Bomb Hunters: In Afghanistan With Britain's Elite Bomb Disposal Unit (8 page)

The soldiers who have to patrol in Sangin day after day, sometimes twice or three times a day, often after having witnessed a fellow soldier having one or more limbs blown off, need truly remarkable courage. And it’s worth remembering that many of them are just 18 or 19 and on their first operational tour.

Despite the risks, Oz Schmid was in his element and relished the challenge. This easy-going, fast-talking Cornishman had an infectious smile and a fantastic sense of humour. He had named his squad ‘Team Rainbow’ after the gay pride emblem, because he claimed they were the only ‘all-gay IEDD team in Helmand’. The team members were nicknamed Zippy, Bungle and George, and their mascot, a duck, was known as Corporal Quackers. It was all part of the coping mechanism adopted by Oz and his team.

Like every ATO in Helmand, Oz knew that death lurked around every corner. Every bomb had to be treated as a unique event. Taking short cuts or making assumptions could end in a trip home in a body bag. As if to emphasize the dangers Helmand held for ATOs, Captain Daniel Shepherd, 28, was killed defusing a roadside bomb in Nad-e’Ali a month after Oz arrived in Helmand. He was the second ATO to die in Afghanistan. Like Gaz O’Donnell, who had died eleven months earlier, Captain Shepherd hadn’t made a mistake; he was just unlucky. As one soldier later told me, ‘That kind of shit can just happen in Afghan.’

In an interview he gave before he was killed that appeared in the
Sunday Times
on 8 November 2009 Oz referred to Dan Shepherd’s death and how it had shaped his view of the role of ATOs in Helmand: ‘There are times when I’m actually thinking about Dan and I’ll go down the lonely walk, as they say, get to the target and think, what am I doing here? But it’s a flash through my head, if you like.’ Oz was typical of most ATOs I have met: they never think about their own safety and are far more concerned with the lives of their fellow soldiers.

‘Nine times out of ten, in fact 99.99 per cent of the time, I’m down there and I’m doing it as quick as I can, because obviously the longer the guys are down on the ground the more they present themselves as a target.

‘And then obviously once we’re out on the ground, other things, atmospherics around us, you know I’m getting dicked as well – they’re trying to look and see what I’m doing, so it’s a lot of focus into what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. My brain’s always thinking about the device: how I’m going to render it safe. It’s not necessarily wandering off to: am I going to get home? Every device is different in its own little way … you have got to find exactly what it is and come up with the best way of dealing with that, so your mind is constantly focused on that. I don’t really think about the enemy. There have been a couple of piss-take jobs, though, where they are trying to have a bit of a joke. I found a dollar on top of a pressure plate in Nad-e’Ali the other week.’

On 9 August 2009 Oz took part in an operation to clear Pharmacy Road, which runs east from Sangin town centre out to PB Wishtan. By this time the area directly around the PB had become one of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan, with one in three of the soldiers based at Wishtan being killed or wounded that summer. Several of those had been killed or injured close to the base and the dozens of IEDs which had been laid in the area meant that patrolling was almost impossible. PB Wishtan was cut off from resupply by land. Bomb-damaged vehicles had been turned into a basic but effective roadblock and Pharmacy Road was riddled with IEDs. Three previous attempts to clear the road, which is lined by 15-ft-high mud walls, had all failed.

The operation began at 5.30 a.m., just before the sun appeared over the horizon. Specialist Royal Engineer searchers, flanked by soldiers from the Rifles, pushed out from FOB Jackson and began the search. The troops made steady progress until they came to a military digger which had been blown up by the Taliban during a previous operation. All around the vehicle the ground was littered with IEDs. At around 0800 hrs and with the temperature already in the mid-40s, Oz set to work. Within 100 metres he found and cleared the first IED of the day.

Oz had planned to use a remote-controlled vehicle to clear another device but as it moved into the danger area the robot struck an IED and was destroyed. Knowing that the Taliban were probably in the area and monitoring the progress of the operation, Oz moved forward again and cleared a route to within 5 metres of the vehicles.

‘We started searching forwards along the road again,’ he explained. ‘We found another bomb half a metre away from the lane that I’d used to search up to the vehicle. We sent two little robots out and they got blown up, so I went on my feet.’

His team then moved into a compound adjacent to the stricken vehicles and began preparing to take them off the road. Another device was quickly discovered, which Oz also cleared. The engineers in the compound blew a hole through the outside wall and winches were used to drag the vehicles off the road. Clearing bombs from the route to the vehicles had taken an hour, during all of which time Oz had been completely reliant on his own eyesight and his understanding of enemy tactics. As the light began to fade he once again led a high-risk clearance of the stretch of road from which the vehicles had been taken away and removed a further two devices.

The whole operation had lasted eleven hours. It had been fraught with danger, and luck had also played a large part in ensuring that there were no British casualties. Oz and his team were drained, physically, emotionally and mentally; they had discovered a total of thirty devices and defused eleven, but the road was open and C Company, 2 Rifles, were resupplied. Although it was clearly a team effort, the mission would have failed if it had not been for Oz’s heroic and selfless acts.

Despite the danger, Oz, like every other ATO working in Helmand, never wore his protective body suit. ‘It’s too hot to wear a suit out here and it’s tactically not feasible,’ he said. He saw the suit as an easy way for the Taliban to identify him. ‘Every time we’re out on the ground we’re obviously denying them their kill against us, so in effect we’ve become a high-value target for them, as they are for us. Certainly a few times, certainly in Sangin, we’ve been targeted and over the old Icom they say, “The bomb team is here, let’s hit them.” They call us the bomb team, according to the interpreter – probably “wankers” in the local language.’

Over the next few months Oz’s team were called out to dozens more IED incidents, some where soldiers had been killed and wounded and others where by luck the device had failed to explode. ‘I have been to a couple of devices that have been very unstable. The bomb makers’ construction of the devices isn’t brilliant. A loose wire in the wind could create a short, so when I have my fingers in there I have to pay attention.’

On 8 October 2010 Oz was dispatched to the district centre to deal with a device which the ANA had discovered while on patrol. The IED consisted of an artillery shell placed close to seven large cans of diesel. If the bomb had detonated it would have devastated the area. On arrival the ANA soldiers led Oz directly into the IED’s killing area. The Afghan soldiers had not warned the public for fear that the device might be detonated by the Taliban once they knew it had been found. Oz realized that he was not only at personal risk but so were around forty civilians who were in the immediate danger area, and time was not on his side.

Oz moved up close to the device and quickly assessed that the shell was part of a live radio-controlled IED. It was also clear that the bomb was almost certainly being overwatched by the Taliban. Oz felt that he had no choice but to conduct a manual neutralization. To do this he employed a render-safe procedure which is only ever used in the gravest of circumstances and is conducted at the highest personal risk to the operator. Oz insisted that his team move back out of the safety area before neutralizing the bomb. Once again the heroism he displayed went beyond the call of duty.

After the incident Oz said, ‘My heart’s not racing at all when I go in.’ But then he corrected himself: ‘No, that’s not true, there are some points when it does. There’s a lot of apprehension, a lot of adrenalin going through you at the time, especially when the device is something a little bit different, when you know that it is targeting you, but it’s important to appear calm. The guys look at you, they draw strength from you. For an infantry commander on the ground, it’s a hell of a weight off his shoulders when you come in.’

Defusing was not Oz’s only task, however. He also had to gather the vital forensic evidence which enables military teams to trace the militants who smuggle, make and plant IEDs. Forensic evidence was what Oz called ‘the big picture in the IED loop’, and it’s their expertise in gathering this that sets British high-threat IED operators apart from any others.

‘As British teams, we’ll get everything out of the device because our skills and drills are the best in the world, believe it or not. Because of our background and what we’ve learned over the years in places like Northern Ireland, it allows us to adopt some techniques in order to gain vital information from devices. It’s all about getting the forensics, matching it, and going that way round it as opposed to just making it safe. We want to capture them, to get criminal convictions.’

After Oz’ s work in the Pharmacy Road operation – as well as defusing a large IED in the centre of a bazaar which, had it exploded, would have killed many civilians – rumours began to circulate in the Task Force that he was in line for a gallantry medal. ‘I am just looking at getting home with my legs,’ was his response.

Working in Sangin was beginning to take its toll on Oz and his team. Barely a day seemed to pass which didn’t require Oz to put his life on the line. Back in Camp Bastion his boss, Major Tim Gould QGM, the officer commanding the JFEOD Group, was concerned about Oz’s mental and physical health. ATOs need to be managed very carefully. In 2009 they were a scarce resource and they remain so today. Oz insisted that he was tired but fine and wanted to stay in Sangin.

On the evening of 30 October Oz called home and spoke to his wife, Christina. She later recalled that he sounded uncharacteristically strained after being left exhausted by yet another four-day operation in the Sangin area. With tears leaving tracks down his dust-covered cheeks, he said, ‘I’m hanging out, hun. Can you come and get me, babe?’ Of course she couldn’t, but she reassured him that he had just two days to push before he was due to return home for his two weeks’ R&R.

On 31 October, Halloween, the day before he was due to fly home, Oz and his team were called out on another task, one which required him to defuse three devices. As the day drew to a close the team were about to return to the base when one of the searchers discovered a command wire running down the alleyway they had been working in. Oz’s team had unwittingly walked into a trap. They had no idea at which end of the alley the device was located and so had no safe route forward or back. Oz immediately seized the initiative and traced the command wire to a complex IED. The device was linked to three buried charges designed to take out an entire patrol. His team withdrew and cleared an ICP while Oz moved forward. That was the last time he was seen alive. Oz was killed instantly while dealing with the first device. In five months in Afghanistan he had defused sixty-four IEDs; the sixty-fifth killed him.

His wife was told later that evening that Oz was dead. Later Christina recalled, ‘I wasn’t surprised. I got this gut feeling after he called me for the last time. He never speaks like that. He was exhausted. He said he had been out there too long and could I come get him. I told him I couldn’t.’

At about 9.30 p.m. on 31 October 2009 Christina watched as two men wearing green berets approached her house. ‘I thought, oh my God, what are they doing here?’ Laird, her 5-year-old son, thought it was Oz, his stepfather, returning home. ‘I can remember saying he’s definitely not here. It’s not Daddy, I told my son. I asked them why they were there. I said, “Just tell me he can talk. I don’t care about his legs and arms. Can he talk?” They looked at me and said, “Let us in.” I didn’t cry. No one else was hurt. I remember thinking what a relief that was.’

In the moments after Oz’s death the news began to filter back to the CIED Task Force headquarters in Camp Bastion. The J Chat said that a Brimstone callsign – indicating an IED team – had suffered a fatal casualty. Then the screen displayed ‘SC’ – the first two letters of Oz’s surname – followed by the last four digits of his Army number, which together made up his Zap number, a personal coded number given to operational troops. Oz was the third ATO to be killed in action in Helmand in thirteen months. It was an attrition rate that had not been experienced by the world of bomb disposal for almost 40 years.

Later that evening, at FOB Price, near Gereshk, Badger made his routine evening call to the ops room just to let them know everything was OK. ‘I called in and Major Gould, my boss, answered and said, “Badger, I’ve got some bad news. Oz is dead.” It was like being hit in the stomach with a cricket bat. I was devastated.’ Badger found himself a quiet corner and began to cry. ‘I knew I had to tell the boys. They all knew Oz, so it was important they were told as soon as possible. So you have to man-up, wipe your eyes, wash your face, and break the news. There were a lot of tears – it was a very difficult evening for everyone in our community.’

Four days after Oz was killed I arrived in Helmand for a three-week embed with the Grenadier Guards. I had never met Oz, but I knew that as an ATO he was an extraordinarily brave soldier. While I was waiting to transit forward from Camp Bastion, a special service was held for Oz before his body was repatriated to the UK. Hundreds of soldiers attended and many of those who served with him were in tears. I have attended several of these services, and they are all moving, sometimes traumatic events. But Oz’s was different: it was transparently clear that the Army had lost someone very special.