No Lack of Courage (15 page)

What they did was borrow an ANA bulldozer, with assurances that they would not break it, and with Canadian engineers driving, they created breaches for the LAV III armoured vehicles to push through to support the dismounted infantry. The first obstacle, “Cracked Roof,” was easily breached since a “B” Coy fighting patrol had already seized it.

The offensive itself actually began by miscommunication. The “B” Coy OC was at higher headquarters. When battalion headquarters (BHQ) received the report that the “B” Coy fighting patrol had taken Cracked Roof, “someone” at BHQ misunderstood and erroneously told the sub-unit to move to “Cricket,” one of the major objectives. The Coy 2IC, not one to waste time, pushed the sub-unit forward with dismounted troops advancing with the LAV IIIs on the flanks providing fire support. Lieutenant Bell recalled, “And then we got the okay to launch. I was on the eastern flank; Captain Piers Pappin was in the centre and Lieutenant Grant MacDonald, C/S 23, was on the western flank.” He described, “When we did the actual advance we all sucked in to the centre so that we had more manageable pieces of terrain to cover. We didn't run into too much [resistance], nothing really.”

Once the sub-unit reached the obstacle at Cracked Roof, the bulldozer began to cut a swath through the canal so the LAV armoured vehicles could be pushed through. Just as the rifle company was sizing up the
next bound, higher headquarters deciphered the messages and quickly told “B” Coy to hold at Cracked Roof.

That night, however, the enemy struck back. “They [Taliban] engaged with essentially everything they had,” stated Bell. Nonetheless, the line held and the next day “A” Coy and TF Mohawk, (specifically “A” Coy, 2nd Battalion, 4th Regiment, 10th U.S. Mountain Division, mounted in HUMVEEs), passed through “B” Coy and pushed further south towards Objective Rugby.

Concurrently, TF-31 reached the 3,000 foot mountain dominating Sperwan Ghar. Major Hall's Ground Mobility Vehicles (GMV) and two of his ODAs (331 and 336), as well as their ANA counterparts, cautiously approached the high feature. Several hundred metres from the top the Taliban opened a withering fire. “We walked into a hornet's nest,” described one SF operator. “They were waiting for us.”
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Hall stated, “Within 20 minutes of the start we were running out of ammunition.” The SF troops pulled back and reconsolidated without suffering any casualties.

However, for the 1 RCR BG to clear Pashmul they needed a secure flank. After the heavy fighting from the previous day, the ANA were reluctant to go back up to attack the hill. However, Major Hall simply stated, “That's bullshit. We came here to do a job, and the Canadians need a secure flank, we're getting up there.”
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The next day, after a resupply of ammunition and some CAS, TF-31 renewed their assault on the strategic hilltop. Despite suffering casualties due to mines and an IED, the American SF soldiers and their ANA counterparts tenaciously forced their way to the top. By that point the Taliban had lost the will to hold it. Just before sunset TF-31 captured the key terrain.

The coalition then owned the vital ground for the whole area. From that position they could observe Sperwan and Siah Choy. Their efforts did not go unnoticed. “That was one of the most profound acts of bravery I've seen since I've been over here,” pronounced the MNB operations officer. “About 24 American Special Forces soldiers, reinforced by an American rifle company, and some ANA actually took that feature from about 200 Taliban.”
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That night the Taliban attempted to retake the hill, resulting in a sustained battle lasting approximately four to five hours. However, close air
support, mortar, and artillery fire pummelled the enemy and by the end of the battle the Taliban were forced to stay on the north side of the river. They had given up their attempts to recapture the strategic hilltop, which was the vital ground for the whole area. The MNB headquarters estimated enemy casualties at 200 dead and approximately 300 wounded. Lieutenant-Colonel Schreiber noted that TF-31 had done the disrupt. They had completely dislocated the Taliban from that area.”
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Captain Chris Purdy, the BG intelligence officer, summarized the action:

Meanwhile, TF-42, the U.K. SOF element stationed in Kandahar, were working down in the Registan Desert cutting off enemy supply lines. “We knew,” revealed Captain Purdy, “that a large portion of fighters and some weapons were coming up through the rat lines through desert to get into Pashmul. So the Brits were working down there to cut off that resupply line while TF-31 was working on disrupting the enemy command and control.”
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Clearly, every effort was being done to slowly strangle the Taliban forces that were entrenched in the Pashmul area.

In the south, Fraser's deception ploy was being played out. “I used my American National Command Element (NCE) commander as my Task Force Grizzly commander,” elaborated Fraser, “because I needed to generate another battle group when I couldn't get one out of NATO.” Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Williams jumped at the opportunity. Fraser acknowledged, “Steve Williams was a warrior—a smart determined, aggressive,
outstanding individual . . . I gave him a bunch of forces and I told him, that's your sector and here's your mission—what I want you to do is to fix the enemy in Objective Rugby, make them think that you are a whole TF and be prepared to exploit on my order.”
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Fraser bluntly told Williams, “I want you to make yourself look like a thousand-man organization, make the Taliban believe you are still Omer Lavoie.”
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Back in the north the advance continued. “B” Coy had held at Cracked Roof for about 48 hours and conducted a systematic search of the village of Pasab. The sweep was largely uneventful but they did uncover “big wads of cash and explosives.”
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Two days after the start of the offensive, on 8 September, with a proper breach in place, “B” Coy pushed through Cracked Roof and linked up with Mohawk 6, which was now in a forward defensive position. The bulldozers also moved forward and began to create lanes and breaches in the grape fields to be used as run-ups for the LAV IIIs.
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Both companies experienced an increase in enemy engagements as they slowly exerted pressure southwards. But the push was on. The operation became a systemic dismantling of the Taliban defensive system. Each night the reconnaissance platoon would move forward in the darkness and define the next objective. After their report orders would be given and the next morning the designated rifle company, preceded by artillery and CAS, would take the next tactical bound and seize their objective. As one objective was secured a passage of lines would be completed and the next assault element would continue the advance. “With all arms working together and under the constant umbrella of air cover,” noted the TF 3-06 CO, “my BG advanced towards Pashmul and the Arghandab River.”
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The 1 RCR BG was hitting its stride. At one point there was a large open field between the advancing Canadians and their objective. “A” Company moved forward and took the intervening anti-tank ditch and held the line, providing a firm foothold and a firebase. Artillery was called in to hammer the objective and “B” Coy surged forward, broke through into the objective, and started to fight through the target area. It became clear that the Taliban had left a rearguard to slow down the attack.

The clearing of objectives seemed just like Cold War training for fighting the Soviets, according to almost everyone who participated.
What simplified matters was the fact that the objective areas were designated military targets, since the entire civilian population had been evicted by the Taliban and the area was turned into a fortified defensive zone. As such, it became an exercise of unrestricted compound clearance. The soldiers would toss grenades into a building or room and then, immediately after the explosion, pour into it and hose it down with fire. Major Lussier acknowledged, “The Taliban did us a big favour; essentially they had kicked out all the civilians . . . It made life so much easier for us . . . Essentially we just shot and bombed the crap out of these guys for the better part of four or five days while the battle group made their way from the north.”
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“When the operation commenced, it seemed as if it were a Cold War training exercise,” observed Lieutenant-Colonel Lavoie. “There was nothing new in war fighting.” He explained:

In essence, as the operation began to play out it became increasingly “conventional” in nature. Fraser described it as “a conventional duke-it-out fight.” He said, “The enemy wanted the ground and had prepared the area well for a defensive battle. In the end, it was all about putting the proper resources into the fight.” The brigade commander asserted, “We knew we would win because losing just was not an option.”
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Major Ivey concurred with the brigade commander's assessment. “We went right back to using conventional ammunition, high explosives,”
recalled Ivey. “The air burst, we found, was outstanding for neutralizing soldiers that we suspected were hiding under trees, using the shade as concealment or using the thick brush to move back and forth.” He articulated, “So we used air burst a lot, as well as 155 mm delay ground burst to pierce through those complexes to get whatever effect we were trying to achieve, which was basically just to kill people and to destroy whatever bunkers they had.” Ivey related that they also reverted to using smoke to blind the enemy, screen their movement, and mark targets for CAS.
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The choreography of the advance was in keeping with the conventional warfare playbook that most of the senior leaders in the battle group had practiced since joining the army. “What we ended up doing was, hours before the launch of an advance, each of the respective FOO parties with the two lead companies commenced their preparatory fires,” explained Major Ivey. “There was no flashes of brilliance—what we wanted to achieve was to destroy as much of the compound structures as we could that we thought were housing enemy OPs or firing positions and neutralize anybody and anything in the objective areas.” As a result, higher headquarters pushed the necessary enablers (e.g., CAS, attack aviation, and guns) to the FOO parties so they could pound the Taliban into submission.

Due to the close terrain and bitter resistance, most of the engagement distances were well under the standard “danger close” distances. In fact, the average distance of engagement by CAS with their 500lb laser guided bombs, attack helicopters with hellfire missiles, and the 155 mm artillery was approximately 300–400 metres, according to the battery commander. “There were a number of instances where you could still hear shrapnel flying out behind you,” admitted Major Ivey, “but that's the reality of it—there has to be a certain level of acceptable risk in what you want to do and I guess the question is what's riskier, not hitting that building that might house a recoilless rifle or getting the guys down behind some cover and accepting a bit of shrapnel coming back behind you?”
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In the end neutralizing the enemy to allow the rifle companies to advance from their line of departure to their immediate objectives was a very slow and deliberate process. During their push forward, the FOOs would drop ordnance in-depth. Once the assaulting troops gained
lodgment onto their objectives the process would start over. “The FOO would get up onto a compound with a dismounted laser range finder, a map, and a pair of binoculars and begin preparing the next bound,” explained Ivey. “Yeah, World War I tactics.” He laughed. “We would just neutralize anything in front of us and then once that fire had been lifted, we would push the infantry through and occupy that ground and secure it. And that's basically how it worked up in the north.”
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Captain Purdy reinforced the tactics used. “In the north it was overwhelming air power and artillery . . . We started getting reports that the enemy cannot move when they're being bombarded and this was a real sense of frustration on the part of the Taliban.” He described how the enemy indicated in their communications between themselves that “we cannot achieve our objective while we're getting bombarded.” Purdy assessed, “Artillery in this first stage of the battle was instrumental. We could not have pushed the Taliban out of that area without artillery.” He also stated that by the time “B” Coy started to push south, “we realized that due to the artillery and the ongoing fighting the enemy started to experience some logistical problems . . . And that was one of the main aims of ‘B' Coy pushing down from the north—to sever two of their main supply lines that we had assessed were the wadis and the canals flowing into that area.” Purdy concluded, “So, when ‘B' Coy actually pushed through they effectively cut the lines of supply coming in to the Taliban.”
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