David Blakeley - Pathfinder: A Special Forces Mission Behind Enemy Lines

For my mother and father, for always being there for me.

Contents

It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Speech at the Sorbonne, 23 April 1910

Happiness shall always be found by those who dare and persevere; wanderer do not turn around, march on and have no fear.

ANONYMOUS

Unofficial collect of the Pathfinders

A very special thanks to my sisters Anna and Lisa, for all your support over the years and especially when I was away on operations with the military: I love you and you continue to inspire me.

I would like to thank Damien Lewis, the master of jack brews, for the time spent searching for inspiration while staring into the blanket fog of a southern Irish rain; publishers Rowland White and Alan Samson, for their inspiration, vision and guidance from the very earliest stages; Jillian Young and all at Orion who did so much to make this book a success. Thanks also to Annabel Merullo, literary agent, and her assistant, Laura Williams, for their support.

Thank you to: my steadfast friends Ewan Ross, Gareth Arnold, David Green, Azim Majid and Stefan DBart. To the most loyal friend Jimmy Chew thank you for being there. Also thank you to Lara Fraser, Alice Clough, Rob Mussetti, Francesca Mussetti, Matt Taylor, Andy Jackson, Sabina Skala, Janice Dickinson, Sophie Ball, Laura Pradelska, Olivia Lee, Bonnie Gilmore, Josh Varney, Emma Rigby, Richard Allen, Charles Towning, Luke Hardy, Andrew Chittock, Patrick Hambleton, Katie Rice, Charlie Birch and Katerina Konecna. And thanks of course to Eva, Chubbs, Logs and Podge, for putting up with my repeated impositions upon your hospitality.

Very special and heartfelt thanks to the men of my patrol, Mayhem Three Zero, with whom I shared so much and as is depicted in this book, and especially Tricky, who saved my life on more than one occasion.

To the Pathfinders (PF): many great men have put huge amounts of effort into developing this elite unit. The PF are the best in the world at what they do because of your efforts. To the fallen; we will remember you. To the current and future Findermen move fast, stay low and enjoy it while it lasts.

FIRST IN

Pathfinder Platoon Motto

David Blakeley

March 2012.

Find out more about David Blakeley at:

www.davidblakeley.co.uk

I have changed some of the names of the soldiers depicted in this book, and a handful of geographical locations, for operational and personal security reasons, and to protect the identities of members of the British and Allied elite forces.

My story as told in this book concerns my tour of Iraq as I fought it. It is written from my own personal memory and recollections of the events portrayed, and from the memories of others I have spoken to from the mission who were able to assist, and from my notes of that tour. I have done my best to portray accurately and realistically the events as they happened. However, my memory is no doubt fallible, and any mistakes herein are entirely of my own making. I will be happy to address them in future editions.

I t was last light, almost time to load up the C130 Hercules and take to the darkening skies. I strolled down the deserted runway to get a little space to myself. The sun was sinking below the rumpled, grey mass of the mountains several kilometres to the west of us, with the vast expanse of the great semi-arid desert lying beyond.

The airstrip was deep in the shadows of a sunken valley and well out of sight, which was just as we wanted it. From high above me an eagle emitted a lonely, high-pitched screech. A dust devil came swirling across the bush, whipping up dry grass and debris as it skittered across the runway. The scene was so utterly deserted, it was hardly possible to imagine all the hidden men-at-arms making their last-minute, fevered preparations.

You can mount an airborne mission from just about any serviceable length of tarmac from Londons Heathrow to a battle-scarred Baghdad International Airport, or a disused airfield in the middle of the bush. Mostly, conventional military operations go out from one of the big airbases, with little need to keep them hidden. With missions such as ours we needed to be well away from the public gaze, and the prying lenses of the media.

With this airstrip wed got exactly what we were looking for. It was so ancient it didnt even possess a working control tower. There was just a ragged, sun-bleached, dull-orange windsock hanging limp in the air, plus a couple of semi-derelict hangars. Since its arrival the previous night under cover of darkness, there was also the fat, powerful form of a C130 Hercules transport aircraft squatting on the apron, looking well out of place next to the pitted runway, half-overgrown with weeds.

One of the two hangars housed our vehicles, a pair of cut-down Land Rovers bristling with machine guns, which we affectionately referred to as the Pinkies. The building dated from the 1950s, with brick walls topped by a sagging corrugated-iron roof. The rust-red metal had been patched with scores of repairs, like dull silver sticking plasters. Still, it served our purposes fine. From there we could load the Pinkies aboard the C130 for deep insertion missions, or on to a Chinook heavy-lift helicopter for shorter-range operations.

In the wild, empty quiet I took a moment to reflect upon what lay ahead of me. It was only recently that Id taken over as second-in-command (2IC) of our unit, the Pathfinders, and here we were poised to jump into the darkness and the unknown. A number of the guys had many more years experience than me: no doubt about it, I was going to be tested as never before.

They say that war is long periods of boredom interrupted by intense periods of action. Wed waited a good few days for this one to get the green light. But even now, two hours away from brakes off the aircraft take-off hour we could still get stood down. In fact, we could get called back at any moment before we dived off the Hercules aircrafts open ramp, high above hostile terrain.

Once we were out of the aircrafts hold we had reached the point of no return. No one could call us back. You cant use a radio on a HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) jump, which was how wed be inserting. There was no way to hear a radio message, or to speak into a mouthpiece, when freefalling from extreme high altitude and plummeting to earth at speeds in excess of 100 mph. In any case, the slipstream would rip any earpiece or mouthpiece away.