In the second week of June, after our two missions near Brega, Ocean lay 80 nautical miles north of Zlitan and 656 Squadron were planning to hit the command and control (C2) heart of the Khamis operation. Our part in the battle for Misrata was to disrupt Khamis where he thought he was safe and deny him the ability to move freely around Zlitan and Al Khums. The rebels could deal with the toe-to-toe fight on the front line, and we were going to create gaps for them exploit and push through. We knew Khamis was dangerous, but we had no idea he was ready and waiting to take us on.
At 6.00 p.m. local time on 8 June 2011 Sky News reported that HMS Ocean was off the coast of Misrata, ready to strike, and I had a security problem with big red attention-getters. Two unexpected strikes near Brega had kept pro-Gad guessing, but they were low-threat missions. Heading into the dark heart of 32 Brigade was a different proposition and I wanted as much surprise as I could get. With our location compromised, Khamis put his artillery away and sent his scouts and MANPAD teams to the coast. Pro-Gad was looking north, expecting the Apache. The following night, we went in.
Mission number three was simple enough – a C2 node made up of buildings and a radio mast. The target was coastal, but we would have to go feet-dry into the centre of 32 Brigade’s operation. John and I took mission lead, with Mark Hall and Charlie Tollbrooke, on their first mission, as wing. Running in against Khamis was about to give us our first brush with the most deadly anti-helicopter weapon on the modern battlefield.
With the target several miles from the low tide mark, we had to get into Libya first, turn on to an attack heading and then tip into the strike. We looked at the map and the satellite imagery and chose the uninhabited expanse of sand dunes five nautical miles north-east of Zlitan to go in feet-dry. No one would be there to hear us cross the coast and we could intercept our attack heading, get the missiles off and get away before Khamis had got his boots on. After that we would head east and take a look at a suspected vehicle checkpoint, rattle pro-Gad some more, then track out the 20 nautics for Mother.
But the pro-Gad scouts were already out. They were hidden and waiting all along the coast, and we were expected. We launched just before midnight on Thursday, 9 June, pointed south and arrived over Libya nine minutes later.
Six seconds after that the American lady in the wing announced, ‘Missile launch 3 o’clock!’
‘Flares! Right, 3 o’clock low!’ Charlie shouted.
Out over the side of the aircraft all four aircrew could see the missile now arcing up through the darkness, its motor burning brightly, racing directly towards them. Time slowed down to a crawl while the world around them accelerated to light speed. They braced for the impact.
From our lead aircraft, just ahead and positioning for our final run in to the target, John transmitted ‘Flares! Flares! Flares!’ in a decisive tone, followed by the briefest of pauses and then ‘Missile seen!’ – confirming what Mark and Charlie already knew and adding to the noise inside their cockpit as the aircraft’s self-defence system reacted to the missile ripping through the night towards them.
Both aircraft pushed out a rapid release of flares, briefly blinding the aircrew and identifying the aircraft like low-level shooting stars to the assembled ambush of pro-Gad chancers. We were now relying entirely on the technology inside the Apache to save us. There was fear and anger, confusion and chaos, and a missile doing Mach 2.3 towards us.
Charlie stared at the missile as though at his own mortality. Suspended there in the darkness, low through his right hand canopy, an intensely bright white flame streaked through the blackness and arced towards him. The brightness of the rocket motor and the dazzling plume in its wake captivated him. The way the missile moves is disturbing. It seems agitated, aggressive and determined. The fear is here, everywhere; there is no escape. No one is able to speak.
More flares. And the cockpit is illuminated with a double lightning flash as the white-hot flares project themselves into the night and fall away below. But on the missile comes, marauding on its demonic course to intercept the aircraft.
Another pattern of flares erupt, rushing forward into the darkness. The rotor disk above illuminates as the burning flares fall away out of sight. The missile swerves away as if seduced by the flares and then menacingly tips towards us one more time. The flares are bright enough and the missile is close enough for Charlie to see its shape, its white body and the black markings on its mid-section. Then it whips past within metres and explodes, leaving both aircraft untouched. Six seconds over Libya on their first mission and Mark and Charlie had met with and survived the SA-24. The ambush was perfect, but the missile bought the flares and now it was our turn to fight back.
While the first two missions had been novel work, this was a whole new and terrifying threat that changed our entire outlook on the operation. The long discussions in the flip-flop about what might happen and how we would deal with it were no longer just conversations and plans. Now, 40 miles from safety, low over Libya, four of us had arrived at the point where theory meets reality. We could turn and run or we could stay and fight. Running was the right thing to do. Khamis had missed, we had survived, and returning to Mother to fight another day would still be a small victory. The other option – fighting – would make us feel better, but not much more. Perhaps the shooter would be killed and denied the ability to try again, but we would come closer to being shot down in the process.
Getting stuck into a fight when triple-A or MANPADS were coming out of the dark was the wrong thing to do. It was a high stakes risk – winning would be the only satisfactory result, and getting hit would be a disaster. The thought of crashing, surviving and then finding ourselves on the run right in the middle of 32 Brigade was fearsome. Capture would be very hard to evade, and the rescue crews somewhere in Europe were still on five hours’ notice to move, leaving us very much on our own for the rest of the night and all of the following day. Anyway, who is going to try and rescue downed aircrew when the most sophisticated anti-helicopter weapon in the world is at large? Whether it was a crash landing or simply being shot out of the sky, the regime would make the most of how it defeated NATO’s last gasp. The helicopter option had failed, NATO could not now win, the rebels would be defeated and Gaddafi would hold on to power.
We chose the second option; we chose to fight.
Mark and Charlie immediately closed in on the SA-24 firing point in the dunes. While the missile was coming at them Mark had glanced at the firing point, flicked his left thumb across the ‘store’ button on the sights and sensors grip and sent the coordinates of SA-24 man to the FLIR, the gun and all his Hellfire; all of it done in a fraction of a second. The infrared drew them to a man rushing about on his own, appearing to hide the weapon and picking up another. Mark sent an instant burst of 30mm to suppress another attack.
John and I put two Hellfire in quick succession into the C2 node, delivering panic to pro-Gad right where he thought he was orchestrating hell, and we then joined our wing in destroying SA-24 man. Just as we had killed the triple-A shooters outside Brega the previous week, it was important to us to deal with this shooter too. A man who shoots and misses can reassess, try again or come back tomorrow with some friends and do better. He must be stopped, and we had to make it so if we were to survive the campaign.