Okba and the 99th Hellfire
With the roads out of the mountains now contested and the utility of the Apache proven, Glen Parker settled on the Okba airfield staging ground for a mission. If Okba was put out of commission the FLF could advance out of the mountains on two or three routes, take the north coast and move on Tripoli. Opening up more than one avenue meant the regime would be spread too thinly to hold back the FLF. With Az-Zawiyah under threat they would probably withdraw to defensive positions around the town. Once that fell, their final option would be to defend the regime in Tripoli itself. NATO now needed to open those routes north and north-east while still attempting to kill the regime from the top down. For our part, we were firmly on the front line creating opportunities for the FLF to advance.
Two days after the first raid we sent another patrol towards the mountains, this time further inland than we had ever gone. The target was Okba airfield and a checkpoint nearby. Although the aircraft and the surface-to-air missile battery that once operated from there had been destroyed, pro-Gad were still using the area as a staging post for soldiers to gather and then set off for the front line. It was their last safe place before meeting the FLF. Our task was to take it from them, removing their safety and destroying as much equipment as possible. If this worked it would create a gap in the front line where no pro-Gad could show up. The FLF could then move forward, the next stop being the coast and then Az-Zawiyah. If we failed, the FLF would have to fight their way up a single road and through the desert to reach the coast. This would cost lives, take weeks and could ultimately be repelled if the regime were clever enough. This was an opportunity, a tipping point, the chance for the FLF to get the momentum they needed to make a rush on Tripoli.
The plan was almost identical to the earlier raid. Nick was the patrol commander. He and Charlie Tollbrooke took the callsign Underdog One. Big Shippers and Jay Lewis, in the wing aircraft, joined them as Underdog Two. But Okba was a long way inland. More time low-level over Libya meant more opportunities for pro-Gad to have a go. We still needed to keep Ocean over the horizon and inconspicuous, so they had to accept the distance and resolve to keep enough ammunition in reserve in case they got into a fight on the return leg. The long transit also meant that there was little time on target. This, in turn, meant that decisions to shoot and re-engage would have to be quick and precise. We considered whether fitting additional fuel tanks would be useful but rejected the idea once Little Shippers calculated the extra weight this added. Extra weight meant less Hellfire. Less Hellfire was the wrong answer.
The CAOC said it was a ‘Go’ even without a Pred on the mission. We had fast jets with Litening Pods and laser-guided missiles able to dash between Tripoli and us in a matter of minutes. If we got into trouble they were to lend a hand, and if we needed to find a tricky target they might look down and guide us on. That was the plan, anyway, and it all looked good on the slide they sent through. But we doubted whether a jet was going to help in a SAMbush; he couldn’t do so unless his pod could see into the future, which, with all the wiggly amps in the world, it couldn’t. Still, we were winning with every mission and this was going to be no different.
Nick briefed his plan. It was simple: arrive, observe, decide shoot or no shoot, move on and repeat at the next target. At the final ‘Go/No Go’ brief the Intelligence Officer told us of an increase in pro-Gad activity on the coast and reinforcements moving south from Zuwara towards the mountains. A column of eight vehicles had been reported in the target area. There might be more targets than we had ammunition for, but it was too late to spin up two more aircraft and make a four-ship; Nick would have to judge his ammunition expenditure.
Again, John and I were in the Ops Room, timeline and map laid out on the desk, JCHAT glowing and the 56th Rescue Squadron hanging around waiting for a shoot-down to dive into. At the given time the aircraft lifted and ducked low into the night. Within a few seconds the howl of their engines had faded and Ocean turned south-west, heading for the recovery point.
The radios and the JCHAT remained silent for the next two hours. Ocean cut a tight circuit at the recovery point and the Ops Room got restless, then anxious. Two hours was just about on the fuel limit; a few more minutes and they would be burning into their minimum fuel for landing.
At the two hour and five minute point the radio burst into Nick’s request to join and land. Wings was up in Flyco with his senior controller. ‘Cleared straight in,’ came the reply. I did a quick fuel calculation in my head: they should be right on their minimum, a minute or two more and we could be listening to an emergency. No need. The aircraft landed in turn, and five minutes later Nick and Big Shippers were in the flip-flop, guntape ready on screens set up side by side.
I climbed down into the flip-flop. Big Shippers looked up at the chain ladder: ‘Sorry we’re late, bit of a bob and a weave on the egress. Small problem with helicopter hunters on the coast. Shot it, but then thought it wise to give the whole area a wide berth.’
‘No holes?’
‘None,’ Nick put in. ‘Techs won’t know until they get them into the hangar, but none felt.’
‘Fuel okay?’
‘To the pound. Spot on, in fact,’ Big Shippers answered.
‘Good. Now let’s see this helicopter hunter thing.’ I walked over to the guntape screens.
‘Ah, no, not yet,’ said Nick. ‘First you have to see what eight technicals look like before and after a trigger pull! We were down to ten-round bursts on the gun. We needed all five aircraft out there, it was swarming!’
I sat down in front of two screens, Underdog One’s guntape on the left, Underdog Two’s on the right, and began to watch the synchronized minute-by-minute playback of an extraordinary mission.
With Nick and Big Shippers filling in the detail of radio calls and incockpit communication not heard on the guntape, I tracked the timeline into the first target. What I saw was staggering. Eight vehicles, engines warm, weapons mounted and soldiers nearby, were parked right on the coordinates. The technicals were strung out in an east-west line beside an apparently abandoned set of sheds not far from the road. Underdog One had been looking at the first planned target area when Underdog Two had spotted them just a few hundred metres away. Around twenty pro-Gad soldiers sat 50m to the north of the technicals. As the aircraft closed and the crosshair of the FLIR interrogated the target, the soldiers got up and started walking with purpose, just a little too quickly to be natural, away from the technicals.
Nick described his thoughts: ‘That was it for me. They showed technicals and weapons. And that they were trying to put distance between themselves and the technicals completed the picture. That and the AKs you can see each of them carrying! I broke off and gave Underdog Two a laser target handover for the technicals.’
Nick, now too close to go straight into the attack, used his laser to hand over the confirmed targets to his wing aircraft. Jay’s FLIR, set to laser search mode, immediately settled on the technicals. The well-trained and experienced crew had anticipated Nick’s demands and were ready to take on the technicals.
Big Shippers took up the story: ‘It was difficult commanding from the back seat. There were so many targets we could have got three missiles off right away and steered each into a different technical, but I could see there were still some pro-Gad hiding in the folds of ground near the centre of the group. Jay was searching every technical for the best one to engage first. The one on the left looked empty so we went for that one, giving the poor sods a chance to change their minds.’