We made it look like Hiroshima

APACHE helicopter gunship co-pilot Ed Macy has written the first account of the war in Afghanistan from the cockpit of the deadliest attack ’copter ever built.
Yesterday we told how he won the Military Cross in an incredible battlefield rescue.

In Day Two of our exclusive serialisation of his book, Apache, Ed describes a daring attack on the Taliban deep behind enemy lines.

Adapted by Defence Editor TOM NEWTON DUNN.

THE forward air controller gave us the cue we had been waiting for.

Behind me, Carl gave us speed and height.

Within seconds our two Apaches were neck and neck, climbing to attack height at max chat of 120knots an hour, our Hellfire missile-laden machines invisible against the desert’s black night sky.
I shifted forward in the gunner’s front seat and hunched over the PlayStation-style weapons grips, my index fingers over the two red triggers. Bring it on.

It was a phenomenal mission for us — the only deep raid in the Army Air Corps’ 50-year history.

We’d be on our own over enemy-held territory. If we were shot down, we were alone. That just added to the adrenalin rush.

The Marines had taken a pasting from the Taliban in the three months since they’d arrived in southern Afghanistan. We were going to give a bit back.

The target was a reception area in Helmand for all the Taliban new recruits that came in from Pakistan.

From there they were sent forward to attack British troops further north.

Sprawled across a canal bank, the complex consisted of three large rectangular buildings surrounded by huts.

It was a lynchpin on the Taliban’s main supply route — and we were going to cleave it in two.

The mission was controversial. We were hitting the place cold and firing the first shots, which we very seldom did.

Effectively it was a mass assassination of the 50 estimated Taliban middlemen and recruits inside.

An American bomber would open the show, dropping four 2,000lb bombs and six 500-pounders — an incredible five tonnes of explosives — all at once.

Then we would mop up.

It was made clear to us that no buildings were to be left standing and no people left alive.

We began our run-in on the target as the bombs fell.

Click below to see Apache unleash Hellfire missile.

The biggest explosion I had ever seen was played out in silence. We couldn’t hear a thing in our sound-proofed cockpits.

Trigger and Billy banked away from us.

Trigger opened up with his 30mm cannon, squeezing off two bursts of 20 rounds each.
The second was on target, throwing a sentry around like a rag doll until he slumped motionless.

We circled the complex and I scoured through the smoke and dust for any sign of movement.

The trees were stripped of their branches and star-shaped scorch marks covered the earth.

The living quarters on the southern edge of the target and a large L-shaped building had disappeared.

But a small outbuilding was still standing. I flicked the weapons select switch with my left thumb to missiles.

On my TV screen I lined up the crosshairs on to the apex of the building’s front wall and pulled the left trigger to let the Hellfire loose while steadily controlling the laser beam with my right thumb on a mini joystick to guide it all the way in.

Carl gave the usual running commentary. “Missile off the rail, it’s away, Ed. Missile climbing. Missile levelling off now . . .

Missile coming down . . . Good hit, mate.”

The building’s heavy walls collapsed, bringing the roof down with them.

A little guardhouse not far from it was still standing so I dropped that with another £80,000 Hellfire.

Fist
Trigger came on again, cool as a cucumber. “Leaker, running east. Engaging with cannon.” He was in his element.

The cannon round that hit the guy powered through his back and out of his chest, leaving a hole the size of a clenched fist.

He was the last man left on the site — it had been totally sanitised.

A spy plane spotted Taliban leakers running into a compound 150 yards east. We moved on to it.

I caught one of the runners out in a field, moved the crosshairs on to him and gave him a burst of 20. His running days were over.

Then three rapid Hellfires from me and three more from Trigger flattened all the compound’s six buildings.

The spy plane had another target for us 200 yards north.

I picked up a series of shapes on my infra-red camera.

Five men stood in a group against the compound wall. One had a rocket-propelled grenade.

A moped was on its stand in front of them. Thirty yards away a donkey flicked its tail. We needed to nail them before they got busy with the RPG. Carl pointed the nose directly at the target.

Our anti-personnel Flechette rockets were just the job.

Containing 80 five-inch tungsten darts that flew at 2,460mph, they created a huge vacuum behind them and destroyed everything within a 50 yard spread.

The darts were some piece of work. If one hit a man in the chest it would go straight through and suck out most of what was inside.

If one passed within four inches of a person the vacuum was powerful enough to tear flesh and muscle from bone. Four bright orange flashes erupted on alternate sides of the Apache, whipping past our windows, while four black dots closed in on the centre of the crosshairs on my TV screen.

On the way to their target the rocket cradles broke up and released the darts at near hypersonic speed.

Two seconds later 320 searing pinpricks blossomed across the north-east corner of the compound.

I fired another four rockets, then four more — just to make sure.

We flew over the compound. The moped was in pieces and the RPG launcher broken, its warhead still in place.

Where the five men had been there were blobs of white heat sources galore across the ground and spread over the back wall, but none in recognisable human shape.

Scanning left, I found a larger heat source still standing. The donkey had escaped unscathed but the five men had been shredded.

There were no more leakers, the place was finally silent.

I checked the clock, 4.54am. Between the two helicopters we’d put down 12 Hellfires, 12 rockets and 360 cannon rounds, an Apache record for one sortie. We’d been fighting solidly for 32 minutes. And we were almost out of combat gas.

Dawn was breaking. I looked out of my right-hand window as we passed back over the training complex.

It was only then that I realised the full extent of the devastation we’d caused.

It looked like the old pictures of Hiroshima. The earth was still smouldering, the wisps of battlefield smoke hung low in the chill morning air.

Delighted
The huts we’d Hellfired were mounds of darkened rubble. The 2,000 and 500 pounders had reduced everything else to powder.

Forty-eight hours later the full battle damage assessment for the mission came through.

It was better than anyone could have hoped. The strike was estimated to have killed up to 130 enemy, more than double the initial projection.

Three of their senior commanders were among the dead and intercepts from across the Pakistan border revealed urgent discussions among the Taliban leadership to restructure their southern command.

The enemy were s****ing themselves and they didn’t know where or how hard we’d hit them next . . . which was exactly what we wanted.

The generals in London were delighted with the raid.

Happiest of all, though, were the hundreds of young Marines of 3 Commando out defending the platoon houses and district centres across Helmand province.

For once we hadn’t acted in self-defence, but given the enemy a really good, hard offensive kick where it hurt — right in the Taliban’s b*******.

t.newtondunn