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March 8, 2004, Monday, Scotsman IF THE MISSILES HAD GONE OFF IN THE AMMUNITION, NONE OF US WOULD HAVE LIVED Gethin Chamberlain Defence Correspondent IT HAD been dark for hours when the first rocket landed. There were few people awake, just a couple of sentries and radio operators. On the road outside the camp, a Warrior and a Landrover sat waiting for permission to move off towards Bridge 4 to link up with the company planning a big set piece raid into Basra. Inside, the occupants fought against sleep. The night was black, tinged orange on the horizon where the oil fires burned. The first rocket landed on the edge of the camp and then another, and another, falling out of the sky in a line running towards the fuel and ammunition trucks. Captain John Stevenson was now wide awake. It was a week into the war, and the Black Watch supply chain was taking a breather. For the first time in a week, they had decided to stay in the same place for more than one night. It was a mistake, as they were about to discover. In spite of the bombing and the artillery attacks, the Iraqis still had weapons with which to fire back. They had already adapted their anti-shipping cruise missiles to attack land targets; now they employed one of the last of their multiple rocket launchers, capable of firing off 30 rockets in a matter of seconds. The first rocket landed south of the Black Watch encampment. And then the rest began to fall. Capt Stevenson knew what was coming as soon as the first rocket landed. "That night they dropped them on us and I knew straight away what it was, there was one at one end of the camp and one at the other and then the rest came down. I think about 11 went off, but a few more didn't explode. I got showered with soil, that's how close they were." In the Landrover by the gates, the blast took the breath away. The vehicle rocked back on its chassis and, for a moment, seemed ready to pitch over. Its occupants ran, darting for cover in the nearest armoured vehicle, slamming the door shut behind them and lying gasping for air, astonished at their narrow escape. Inside the camp perimeter, there were casualties, but only shrapnel wounds. The last seven rounds had failed to detonate, the ones that had landed right among the ammunition and fuel trucks. Had they gone off, no-one could have survived. "I look back and think we were bloody lucky because if that lot had gone up there wouldn't have been any of us left," Capt Stevenson says. "It would have taken us all out. " It did not take long to work out what had happened. Capt Stevenson said there had been a man living in a hut on the site where they had camped, and he was a recruiter for the fedayeen. "They had this system where they had pieces of string and they would give them this bit of string to show that they had signed up to fight. "We would normally only stay one night but this time we stayed a second night. The place had big tank scrapes and some cover and there was this man's shack there. "We found out after that he had gone, his wife said he had gone off to Basra and obviously he'd gone to tell his friends we were there and gave them the position, showed them on their maps or whatever. "He'd left his bits of string behind and his AK47." Unsurprisingly, it was not their only close shave. Up at Bridge 4 into Basra, Corporal John Rose was with the mortar platoon when a message came over the radio to say that they were facing mortar attack. "The guys were in the middle of getting washed and shaved when I told them we were moving. We got the message at about 1: 45 and 2pm we came under fire," he says. But it took 15 minutes to unravel the cables linking the mortar vehicle together and by then, it was almost too late. "We never thought we were going to come under contact or we'd have been out of there right away, but once the rounds started coming in it was like 'Leave everything and go'," he says. Cpl Rose struggled to explain the danger they were in: a private initially refused to move because his commander was away receiving new orders. "He was like 'I'm not moving, I don't know where my commander is' and I was like 'Get in the commander's seat and follow me, I know where he is'," Cpl Rose says. He was glad they moved when they did: "When there are mortars landing about 20ft from you and you're in an armoured vehicle, you are glad you are in an armoured vehicle. "The good thing is that it was only 60mm mortars . If it had been 81mm like the British mortars it would have taken the majority of the mortar line out. "The wagon that I was in, I told the driver to stop because the other private wouldn't move and a 60mm mortar landed 20 metres in front of us and just sprayed the side of the wagon. You didn't know that at the time, it was when you get back and see all the big chunks. It is scary, everything goes through your mind. "One landed at the front of us, one landed at the back, that's what you call adjusting rounds. They take one in front, one behind and then they take the bit in the middle and say 'Right, that's it'. There must have been about 20 or 30 rounds within the space of time it took the tanks to get out, the company to get out and then us to get out. We were the last to get out. "And we knew what was coming. We knew we were getting fired on. When a mortar round lands you hear a whistling noise and then a thud and then you see the flash. When I saw the flash behind and the one in front I was like 'right let's go'. We were trying to get out before the rounds started coming down but by the time we got the guys back off the ground and everything sorted the tanks had all moved off and the company had already left and they had even run over a Landrover to get out. But everybody got out."
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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