the idea was that any Taliban that we saw, we would destroy. I never wanted to be a pilot. I was a paratrooper and I wanted to go for the sas and I was training really hard and I got knocked down by a car and left for dead in the street. In fact, I died three times and my body was completely trashed. So I thought, what am I going to do? And then one of the guys opened up a book and there was a picture of a scout on the Falklands, and the pilot was there and the SES were up deep getting out of it, and they had black, dark eyes. He said, well, if you can't join them and run around on the ground, why don't you fly for them? I went, how am I going to do that? I'm from Redke, I have no qualifications, I barely did school. And he went, well, learn. That's the reason why I ended up being a pilot, for no other reason than to get to the front line and do it all. But soon as they told me the Apache was coming out, I'm right, right, there's no more flying around supporting somebody else. I'm getting this weapons platform to myself and did everything to make sure that I was on the very first Apache course.
- [02:28]
D
I'm Tom o', Malley, a former Apache pilot. So we got the grid reference.
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B
He was not very far away from, from where they thought that he might be.
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C
We were nicknamed by the the Taliban as the Mosquito. When we get there, they run away. They know they can't hide from us in the night, they know they can't hide from us in the day. We can see through trees, we can see them where they're hiding and they're terrified. So they generally go to ground. They were coming out, they were coming from everywhere. And we couldn't understand where they were. And what we didn't know at the time was their underground tunnels. But what I did notice there was some tunnels just to the south of where Matthew Ford was. So I said to my pilot, Carl, just turn away early, slightly, as if I'm not looking at it, but the cameras will still be looking. So as he turned away, I was looking at this area and sure, a shot. I saw a man's head come out the top with an RPG and I thought, he's going to shoot four. But he wasn't. He was turning it away from 40. I shot straight down and he fell down into the hole.
- [03:30]
B
An A10 came in and did a gun run. I think it was down the side of the canal. So the canal ran into the river. He got very close with his faller shot. I mean, look, them guys are amazing. And I just thought, look, you know, the closer this gets to Matt. And I was like, we're gonna end up killing him ourselves. And I was like, right, you know, this is crazy.
- [03:54]
C
Tom's getting really impatient, going, go back to the commander. Because I had the communications with the commander at the time, he said, and tell him what's going on, because we're running low on gas, running low on ammunition. Someone's going to come and snatch Matthew Ford, drag him to a tunnel and take him underground. This is the second tour of Afghanistan we were doing at the time. And in the summer, when we arrived in the May, we were responsible for going out and trying to help find two guys who'd been caught in an ambush the night before. So we turned up the following morning looking for them. And what the Taliban had done to them is disgusting. That's all I'm going to say. But we found the bodies and unfortunately, when you got 127 times color TV camera, you've got to zoom in to identify as a British guy, and that sits with you. We were told by one of our intelligence girls that if they should catch us, they would catch us Skinners and put it all out on tv. And we knew that Matthew being a Royal Marine, if they got to him, what they would do to him would be horrific.
- [05:05]
B
It got to a point where I'm just getting really frustrated. I had said through the command net, you know, that we would land and we would get Matt.
- [05:16]
C
He said, I've got an idea. Why don't I land down and then you fly around and give me cover? I said, I don't have enough firepower to protect you. And he's massive, he'll weigh a ton. You're not going to be able to lift him on his own.
- [05:29]
B
I got on the command there and I said, look, I said, I don't know how much longer you think, you know, that this can be held off. I said, but we need to do something. Get me four Marines. Get me four Marines and I will take them in and we'll get that boy home.
- [05:51]
C
And he said, the other patches are coming down now to relieve us. Why don't we go into the desert, land, get some Marines, strap them onto the outside of the wings, and then we'll go and land and then they can drag him back. And I'm thinking, he's nuts. This guy's crazy.
- [06:06]
B
My son was 16, nearly 17. I think it could have been 17. He wasn't quite old enough to be in the army, but I knew there were boys down there that were of a similar age to him, and I knew that that man, that soldier, I knew he was somebody's son. I knew he was probably somebody's brother. We had a bomber who we were talking to directly. We had the A10s, we had the light guns, we had the Scimitars. By the time we went in, we'd probably got more assets allocated to us and more were coming because word was out we're doing a recovery and, you know, everything was stacked up, stacked up. And so the plan as it was conceived, I think, yes, risky, but very low probability of not working. And that's what we went with. And I spoke with the other guys on the radio and I was just like, you can't not do it.
- [07:09]
C
I had to question myself, but why wouldn't you? There is a risk that Matthew's going to get stolen. There was another. I think it was a B2 in the air as well. So I thought, if we can make a massive bang and cover the place up, we can get in and get out without anyone realizing what's happened. So I said, yeah, let's do it.
- [07:28]
B
Look, I didn't. It wasn't something that just miraculously appeared in my head. The fact that we had speed, we had the element of surprise, nobody thought that would happen. And, you know, to coin a phrase, fortune favors the brave.
- [07:48]
C
So I relayed the plan to Colonel McGowan and I said, there's no guarantees that someone's not going to get shot. On the wing. There's no guarantees that everyone's going to make it back, but we've got to try this. And I thought he's going to say no. And he instantly said, yeah, it's on. I told Tom was going on. Tom was delighted. So the next thing to do is to fly into the desert, land by the command base and pick up whoever it was who's going to come.
- [08:14]
E
I'm Dave Rigg. The four guys that went all volunteered, but I guess I knew more about what I'd volunteered to do than the others and that's simply because I've been involved in the planning. Marine Fraser Perry was. He was the most junior of us. He was about 19.
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F
My name's Captain Chris Fraser Perry. I've been in the Royal Marines 20 years now. So Dave Rigg, Dave was one of the chosen guys. Another Marine called Gary Robinson, he was chosen. The RSM regimental sergeant major of IX group was Warrant Officer Class 1, Colin Hearn. And he was a mountain leader. So in the Royal Marines, a mountain leader is sort of the experts in see us survive, escape, resist, evade if anything goes wrong, and living in the outdoors, austere conditions. He was going for that reason as well as being the RSM as well. Yeah. So that was the four volunteers.
- [09:20]
E
So they gathered around me and I said, right, guys, in a moment the Apache's gonna land and we're gonna get on those Apaches and we're gonna go in and get Corporal Ford. And they look back at me a little bit, sort of stunned. They would have known that the fort is now a hotbed of enemy activity. But no one hesitated.
- [09:54]
F
I can't remember who it was came over and said, the Apaches will be landing in minutes View. They're going to land in this area. So we make our way over to the area and the pilot of one jumps out and he sort of starts talking to us and he draws a box in the sand.
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C
I met BC so I took them at 20, 30 meters away from the aircraft and got on the ground and then drew in the dirt where the fort was, where Matthew was, where the river was, where we're going to fly, what orientation the aircraft were going to be, where we're going to land, because there's a good chance they're not going to be able to see anything just due to the fallout from the 2,000 pound. We're going to drop there and there's going to be shit in the air everywhere. But also if you get there first, you pick him up and you drag him to the nearest aircraft, even if it's not your aircraft. If you get to the right, there's a hole in the wall. Go left at the hole in the wall, you're going to find him. If you don't find him within 30 meters, don't keep looking because you're in the wrong place.
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F
I can't hear a thing. I can't hear a word of what he's saying because we're right next to the Apache, right next to the rotors that are still going.
- [10:56]
C
If the aircraft gets shot down on the way in, we make our way to the river. And if it gets shot down in the river, you just jump from it and swim. Some of them were looking at me a little bit puzzled and I think some of them might not have actually heard a lot of what I was saying because the noise.
- [11:11]
E
The Apache has these stubby little wings that carry, you know, the Hellfire rocket rails and there's a whole load of armaments on the wing of these Apaches and it makes for quite a convenient seat.
- [11:29]
F
He then came out with some straps for the guys to attach themselves to the Apache. He only had three and I was the youngest mariner and the most junior. So guess who didn't get a strap. But he did give me a carabiner which is like a clip that mountaineers use, etc, and I thought, I can't really do anything with that because the last thing I want to be is clipped on to a bullet magnet. So I put that carabine in my pocket and I've still got it somewhere. He points at the little stubs of what? And that's clearly where we're going to sit down. So I climbed up to those stubs using the ladders that the pilots would use to climb into the cockpit and shimmer my bum back into the nook where the wing meets the fuselage. And then I've got my feet resting on the missile pods, like where the Hellfire missiles would go, where the engine intake on my immediate left. And then I hooked my right arm through one of the ladder rungs that the pilots used to climb into the cockpit.
- [12:39]
D
So ugly. 50 lead aircraft. I was Tom in the front seat, Jordy was in the back seat. We had Colin who was sat on the right hand side and Gary was sat on the left hand side. Ugly Five One was Ed in the front seat with Carl in the back outside. On the right wing was Dave and Chris on the left wing on the.
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B
Other side we were on the ground.
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C
We got the B1 bomber.
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B
He was going to drop three bombs to cover our infill. He was on his attack heading. And Nick, who was a flight commander in the other fly, gets on the radio. And I said, time is fuel and we don't have a lot of either. There was silence and Nick was talking to somebody else on his other radios and anyone, it's a go. And nothing else was said. We just went. We just went.
- [13:54]
C
The Royal Marines and Colonel McGowan had already said, we trust you to look after us. We need them to know that we're there for them. And especially to me and Tom, who'd seen this in, you know, months earlier, we're not having a repeat of this. We're not going out tomorrow morning to find something etched in our brain that you'll never remove from your brain ever again. We're not having that happening to me and Tom. It was really simple. We're gonna get him by hook or by crook. That Marine's coming out of there today.
- [14:30]
D
The Fort was produced by Kev Kaur. The editor was Sue Roberts. It's a BBC Audio north production for Radio 4.
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B
You can hear the next episode now on BBC Sounds.
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G
I'm Rory Stewart, and I want to talk about heroes. When I was a child, I imagined a heroic future for myself in which I would achieve great things and die sacrificing my life for a noble cause before I was 30. But my experiences in the Middle east and in politics showed me that there was something deeply wrong with my idea of heroism. From BBC Radio 4, my podcast, the Long History of Heroism explores ideas of what it meant to be a hero through time. How have these ideas changed? Who are the heroes we need today? Listen to Rory Stewart, the Long History of Heroism first on BBC Sounds.
- [15:31]
H
Are you? After more fascinating conversations about the past, well, History Extra might be just the podcast for you. Made by the team behind BBC History magazine, the History Extra podcast brings you gripping historical stories, compelling interviews with the world's leading historians, and the real history behind your favorite films and TV shows. Coming up, we've got deep dives into Tudor life, the Nazis on trial, the real story of the Gunpowder Plot, and plenty more so to join us on our journey into the past. Just search for the History Extra podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.