Ed Macy is an elite pilot, one of the few men qualified to fly Apache helicopters, the world's deadliest fighting machines. This is his account of a fearless mission behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. After a brutal accident forced him out of the Paras, Ed Macy refused to go down quietly. He bent every rule to sign up for the Army's gruelling Apache helicopter programme and was one of the handful to pass the nightmare selection process. Dispatched to Afghanistan's notorious Helmand Province in 2006, his squadron were on hand when a marine went MIA behind enemy lines – and they knew they were his only hope. From the cockpit of the mighty Apache helicopter comes this incredible true story of a rescue mission so dangerous they said it couldn't be done, and of the man who dared to disagree.
This is dedicated to
Mathew Christopher Ford.
The following is an account of operations involving 656 Squadron, Army Air Corps, in Afghanistan over several months in 2006 and 2007. At the time of going to print, some inquests have not yet been held into the deaths of British Army and Royal Marine personnel reported in these pages. The author has, to the best of his knowledge, reported events faithfully and accurately and any insult or injury to any of the parties described or quoted herein or to their families is unintentional. The publishers will be happy to correct any inaccuracies in later editions.
Identities have been obscured in a few cases to protect the individuals and their families.
I flicked a glance at the digital clock top right on my control panel.
Maintaining the same gentle pressure on the cyclic stick, I continued our broad right banking turn into the sun. I felt its warmth on my face through the cockpit’s Perspex window. It was going to be another scorching day.
Two thousand feet below us, the Paras were about to finish sweeping the first field. It was twice the size of a football pitch. They had another one as big to do next. Half of them had fanned out across the length of it, weapons at the ready; the rest provided cover from the bushes and undergrowth along the southern edge. The company commander and his signaller followed closely behind the line, moving from west to east.
A crop had been planted, but not long ago. For once, it wasn’t opium. Much of the field’s surface was bare, dark earth, making the search easier, but the Paras still had to move painfully slowly, looking for the slightest clue as to the whereabouts of the two missing SBS men. Anything could help – a strip of clothing, spent ammunition shells, dried blood.
We’d seen no sign of the KIA or MIA since our arrival. It didn’t bode well.
Our flight had been scrambled at dawn to relieve the pair of Apaches up at Sangin before us. They – the Incident Response Team (IRT) – had been scrambled three hours previously. It had been a long night.
We’d been given a quick update on the ground as we were firing up the aircraft.
In complete secrecy, a small SBS team had lifted four Taliban organisers from a village near the northern Helmand town at 3am. The team were from Force 84, the British contingent of the Joint Special Forces command. They hadn’t notified the local Para garrison in Sangin’s District Centre about the mission – the usual SF drill to ensure total operational security. They were no different when I used to fly them around the Balkans during the 1990s.
The arrest had gone without a hitch. But on the way home the snatch squad was ambushed by a large and very angry Taliban force who wanted their people back. The team’s lead Land Rover was destroyed by the first enemy RPG, kicking off a massive fire-fight and a desperate chase through the fields. The elite SBS team had been pursued by at least seventy Taliban.
They only got out of there three hours later, thanks to a platoon of determined Gurkhas, who fought their way through the Talib lines twice, and close air support from two Apaches, an A10 jet and two Harrier GR7s. The Apaches stuck a Hellfire missile down the throat of their abandoned Land Rover to deny it to the enemy.
In the chaos, the SBS team lost a couple of their prisoners. More importantly, two team members were separated from the main group: SBS Sergeant Paul Bartlett and Captain David Patten, attached from the Special Reconnaissance Regiment. Though their whereabouts were unknown, Patten was seen going down hard while sprinting across a field, and was already presumed Killed in Action.
The battle over, our task was to escort a company of paratroopers carried by two Chinooks into the area and help them locate the KIA and MIA. Somehow we had been given a reasonably precise grid reference for the search.
I was flying, and Simon, my Royal Navy co-pilot and gunner, was in the seat six feet in front of me. While the Paras combed the ground, we scanned the immediate landscape for enemy or hidden IEDs. Simon stared into his Target Acquisition and Designation Sight, constantly probing the treelines, bushes and shadows ahead of the Paras with the 127-times-magnification daytime TV camera lens.
