The sound of two Apaches arriving out of the black, tracked by the ship’s radar and night sights and landing after a mission, would bring a palpable sense of relief in the ship. With both on board and the SKASaC safely tied down too, the Officer of the Watch would bring the ship to port and head north to safer waters. Each time I was thankful we were all on board. Each mission reminded me that command was an unceasing responsibility. That whatever happened ‘out there’ was for me to own. The commander can never delegate that responsibility.
The CO and I wrote citations on each of the aircrew and on some of the engineers and ground crew too. In the end there were a number of commendations of various sorts, a solitary Distinguished Flying Cross and one Mention in Despatches. The CO and I wished for more, but sadly they didn’t catch the selector’s eye, or if they did, someone filtered them out. The citations are never disclosed and the narrative is kept locked away. This secrecy is hard to explain, and it is sad to think that those people – aircrew, ground crew and engineers we had written on – will never know how much we valued their service. We’re not in wars to win medals, and we don’t swallow down our fear and go out again to face the incoming just to be seen to be brave. Stepping out into the unknown on the first night, and then into the very real and hostile known every night after that, was worth a Distinguished Flying Cross for every one of those pilots on any one of their missions. Blades turning just feet from the waves to escape the hostility, a crew raging through the incoming to protect another, no one shied away. They flew against the most sophisticated threat British Army pilots have ever faced. And each night when they were fired at, be it with an AK, a PKM, triple-A, ZSU, SA-24 or radar-guided systems, they evaded, weaved and escaped the shots, spun about, faced the enemy, killed him and got on with the task at hand. Every time. They were heroes.
With the job done, we all moved on. Charlie and Jay both got back on the Afghanistan treadmill. They’ve been back there twice since Libya, now having spent over a year of their lives fighting the Taliban. During the 14 September 2012 Taliban assault on Camp Bastion, Jay was airborne and intervened to prevent insurgents rampaging across the main runway towards the camp. The two young upstarts blooded in Helmand and proven in Libya are now among the most experienced combat operators in the Attack Helicopter Force. All this, and still less than twenty-eight years old.
Doug got promoted. He finally made it to Afghanistan on operations in the last year of that campaign and continues to serve in the Army Air Corps, all ink, short hair and keeping-it-real attitude.
Big Shippers went back to the Royal Navy. He had been in the Apache world for almost eight years, been to Afghanistan four times and had to postpone his return to the Navy in the summer of 2011 to help us through Libya. The irony was that he found himself at sea with the Army, so he extended with us to lend his expertise to the new war. For four years he was the Army Air Corps’ foremost weapons expert, an A2-graded Standards instructor and the cornerstone of how we rewrote rules to make sense of the Apache in this new environment. And the Royal Navy wanted him back. They had a new helicopter to bring into service and Big Shippers needed to be at the front of that project too. We’ve met up, even flown sorties at sea. It’s always the same, on the quarterdeck or in the wardroom.
Reuben Sands and Nick Stevens left the Army, and commercial aviation is the richer for their presence. Bright, ambitious minds making their own luck. Little Shippers considered an offer to become a test pilot, but decided that life out of uniform was best, with marriage, a baby and a big, daunting house renovation. CJ also went. The Cumberland Show produce awards are now dominated by the newcomer who lectures in engineering and keeps a smallholding. She was also Young Woman Engineer of the Year in 2011. These are extraordinary people who made our success in war possible.
All teams end, all good things pass. We all have new tasks, new projects and challenges. In early 2014 I took command of one of our Apache Regiments and set about readying the new team for Afghanistan and everything else.
I wrote the last lines of this small piece of aviation history sitting in the late afternoon sun just a few miles north of the Barry M. Goldwater ranges in Arizona, USA. With the USAF F-16s roaring out north and flying low over Gila Bend Auxiliary Airfield, I contemplated our missions racing hard into and out of Libya, and where our story began. We train in Arizona, grateful guests of the United States, and we learn to fight and survive in the world’s best attack helicopter. On this visit JB was in charge of teaching a new cohort of aircrew. Their first Hellfire down range, the new graduates of CTR 16 were already settling into their squadrons and getting ready for Afghanistan and whatever comes next. Jay Lewis was also teaching – his speciality being weapons – and 656 showed up too, refined, agile and setting the pace for everyone else to try and keep up with. Mark Hall was their resident instructor. On that same day, over in Afghanistan, Charlie Tollbrooke was flying as usual and Doug Reid was there too, both of them putting their shoulders to the task. Back in the UK, Little Shippers had taken on a civilian instructional role and was teaching our fledgling Apache pilots, soldiers whom John Blackwell had taught the basics of helicopter flight. John had stopped just short of retirement and was allowed to train as an instructor after all. The careers people recognized that although contributing to another cycle in Afghanistan was what they had demanded, his activities in Libya qualified just as well!
Of the ten who flew Apache strike missions into Libya, six are now instructors, four of them on the Apache. All teams end, but their skills have been reinvested. Meanwhile, in Devonport, the mighty O is about to slip and proceed after a long refit. In Portsmouth, HMS Illustrious has come alongside for the last time. And up in Rosyth the tremendous 65,000-tonne HMS Queen Elizabeth has launched, an exclusive bottle of 25-year-old Bowmore tapped on her hull. All ready for whatever comes next.
It has been three years since the summer of 2011. Enough time has passed for those who lived it to settle into other projects, reflect and lend their memories. I wrote to Nick Stevens when thanking him for organizing our first reunion in 2013:
Sir,
You are an excellent operations man. Civilian life suits you, but I declare that you are wasted upon it. An outstanding evening, very much enjoyed.
On other news – we should write…
And so we gathered the team, described the project and resolved to tell our story, from our memories, just as it happened that extraordinary summer.
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