Hellfire. Ed Macy

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       BOOBY-TRAPPED IN NORTHERN IRELAND

       MAY 1997

       1,500 feet over Crossmaglen, South Armagh, Northern Ireland

      ‘Gazelle Five, this is One Zero Alpha. All callsigns are now firm, over.’

      I pulled the transmit button on the cyclic. ‘Gazelle Five, roger, wait out.’

      I put the Gazelle into a shallow turn and turned to the guy on my right. ‘Look down now, Scottie, and you can see where each brick in the multiple is. The most important element of working with foot soldiers is to identify where each and every man is. If the IRA kick off you need to know exactly where to look.’

      Scottie peered down through the bug-eyed canopy. ‘Hellooo,’ he said, pretending to wave to the men on the ground. Not that they stood a hope in hell of seeing us; we were stooging around above them at 1,500 feet. A ‘brick’ was half a section-four men-the British Army’s standard unit in Northern Ireland. A multiple is three or more bricks.

      I was sitting in the left-hand seat, the commander of Gazelle 5, an aircraft with 665 Squadron, 5 Regiment Army Air Corps. 5 Regiment was the AAC’s Northern Ireland Regiment to which I’d been posted for five months the year before.

      Scottie, my pilot, was sitting in the right-hand seat. My job today was teaching him how to support foot multiples, a skill I’d acquired during my first posting to Northern Ireland four years earlier. As laid-back as Scottie appeared to be, he was also a damn good pilot. We were both sergeants and had known each other since I’d arrived in Dishforth after graduating from Middle Wallop. Scottie was a ‘posh jock’. He had a soft accent and a high-pitched voice that got even higher whenever he got excited. He spent most of his money on cars, clothes and watches.

      Scottie took over the flying so I could use the camera.

      ‘One Zero Alpha has just entered Lismore,’ I said, ‘and taken up positions by the first house on the right. One Zero Bravo is behind them on the Dundalk Road covering the rear to the north.’ I gestured for him to look out of the window again. ‘One Zero Charlie has moved forward on the Dundalk Road to cover the south.’

      One Zero Charlie was on both sides of the road, with an RUC policeman, looking along a straight stretch with good avenues of approach.

      ‘One Zero Charlie is in the most vulnerable position,’ I continued, ‘because a vehicle can approach from the south, take a shot and scoot off. You need to keep an eye out along the Dundalk Road in both directions. If you see any vehicles, yell, because I’ll need to warn the multiple commander. Large vehicles like covered tipper trucks and lorries could contain an IED. Keep a watch for them.’

      ‘Okay, Ed.’

      Before the multiple moved off again, I needed to scout ahead to find its vulnerable points-areas of particular threat in the vicinity.

      ‘One Zero Alpha, this is Gazelle Five. I have identified all of your men. Can you send me your VPs for this area, over?’

      A broad Ulster accent responded. ‘One Zero Alpha, aye, we only have the one. Once we move forward up Lismore we’ll cross a junction on our left leading south along Lismore Park. Can you see it, over?’ The multiple commander was clearly a guy with local knowledge.

      I could see the junction he meant. I told him it was clear.

      ‘Gazelle Five, roger, over.’

      ‘That’s a bad crossing for us, mate,’ the Ulsterman said. ‘We’ve been shot at from that road before and the bastards have escaped onto the Dundalk Road and got away to the south, over.’

      ‘Gazelle Five, roger, wait out.’

      All of this was new to Scottie, although it shouldn’t have been. Not that I blamed him. There had been a procedural breakdown in the way Gazelles had been supporting multiples in Northern Ireland and without remedial action I knew that more of our boys on the ground were going to die.

      The threat level was high. Aside from IEDs and ambushes, it was the era of the South Armagh Sniper, a guy armed with a .50 calibre sniper rifle who’d taken out seven of our lads in the past five years. He was still out there. Our job was to provide top-cover, to scout ahead for anything that constituted a potential threat to the multiple on the ground. The Gazelle was an ideal platform for this role. Thanks to its powerful high-resolution, thermal-imaging СКАЧАТЬ