The Fort: 7. In the Zone

Summary

The History Podcast: The Fort – Episode 7: "In the Zone"

Date: September 15, 2025
Host: BBC Radio 4

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Overview

This gripping episode of The History Podcast transports listeners to the heart of a daring Afghanistan rescue mission. Through firsthand accounts from commanders, soldiers, and Apache pilots, the episode reconstructs the tense search and extraordinary retrieval of a missing British Marine, Lance Corporal Matthew Ford, during a fierce assault in Helmand Province. The narrative explores not just the tactical maneuvers and split-second decisions, but also moments of fear, camaraderie, and surreal humor in extreme circumstances.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Battlefield Mindset and Role of Apache Pilots

• Charlotte Madison and other pilots emphasize the duality of the Apache role—lethal force to protect troops, but with a deeper focus on saving lives.
  • “I know a lot of people will think about the job and think about the killing, but actually for me it was more about saving and preventing loss of life to our troops.” (Charlotte Madison, 00:15)
  • It's "incredibly easy" to pull the trigger when witnessing imminent danger to friendly forces.

2. The Rescue Mission Unfolds

• Overview: During the withdrawal of a major Marine operation near Garamsia, Lance Corporal Matthew Ford was left behind.
• The Search:
  • Apaches used thermal imaging overnight to find Ford.
  • The plan: land nearby, retrieve Ford with Marines transported externally on Apache wing stubs—a desperate, never-before-attempted maneuver in real combat.
• Personal Stakes:
  • “I was absolutely convinced that I wasn’t going to be the first girl to go through and fail.” (Unnamed Apache Pilot, 01:28)

3. Teamwork and Life Paths

• Charlotte Madison recounts her roundabout journey into military aviation, from school cadet exercises to being awestruck at her first helicopter ride.
  • “[W]e spent six weeks on an exercise in Canada...and these pilots came out and they said, hi, do you want a ride in the helicopter? And I thought I died.” (Charlotte Madison, 02:21)

4. The External Ride: A Marine Perspective

• Captain Chris Fraser Perry details the hazardous process of strapping onto an Apache:
  • “I hooked my right arm through one of the ladder rungs that the pilots used to climb into the cockpit. That’s how I'm secured onto the Apache.” (03:21)
  • He likens it to being “on a roller coaster,” surprisingly not feeling unsafe.
• Dave Rigg recalls the unforgettable physical experience: “That’s spooling up and actually you feel the helmet being sucked backwards...I had to lean forwards to avoid being pinned to the engine air intake.” (03:58)

5. Moments of Humor and Human Error

• Dave Rigg realizes his rarely-used rifle might malfunction mid-mission, leading to a test-fire from the side of the airborne Apache.
  • “[S]o I thought, well, that's as good a time as any.” (04:58)
  • The pilots panic, fearing a negligent discharge.
  • “I did bollock him.” (Ed Basie, 06:38)

6. The Surreality of Combat

• Chris Fraser Perry recounts a surreal exchange—being saluted by a tank crewman who suddenly notices Marines clinging to an Apache mid-firefight.
  • “Given everything that was going on...I remember just laughing to myself thinking, this moment is so surreal.” (06:55)

7. The Insertion and Assault

• The attackers rely on heavy air support, including a planned B1 bomber strike that almost gets aborted due to a technical issue.
  • “We knew how far we got to go. We’re waiting for the bombs to drop.” (Tom O’Malley, 07:52)
  • The bomb detonates, kicking up a dust storm and triggering buried munitions:
    • “The air was black with sooty deposit...there was stuff everywhere.” (Ed Basie, 09:05)
• Decision and Dread:
  • Helicopters descend blindly into dust and hostile fire.
  • “As we got close, I vividly remember seeing the muzzle flashes coming from the fort...I just remember feeling the most helpless of that entire talk.” (Captain Chris Fraser Perry, 09:58–10:53)

8. The Extraction Under Fire

• Ed Basie and Tom O’Malley describe flying in near-zero visibility, coordinated with frantic radio calls to prevent a catastrophic collision.
  • “We could fly into the back of him. We’re going to have £80 million worth, a helicopter and crew in a smoking wreck.” (Ed Basie, 11:47)
• The landing: the commandos leap from the Apaches and rush into the haze, racing to Ford’s position under fire.
  • “As soon as we touched down, I was off.” (Dave Rigg, 12:24)
  • “So I knew straight away that I’m right now sat next to a bullet magnet. So I jumped off the Apache and just ran forwards.” (Captain Chris Fraser Perry, 12:48)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Charlotte Madison:
  • “For me it was more about saving and preventing loss of life to our troops.” (00:15)
• Tom O’Malley:
  • “Nothing ever goes to plan. The B1. His bomb rack jams and he’s like, I need five minutes to reset, guys. And I’m like, we don’t have five minutes.” (08:16)
• Ed Basie (on friendly fire panic):
  • “I heard a bang on the right hand side and I looked across and Dave Rigg was giving me the thumbs up. He fired his rifle ahead just to make sure it was working.” (05:47)
• Chris Fraser Perry (surreal humor):
  • “A guy on top of the tank...looked up, looked away, and then snapped his head back as if he just realized, hang on a minute, is there someone sat on the side there? And then he saluted...I remember just laughing to myself thinking, this moment is so surreal.” (06:55)
• Tom O’Malley (the chaos of landing):
  • “If I land where I was supposed to land, we’re not going to get two aircraft in because the visibility is so poor.” (11:34)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Battlefield Philosophy & Job Realities: 00:04 – 00:49
• Discovery of the Mission & Setup: 00:49 – 02:21
• The ‘External’ Extraction Plan: 03:03 – 04:29
• Onboard Experiences & Comic Relief: 04:49 – 06:38
• Vulnerability and Surreal Moments: 06:55 – 07:52
• Assault and Bomb Drop Sequence: 07:52 – 09:27
• Approach and Emotions of Near-Contact: 09:27 – 11:01
• Landing and Extraction Execution: 11:13 – 12:58

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Tone and Narrative Style

The episode blends tense, matter-of-fact retellings with dry humor and moments of reflection. Speakers candidly share not just operational details, but visceral emotions—the fear, adrenaline, helplessness, and fleeting camaraderie that define frontline service.

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This summary covers the main narrative arc and highlights major themes and moments, omitting promotional content and unrelated segments.

Transcript

[Charlotte Madison]

I feel like I was in a very privileged position to be able to make a difference out on the battlefield.

[Unnamed Apache Pilot]

Apache pilots, really, that's what we're there to do. That's what we're in theater for.

[Charlotte Madison]

I know a lot of people will think about the job and think about the killing, but actually for me it was more about saving and preventing loss of life to our troops. It's much easier than you think it would be to pull the trigger. When you've been out and you've seen something happening to one of your friendly forces, you know, you've had a look at them, you've had a look at the patrol route. They set off on their patrol and then you see somebody shoot one of them, or you see somebody laying a bomb by the roadside. It's incredibly easy. The guys on the ground are frightened and they're saying, can you help?

[Unnamed Apache Pilot]

It was a big Marine operation that had been going on for several days just south of the district of Garamsia in, in Helmand Province. And in the withdrawal phase, they actually left behind one of the Marines, a Lance Corporal Matthew Ford. There were two Apaches on scene and they were tasked with finding the soldier. So they used the thermal imaging kit.

[Charlotte Madison]

Because it was still nighttime and they.

[Unnamed Apache Pilot]

Saw a hot spot and they identified that that was Matthew Ford. The plan was hatched that they were going to land on the friendly side of the river, pick up some marines, and they were then going to go and find Matthew Ford, strap him onto the helicopter and bring him back into safety. I was absolutely convinced that I wasn't going to be the first girl to go through and fail.

[Tom O'Malley]

Some people talk about FE and the military and, you know, is it a big thing and this, that and the other. But Charlotte Madison never, ever came across as being a female. You know, she was just one of the Apache pilots in Afghanistan.

[Charlotte Madison]

I kind of fell into it slightly by accident. I went to a girls boarding school just north of London and one of my girlfriends said that there was something called ccf, the Combined Cadet Force. And they all did it and they said, all the cool girls do it. Come on, you know, come along with us. The atmosphere of teamwork and camaraderie was something that I'd never come across before. And it was just, I think it's very unique and it felt really special. So, you know, for the 10 minutes that you're on the assault course trying to get over the six foot wall or something, nobody can be left behind and everyone's driving for the same goal. And it was just yeah, it was a teamwork thing that I just never come across. And I ended up doing a gap year with the Royal Engineers and we spent six weeks on an exercise in Canada laying cardboard mines into a fake minefield to foil the fake enemy. And all the boys were really excited about it. And I was stuck in the back of this really smelly tank. And at the end of the exercise, the door opened and this helicopter landed and these pilots came out and they came over and they said, hi, do you want a ride in the helicopter? And I thought I died. I thought my head had been slammed in the back of the tank door and that was it. And I couldn't believe that it was a real job. It was the first time I'd actually realized that real people were allowed to fly helicopters as an actual job. And it was just heaven. And I had a little ride and I was hooked up.

[Captain Chris Fraser Perry]

So my name's Captain Chris Fraser Perry. I've been in the Royal Marines 20 years now. 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 One, Colin Hearn. Yeah, so that was the four volunteers. I had an 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. That's how I'm secured onto the Apache. Once I thought to myself, this is as safe as I'm going to be on there. I sort of knocked on the cockpit and gave them a thumbs up. And then after a couple of moments it sort of lifted off.

[Dave Rigg]

I'm Dave Rigg. I was the Operations Officer seconded to the Ajax Battle Group. I paired this all up. I was with Marine Fraser Perry and WL1. Hearn was paired up with Marine Robinson. So it is quite noisy and you got the engine air intake right behind my head. So as we take off, that's spooling up and actually you feel the helmet being sucked backwards. So I had to lean forwards to avoid being pinned to the engine air intake.

[Captain Chris Fraser Perry]

It's going to be a really weird phrase to see, but I didn't feel unsafe. Like a roller coaster almost, that gravity is keeping you in.

[Unnamed Apache Pilot]

The two Apaches in the other flight would be very vulnerable. And so my flight was brought forward from Camp Bastion in order to essentially be decoys. And we were asked to fly around very, very low, very fast, and obviously fire as much ammunition into the enemy as we could.

[Dave Rigg]

Because I was a staff officer and perhaps not the best Soldier. I hadn't paid due care and attention to my weapon. Now, the SA80, it's a very accurate rifle, but it needs a lot of TLC to be reliable. My rifle had just been left at the rifle rack for a number of months because I hadn't needed it. I'd been doing a lot of paperwork and there I am, sat on this Apache, flying into this heavily defended enemy position. And I'm fearful that it might not work. But it occurred to me that I was, I was like in the perfect rifle range. There was just an expanse of open desert in front of me. So I thought, well, that's as good a time as any.

[Ed Basie]

I'm Ed Basie. I was a former Apache pilot with the UK forces. I heard a bang on the right hand side and I looked across and Dave Rigg was giving me the thumbs up. He fired his rifle ahead just to make sure it was working.

[Dave Rigg]

The shots attracted the attention of the two pilots who kind of spun round in their seat and looked at me in horror and started gesticulating at me. They probably thought that I'd had what we call an nd, a negligent discharge, which is a sort of disciplinary offense. And I'm trying to explain to them that, no, no, it's okay, I'm just test firing my weapon, but it's all right, it works. So I'm sort of giving the thumbs up of the charades through the window. I think actually they were probably concerned about the empty brass cases that eject from the rifle being sucked into the engine air intake. And that would have been a bad.

[Ed Basie]

Result because it's quite a loud crack when it goes off. I thought someone had hit the window. I thought, right, we're being shot out from the right, so. But it wasn't. It was just him, which is great. But yeah, I did bollock him.

[Captain Chris Fraser Perry]

I remember seeing the Sea Squadron from the Light Dragoons, which is similar to tanks from the army, and they were lined out on, on the banks of this river and they'd been firing into the fort as well, given a bit of covering fire, etc. They did a lot equally important for the attack. I remember a guy on top of the tank sort of looking up at the helicopter. He looked up, looked away and then snapped his head back as if he just realized, hang on a minute, is there someone sat on the side there? And then he saluted. He put up a salute. Given everything that was going on and everything that had happened, I remember just laughing to myself thinking, this moment is so surreal and Then very quickly, like getting face back on, you look forward and back in the zone.

[Tom O'Malley]

I'm Tom o', Malley, a former Apache pilot. We headed to the south. We were going to intercept the river and then cross the river. And we were waiting for the countdown. So we're monitoring our speed. We knew how far we got to go. We're waiting for the bombs to drop.

[Ed Basie]

So the plan was 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.

[Tom O'Malley]

So we're waiting for the B1. Nothing ever goes to plan. The B1. His bomb rack jams and he's like, I need five minutes to reset, guys. And I'm like, we don't have five minutes. We don't have two minutes. So that's it. One bomb. We're getting really close and, and I'm counting down and I'm looking at my stopwatch and I'm like, where's the bomb? Where's the bomb? And then it went off. Christ. I think it was a 2,000 pound bomb. That's a lot of explosives. And it kind of created its own little weather pattern. Just as we were going into the landing area, all of the dust gets sucked up and it creates this dust.

[Ed Basie]

Storm as we're getting there. Where the bomb had gone off, I can't describe to you. The air was black with sooty deposit. We didn't realize there's a lot of munitions under the ground as well at that place. So they had all gone off as well with the bomb. So there was stuff everywhere.

[Dave Rigg]

We're following Tom's aircraft. We kind of approached the fort from the south and skirted up the river at low level, just sort of 50 foot above the ground. I remember, you know, looking down and you could see destroyed buildings and trees on fire and, you know, flashes of gunfire down there. And I was just hoping that they, they wouldn't spot us. These lunatics sat on the side of these helicopter gunships.

[Captain Chris Fraser Perry]

As we got close. I vividly remember seeing the muzzle flashes coming from the fort. So that's that flash, the bang when a rifle's being fired. So I could see lots of enemy trying to shoot at the Apache. I could see all the muzzle flashes coming from the reeds to the south of the fort. And that's loosely the area that I knew we were going to land in. We knew 40 was there. That was my perhaps second oh, shit moment. What am I going to land into? Am I going to instantly land in under contact with the enemy. Is the helicopter going to get shot? I'm trying to quickly visualize where the enemy might be. I'm also trying to look at the perimeter of the wall where 40 might be. I'm trying to think of a. A route that I might have to escape through if anything went wrong. Normally if you're on the ground, that's where you'd fire back. But I couldn't do anything. And I just remember feeling the most helpless of that entire talk.

[Ed Basie]

There was a vulnerable point that we'd flown over just to the east, and I knew that was Charlotte's location, so she was putting weapons down.

[Unnamed Apache Pilot]

It was quite a dangerous mission, actually, but I don't think anyone really thinks about that at the time. Certainly during that whole day, everyone was just doing what they needed to do.

[Ed Basie]

I can hear the crack and the bang of the rockets and the weapons being fired from the Apaches above us over the den of our own aircraft.

[Tom O'Malley]

I'm in the lead. We're in thick dust now. So I'm now thinking if I land where I was supposed to land, we're not going to get two aircraft in because the visibility is so poor.

[Ed Basie]

My fear at this point I said to. Said to a car was stop, stop, stop. Because we could fly into the back of him. We're going to have £80 million worth, a helicopter and crew in a smoking wreck.

[Tom O'Malley]

And so I just quickly jump on the radio will push on, so I do not want him in.

[Dave Rigg]

And as we approach the fort, the lead helicopter didn't hesitate, just dived down into the dust cloud and disappeared.

[Tom O'Malley]

And we landed inside the fort.

[Dave Rigg]

The dust cleared just enough for us to be able to see where we were going. We descended into this cloud and landed on a patch of ground that was. It was like a cultivated field outside of the fort, probably 200 meters from the perimeter wall. And as soon as we touched down, I was off.

[Captain Chris Fraser Perry]

So I knew straight away that I'm right now sat next to a bullet magnet. So I jumped off the Apache and just ran forwards.

[Ed Basie]

I could see the end of the wing stub, so I could see about 3 meters, but I couldn't see 5 meters. I just couldn't see properly. As we hit the ground, the Marines had run and it just disappeared into the darkness.

[Tom O'Malley]

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.

[Charlotte Madison]

Nikki's never seen this before. Oh, wow.

[Kavita Puri]

It's just him in homes across Britain, children and grandchildren are discovering stories about their families in the Second World War. I've never noticed it before.

[Charlotte Madison]

It's a battered old suitcase. Do you want to open it?

[Unnamed Apache Pilot]

I'd love to open it.

[Kavita Puri]

Not the war. You're thinking of the fight against the Nazis. The other story of World War II, the one on the Asian front against Japan.

[Ed Basie]

The battle was gun battle, really. And kept on pounding them, pounding them, pounding them.

[Kavita Puri]

I'm Kavita Puri from BBC Radio 4, the World Service and the history podcast. This is the second map. 80 years after the end of that war. Why don't we remember it as well as we should? Listen to the second map first on BBC Sounds.