THEY called it “Spectre baiting”. Sergeant Craig Brodie, 33, sensed his men’s nervousness in the grim little joke as their Warrior armoured vehicle crawled down a darkened street in the southern Iraqi city of Amara. They were keyed up for action and concentrating for all they were worth.

Lurking in the shadows ahead was a group of rebel gunmen from the Mahdi army of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shi’ite cleric. Brodie’s job was to lure them into the open so an AC-130 Spectre gunship overhead could destroy them with its cannons and howitzers.

The rebels would show themselves only if they were attacking the British Warrior, so it was no surprise to Brodie that the atmosphere in the vehicle was tense.

By contrast, the American voice in his earphones could not have been cooler. “Steel rain on call,” drawled the controller of the US special forces gunship circling in the starry night sky and waiting for the moment to strike.

There was a pause as the Warrior edged forward. Then the controller, codenamed Basher 75, came back on the radio. Six to eight armed men had been spotted with the Spectre’s night vision equipment. They were preparing to ambush.

“Any foxhounds out?” asked the controller, checking that there were no dismounted soldiers who needed to get back inside Brodie’s vehicle fast.

It was just as well the answer was negative. The Mahdi militiamen were now less than 100 yards away and the Spectre was about to swing into action.

Colonel Matt Maer, of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment (PWRR), had given special written authorisation for the Spectre to open fire even if his own troops were within the potential blast area. This was to be the first such “danger close” engagement signed off by a British commander since the Korean war.

Brodie locked down his hatch and stared through his night-sights at the Mahdi militiamen. “We were in so close we watched them laughing and joking,” he recalled. “Basher then announced, ‘Rounds on the way,’ and at the same time I engaged with my cannon.

“The strike was an awesome sight. There was no flame, just a big puff and then hot metal shrapnel flying in all directions. In three or four seconds the smoke cleared and there was nothing there at all. The militia had been vaporised.”

The battle that began that night — August 10 — was codenamed Operation Hammersmith and became the biggest fought by British troops since the invasion of Iraq last year. More than 100 engagements would follow in 48 hours.

The objective of the operation was to retake Amara’s streets from al-Sadr’s fighters.

Fourteen Warriors in each of two companies, one from the PWRR and one from the Black Watch regiment, fanned out across the city in search of the enemy. They were supported by tanks from the Queen’s Royal Lancers along with helicopters, jets and the Spectre gunships.

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