The gobsmacking story of British heroism the MoD wanted to hide
We’re so used to seeing footage from war zones, with explosions that send the picture reeling, that it took a few minutes to comprehend those extraordinary scenes at the start of Heroes Of Helmand: The British Army’s Great Escape (C4).
We watched soldiers loosing off rapid fire from behind sandbag walls, and a machine-gunner with a belt of bullets draped over his shoulders, while troops dropped shells into mortar cannon to lay down a steady barrage.
But this was not filmed by a team of news journalists embedded with the troops. It was shot by the men themselves, in the midst of one of the heaviest and most prolonged firefights endured by a British unit since the Falklands War, more than 30 years ago.
And as the pounding from Taliban shells and rocket-propelled grenades intensified, the garrison — trapped for 50 days at the compound in Musa Qala, Afghanistan — knew they might be overrun at any moment. This footage could be their only way to tell the world what they had endured.
Many of the men of ‘easy Company’, made up of troops from the royal Irish regiment and 3 Para, kept back a bullet for themselves, to be used as a grim alternative to the horror of falling into enemy hands.
They were well aware what awaited them if the Taliban took them prisoner: torture and beheading on video for propaganda. These were men fighting with frantic heroism for their lives. We could see the drilled efficiency and the intensity fuelled by adrenaline.
This footage was quite simply unique. As the reality of what we were seeing sank in, the effect was staggering. No one who watched could have closed their eyes last night without seeing the images replayed in their mind.
The siege of Musa Qala was told as a straightforward report, with contributions from survivors. Some were laconic: when the enemy got within ‘grenade throwing distance, it’s a bit close for comfort really’, remarked sniper Jared Cleary.
Others were emotional. Staff sergeant Ian Wornham, a radio operator, broke down repeatedly as he remembered the comrades who had died. He had not talked much about the battle, he said, and the strain showed as he tried to explain how he’d bottled up his emotions.
‘You have to show no fear,’ he said. ‘I’m not saying I’m fearless, but you can’t show it when you have men serving under you.’
No soldiers currently in uniform were allowed to contribute to the programme. It’s ten years this month since Musa Qala, but the Ministry of Defence doesn’t want us to know about the operation.
On the face of it, that’s inexplicable. Battles against overwhelming odds, such as rorke’s Drift in the Zulu War and Goose Green in the Falklands, are the stuff of Army legend. This story deserves to join them.
But the MoD was right to be embarrassed. The men of easy Company were sent into battle with just a fraction of the equipment and ammunition they needed. They had only two machine-guns. Their sole transport was a quad bike.
And when a ceasefire was negotiated with tribal elders, they left the town in a convoy of ‘jinglies’ or cattle trucks loaned by the Afghans. That fact is almost as gobsmacking as the footage.
TV’s favourite estate agent Phil Spencer was having a go at the gobsmacking facts himself, in Stately Homes (More4), as he visited the magnificent Castle Howard in Yorkshire and tried to tot up the cost of building and furnishing it today.
He’s far more used to renovated suburban semis, however, and he was out of his depth as a tour guide. ‘Look at that four-poster,’ he blurted, as he stuck his head around the door of one of the mansion’s 140 rooms.
‘Pass the salt!’ he joshed, at the head of a dining table the length of a cricket pitch. And when he found a quill and parchment on a writing desk, he was fighting the urge to scribble: ‘Phil Woz ere!’
It was painfully clear he’s a stranger to historic homes. Not a National Trust member, then, Phil?