Strike From The Sea - Iain Ballantyne
KICKING DOWN THE DOOR
In this abridged extract from his book STRIKE FROM THE SEA The Royal
Navy and US Navy
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IN the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Ark Royal, Royal Marines from 40 Commando's Delta Company were carrying out their last-minute checks on equipment, for it was Ark's helicopters that would take them into action on the night of March 20.
The British commando brigade's assault on the al-Faw Peninsula would be a daring
move that kicked down the door into Iraq for the rest of the Coalition's front
line combat force. It was the biggest helicopter assault involving maritime
forces, in the face of an enemy, since the 1956 Suez campaign. Another link
to that earlier, equally controversial, military venture was the involvement
of a carrier named HMS Ocean and the participation of both 40 and 42 Cdos.
Originally, the British contribution was to have been much smaller and would
have come entirely from the sea, as 3 Commando Brigade's CO, Brigadier Jim
Dutton, revealed in the immediate aftermath of the war: '... there was only
going to be one commando unit involved and that was to have been 45 Commando.
But then, for various reasons, the unit involved was switched to 40 Commando,
but the scale of the operation got bigger and bigger. This was because of intelligence
on enemy force levels in the south of Iraq, which were seen to be higher than
originally expected. Also, as time went on, the UK wanted to play a bigger
part in the overall operation. So, six months ago it was going to be a single
unit operation and the whole thing was going to be launched from the sea because
of the anticipated pressure on Kuwait ports.'
There were factors other than force levels that ruled out a full-scale amphibious
assault against the al-Faw, as Brigadier Dutton explained:
'It was essentially a helicopter borne assault only, because the beach gradients
didn't allow the use of landing craft. There was also a threat to the RN ships
from the off-shore gas and oil platforms held by Iraqi troops. Until those
had been taken down by the US Navy SEALS, it wasn't safe for the ships to get
close inshore. In the event they were seized rapidly and the ships closed the
coast early, but there was still less risk in having the bulk of the force
actually ashore and then assaulting by helicopter from the west, rather than
from the south.'
While the majority of the commandos may have gone in from jumping off points
in Kuwait, the support of the two carriers was still crucial, not only in putting
40 Commando's Delta Company ashore, but also in providing logistic support,
without which the attack would have failed. In the first seventy-two hours
of Operation TELIC, as the UK labelled the operation, the ground forces had
to rely almost entirely on ammunition and other supplies coming from the British
naval task force, as Brigadier Dutton acknowledged.
'The ships were critical, not just for 3 Commando Brigade but for the whole
of 1 UK Division,' Brigadier Dutton said after the war. 'Unlike 1990, the deployment
happened very quickly and it took some time for the land logistical system
to catch up. So, in fact, during the entire build-up to the operation, and
even when the assault had actually started, 1 UK Div were heavily dependent
on the seaborne stocks originally designated for just one brigade, that is,
for 3 Commando Brigade.'
To ensure the helicopters had less transit time between the al-Faw and the
ships while carrying supplies and personnel, the hydrographic survey ship HMS
Roebuck had carried out surveys right under the noses of the Iraqis. The Roebuck
charted two deeper stretches of water not recorded on existing charts, which
were suitable for the two carriers to edge slowly into. Lieutenant Commander
Andrew Swain, Roebuck's CO, and a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War, said that his
young sailors rose to the challenge despite the risks:
'And it was very dangerous...but, by reducing the flight time for the helicopters
by ten minutes, our surveys helped save lives, as the aircraft were less exposed
in the air. As each piece of the jigsaw came together to make the charts, my
sailors realized how important Roebuck's work was.'
But, even with reliable charts, taking the two carriers in so close to the
Iraqi coastline was a very risky thing to do, as Ark Royal's CO, Captain Alan
Massey, later reflected:
'I think any commander would have a bunch of different things going through
his mind. The principal one being, where do we stand in relation to risk versus
gain in this sort of adventure? Are we finding ourselves in a situation where
we're potentially putting big capital ships at excessive risk? I have to say,
I always felt entirely comfortable about what we were doing, despite the fact
that we were in very close proximity to the Iraqi coast, in very shallow water
and with a considerable number of real threats against us: missiles; suicide
boats; surface attack. We could have done something about all of those, but
mines were a big worry and certainly that night, in the dark, after midnight,
at action stations going right up into shallow waters, that was probably the
tensest moment.
We worked hand in glove with Ocean. For most of the time we were within just a few miles of each other and sometimes even closer than that. When we launched the assault into southern Iraq she was about five miles on my starboard beam. Both of us were in the only tongues of deep water that exist that close to the Iraqi coast...'
To support the marines the Royal Navy frigates Chatham, Richmond and Marlborough
provided Naval Gun Fire Support (NGS) with their 4.5-inch weapons. When
Marlborough opened fire around 1am on 21 March, she was the first British ship
since the Falklands campaign to bombard a land target in war. Joining
the British warships was the frigate HMAS Anzac, herself the first Australian
warship to fire on a land target since the Vietnam War. At around 5,000 tonnes
displacement each, the bombarding ships had just enough water under their keels
for safety. Like the other ships on the gun line, the Chatham had been brought
to action stations in the early hours of the morning, but didn't open fire
until later on, as her web site's war diary noted.
'...we took up station close to the coast of Iraq. Just before 7am we were
given the order to open fire with our main gun. The whole ship shook as we
began bombarding the Iraqi forces on the al-Faw H.M. Ships Marlborough, Richmond
and the Australian ship Anzac all fired alongside us as we bombarded enemy
positions ashore all day. Guided by Royal Marine spotters, our gunfire was
delivered with high accuracy and to great effect, allowing the Commandos to
successfully sweep through the al-Faw encountering light resistance from the
Iraqis.'
The Chatham, together with Marlborough, Richmond and Anzac, would ultimately
fire a total of 155 shells in 17 fire missions.
• Taken from ‘STRIKE FROM THE SEA’, by Iain Ballantyne
Available from Pen & Sword Books/US Naval Institute Press,
Copyright 2004. © Iain Ballantyne.