Category: Soldiering
What if your entire professional career distilled down to a single event? Imagine that you have one of the hardest jobs in the entire world. You have worked, struggled, sacrificed, and bled to reach the absolute pinnacle of your particularly grueling profession. You have toiled and trained countless days, weeks, months, and years so that at that one perfect crystalline moment you would be ready. Then out of the darkness, you place your hand on a terrified young woman who is hurt, sick, and hopeless and you say, “Jessica, it’s okay. I know you’re scared, but you’re going to be okay. We’re the American military, and you’re safe now. We’re gonna take you home.”
One nameless member of the US Navy’s SEAL Team 6 got to utter those very words on the evening of 25 January 2012. While for Jessica Buchanan that was likely the single most moving thing she had ever heard, that was likely a pretty epic moment for that Navy SEAL as well. Just thinking about it gives me the willies.
The Place
If hopelessness and depravity were minerals you dug up out of the ground, Somalia would be where you’d go to find them. I’m not sure if it is their dark angry religion, their generational legacy of abject squalor, or some heretofore unidentified toxin in the food or water, but something about Somalia just isn’t right. Not meaning to seem all judgy, but we were just trying to keep those people from starving and they fought us like there was no tomorrow. It’s honestly fairly surreal.
The Reality Of It
Arguably the greatest scourge in modern warfare is mines. These diabolical monsters are cheap, easy-to-use combat multipliers. It takes literally no talent to sow a decent minefield. Once activated, these things just sit quietly and wait for something juicy to wander by. They kill and maim efficiently, effectively, and indiscriminately. The problem is that in many to most cases there is no way to turn them off.
Mines are emplaced most commonly from a state of desperation. There are seldom accurate maps produced that document their locations. Even if there were, those maps would never be 100% reliable. Older generation mines lack a self-destruct system, so they can remain in place for years if not decades after whatever war that spawned them is complete. At that point, hapless farmers or children playing can trip over the things with predictably horrible results. So it was with Somalia.
Somalia is a simply horrible place in the Horn of Africa. It is home to some 17 million people. The nation’s terribly unfortunate geography synergistically combines with some epically bad governance to produce cyclical famines and friable infrastructure. In 1993 we lost seventeen servicemen killed and another hundred or so wounded just trying to keep local Somali warlords from seizing international food aid and using it to enhance their personal power. Nineteen years later in 2012, you’d think we’d have learned our lesson. However, with the benefit of hindsight, I suppose we didn’t.
The Setting
In October of 2011, American Jessica Buchanan along with a Dane named Poul Hagen Thisted were working through the Danish Refugee Council in Somalia on a wide-ranging demining project. Their stated goal was to teach Somali children how to survive in a mine-rich environment. That seems an honorable pursuit to me. However, one motley contingent of Somali pirates apparently felt otherwise.
With the uptick in maritime attacks off the eastern coast of Somalia, the free world’s navies began patrolling these pirate-infested waters regularly and aggressively. Shipping companies also posted armed security contractors onboard their transiting vessels. As a result, the pirates’ traditional hunting grounds dried up. In response, these bottom-feeding parasites began prowling inland for Western aid workers like Buchanan and Thisted.
Jessica Buchanan was an English teacher from Ohio out to save the world. While traveling cross country in a trio of land cruisers en route to the city of Galkayo, Jessica’s group was attacked by the aforementioned Somali pirates. These modern-day brigands kidnapped Buchanan and her Danish friend before driving them for hours with weapons pointed at their heads. The two captives were later forced to walk throughout the night to a militarized compound in Galguduud some 90 miles inland from the Indian Ocean. There they remained…for 93 days.
It’s not that the United States government had forgotten about Jessica. It is simply that her captors were a bunch of greedy unwashed psychopaths. They demanded $45 million to release their captives. Negotiations eventually resulted in an offer of $1.5 million cash, but the pirates felt that they could do better. Meanwhile, Jessica was getting sick.
Jessica had a thyroid condition that demanded daily medication she was no longer receiving. In addition to inadequate food and unsanitary water, she developed a urinary tract infection (UTI). Out here in the World, that’s a week’s worth of antibiotics and a little cranberry juice. In the desert wastes of Somalia, an untreated UTI meant a slow miserable death. It eventually became clear that something had to be done.
The Op
I have it on reliable information that movies are not actually real. However, the rescue of Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted was movie-grade awesome. It all started with a tactical parachute jump out of an American cargo plane.
The players were DEVGRU—the US Navy’s SEAL Team 6. These high-speed frogmen were still riding high after having killed Osama bin Laden roughly five months before. Now on the ground in eastern Africa, 24 operators covertly ditched their chutes and formed up for a cross-country march to the Somali pirates’ evil lair.
The pirates had done their part to help out. As they were now conducting terrestrial operations, that meant a discrete static compound irrevocably tied to geography. This fact facilitated aerial surveillance. By the time they parachuted out of that airplane, the SEALs knew exactly what they would be facing.
Jessica later said that she and her captors heard what sounded like rodents scurrying in the bush. Her guard shouted an alarm to his comrades, and then the whole world exploded. At this point, Buchanan had no idea that these were American special operators. At the time she feared al-Shabaab terrorists or a rival pirate mob. She later confided that she did not think she could survive being kidnapped yet again.
Throughout it all, Buchanan and Thisted just curled up and tried to be small. Now nearly delirious with malnutrition and disease and expecting death at any moment, the American captive heard those words she had long dreamt of hearing. I obviously wasn’t there, but I can guarantee you that whoever first reached Jessica on that horrible chaotic night had trained their entire professional life for that specific moment.
SEALs do their best work at night. The pirates really never had a chance. They unlimbered their AK’s, but the SEALs, equipped with state-of-the-art night vision and the finest intelligence and logistics support on the planet, were an unstoppable force. In moments, the SEALs had killed nine pirates. There were unconfirmed rumors that they might have captured another three, but I couldn’t find any references to what became of them. Piracy as a career path doesn’t offer much of a retirement plan.
When she was rescued, Jessica was shoeless and unable to walk. One of the burly SEALs just threw the thin woman over his shoulder and jogged to safety. As they waited for the exfil helicopters the SEALs made a circle around the captives. When they heard what they thought were pursuing pirates, the frogmen physically shielded them with their bodies.
Once they were safely aboard the helicopter one of the SEALs gave Jessica a folded American flag. She later said, “I just started to cry. At that point in time I have never in my life been so proud and so very happy to be an American.” I hate to tell you this, but if you can read that without being moved then something about you is broken.
Buchanan and Thisted made full recoveries. Thisted later stated that his lucky break was being captured with an American. None of the attacking SEALs received so much as a scratch.
The Weapons
DEVGRU and the Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta are our Tier 1 counter-terrorist units. They are as highly trained and exquisitely equipped as our great nation is capable of making them. The end result is the most capable military force in the world. Their standard assault rifle reflects that same rarefied mantra.
The HK416 was a collaborative effort in the late 1990’s between Delta and Heckler & Koch. Representing a holy melding of the M-4 carbine and the short-stroke, piston-driven gas-operated system pioneered in the ArmaLite AR-180, the HK416 combined world-class reliability with superlative ergonomics. The end result changed the game a little bit.
Nowadays the HK416 has been officially adopted by the militaries of France and Norway. The US Marine Corps also fields the weapon in a slightly modified form as the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle. The HK416 maintains a sterling reputation for accuracy and reliability.
The Aftermath
One of the ways Jessica coped with her protracted captivity was by imagining that she and her husband Erik might someday have a baby. These episodes eventually evolved to the point where she visualized her child, a boy, alongside the two of them in a place of complete comfort and safety. As the weeks stretched into months and her health began to fail this exercise helped keep her strong.
Jessica and Erik were reunited at a military base in Italy. She was thin, emotionally wrecked, and traumatized both mentally and physically. Four weeks later she began throwing up. The nausea got progressively worse until it manifested almost every time she ate. Jessica naturally assumed it was a function of the rich food to which she had become so unaccustomed.
Soon thereafter, she had a positive pregnancy test. 8.5 months after her rescue she and Erik welcomed their son. God’s got a weird sense of humor sometimes, but that strikes me as a pretty cool way to commemorate her rescue.
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Military Engineering
While a broad and diverse variety of small arms were used in the Second World War, we typically only think of a list of “usual suspects” when imagining the struggle for Europe. The M1 Garand, the MP40, the Lee-Enfield, the MG42, and the M1911A1 are the guns that come to mind first and foremost.
Rarer firearms show up from time to time in photographs and motion picture film footage, but the uncommon guns remain obscure because we see less of them. This is why archived photos and footage are important documents that show us what was being used and where. Photos and video footage recording the wartime use of obscure examples of World War II firepower are worth paying special attention to.
An incident occurred in occupied Rome on March 23, 1944, during which a fascinating assortment of obscure World War II weapons were captured on film. Because of the presence of a German Army Kriegsberichter (War Correspondent) named Lutz Koch who shot about a dozen photographs, the guns that were a part of the incident can be easily observed and identified.
The Ambush
It all happened on the Via Rasella, a narrow, 850-foot-long cobblestone street leading uphill from the Via Del Traforo to the Palazzo Barberini in Rome’s Municipio I district. Shortly before 4:00 pm, 156 men from the 11th Kompanie of the 3rd Battalion of Polizeiregiment “Bozen” began to climb the Via Rasella. Although they did not know it at the time, they were walking into an ambush set by partisans in the Italian resistance.
Proceeding through the intersection with the Via del Boccaccio, the column began passing an unexceptional rubbish cart along the road. The cart did not arouse suspicion before an improvised explosive device concealed in it exploded violently, ripping into the column of troops.
As the smoke cleared from the explosion of the bomb, eleven members of a Roman resistance group known as the Gruppi di Azione Patriottica (Patriotic Action Group or GAP) launched a sharp but brief rear guard attack. Italian fighters ran out into the middle of the Via Rasella from concealed positions along the Via del Boccaccio and opened fire on the survivors of the 11th Kompanie with pistols. Three more GAP members contributed gunfire from the top of the hill at the Via Rasella’s intersection with the Via delle Quattro Fontane. Then, after only a few seconds, the partisans disappeared into the cityscape.
Just like that, the whole thing was over. The bodies of 28 dead and over 100 wounded military policemen littered the Via Rasella. Five more members of the Polizeiregiment would ultimately die due to wounds received during the attack. None of the partisans were injured during the Via Rasella attack.
Immediate Response
Reaction to the Via Rasella attack was swift and brutal as the survivors of the 11th Kompanie began shooting indiscriminately in the direction of the Via del Boccaccio. Assuming that some of the shots had come from one of the windows on the upper floors of the building on the corner, they directed rifle and submachine gun fire at all of them.
As those shots were still being fired, Koch began taking photographs at the scene. He documented the damage caused by the bomb, the debris it tossed into the street, and a mixture of troops from 11th Kompanie and policemen from the Polizia dell’Africa Italiana (PAI) and the Guardia di Finanza (GdF), and the Regio Corpo di Pubblica Sicurezza (PS).
In these initial photos taken on the Via Rasella itself, three firearms can be seen: the 9mm MAB 38 submachine gun, the 9mm P-38 pistol, and the 6.5×52mm Model 1941 Carcano rifle.
When first adopted more than five decades earlier, the Carcano had been one of the most advanced rifles in the world because it provided the Kingdom of Italy with a six-shot smokeless-powder repeater. The original 50.6-inch-long Carcano Model 1891 rifle served through the Boxer Rebellion, the Italo-Turkish War, and World War I, but then during the Mussolini era the modified Model 1941 improved the design.
It retained the same action and magazine as the old Model 1891 rifle but was equipped with a four-inch shorter barrel and a carbine-style adjustable rear sight assembly. Model 1941 Carcano rifles are conspicuously present in most of Koch’s photographs taken on the Via Rasella immediately after the attack.
As the survivors of the 11th Kompanie continued shooting toward windows at the corner of the Via Rasella and the Via del Boccaccio, the curtain rose on another drama at the top of the hill on the Via delle Quattro Fontane.
Kriegsberichter Koch soon was working his way up the street when he encountered a stop-and-search operation just outside the gates of the Barberini Palace. There, Polizia dell’Africa Italiana, Guardia di Finanza, Questure di Roma, and Carabinieri officers working alongside troops of the 11th Kompanie had lined up a group of about 75 Roman men. The troops were holding the Italian citizens at gunpoint.
The images that Koch captured on film during the minutes that followed showed more uncommon firearms. Included in the photos were additional MAB 38 submachine guns and Model 1941 Carcano rifles.
Several other noteworthy Axis firearms can also be seen. A single Carcano Moschetto Modello 1891 with its distinctive 18″ pencil barrel and folding bayonet, shows up in one photograph. This provides a reminder that this variant of the Carcano saw widespread use during the Second World War. First adopted in 1893, the Moschetto Modello 1891 gave the Italians a lightweight, compact, and more practical Carcano with a modest 36″ overall length that was more appropriate for cavalry and mechanized troops not needing a full-length rifle.
The other bolt action service rifle physically present during the dragnet operation near the palace was none other than the incomparable German Kar98k Mauser. In addition, two versions of the long-serving Pistola Rotazione Sistema Bodeo in 10.35×22mm Rimmed (10.35mm Ordinanza Italiana) show up in Koch’s photos.
A six-shot, single-action/double-action revolver, the Bodeo had been around for more than 50 years. The old workhorse was known for being reliable and simple. The first Bodeo seen at the site of the round-up was a Tipo Ufficiali (“Officer’s Model”) with a 4.53″ barrel and a trigger guard. The other was a Tipo Truppa (“Enlisted Model”) with the same length barrel, no trigger guard, and a distinctive folding trigger/safety.
These guns played a central role in presenting the intimidating police presence that characterized how the city of Rome was being controlled under German occupation. Despite all that firepower, the Roman resistance represented a real danger because it could strike anywhere and anytime.
Lasting Impact
The Via Rasella ambush on March 23, 1944, was the largest partisan attack carried out in occupied Italy. It came at a complicated time in the war. Allied forces were closing in on Rome from Monte Cassino to the southeast and from the Anzio/Nettuno beachhead to the south.
Even with Allied troops taking ground from the Nazis in Italy, the German occupation of the Eternal City was still strong. Consequently, the liberation of Rome was still more than a month away.
Koch’s photos of the aftermath of the Via Rasella attack documented the insistent grip of Germany on Rome while also showing the vulnerability of the occupiers to an insurgency. For firearms historians, the photos also document the assortment of guns that were used on the streets of the city in early 1944.
Reprisals
Luftwaffe Generalmajor Kurt Mälzer was the German Armed Forced Commandant in Rome. With the direct authorization of Adolph Hitler, Mälzer ordered the execution of ten Italians for each of the soldiers who had been killed.
The day after the Via Rasella ambush, a total of 335 Romans in German custody for other crimes — from spying to being Jewish — were taken to an abandoned quarry on the outskirts of Rome. As young as 15 and as old as 70, they were led into the abandoned tunnels and caves to be executed with a shot to the back of the head. The majority of those murdered were civilians and had no part of the resistance movement.
When the atrocity was complete, German engineers collapsed the entrances to hide the murders. Known as the Fosse Ardeatine massacre, the site is now a memorial with 336 tombs: 335 for those that were murdered there and an additional empty tomb to commemorate all who died at the hands of Nazi and Fascist forces in Italy.
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‘STAND FIRM, STRIKE HARD’
Commissioned by The Mercian Regiment*.
The Mercian Regiment was formed in 2007, with its men soldiering through the heat of Helmand Province. Operations in Afghanistan would go on to dominate the first 10 years of the Mercian Regiment. This painting commemorates the actions of soldiers and officers from all four Battalions of the Regiment during Operation HERRICK.
‘We fought through the trees, rivers, ditches and fields of the Green Zone. We fought through the Dashte desert. We protected Afghans up and down the Upper Gereshk Valley. Medals were paid for in blood. Our actions became the stories which will echo through our Regimental history, as those we served alongside became legend. We stood firm with our brothers and struck hard against the Enemy.’
When the British Parliament ended the following Old and Honored Regiments. Some of which were over 200 plus years old. Go figure!
Royal Regiment of Fusiliers
King’s Regiment (Liverpool)
Cheshire Regiment
King’s Royal Rifle Corps
Sherwood Foresters Regiment
Worcestershire Regiment
South Staffordshire Regiment
North Staffordshire Regiment
Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort’s Own)
All of whom were some really hard fighting Regiments with some very impressive histories! Grumpy
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Well I am impressed!
‘LANCE CORPORAL JOSHUA LEAKEY VC’
Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 22 August 2013
Between May and December 2013, Lance Corporal Leakey was deployed in Afghanistan as a member of a Task Force conducting operations to disrupt insurgent safe-havens and protect the main operating base in Helmand province. The majority of operations took place in daylight in non-permissive areas, attracting significant risk. On the 22nd August 2013, Lance Corporal Leakey deployed on a combined UK / US assault led by the United States Marine Corps into a Taliban stronghold to disrupt a key insurgent group.
After dismounting from their helicopters, the force came under accurate machine gun and rocket propelled grenade fire resulting in the Command Group being pinned down on the exposed forward slope of a hill.
The team attempted to extract from the killing zone for an hour, their efforts resulting in a Marine Corps Captain being shot and wounded and their communications being put out of action. Lance Corporal Leakey, positioned on the lee of the hill, realising the seriousness of the situation and with complete disregard for his own safety, dashed across a large area of barren hillside which was now being raked with machine gun fire.
As he crested the hill, the full severity of the situation became apparent: approximately twenty enemy had surrounded two friendly machine gun teams and a mortar section rendering their critical fire support ineffective.
Undeterred by the very clear and present danger, Lance Corporal Leakey moved down the forward slope of the hill and gave first aid to the wounded officer. Despite being the most junior commander in the area, Lance Corporal Leakey took control of the situation and initiated the casualty evacuation.
Realising that the initiative was still in the hands of the enemy, he set off back up the hill, still under enemy fire, to get one of the suppressed machine guns into action. On reaching it, and with rounds impacting on the frame of the gun itself, he moved it to another position and began engaging the enemy.
This courageous action spurred those around him back into the fight; nonetheless, the weight of enemy fire continued. For the third time and with full knowledge of the extant dangers, Lance Corporal Leakey exposed himself to enemy fire once more. Weighed down by over 60 lbs of equipment, he ran to the bottom of the hill, picked up the second machine gun and climbed back up the hill again: a round trip of more than 200 metres on steep terrain.
Drawing the majority of the enemy fire, with rounds splashing around him, Lance Corporal Leakey overcame his fatigue to re-site the gun and return fire. This proved to be the turning point. Inspired by Lance Corporal Leakey’s actions, and with a heavy weight of fire now at their disposal, the force began to fight back with renewed ferocity.
Having regained the initiative, Lance Corporal Leakey handed over the machine gun and led the extraction of the wounded officer to a point from which he could be safely evacuated. During the assault 11 insurgents were killed and 4 wounded, but the weight of enemy fire had effectively pinned down the command team.
Displaying gritty leadership well above that expected of his rank, Lance Corporal Leakey’s actions single-handedly regained the initiative and prevented considerable loss of life, allowing a wounded US Marine officer to be evacuated. For this act of valour, Lance Corporal Leakey is highly deserving of significant national recognition.