A Million Bullets: The Real Story of the British Army in Afghanistan by James Fergusson
Authors: James Fergusson
Tags: United States, History, England, Military, Europe, middle east, Great Britain, Ireland, 21st Century, Modern (16th-21st Centuries), Afghan War
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a GPMG for every four men with ammo all over us. Normally there's only one GPMG for the whole platoon. We looked like bloody Rambos. It felt like a rescue mission.'
As the four-tonner left to take them to the landing site, the Gurkhas in the back started cheering.
'That was another moment I'll not forget, a proper Gurkha moment. The driver asked me what the boys were cheering about. I just looked at him and said, "We're off for a fight."'
When they arrived, Rex immediately ordered them to occupy ANP Hill – a move that ended his reliance on Muhammadzai's men to hold that crucial piece of ground. 'It was just the greatest relief to have my own boys up there,' Rex confessed. 'I never felt tactically secure with the ANP watching my back. Losing the hill was not an option.'
The hill was promptly attacked with mortars, and more heavily than at any time previously, which itself suggested that the ANP had had some kind of arrangement with the Taliban. It was another wild night.
'Dusk was coming on and there was tracer coming from all the corner towers,' said Hollingshead. 'We got up the hill, set up the SF [supporting fire] guns and were straight into it.' Hollingshead remembered seeing the barrel of the .50 cal on the hill glowing red in the darkness. At the height of the fighting he led his men in an impromptu chant of 'Aya Gurkhali!' ('The Gurkhas are upon you!'), a battle cry that he guessed hadn't been heard for half a century. 'I know it was corny,' he said, 'but we were pumped up. It just felt the right thing to do.'
Relief for the Gurkhas finally came on 30 July when they were replaced by more Fusiliers. The attempt to garrison a town with a single British Army platoon was an experiment that Task Force HQ did not repeat. The Fusilier relief force eventually amounted to most of a company. Rex's men were supposed to have been supported in their defence by a detachment of the Afghan National Army, the ANA. In practice, the ANA were of little use. There were just fifteen of them at Now Zad, supervised by Captain Dougie Bartholomew of the Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (OMLT), which had been attached to the battle group from the earliest planning stages. Small units of supervised ANA were now scattered across the province.
Like the Coalition's alliance with the ANP, the main purpose of the OMLT (or 'Omelette' as it was inevitably nicknamed) was political: a way of demonstrating that the British were not foreign occupiers but an assisting ally, operating in Helmand at the invitation of the government in Kabul. In the long term the OMLT was even more significant, for it represented an eventual exit strategy for Britain and her Coalition allies. The idea was to build up a national army capable of maintaining security and holding back the Taliban on its own – an 'Afghan solution for an Afghan problem', as the official mantra went – and the best and quickest way of achieving that was to train the ANA in the field.
The ANA/OMLT project had got off to a shaky start, however. Despite the years that had passed since Karzai's election, the ANA training programme was still hopelessly under-funded. According to some officers involved, little priority was given to the OMLT at Brigade Headquarters in Colchester when Herrick 4 was being planned. Few had anticipated that the ANA would be involved in such hard-core fighting so soon; the OMLT focus, it was thought, would be on further training. For this reason, vital equipment such as night vision goggles, radios and even vehicles were reassigned to British combat units who, it was judged, would have greater need of them. Thus it was that when the OMLT officers arrived in the spring to meet their new charges, they found a rag-tag, under-equipped force that was far from being what the British Army would consider 'operational'.
The OMLT was headquartered at Camp Tombstone, just next door to Camp Bastion, a location intended to enhance Anglo- Afghan cooperation. But while that
As the four-tonner left to take them to the landing site, the Gurkhas in the back started cheering.
'That was another moment I'll not forget, a proper Gurkha moment. The driver asked me what the boys were cheering about. I just looked at him and said, "We're off for a fight."'
When they arrived, Rex immediately ordered them to occupy ANP Hill – a move that ended his reliance on Muhammadzai's men to hold that crucial piece of ground. 'It was just the greatest relief to have my own boys up there,' Rex confessed. 'I never felt tactically secure with the ANP watching my back. Losing the hill was not an option.'
The hill was promptly attacked with mortars, and more heavily than at any time previously, which itself suggested that the ANP had had some kind of arrangement with the Taliban. It was another wild night.
'Dusk was coming on and there was tracer coming from all the corner towers,' said Hollingshead. 'We got up the hill, set up the SF [supporting fire] guns and were straight into it.' Hollingshead remembered seeing the barrel of the .50 cal on the hill glowing red in the darkness. At the height of the fighting he led his men in an impromptu chant of 'Aya Gurkhali!' ('The Gurkhas are upon you!'), a battle cry that he guessed hadn't been heard for half a century. 'I know it was corny,' he said, 'but we were pumped up. It just felt the right thing to do.'
Relief for the Gurkhas finally came on 30 July when they were replaced by more Fusiliers. The attempt to garrison a town with a single British Army platoon was an experiment that Task Force HQ did not repeat. The Fusilier relief force eventually amounted to most of a company. Rex's men were supposed to have been supported in their defence by a detachment of the Afghan National Army, the ANA. In practice, the ANA were of little use. There were just fifteen of them at Now Zad, supervised by Captain Dougie Bartholomew of the Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (OMLT), which had been attached to the battle group from the earliest planning stages. Small units of supervised ANA were now scattered across the province.
Like the Coalition's alliance with the ANP, the main purpose of the OMLT (or 'Omelette' as it was inevitably nicknamed) was political: a way of demonstrating that the British were not foreign occupiers but an assisting ally, operating in Helmand at the invitation of the government in Kabul. In the long term the OMLT was even more significant, for it represented an eventual exit strategy for Britain and her Coalition allies. The idea was to build up a national army capable of maintaining security and holding back the Taliban on its own – an 'Afghan solution for an Afghan problem', as the official mantra went – and the best and quickest way of achieving that was to train the ANA in the field.
The ANA/OMLT project had got off to a shaky start, however. Despite the years that had passed since Karzai's election, the ANA training programme was still hopelessly under-funded. According to some officers involved, little priority was given to the OMLT at Brigade Headquarters in Colchester when Herrick 4 was being planned. Few had anticipated that the ANA would be involved in such hard-core fighting so soon; the OMLT focus, it was thought, would be on further training. For this reason, vital equipment such as night vision goggles, radios and even vehicles were reassigned to British combat units who, it was judged, would have greater need of them. Thus it was that when the OMLT officers arrived in the spring to meet their new charges, they found a rag-tag, under-equipped force that was far from being what the British Army would consider 'operational'.
The OMLT was headquartered at Camp Tombstone, just next door to Camp Bastion, a location intended to enhance Anglo- Afghan cooperation. But while that
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