AN unofficial video and photographic record of British paratroopers’ ferocious three-month campaign against the Taliban insurgency has been passed to The Sunday Times.
It shows a series of firefights at the “platoon houses” in the north of the British-controlled Helmand province and RAF and US aircraft launching strikes on the insurgents. The footage and photographs graphically demonstrate the relentlessness of the fighting that General David Richards, the Nato commander in Afghanistan, has said was the fiercest for British forces since the Korean war in the 1950s.
The first six British soldiers to die in Helmand were killed in Sangin, the centre of the province’s opium processing industry.
Soldiers recorded material on mobile phone cameras for a video, circulated among paratroopers, with a gung-ho musical soundtrack. It opens with a spoof Star Wars style sequence boasting of their triumphs.
Such images, filmed in part by the soldiers because the media were being kept away, are likely to be the last of their kind because in October the Ministry of Defence banned the use of cameras on operations. This was not for security reasons, but because they “may cause significant embarrassment to the MoD”.
In addition to the footage, The Sunday Times has obtained detailed accounts by officers of the 3rd Battalion the Parachute Regiment of operations in Sangin. The accounts record the leading role played by A Company, which was based in the government district centre in Sangin, and of 1 Platoon in particular.
One of the platoon’s section leaders was Corporal Bryan Budd, the posthumous winner of the VC. It also included Private Peter McKinley who won a Military Cross. The platoon was commanded by Lieutenant Hugo Farmer who won a Distinguished Gallantry Cross, second only to the VC.
British servicemen deployed in southern Afghanistan during the summer have won more than 70 awards, including Budd’s VC, a George Cross, three Distinguished Gallantry Crosses, 11 Military Crosses and four Distinguished Flying Crosses.
One of the most dramatic incidents was a Taliban attack on paratroopers as they moved along a dried-up river bed towards the government compound in Sangin on July 27.
Merchants on the edge of the bazaar hurriedly shut up shop, women in blue burqas shepherded children back into houses and suddenly streets that had been busy were deserted.
McKinley spotted two Taliban gunmen running half-crouched across the roof of a mud-brick building. He shouted out a warning, swung his rifle and fired. The Taliban replied with an onslaught of AK-47 rifle fire and rocket-propelled grenades. McKinley and Private Neil Edwards fell to the ground. Despite a shrapnel wound, McKinley insisted on continuing to fight before he and Edwards were evacuated to the main British base at Camp Bastion.
A Company had arrived back in Sangin just a few hours earlier. The action that day was indicative of the ferocious battles with the Taliban in a series of deployments to the town.
Their first experience of Sangin came in 24-hour operation on June 13, when troops in a US supply convoy were ambushed on the road leading north between Sangin and Musa Qala and A Company went in under fire to protect them.
It was here McKinley carried out the first of a number of acts of outstanding bravery that were to win him the MC. He dragged a wounded US soldier behind cover and gave him medical treatment that saved his life, as heavy Taliban machinegun fire poured towards him, tracer bullets flashing red in the black of the night.
A Company was withdrawn from Sangin the next day but in late June, under pressure from President Hamid Karzai to ensure the Afghan flag flew in the remote district centres of northern Helmand, British commanders sent the paratroopers back in.
For a week nothing happened, then one night the sky erupted as rocket-propelled grenades, Chinese-made 107mm rockets and AK-47 fire thumped into the paras’ machinegun posts from houses overlooking the base.
Paratroopers, some caught wearing only shorts, swiftly put on body armour and responded with heavy machinegun fire that eventually silenced the Taliban. Attacks came repeatedly for the rest of the month. On June 27 two members of the special forces, Captain David Patten, of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, and Sergeant Paul Bartlett, of the Special Boat Service, were killed in the town.
Four days later a Taliban rocket hit the tower where Corporal Peter Thorpe, a signaller, and Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi of the Intelligence Corps, were listening in to Taliban communications, killing them instantly.
On July 5, the last day of its second stint in Sangin, A Company lost a man. Private Damien Jackson was fatally wounded as he and his platoon tried to secure the helicopter landing site for the arrival of B Company.
Within hours, B Company came under sustained fire and called in British Apache helicopter gunships, US A10 tankbuster aircraft and RAF Harriers.
A Company returned on July 27 and almost immediately became involved in the action in which McKinley and Edwards were wounded. Three days later Farmer of 1 Platoon led an assault on a Taliban hideout, forcing them to flee.
On August 10 a Chinook flying in engineers also brought back McKinley who had insisted on returning to the fray, despite recommendations from medics that he take more time to recuperate.
Meanwhile, the Afghan police, who the paras had gone in to help, began defecting to the Taliban, passing intelligence from inside the compound.
On August 12, there was another death at Sangin with Lance-Corporal Sean Tansey of the Life Guards crushed by a Scimitar armoured vehicle. McKinley continued to act like a magnet for the Taliban and with his return the men of 1 Platoon were again in the thick of the action.
On August 20 came the action in which Budd was killed. His platoon was blowing holes in mud walls in Sangin to give troops options to harry the Taliban. The paras came under heavy attack and several were wounded.
As they retreated under fire, nobody realised Budd was missing. He had been shot in the back, the bullet exiting through his stomach, and although he was bleeding to death he had managed to take three Taliban with him.
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO
The video sequences of Paras in action in Helmand this summer shows the violence of the fighting they faced, often cut off and outnumbered. The film opens with mortars being fired at night and goes on to show bombs exploding on Taliban positions, soldiers firing a missile at the enemy and fighting off attacks from a machine gun nest. Later, a group of Paras are shown from the air using explosives to clear a complex of mud-walled buildings in Sangin.
Not everything goes according to plan. In one sequence seen through a night sight, a Hercules plane intending to parachute rations to hungry, cut-off soldiers mistakenly drops them into a Taliban-controlled mosque instead.
CLICK HERE FOR SLIDESHOW
The sequence of stills gives a flavour of everyday life for Britain's airborne troops at rest and in action on the frontline in Afghanistan. The soldiers are shown out on patrol, sometimes among buildings which are in flames or reduced to rubble. Other photos show them firing mortars and manning machine guns. Another shows soldiers grouped around their maps as they plan another operation. Others pose with sniper rifles and quad bikes. The pictures also show the importance of helicopters in Afghanistan - giant Chinooks bring in supplies and transport troops to isolated outposts while sleeker Apaches provide firepower to support the men on the ground.
Read the full account of the Paras' time in Sangin in Mick Smith's blog
