It was 2.30am when the convoy finally reached Camp Zeebrugge, crawling through the moonless night like a herd of prehistoric beasts, headlights peering into the dust ahead, brakes squealing at the stars above.

As attack helicopters circled overhead, and mortar rounds thumped in the distance, the first of the juggernauts came into sight - a 36-wheel, 34-tonne tank transporter carrying a container plastered in Koranic verses.

Then came another. And another. And more and more until the entire road through the camp was blocked by a procession of lorries, mine-clear-ers, bulldozers and armoured personnel carriers that stretched at times for more than 2 1/2 miles.

This was the moment when British troops completed one of their most complex and daring operations since the Second World War: outfoxing the Taleban to deliver a giant new turbine to the Kajaki Dam in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. In doing so they marked a turning point that Nato commanders hope will prove decisive in the battle for Afghan hearts and minds.

The Times was the only newspaper to witness the convoy's arrival in Kajaki at the end of its perilous and painfully slow five-day drive northwards from the southern city of Kandahar, the former Taleban stronghold.

"We've been drinking a lot of Red Bull," said Corporal Barry Guthrie, a 29-year-old driver in the convoy who had slept for eight hours in total since leaving Kandahar on Wednesday evening. "It's been pretty exciting and emotional at times with three guys in the cabin in 50 degrees-plus. All the way we were expecting to get whacked, but it never happened."

It was a task of epic proportions,inspiring comparisons with Commando magazine, Mad Max, the Battle of Arnhem in 1944 and the relief of the Siege of Mafeking in 1900.

The mission was to take 220 tonnes of turbine and other equipment, worth millions of pounds, across 100 miles of some of the most hostile and heavily mined territory in Afghanistan.

At the climax of the Taleban’s fighting season.

Without anyone noticing.

A single Taleban bullet could have cripple the delicate machinery and delayed the project by a year.

Nato commanders, facing an escalating Taleban insurgency in eastern and southeastern Afghanistan, initially argued that it could not be done until the spring poppy harvest, a traditional low point in the Taleban’s capabilities. But they came under pressure from Washington, which was anxious to secure visible progress before the presidential election to protect funding, according to sources in Kabul.

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