Fire Strike 7/9 Read online

  Fire Strike 7/9

  Paul Grahame Bommer

  Damien Lewis

  ‘Being a JTAC is the closest a soldier on the ground in the midst of battle can get to feeling like one of the gods — unleashing pure hellfire, death and destruction.’

  — Duncan Falconer

  Meet Sergeant ‘Bommer’ Grahame, one of the deadliest soldiers on the battlefield. He’s an elite army JTAC (Joint Terminal Attack Controller — pronounced ‘jay-tack’) — a specially trained warrior responsible for directing Allied air power with high-tech precision. Commanding Apache gunships, A-10 tank-busters, F-15s and Harrier jets, he brings down devastating fire strikes against the attacking Taliban, often danger close to his own side. Due to his specialist role, Sergeant Grahame usually operates in the thick of the action, where it’s at its most fearsome and deadly. Conjuring the seemingly impossible from apparently hopeless situations, soldiers in battle rely on the skill and bravery of their JTAC to enable them to win through in the heat of the danger zone.

  Fire Strike 7/9 tells the story of Bommer Grahame and his five-man Fire Support Team on their tour of Afghanistan. Patrolling deep into enemy territory, they were hunted and targeted by the Taliban, shot at, blown-up, mortared and hit by rockets on numerous occasions. Under these conditions Sergeant Grahame notched up 203 confirmed enemy kills, making him the difference between life and death both for his own troops and the Taliban.

  Sergeant Paul ‘Bommer’ Grahame and Damien Lewis

  FIRE STRIKE 7/9

  For

  Corporal Paul ‘Sandy’ Sandford and Guardsman Daryl Hickey,

  gone but not forgotten

  And for all the British and Allied soldiers who have lost their lives

  in the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan

  Honour the fallen

  ‘Merebimur — We shall be worthy’

  ‘Viret in Aeternum — It flourishes for ever’

  Regimental mottos of The Light Dragoons

  ‘Stand Firm and Strike Hard’

  Regimental motto of 2 MERCIAN

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Very special thanks to my then commanding officer at The Light Dragoons, Colonel Angus Watson MBE, for his invaluable support during the conception and writing of this book. Thanks to Captain James Kayll, also of The Light Dragoons, for his commitment and help in bringing this book to fruition, and to Major Antony Pearce, for all his friendship and support. My gratitude to all at my regiment, The Light Dragoons, for the comradeship and unstinting support over the years, and especially Sergeant Grant Cuthbertson, for getting me combat-ready in time for my Afghan deployment. All the staff at JFACTSU (Joint Forward Air Control Training and Standards Unit) deserve a very special mention, for their hard work in training me and others for the Afghan theatre. Very special thanks are due to Captain Chris Lane, Lance Bombardier Martin Hemmingfield, Lance Bombardier Ben Stickland and Bombardier Karl Jessop, my teammates in my Fire Support Team during our Helmand deployment. Without your help and enthusiastic support this book would not have been possible. Very special thanks also to Lieutenant Colonel Simon Butt, of 2 MERCIAN, the Officer Commanding (OC) of the unit in which I was embedded in Afghanistan. Your single-minded support and determination to help see this book through to fruition has been a battle winner in every sense. Very special thanks also to Major Stewart Hill, also of 2 MERCIAN, Commanding Officer during the last weeks of our Helmand tour, for your invaluable support and help. My gratitude also to Warrant Officer 2 Jason Peach of 2 MERCIAN, who was a tough and inspirational soldier to all, Sergeant Danny Fitzgerald of 2 MERCIAN, who did his utmost to make my job easier during the worst contacts imaginable and to all the soldiers of 2 MERCIAN whose commitment to win is exceptional. A note of thanks is also due to The Light Dragoons JTACs (Joint Terminal Attack Controller) presently in training and deployment, including Nick, Stu, Aldo and Wardy, for all your support. Further thanks are due to the JTACs who were deployed alongside me in Afghanistan, including Spunky, Dave, Reg, Chris, Si, Jamie, Stu, Bradders and Damo, who all had a hard and testing tour.

  Special thanks also to our agent, Annabel Merullo, and to Tom Williams who works alongside her, for a guiding hand during the publishing process. Special thanks to our publisher, Andrew Goodfellow, and to all who worked on the lightning-fast production of this book — including Liz Marvin, Sarah Bennie, Caroline Craig and Alex Young. Thanks again to Alan Trafford, for his early reading of the manuscript. Sincere thanks also to David Beamont and Paula Edwards at the Ministry of Defence, and to Tim David, at HQ Land Forces, for your deft touch in helping to bring this book through to publication.

  I would also like to thank my family, for all your support over the years — and for looking after me from the start (I know it wasn’t always easy). Finally, my very special love and gratitude as always to Nicola, Harry and Ella for your support and patience during the process of making this book happen. I could not have done it without you.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  During my six-month deployment to Afghanistan I was part of a Fire Support Team that included four fellow soldiers. Our team call sign was Opal Five Eight. As the Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) within Opal Five Eight, my baby was the air power — calling in the ground attack aircraft, fast jets, helicopter gunships and unmanned aerial vehicles that perform such a vital role in modern warfare. My story as told in this book concerns my tour as I fought it. Doubtless, calling in and controlling the fire of the field guns — the sister role of Opal Five Eight — played an equally important part in the battles we fought, but this is the story of my war, the lightning-fast air-to-ground battle.

  I could not have done what I did as a JTAC without the support of my fellow warriors in Opal Five Eight, and I hope that is clear from the pages that follow. I have done my very best to ensure that all the events portrayed herein are factually accurate, and to portray the battles we fought realistically and as they happened. No doubt my memory, and that of my fellow soldiers, is fallible, and I will be happy to correct any inadvertent mistakes in future editions.

  The high level of ordnance dropped was specific to the battle environment and bound to the threat we encountered during my deployment. Since then battle conditions have altered and new directives on the use of air support, such as the COMISAF directive, have meant that such a high level of ordnance usage is no longer the norm.

  In the latter weeks of my Afghan tour, the regiment that I was embedded with, 1 Worcester and Sherwood Foresters (1 WFR), was amalgamated into 2 MERCIAN Regiment. I have used the name 2 MERCIAN throughout this book, for simplicity’s sake, and because that is the name by which the regiment is now known.

  We have made every effort to identify the copyright holder of all the photographs used herein, and credit them accordingly. If there are any mistakes or errors in doing so, we will happily correct them in future editions.

  A donation will be made by the authors from the proceeds of this book to: Tickets for Troops, Combat Stress, Help for Heroes, The Light Dragoons Charitable Trust and 2 MERCIAN Regimental Benevolent Fund.

  ‘We fought and died together in Afghanistan. The ethos was look after your mate and your mate will look after you, and we built it up from there. We dropped danger-close dozens of times. That’s not how we trained for it, but that’s how it had to be done on the ground, to win battles. And to say that we did those danger-close drops at night dozens of times and had no casualties — that says how effective the ground-toair relationship was. At the end you’ve all trusted each other with your lives and formed an unbreakable bond — there’s nothing ever that will come close to that’

  Major (now Lieutenant Colonel) Simon Butt, Officer Commanding, B Company 1 WFR (now 2 MERCIAN)<
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  Map

  One

  LIVE TO KILL

  There it was again. Movement. A smudge of black amongst the shadows of the woodline. The shape of a male fighter? The flicker of a turban or a robe? Or just an animal?

  Sticky nudged me in the ribs. ‘You see it? Black flash between two trees. Wood strip, two hundred metres due east on the demarcation line.’

  I nodded. ‘Aye, I see it.’

  I flicked my eyes across to the wagon. Chris was jammed in the Vector’s armoured turret. His mop of blond hair was sticking out at all angles from under his helmet, his eyes searching everywhere for the enemy. The hulking great figure of Throp was hunched over the wheel, ready to gun the engine if we got targeted.

  We sure as hell were going to, sticking out like dog’s bollocks up here on the ridge. But where else were we to position ourselves? From here we had perfect visibility. The Green Zone rolled out before us, a lush carpet of vegetation bathed in the golden light of dawn. Here and there a line of trees traced a watercourse or a dirt road.

  It looked deceptively peaceful. But this was bandit country, stuffed full of six hundred battle-hardened Chechen and Pakistani insurgents, or so the Intel boys had told us. It was 0630, and directly below us one hundred lads from B Company 2 MERCIAN were about to advance on foot into the jungle and the enemy guns. They were outnumbered six to one, and relying on us to even up the odds a little.

  Stuck up here on this desert ridge we were the proverbial bullet magnet, devoid of any cover. But this was the place to get eyes on the battlefield, and call in air power to smash the enemy. We were pushing into their stronghold. Kicking the hornets’ nest. The odds were stacked against us. Air power was about all we had to even things up a little.

  I eyed that treeline again. ‘Sticky, what d’you reckon…’

  I didn’t get to finish the sentence. There was a violent burst of orange-yellow from within the darkened woods. It was like a mortar flash, only horizontal, and aimed right at us. It was followed instantly by another, the flame of the second weapon firing lighting up the billowing cloud of exhaust smoke hanging beneath the trees.

  Two black streaks each the size and shape of a bowling pin on its side wobbled and skitted their way towards us. One seemed aimed at Sticky’s head, the other at mine. In they came. Time seemed to freeze.

  Sticky and I dived for cover at the same moment, a Royal Marine and a Light Dragoon doing what had been drilled into us over the years and years of training. As we hit the dirt, the two warheads screamed through the air where we’d just been standing.

  The exhaust from the rocket-propelled grenades’ sustainer motors enveloped us in a choking fog. The smell was like Guy Fawkes night, only these weren’t fireworks. These rockets were designed to shred flesh, and pierce and pulverise armoured vehicles far tougher than our lightly protected Vector.

  I swivelled my head to yell a warning. A dirty blue-white trail of smoke lay to either side of the Vector. The RPGs had missed it by inches. Fucking hell. The opening salvo of the battle for Adin Zai had been fired, and no guessing who the enemy were targeting. It was us — that ‘enemy tank’ stuck out on the ridge line.

  ‘RPGs!’ I yelled. ‘Fucking RPG team in the woodline!’

  I turned back to the fight and tugged the angular butt of my SA80 into my shoulder. I jammed my right eye against the smooth metal of my stubby SUSAT sight. Its four-times magnification pulled the enemy position into instant close-up focus, the smoke from the RPG double-tap still hanging in the air beneath the branches.

  I placed the diamond-sharp tip of the pointer on the heart of the smoke, and opened fire, pumping round after round into the enemy position. With each squeeze of the trigger a gleaming brass case spewed from the assault rifle’s ejector, spinning on to the bone-white rock and dirt beside me. With each I imagined a bullet tearing into an RPG-gunner’s skull.

  Two more warheads fired out of the woodline. Again, they did the wobble-streak towards us, threading grey smoke across the valley. But this time their aim was a fraction off, the rockets screaming past a few metres above us. From the muzzle flashes I could see that the enemy had moved position a metre or two along the trees. The canny fuckers.

  ‘Watch our tracer!’ I yelled to the lads in the Fire Support Group. ‘Watch our tracer!’

  The FSG’s two WMIKs were parked to the side of our wagon. Together they had a pair of 50-cals and two GPMG — ‘Gimpy’ — machine guns mounted on the open-topped Land Rovers. It should be more than enough firepower to silence those fuckers in the woods. They could follow the glowing threads of our tracer rounds directly on to target.

  The crack of mine and Sticky’s assault rifles was drowned out by the murderous roar as the Gimpys opened up, followed closely by the awesome thump-thump-thump of the 50-cals. It was deafening, and it felt good.

  The RPG teams would keep moving, for their muzzle flashes were a dead giveaway. But the lads on the big machine guns knew their stuff. They were malleting either end of the treeline, trapping the enemy in their positions.

  There was a whump from beside me, as Sticky loosed off a grenade. Being a rufty-tufty Marine he had the chunkier version of the SA80, with underslung grenade launcher attached. For an instant I caught his eye, to let him know I liked what he was doing.

  As I did so, there was a violent kick to my right elbow and an angry high-pitched whine, sand and rocks flying from where the bullet had hit. It left a tiny, smoking scoop in the dirt a couple of inches from my right arm. I rolled to one side, and a second round kicked up the shit where I’d just been lying.

  I yelled a warning to Sticky that the enemy had a bead on us. As I did so, I heard a voice screaming from behind me.

  ‘Sticky! Bommer! What the fuck’re you doing? Bommer — get in the fucking wagon and get the A-10s on that treeline! NOW! And Sticky, cue up the fucking guns.’

  ‘Bommer’ was my nickname from The Light Dragoons. Chris was dead right. Sticky and I had just sacked our stations, getting fire on to the treeline when we should have been doing our proper jobs. I grabbed my rifle and made a mad dash for the rear of the Vector.

  ‘Aye-aye, Johnny Bravo,’ I panted, as I dived inside. ‘I’m on it.’

  Captain Chris Lane, from 19 Regiment Royal Artillery, was commanding our Fire Support Team (FST). He’d earned the nickname ‘Johnny Bravo’, just as soon as we’d clapped eyes on his shock of blond hair and rippling, chiselled torso. JB had us bang to rights for fucking off from our proper jobs.

  As the Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC — pronounced ‘Jaytack’) attached to B Company, 2 MERCIAN, it was my role to call in the warplanes. I was only to use my personal weapon as a last resort. Trouble was, that was all totally counter-intuitive to normal soldiering.

  The natural reaction whenever you were engaged was to put down rounds. To save your life and that of your mates. To kill the enemy. It was what soldiers like Sticky and me had trained to do for years. But as a JTAC I had to force myself to go against all my instincts, and trust the ground troops to defend me.

  Since 0400 that morning I’d been working the air power. First, I’d had a pair of A-10 Thunderbolt ground-attack aircraft on station. They’d been ripped by a Harrier and then another pair of A-10s. I had those A-10s overhead right now. One was searching the Green Zone for the enemy, the other checking the compounds ahead of the 2 MERCIAN’s line of departure.

  There was nothing better to hit that enemy RPG team than those A-10 ‘tank busters’. The A-10 has a nose-mounted, sevenbarrel 30mm Gatling gun that spews out a staggering 3,900 rounds per minute. It provides devastating firepower even against a main battle tank, and would turn those RPG gunners into Taliban purée.

  So powerful was the kickback from the cannon, that it had been known to stall the aircraft’s giant turbofan jet engines. In theory they could be restarted in mid-air. But I didn’t fancy being an A-10 pilot and trying. Either way, the A-10 was fast becoming my aircraft of choice in Afghanistan.

  I s
crabbled about in the rear of the wagon for the handset of my TACSAT, a UHF ground-to-air radio. The back of the Vector was my domain. JTAC Central. It might look like total chaos, but it was my chaos. My fingers grabbed the TACSAT handset from under the seat, and I jammed it against my ear.

  ‘Hog Two Two, Widow Seven Nine, do you copy?’

  There was a burst of echoing static in my ear. It was drowned out by a volley of bullets slamming into the compound wall directly behind us, chunks of blasted mud wall hammering off the Vector’s armoured sides. I glanced skywards, cursing for the A-10 to respond.

  From the TACSAT a black cable snaked out of the Vector’s open hatch, connecting to a satellite antenna atop the wagon. From there, the signal beamed skywards to the receiver embedded in the nose cone of the jet. But the TACSAT was a line-of-sight comms system. If the A-10s were out of sight they would miss my call.

  ‘Widow Seven Nine, this is Hog Two Two, you’re loud and clear.’

  Yeah! We were on. ‘Sitrep: engaging enemy RPG team in north– south woodline two hundred metres due east of our position. Can you see our tracer?’

  ‘Negative. I don’t see your tracer,’ came the American pilot’s calm drawl.

  I’d already talked the A-10 pilots around our position. I’d given them the layout of the three platoons below us, and their routes of advance into Adin Zai. Using maps compiled from aerial photos by our GeoCell unit, we’d located the three targets of today’s mission — Objectives Silver, Gold and Platinum. The last — Objective Platinum — was a suspected Taliban training school.

  I’d briefed the pilots on the weapons systems Intel reckoned the enemy had in there. Apart from the usual — small arms, machine guns and RPGs — there was a B-10 107mm anti-tank gun, a big and nasty bit of kit.