six of us from the regiment deploying as part of Operation Basilica, replacing the troops that went out initially. The day before we departed, we got our final briefing from one of the LEWT staff sergeants who had just returned from Sierra Leone. He didn’t have anything good to say:
‘First off, Sierra Leone is a shithole and I mean that in the worst possible way. There is no infrastructure to speak of. Mains electricity, clean water and sewerage systems are almost non-existent. However, on a good day you can, oddly enough, get great mobile phone coverage! Like in many parts of Africa, child soldiers are part of the conflict. Be under no illusions: a round fired by a child will kill you just the same as a round fired by an adult. Don’t hesitate, because they won’t. Drink and drugs make the rebels utterly unpredictable, so never let your guard down … One final thing: Freetown’s largest-growing industries since the arrival of the UN forces are drugs and prostitution. They are known locally as ‘night-fighters’. HIV, AIDS and every other STI you can think of are at epidemic levels in Sierra Leone, so don’t even think about it.’
The following day we would collect our personal weapons from the armoury and board the flight for Lungi Airfield, Sierra Leone.
Due to the threat of ground fire as we approached Lungi, the pilot of RAF Galaxymade a very rapid descent and hit the pothole-marked runway with an awful thud. There was no doubt about it, we were now in a combat zone – fortified British army positions, checkpoints, and British and UN helicopters dotted all over the airfield. Nonetheless, the main thing I noticed as we alighted from the aircraft was the humidity. My light jungle warfare uniform was wet through within minutes.
We travelled the thirty miles to Freetown in a convoy protected by six weapons-mounted Landrovers manned by members of the Royal Irish Regiment. Sad-looking villages and an unending number of dilapidated roadside shacks lined the route, but it was the sight of the impoverished children chasing the convoy, hoping that food would be thrown by the soldiers, that hit me hardest. Reading about poverty and seeing it are two very different experiences.
As we approached the ferry point at Tagrin, I looked in horror at what we were about to board. The lopsided rust bucket sitting with its ramp lowered on the quayside looked barely able to float itself never mind carry a full load of military vehicles and personnel across the mouth of the Sierre Leone River. After a tense and agonisingly slow voyage, we rolled off the ferry in the Kissy district of Freetown.
I was about to take a deep breath of relief when I got the stench from the open sewers and untreated sewage flowing freely in the streets. This was a city in free fall. Already bursting at the seams before the war, it was now entirely overrun with a population desperate for any sort of refuge from the rebel forces. They lived in makeshift houses, made of everything from plastic, timber and – for the lucky ones – corrugated steel. The buildings that had once been properly constructed from concrete were now scarred with shell and bullet marks and in otherwise terrible condition.
As our convoy arrived at the HQ of the SLA, where the British army Joint Task Force Headquarters (JTF-HQ) was also based, our vehicle peeled away and continued along another road until we arrived at the gates of Spur Lodge. This had once been a luxurious villa owned by some wealthy Freetown family. In more recent times it had been the HQ of the South African mercenary group, Executive Outcomes. (Talk about a euphemism!) Now it provided accommodation for the personnel from 14th Signal Regiment. The compound was surrounded by high walls and, thanks to Executive Outcomes, the building itself had bulletproof windows capable of stopping a 50mm round, and reinforced doors. Less comfortingly, though, the place was covered in signs of bullet and shell strikes; it had obviously been under attack at some point in the not-toodistant past.
We settled in nonetheless. Our operations room was located in the nearby SLA HQ building, a very nondescript room. Its main feature was the reinforced steel door with viewing hatch. Two SLA armed guards were permanently stationed at the door. Inside we scoured the airwaves in search of RUF transmissions, did our best to pinpoint their locations, and where necessary render their communications useless with jammers. My job was to keep all the equipment running with the limited tools and spares I had at my disposal. My partner in crime was a signaller known as Mule, and between us we managed to keep things ticking along nicely.
Everything was routine enough for a while. Then, on 25 August a patrol of twelve Royal Irish Ranger soldiers, led by Major Alan Marshall, ran into trouble. They were carrying out a routine inspection in the Occra Hills, when despite the concerns of the SLA liaison officer, Lieutenant Musa Bangura, Marshall ordered the patrol off the main route into an area known to be controlled by a group of rebels referred to as the West Side Boys. (Marshall believed that the West Side Boys might now be willing to disarm and become part of the peace accord.) The group of about 300 rebels was mainly composed of renegade soldiers from the failed coup of 1997 and they were notoriously unpredictable. Deep in their territory, the patrol was stopped by a truck, mounted with an anti-aircraft gun and quickly surrounded by a group of the West Side Boys. After several demands from the rebels to drop weapons, Marshall, against standing orders, ordered his men to do so. Of course, they were immediately overwhelmed and taken hostage.
They were brought to Gberi Bana where the West Side Boys, led by ‘Brigadier’ Foday Kallay, were based. Kallay realised immediately that he had a very valuable commodity, but worse still he recognised his old comrade from the SLA, Lieutenant Musa Bangura. Over the next two weeks, while all the hostages were subjected to beatings and repeated mock executions, Kallay saved his worst for Musa Bangura.
During face-to-face negotiations with the West Side Boys, the signals officer, Captain Flaherty, managed to pass on a map of the compound, including the location of where the hostages were being held, to our negotiating team. This was our first breakthrough. Then, a few days later, Kallay released five of the hostages in return for a satellite phone: a serious error on his part. While the satellite phone allowed Kallay to communicate with both the British military and the BBC about his demands for political recognition and an amnesty for the West Side Boys, it also allowed us to pinpoint his exact location.
As the safety of the hostages was made increasingly uncertain by the erratic behaviour of Kallay and his drug-fuelled troops (including demands of free passage to the UK and university places!), a decision was made in JTF-HQ in Freetown to carry out a rescue mission, codenamed Operation Barras, and Mule and I were ordered to gather as much intelligence as possible on the West Side Boys’ movements to help in the planning. When the Special Forces contingent from the SAS, SBS and the Parachute Regiment arrived, our little group took on an even more significant role in assisting them. With only six of us from the regiment deployed, it meant all hands to the pump.
SAS and SBS observation teams were in place for several days prior to the main attack and managed to pinpoint all enemy positions and the location of the hostages. The West Side Boys’ main camp had approximately 150 men, with a further 100 located on the other side of the river, Rokel Creek. The two locations were to be attacked simultaneously, with the SAS and SBS hitting Gberi Bana, where the hostages were held, and the Paras attacking Magbeni, the rebels’ other village on the opposite side of the creek, to prevent the rebels there from supporting Gberi Bana.
On the morning of 10 September at 0630, the rescue team, led by D Squadron of the SAS and supported by members of the SBS and 140 men from the Parachute Regiment, left their base at Hastings, thirty miles south of Freetown. The assault helicopters headed towards Rokel Creek, while the SAS/SBS observation teams opened fire on the base. The supporting attack helicopters laid down covering fire on both villages, while the SAS/SBS troops fast-roped from the Chinooks.
As is usually the case, this assault didn’t go entirely smoothly. The first setback occurred when the Paras dropped from the Chinook helicopters and found themselves chest-high in swamp that intelligence had failed to spot. As he hit the ground, SAS Trooper Bradley Tinnion was hit and, despite being medevac’ed to RFA Sir Percival, as we later discovered, died from his wounds. The second was that the rebels, spurred on by drink, drugs
