HELL THAT DROVE HERO TO THE BRINK
Day by bloody day came torture, murder and atrocities that would shred the strongest nerves. Read what Sgt Blackman endured, and ask yourself: Would YOU have snapped?
Commissioned by the Royal navy’s Fleet Commander, Vice Admiral sir Philip Jones, and conducted by a respected Royal marine brigadier, the investigation into the court martial of sergeant Alexander Blackman took almost a year longer than expected. dozens of service personnel were interviewed. But the time and effort were justifiable: the matters under scrutiny concerned one of the most high-profile, damaging and controversial cases in British military history.
There has been much anticipation of the report’s findings on what it described in its preamble as ‘the events ancillary to the murder of an unknown insurgent in the nad-e Ali north district of Helmand Province, Afghanistan, on september 15, 2011, by sgt Blackman, a member of J Company, 42 Commando’.
The report, given the codename ‘Telemeter’, runs to more than 50 pages. How, then, can the military authorities explain that the public — which bridled at Blackman’s murder conviction and ten-year jail sentence — is to be allowed to see only three and a half paragraphs?
As we reveal today, military chiefs have decided the rest should be suppressed entirely, or redacted with blocks of black ink. it is a whitewash. A cover-up. But an investigation by this newspaper has been able to draw upon leaked official documents, military and Whitehall sources, l egal papers i n the possession of sgt Blackman’s f amily and the testimonies of some of the service personnel directly involved in the fighting.
And our own findings now allow us to tell the uncensored story o f 42 (pronounced Four-Two) Commando’s Helmand tour in the summer of 2011.
it is a story of alleged ‘ chain of command’ f ailings, unheeded warnings, strategic confusion, criminal un d e r - ma nn i n g , eq u i p ment shortages and br u t a l war fare that put unimaginable pressure on junior ranks on the ground.
it is a story that sgt Blackman’s court martial was not allowed to hear; the story that the top brass still does not want to be revealed.
You may think it throws a different light on what sgt Blackman described to me as a ‘split-second mistake’. it will no doubt be read with interest by the families of the se ve n dead and 4 0 wounded soldiers — many of them maimed f or li f e — who served with 42 Commando that summer.
By the tour’s end, we have been told, a senior Army officer felt that J Company — numbering around 100 men — i n particular was ‘ psychologically defeated, bereft of i deas, unpredictable and dangerous’.
That could hardly be blamed on sgt Blackman.
indeed, many who read what follows — and learn more about the slaughter and chaos that unfolded on that tour in Afghanistan — will start to understand that it was enough to drive any man to the very brink.
SPOILING FOR A FIGHT
THe mail has learned that there had been official concerns about 42 Commando before sgt Blackman joined in december 2010. We are told that assessors of the unit’s pre- deployment training were worried by the gung-ho approach of the marines.
Aggression is expected of an elite force, but the UK was moving t owards a withdrawal f r om Afghanistan, which the Prime minister, david Cameron, would announce in July 2011.
A more sophisticated, civilianorientated strategy a i med at winning ‘hearts and minds’ was to take precedence over simply defeating the i nsurgents on the battlefield.
The marines of 45 Commando, who would be based in the nad-e Ali (south) district, next to the one occupied by 42 Commando, had long been lectured on the importance of this. They had even attended workshops aimed at reducing the possibility of soldiers committing a ‘battlefield atrocity’.
Yet there remained a ‘desire’ among 42’s chain of command for a bloody toe-to-toe fight with the Taliban, the mail has been told.
They had wanted and expected to be posted to sangin, the most high-profile and deadly location in Helmand. They wanted to slug it out and win.
instead, 42 Commando was posted to nad- e Ali ( north), which was apparently viewed by the unit’s pugnacious, rugby-mad Commanding officer, Lt-Colonel ewen murchison, as a backwater. Lt-Col murchison, who had commanded J Company on an earlier Afghan tour, asked Brigade HQ for his area of operation to be expanded. This was denied.
not very long into the tour, the 42 Commando soldiers felt ‘ mar ginalised, unsupported, under-resourced and peripheral’, the mail has learned. They had encountered deadly improvised explosive devices, or ieds, but few direct firefights with the enemy.
THE BAD-LANDS OFFENSIVE
one way that 42 Commando could take a more proactive role was t o push out into Talibancontrolled areas.
so began the piecemeal deployments which would l ead i ts marines to claim that they were being ‘stretched too far’.
The first major operation began on may 23, 2011. J Company was to lead a push into the ‘bad-lands’ to the east of their area of operation. They were to take on the Taliban known to be there, and establish a new base called ‘Toki’.
some 55 marines from bases across nad-e Ali (north) were to take part.
sgt Blackman was to remain in charge of an outpost called Check Point omar.
But several soldiers from his troop were co-opted to set up the new Toki base: his young commander Lieutenant ollie Augustin, marine sam Alexander, who had won a military Cross on a prev i o us t o ur, Lance Corporal J J Chalmers, a school teacher reservist and the son of a Church of scotland minister, and a Canadian medic, Lance Corporal Cassidy Little.
Little i s the son of a retired brigadier general in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He had come to england to pursue a career as a stand-up comedian but ended up a Royal marine. At the start of the tour, he and Blackman had carried out the recce of their outpost.
He recalls: ‘my first impression of Al Blackman has not changed to this day, and it won’t ever.
‘He is a great leader of men and a good person. i do not remember him ever shouting because he not only had natural authority but a fantastic sense of humour.
‘He had empathy with his men and would give it to t hem straight.’
The marines ta s k e d wi t h establishing the Toki base were dropped by helicopter one day before dawn. They occupied the compound which was to be used as a new base.
By the time the sun had risen, they were engaged in full-blown battle. soon they had taken five casualties, but t he wounded c ould not be evacuated until t he next day because of t he intensity of the engagements.
BLOOD, DUST AND ‘TROPHIES’
THe marines at Toki received intelligence of a nearby Taliban stronghold. Three patrols pushed out on parallel courses.
one was led by J Company’s boss, major steve mcCulley, another by Lt Augustin and the third by sergeant Rob driscoll.
Cassidy Little was with Lt Augustin’s patrol. ‘We had just finished having lunch at the edge of a garden,’ he recalls of the final moments of his old life. ‘it was the greenest thing i had ever seen in Afghanistan.
‘A local was leading us through a supposedly safe route when he suddenly bolted.
‘We knew it was not good. We got the [mine detectors] out, but they didn’t pick up the bomb which was hidden in an archway.’
The resulting explosion was catastrophic. ollie Augustin and sam Alexander were both killed outright. JJ Chalmers, the school teacher, suffered life - changing injuries to his face and hands.
Cassidy Little’s right leg was torn off, while their Afghan interpreter later died of his wounds.
Rob driscoll’s patrol heard the explosion a few hundred metres a way an d sa w the tell-tale column of smoke.
The son of scotland Yard’s celebrated detective Chief inspector Clive driscoll, who secured the conviction of two of stephen Lawrence’s racist killers, driscoll had, several years before, taken part in the invasion of iraq.
He recalls: ‘i had to urge my men to run across ground which we now assumed to be an ied killing field. We did not want to go — but we had to. over the radio, the insurgents were being told “Finish them off ”.
‘i remember the two members of [Augustin’s] patrol still standing were pulling the casualties out of the compound.
‘everyone was covered in dust and blood. The i njuries were horrific.’
Helicopters arrived to remove the casualties and leave behind an investigation team.
But in the confusion and cont i nued f i ghting, the aircraft departed without the casualties’ weapons and body armour. They also left behind their comrades’ body parts that had been blown off by the blast.
driscoll says: ‘There were a lot of body parts which were put in bags. it was very hot and we still had to get back to the Toki base.
‘i made the decision not to order the lads to have to carry the body parts back. But we could not leave them there. so i burned them where we were. i burned Cassidy Little’s foot. i later told him i had done so.’ He gives a wan smile.
Worse was to come later that day; one of the tour’s defining horrors. ‘We got to within 200
metres of Toki when we saw human legs hanging in a tree, along with some British military kit,’ says Driscoll. ‘In the field next to the tree was a farmer and a boy.
‘ It se e med obvious that the i t ems i n the tree were boobytrapped “trophies” placed there by the Taliban to taunt us. But as usual, the farmer insisted there were no Taliban in the area.
‘As I spoke to him, a grenade came over a wall near us and landed behind me. Then a second one. The farmer and his boy were both injured. The fact that I was carrying extra body armour saved me from injury.’
Rob Driscoll believes the body parts in the tree belonged to a teenage marine from ‘L’ Company who had stepped on an IED earlier that month.
‘I never again want to see guys in the state they were in that evening,’ says Driscoll. ‘My guys completely lost it. One or two of the more mature men were operating at 30 pc. The rest had gone. They assumed the parts in the tree came from the guys from their company who had just been killed. They had had enough, though it was pure degradation, rather than shock.’
The next day, t he marines returned to the location of the previous day’s incident, but the i nsurgents, says Rob Driscoll, ‘ were one step ahead of us’. Another powerful expIosive device grievously wounded Major McCulley, as well as J Company’s Forward Air Controller.
‘There was a real feeling of “What’s the f*****g point? We are getting smashed and not achieving anything.” We had not spoken to locals or done anything measureable.
‘We had been sent in to stir up a hornet’s nest, but with no contingency plan after that.’
THE TORTURED SQUADDIE
In ThE early hours of the morning of July 4, 2011, while Mr Cameron was visiting the Afghan capital Kabul, a 20-year- old highlander named Scott McLaren, f r om Edinburgh, went missing having left his patrol base. Every available soldier in helmand was sent out to f i nd him, with Sgt Blackman among them.
‘I was told to get everyone I had available t o a particular grid r eference,’ he told me, ‘set up a check point and search all the vehicles which passed.
‘At first, I wasn’t even told the reason, just “Go, go, go!” Only after we were out was I advised, “Friendly forces missing on ground.” ’
McLaren’s body was eventually found by another unit. he had been captured by the Taliban, vilely tortured and shot dead.
The sickening detail of what had happened to him became widely known among the marines.
Why di dn’ t Sgt Bl ac k man mention this significant incident at his court martial, as proof of the intolerable strain that he and his fellow troops were put under?
‘If I had done so, I would have been questioned about it in detail,’ he told me. ‘And I didn’t know how much his family knew about what had been done to him. I did not want them to have to f i nd out by r eading t he next day’s newspapers.’
THE LOCAL FALLOUT
By MID-SuMMER of 2011, tensions between 42 Commando’s
marines and the local Afghans were rising. The Afghan National Army commander in the vicinity threatened to stop his men working with t he troops of 42 Commano because he believed t hey were ‘ mistreating’ civilians, military sources say.
There was alleged tension between him and th e Br it i s h so l di er s ’ co m m a n d e r, Lt-Col Ewen Murchison.
A marine who did not wish to be named told me: ‘After the outrages at the Toki base, there was a definite shift in how the lads viewed the situation. ‘It was “These f*****s don’t want us to help them”.
‘ We had l ocal children brought to the base injured, but because the medic with us was a woman, the child’s father would take them away untreated.
‘One child given food by our patrol was killed by the insurgents as an example. Yet it didn’t really matter to the l ocals because the child was a girl.
‘The amount of cash I was handing out each week to people as compensation for a cow that had been killed in the fighting, or a tree or a wall that had been destroyed, was insane. But when we tried to establish some kind of relationship with the locals, they just weren’t interested.
‘It was very demoralising to sit down with people you knew would quite likely later be shooting at you.’
Eventually, the British commander in Helmand, Brigadier Ed Davis, was t ol d of t he t ensions on the front line, along with concerns that 42 Commando were using t oo much ammunition.
Brigadier Davis decided 42 was generally doing OK, but the soldiers themselves did not agree. By high summer, many of t he i solated British bases, including Omar, were woefully undermanned.
Sgt Rob Driscoll says: ‘I had to plead with my guys to go out. They knew they should be patrolling, because if t hey didn’t t hen t he i nsurgents would be able to move the hidden belt of IEDs closer to our bases. The situation was madness. The insurgents were shooting at the base, they were dropping grenades in, and once they even tried to tunnel in.
‘We would come in from a patrol, get changed into new clothes and immediately leave to start a new patrol, to give the watching insurgents the impression that we had more people than we actually did.
‘Sometimes I feared we would be overrun in the night.’
He adds: ‘The majority of my commanders I have absolute admiration for. But big mistakes were made. We did not have direction or a sense of “this is what we want to achieve”.’
Sgt Blackman confirmed this view f rom prison: ‘ The strategy was wrong. You could not build bridges if you were lying in a drainage ditch t aking i ncoming fi r e — which is generally what happened when we left the base and tried to follow the mission brief.’
Three weeks before t he t our was due to end — and only eight days before Al ex a n d e r Bl ac k man committed that supposed ‘murder’ — Nad-e Ali (North) and (South) were amalgamated into one command as part of the UK’s gradual withdrawal of troops.
Lt-Col Oliver Lee, the commanding officer of 45 Commando, was put in charge of all the marines in the unified zone. Lt-Col Murchison of 42 Commando was relocated to the central headquarters at Camp Bastion.
Sources s ay t he f al l out was acrimonious, and legal papers suggest that Lee believed J Company was in ‘disarray’. He even considered replacing some of its commanders, but headquarters said no.
THE BRUTAL AFTERMATH
ROB DRISCOLL was medically di s charged from the marines with permanent hearing loss caused by grenade explosions.
He says the 2011 tour also ‘broke’ him mentally. ‘My wife said that for the first year afterwards, it was like being married to a ghost.’ Today, he feels that Sgt Blackman’s life sentence is a ‘travesty’.
‘A s***load of marines have left the Corps because of what happened to Al. You cannot trust the system.
‘People sitting at home have little understanding what they were asking our soldiers to do.
‘If the situation was reversed, and Al had been captured without a weapon, and that Taliban had been armed and unwounded, he would have called hi s mates and t hey would have crucified Al.’
Driscoll admits he had reached his own tipping point.
‘We were due to hand over to another British unit at the end of the tour, and I went on a familiarisation patrol with the incoming soldiers.
‘We got engaged by the enemy and we were trapped in a gully.
‘I felt such anger that I stood up from the ditch we were in and shouted at the insurgents to come out and fight us toe to toe.
‘The other guys were shouting at me to get down. But I had lost it. I had reached a turning point.
‘An d that was a similar [ ps y c hological moment] to when Al did what he did.
‘Why can’t we forgive Al for making a mist ak e under in c o mparable pressure?
‘Most of us would have shot the Taliban in the circumstances. Does that make us all murderers?’
As for their colleague Lance Corporal Cassidy Little, he was watched by ten million TV viewers earlier this year as he won Comic Relief ’s The People’s Strictly on his prosthetic leg.
Today, he says: ‘ For a long time I avoided the subject of Al Blackman because I was still serving, and found it inappropriate to speak out.
‘But I want to say now that I would f ollow Al Blackman through the gates of hell.’
These brave men lost faith in many things during their ti me under f i re i n Helmand. But they never lost faith in each other.