NAVY NEWS, MAY 2007 45
WWherheree eagles dar eagles dareedd
IN THE small hours of
● Brothers in arms... (Above left) A Lynx and Gazelle of 847 NAS conduct a patrol over Al Faw and (above right) Lynxes and a Gazelle on a
Friday March 21 2003 a
training mission over the sands of Kuwait before the war
Pictures: Royal Navy/Lt Cdr James Newton/Headline Press
few bleary-eyed sailors
and journalists dressed no more than 150 yards from “Every desk in the fate awaited them. Lynx, sending shockwaves of panic
in anti-fl ash gear lounged
Newton’s Lynx – which had a room was manned, every But it was, writes and distress through the Lynx
around on the admiral’s
solitary anti-tank missile left. radar screen was turned Newton, “all beautifully community. The Lynx was quickly
“He was a brave bugger – he on, flashing, beeping, choreographed”. replaced by a junglie. More distress
bridge of HMS Ark Royal.
could have turned and fled for humming. The white Unlike battle itself, for Yeovilton families. And finally,
The Sea Kings had long since
the cover of the date palms, and noise from the which was every bit correctly, a bagger Sea King.
gone, lifting off before dawn into
yet he didn’t budge an inch,” many radios kept as confused and I watched as the faces of the
the haze of the northern Arabian
Newton remembered. “In my up a constant fizz terrifying as it had 849 guys grew red with anger
Gulf.
head I saluted in respect, which and crackle in the been in the days of as each wrong photograph was
Ark’s tannoy crackled into life.
was strange considering I had to background.” Wellington, Haig or shown. Such scenes were repeated
... First reports are that the enemy is
destroy him.” The mood of the Monty. a few miles away in Ocean. “There
surrendering... There was a cheer
Which Newton then did. Royals was identical to The officer spent was a collective uproar,” recalls
from the carrier’s crew.
The Iraqi’s luck deserted him; those on Ark Royal. the first days of Newton.
So the battle for the Al Faw
There was no doubt to Newton
his heavy machine-gun jammed. “Some sat there in war kicking his heels, Only a handful of RN ships
peninsula was a walkover, then.
that these taxis contained the
He began to turn his turret to
silence, looking at the floor frustratingly held in back then had live TV. Newton’s
Most definitely not. But it’s
Fedayeen; eliminating them would
bring his main gun to bear on the
or staring into space, alone in reserve. impressions of the bulletins were
taken Lt Cdr James Newton’s
strike at the backbone of enemy
Lynx when the helicopter’s last
their thoughts and prayers. Others And it was during those opening the same as mine. Round-the-
Armed Action: The War in
resistance.
missile hit home (the wrecked T55
talked quietly to one another, days that two 849 NAS Sea Kings clock reporting added little to our
the Skies with 847 Naval Air
He reported his suspicions to
is pictured below). The enemy tank
the old sweats reassuring and collided. I was in Ark’s wardroom understanding of the war.
Squadron (Headline, £18.99
Brig Jim Dutton, 3 Commando
talking up the younger lads. It (where most of ‘my war’ was spent “The reports told us much less
ISBN 978-0-7553-1601-4) to
Brigade’s CO – “an impressive,
had been, Newton admits, “just
was an incredible atmosphere, as a correspondent, admittedly) than we already knew and we might
finally make me realise that, writes
mildly scary character, as good a
seconds from taking us out.”
a potent cocktail of tension, rather numbly watching the BBC just as well have been watching
Richard Hargreaves.
soldier as you’ll find in the British
The Lynxes and Gazelles of
excitement, fear, determination news surrounded by 849 officers. John Craven’s Newsround.”
There aren’t too many first-
forces.” The brigadier decided,
847 NAS were not intended to
and testosterone,” says Newton. News of the tragedy was So here is the chance to put the
person accounts of the Iraq war
based on Newton’s report, that
engage the enemy directly; it was
Anyone imagining that broadcast within a few hours, with record straight: the real air war
from the British point of view, and
the taxis were a legitimate target.
their job to spot Iraqi armour
first attack on Al Faw was like accompanying footage of “a Sea over Iraq four years ago.
fewer still from serving personnel.
“This may well save a lot of
or positions and call in artillery
something out of Apocalypse Now King”. Accounts of helicopter combat
So Lt Cdr Newton’s book is
lives,” he told the airman, “but if
strikes or bombing raids.
will be sorely disappointed. A Sea King is a Sea King to are few and far between.
a door into a frequently dark
you’re wrong...”
But the fliers of 847 were in the
It was a silent affair, Royal a TV researcher, whether it’s Lt Cdr Newton’s story not
world – but one which deserves
He wasn’t, but the 4x4s proved
line of fire every bit as much as a
Marines calmly walking to search and rescue, pinger, bagger, merely plugs that gap, it’s the best
highlighting.
remarkably difficult to hit – and the
Typhoon or Shturmovik strafing
their waiting helicopters then junglie. book on modern aerial warfare
For whatever the rights and
problem was further exacerbated
German armour six decades
disappearing into the pre-dawn But not to the families. First since Sea Harrier legend Sharkey
wrongs of the 2003 conflict, let
when the Fedayeen switched
earlier.
and the Al Faw, where an uncertain TV had flashed up an image of a Ward put pen to paper.
no-one tell you it was a walkover.
tactics, using ambulances as well.
“It was a bloody miracle that
Monday March 24 certainly
Aware that they were tricky
not one of the several hundred
wasn’t.
to hit, these die-hard Saddam
rounds that were unleashed at us
In fact, writes the flier, it was
supporters promptly taunted
managed to hit either the Lynx
“one hell of a day for the entire
the fliers “hanging out as they
or Gazelle – hundreds of them
847 NAS, probably the most
sped down the road, waving their
missed us by a matter of feet and
eventful in its long history”.
AK47s.”
at times I felt as if I could have put
Two patrols from the squadron
In a straight taxi-Lynx duel,
my hand out of the window and
were airborne from before dawn
the odds were stacked in the
touched them,” the officer writes.
until beyond dusk, demanding
helicopter’s favour.
The Iraqi army wasn’t the sole
supreme efforts by the aircrew
Not so, however, when Newton’s
enemy. The unforgiving desert
and their unflappable comrades
aircraft found itself in a straight
environment punished man and
on the ground.
fight with a T55 tank, hiding in
machine.
Dug in between the palm trees
the shadow of a huge billboard
In the cockpit of the Lynx, sweat
of Abu Al Khasib was an entire
depicting a smiling Saddam.
poured down Lt Cdr Newton’s
Iraqi armoured division, bolstered
This was not a case of one
face, stinging his eyes; he had
by infantry who had been stirred
tank versus one Lynx, but of a
to wipe it away so he could see
up by the Fedayeen – a sort of SS
swarming, raging battlefield in
through his sights.
for Saddam Hussein.
flux.
And as that brutal Monday
That Monday, the armour came
“It was total chaos up and down
ended there was a display of
out to play – sensing, rightly, that
the front – the desert was dancing
Nature’s sheer power – “a vast
the Queen’s Dragoon Guards, the
with eruptions of sand, while great
sandstorm rolling towards us
Brigade Reconnaissance Force
clouds of smoke drifted and hung
across the desert” at the camp
and 847 NAS stood in their way.
over both lines, and there was a
which was 847’s forward base.
From first light, the Iraqi T55
riot of noise inside the aircraft Aside from the thrillingly vivid
tanks began to engage the light
and over the radio channels as the descriptions of aerial combat over
armour of the QDG.
day’s fighting reached a hellish Iraq, what’s particularly interesting
An air strike from an American
climax,” recalled Newton. on a personal level are the flier’s
F16 on an enemy bunker soon
A TOW missile dispatched the observations about life in the task
stopped the Iraqis’ fire.
T55, crashing into the heart of force – many of which mirror my
“The explosion when it struck
the tank. own aboard Ark Royal.
was enormous – like a volcano,
“There followed what felt like a Anti-war protestors decrying
an eruption of earth, fire and
long pause and then, a second or HMS Ocean’s departure weren’t
thick smoke bursting out of the
two later, the tank exploded in a too popular. “They must be in the
ground and billowing high and
massive fireball, sending shrapnel RAF,” one wag on the helicopter
wide,” the lieutenant commander
flying in all direction as the fuel carrier muttered. (They were the “... The pristine sands of the Kuwaiti desert suddenly
observed from his Lynx above the
tank and the remaining shells butt of jokes on Ark as well.)
battlefield.
and magazines ignited. A column The banter, too, was similar.
gave way to a vision of hell. Shell holes, the hulks of burnt-
“It sparked a scene of
of black smoke, visible for miles 849 staged a raucous ‘quiz night’ out tanks and troop carriers and blotches of scorched, oily
pandemonium, like someone
around, shot into the late afternoon in Ark, 847 enjoyed a rather boozy
had poured boiling water into
sky,” the airman wrote. party in Ocean, booming out
black sand – the detritus of the first Gulf War – littered the
an anthill, as dozens of troops,
But out of the smoke various tunes liberally sprinkled landscape as far as I could see.
hundreds perhaps, started running
emerged a second T55, with choice Anglo-Saxon words
“Up on the horizon, wobbling in the heat haze and looming
in every direction in shock and invariably aimed at the Crabs.
terror.” And then came war.
ever larger, clouds of thick black smoke rose up towards
Also scurrying Lt Cdr Newton was
the sky, punctuated every now and then by a huge fresh
over the battlefield not in action during
were red and white the initial assault,
explosion on the ground...”
4x4 taxis, their drivers dressed in and hence was
black and armed with AK47s. a privileged
– Lt Cdr James Newton on the approach to the battlefi eld
Every now and then, these observer of the
at Abu Al Khasib, Monday March 24 2003
malicious ‘taxis of the Marne’ final moments
would get out, run towards Iraqi of planning
troop positions where they would in Ocean’s
● Lt Cdr Newton (left) poses with his fellow 847 aircrew Gizmo and Guns next to a Lynx
gesticulate furiously. operations room.
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