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  Generally, the function of the helicopters was to transport the command element of the S.P. Team to the scene of the incident as quickly as possible. A secondary role was to deliver members of the assault section of the team directly on to the target once the order to attack had been received.

  We practised a wide range of methods of delivery; from approaching to a low hover and the team members simply leaping off the skids, to fast roping, abseiling and free fall parachuting. All these techniques had to be mastered by day or night, with or without lights, and in pretty much, all weather conditions.

  Throughout the year, we had a constant stream of visitors from the forty-five police constabularies of the UK to politicians and Royalty, all expecting to see a dramatic demonstration of how we would deal with, just about, any hostage situation.

  When Prince Charles and Lady Diana visited, the exercise was made more interesting than usual when Lady Di got too close to the action and her hair caught fire. The prince flew with me as we demonstrated storming an aircraft, and I then asked him if he would like to take the flying controls for the next part of the exercise which was assailing of the Embassy building.

  “Well I would love to, but I’m afraid I don’t have my flying gloves with me,” said the prince.

  “Don’t worry sir you can borrow mine,” I said, “This could be your claim to fame. One day you will be able to tell people that you once wore ‘Red’ the Pilot’s flying gloves.”

  This sent a ripple of laughter around the royal entourage including Lady Di who was giving me, what could only be described as a ‘smouldering’ look. Unfortunately, there was no sexual aspiration to the look, it was just that her hair was still smoking slightly.

  The future king did take control of the aircraft and he flew very well until we were in the middle of the ‘fireworks display’, when I thought it might be prudent to help him out just a little. Our demonstrations invariably went down very well with the hierarchy, although they did tend to interrupt our rigorous training regime.

  There is an old military adage – ‘Train hard fight easy’, and train hard is exactly what we did.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  OPERATION NIMROD

  As a group, we trained in anticipation of coming up against hardened and ruthless terrorists. We found it easy to convince ourselves that it was only a matter of time before a major hostage situation would develop somewhere on UK soil.

  The last time the regiment had been involved in a real hostage incident had been the Balcombe Street siege, back in 1975. After carrying out several murderous bombing attacks across England, four members of an IRA active service unit took two members of the public hostage after being cornered by police in a flat in Balcombe Street, Marylebone, London. Throughout the six days of the siege the SP team planned and rehearsed attacks on the building where the hostages were being held. The gunmen eventually surrendered to police before any strike was carried out, and the IRA men were later charged with ten murders and twenty bombings. All of them were jailed for life.

  Almost five years later, in April 1980, six armed men burst into the Iranian Embassy on Princes Gate, South Kensington, London, and took control of the building. They held twenty-six people, including one police officer who had been on duty guarding the Embassy, as hostages. The attackers claimed to be members of a little-known Iranian Arab group, formed to protest against the oppression of Khuzestan by the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini.

  Within minutes of the siege becoming established, SAS Group Headquarters on the Kings Road in Chelsea had been alerted and they, in turn, had ordered the SP team in Bradbury Lines to come to immediate readiness and prepare to move. In houses, pubs and clubs across the small rural town of Hereford, the SP team members’ personal bleepers flashed, indicating that this was not an exercise but a potential operation and to get into camp and be ready to move as quickly as possible.

  Less than thirty minutes after receiving the call-out I was airborne with the Counter Terrorist Command team on board, en route to Regents Park Barracks, which was a stone’s throw away from the besieged Iranian Embassy.

  For the transit, I didn’t use my normal ‘Army two four zero’ call sign but instead adopted ‘Doughnut Sierra’, a call sign allocated to me which was only to be used when genuine threats to national security had been declared. Air traffic control services across the country had routinely been instructed to give any ‘Doughnut’ call sign absolute priority over all other traffic apart from an immediate life-threatening emergency.

  After landing at Regents Park, preparations prior to the arrival of the rest of the team had to be organised without delay. The carparking area had to be cleared to make room for a further one, and possibly two, more helicopters. There was also a whole convoy of SP team vehicles including Range Rovers, transit vans, pantechnicons and a fifty-six-seater bus barrelling down the M4 motorway towards London. The bus, already prepared and equipped with covert microphones and cameras, was also fitted with remotely detonated stun grenades and gas producers which could be used if the vehicle were to be stormed.

  A Command and Control Centre needed to be established. Basic accommodation with catering facilities for up to one hundred men would also be required. The building which had the largest open space was the gymnasium and this needed to be completely cleared for a team of Royal Pioneer Corps carpenters to supervise the building of a facsimile of the room layout of the Embassy, for the assault teams to practice room to room clearance.

  Upon arrival of the team, our priority would be to implement an Immediate Action plan. An IA would be necessary in case negotiations broke down, and the situation became rapidly out of control. Should the operational commander consider it likely that the terrorists were about to start killing the hostages, then the IA drill would be initiated.

  A much-preferred option to an IA was a Deliberate Action, which would normally take a considerable amount of time to prepare. The team needed to gain access to the adjacent buildings, put together bespoke frame charges and other explosive devices. They also needed to identify entry points and solid anchors to secure abseil ropes. Perhaps most importantly, they needed to obtain detailed plans of the building, in order to reconstruct the layout to practise room clearances and allocate areas of responsibility for each assault team member.

  The IA plan, which included one helicopter at the front and one at the back delivering the assault teams on to the roof, would remain extant only until the Deliberate Action was considered to be adequately prepared. This turned out to be a full two days into the operation.

  It wasn’t until lunchtime on the sixth day of the siege that the situation quickly began to spiral out of control. Negotiations between the police and the hostage takers had started breaking down and when three shots were heard from inside the building, everyone in the control room started to fear the worst.

  At about seven o’clock that evening a body was thrown out of the front door of the embassy and the terrorists threatened to kill one hostage every half hour.

  The senior police officer on duty, who would not normally be below the rank of chief superintendent, was in total control of the situation. He would only hand control over to the senior Army commander if he considered that the lives of the hostages were in imminent danger, and military action had become unavoidable. The terrorists had now crossed the line and, believing that any further negotiations would be futile, the chief constable handed over control to the military. Operation Nimrod was declared active, and it was about to get very interesting indeed.

  Upon receipt of the ‘Go Go Go’ from the commander, several teams would attempt to enter the building at, exactly the same time. All with the unambiguous aim of ‘saving the hostages’.

  By this time the Deliberate Action had been developed and refined with everything, and everyone, ready to move into position to assault the embassy, and formal control was accepted by Lieutenant Colonel Mike Rose, the Senior Military Representative. The operational commander instructed the teams to mov
e, as silently as possible, to their start positions, and check in when ready to launch the coordinated and simultaneous attack.

  The police negotiators were asked to keep the lead hostage-taker, Awn Ali Mohammed, known as Salim, as busy as possible on the phone. One team was standing by, on the roof, ready to lower an explosive device down through the skylight and enter the building via the stairway. A second team, with prepared Explosive Frame Charges, would attach them to the first-floor windows, approaching from the balcony next door. Teams positioned in the rear garden would blow out the patio doors to gain access to clear the basement and the ground floor.

  As the remaining teams were abseiling into positions on the second- and first-floor rear balconies, one of the team smashed a window with his foot. Salim was immediately alerted and, becoming very agitated, slammed the phone down on the negotiator. The commander instantly decided that the element of total surprise had been lost and transmitted ‘Go Go Go’.

  Seconds later a tremendous explosion shook the whole of number 16 Princes Gate, as the rooftop team lowered their explosive charge down through the central skylight. Almost simultaneously, the team on the first-floor balcony detonated their prepared frame charges, and a huge plume of smoke enshrouded the front of the building. Watched by millions of television viewers around the world, a team burst through the smoke and into the first-floor library. The first hostage to be encountered was a BBC sound engineer, Sim Harris, who was unceremoniously grabbed and shoved out onto the balcony, where he then crossed to the safety of the National School of Needlework next door. The library was quickly cleared and, as the team moved through the building, a gunman who was attempting to escape into a room off the corridor they were in, was shot dead.

  Meanwhile, Salim, the lead hostage-taker, ran towards the first-floor window brandishing his semi-automatic AK47 rifle. The police officer, who had been guarding the embassy as it was taken, Constable Trevor Locke, had managed to keep his pistol hidden throughout the past five days of the siege. Constable Locke dived onto Salim, drawing his weapon at the same time. As the two men wrestled on the floor, the SAS team entered the room. One of them shouted to Locke to roll clear before firing a burst, from his MP5 submachine gun, killing the gang leader instantly.

  At the same time, in the communications room on the third floor, the hostages were ordered to sit with their hands on their heads. Realising that they were under attack the terrorists panicked and began indiscriminately firing at the helpless hostages, killing one and seriously wounding a second. Knowing that the assault team were about to enter the room the killers panicked, threw their weapons to one side and attempted to hide amongst the hostages, but the ruse didn’t work and they were quickly identified and shot dead.

  Thinking that all the hostages were now safe, the team lined them up and started to marshal them into the back garden via the central staircase. Halfway down the stairs, a team member identified a terrorist who was holding a hand grenade. Unable to open fire because of the people around him, the soldier smashed him in the face with the butt of his weapon instead. The grenade flew out of the man’s hand, fortunately not exploding. He rolled, semi-conscious, to the bottom of the stairs where he was met by a volley of machine gun fire, ending his days of being a hero of Khuzestan, or anywhere else for that matter.

  Having reached the garden, the hostages were made to lie face down and their hands were handcuffed behind their backs. Five of the DRFA group were now dead but one was still unaccounted for. It was then that Sim Harris, the BBC man pointed out that Fawaz Nijad, the last of the group was, in fact, lying on the ground masquerading as a hostage. Nijad was dragged away and handed over to the police. He was eventually charged with murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

  With all the hostages now safe, five terrorists dead and one in custody, control was handed back to the police and Operation Nimrod was coming to an end.

  We all gathered in the dining hall jostling and barging to get a good view of the television, which had been set up for us to watch the BBC news, which was due to start shortly. Just as the opening music for the news was playing I received a message, ‘Casevac request immediate’. I was a bit disgruntled that I would miss the dramatic events unfolding on TV but, having just received a new, state of the art, VHS recorder I knew that I would, at least, be able to watch it later. As I approached the door to leave, in walked the commanding officer, Mike Rose, and Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister, who I almost bumped into.

  ‘This is Red, a member of the team,’ said the C.O.

  Despite my attempts to avoid her clutches, Mrs Thatcher then flung her arms around me and proceeded to give me a big kiss. I managed to extricate myself from her enthusiastic embrace, whilst the rest of team concentrated on watching their performance on the news, totally ignoring the prime minister. I had the CASEVAC to deal with, which I assumed must be a life-threatening emergency since the nearest hospital was only minutes away by ambulance.

  A CASEVAC is a casualty evacuation request normally requiring one, or more, casualties to be extracted from the scene of an accident or incident and taken to the nearest hospital. But this request was unusual. It specified one casualty to be moved from the front of the Iranian Embassy and taken to the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Military Hospital just outside Wroughton in Wiltshire, which was exclusively for the use of military personnel. I figured that the casualty had to be Tom, a friend of mine, who had been badly burnt whilst abseiling down the back of the building. His abseil rope had become entangled just above the window through which he was planning to enter the building. The curtains below him were ablaze and Tom was being roasted alive. Only the quick action of a team member saved him by cutting through the rope and deposited Tom into the back garden like a bundle of dirty washing.

  Being now in total darkness I asked for the grassed area across from the embassy to be illuminated by the headlights of two vehicles. A standard procedure for a night pick-up, which I felt confident the guys on the ground would be familiar with. I was expecting a stretcher, but as I landed, the back door flew open and in jumped Tom, smelling like a recently extinguished bonfire. A casualty would normally be chaperoned by a medic but as the medic attempted to get on board Tom pushed him away and slammed the door shut. “Right mate let’s go,” he said. “Forget the hospital, straight back to aitch.”

  The Royal Air Force Hospital at Wroughton was on the way back to Hereford and over the next few minutes, I managed to convince Tom that we should land there and get him some treatment. It was, a pretty safe bet, that a medical team would be waiting to receive him and we would both be in for a bollocking if we were to stand them up. He agreed, but only if I promised to wait for him for up to an hour, since he made it perfectly clear that he had no intentions of missing the inevitable piss-up about to get underway back at ‘aitch’ as he called our base in Hereford.

  After about forty minutes an apparition emerged from the darkness. With the light behind the apparition I could only make out its teeth and the whites of its eyes but I had no doubt whatsoever, it was Tom. He was wearing a blue and white sleeveless hospital gown and carrying a drip stand with a saline drip inserted into his right arm. The doctors and nurses standing at the hospital entrance had obviously given up and made no attempt to stop the, undoubtedly insane Fijian warrior from having his way and getting back for the piss-up.

  We roared with laughter in the euphoric atmosphere of the Officers’ Mess that night and I honestly don’t remember what time I got to bed.

  I loved my job, which I felt confident was secure for, at least, the next three years. Only if I made a horrendous cock-up would my time with the Special Air Service be cut short by the threat of an involuntary RTU. Return to Unit was something to be avoided at all costs. For any member of the Special Forces to be obliged to go back to their parent unit, and then have their records endorsed with ‘Services no longer required’, was, at that time, considered to be the ultimate disgrace.

  CHAPTER NINE

  By
this time, I was a happily married man with three children and living in a pleasant, four-bedroomed house, in the rural village of Moreton-on-Lugg, five miles north of Hereford.

  My father-in-law had recently retired from the Royal Air Force and had now risen through the ranks at the local golf club to become president, no less. Over time, his perception of me had changed somewhat, and I was now considered to be far more socially acceptable. His daughter and I were regularly honoured with invites to lavish functions at the president’s table. Functions we were, perhaps predictably, never able to attend.

  My dedication to my work meant that I spent far more time away from my family than I needed to. I would be the first to admit that my performance as a husband and father certainly didn’t compare to that of my flying ability. ‘Proficient’ would have been a rather more generous assessment than I deserved. I was still having the affair with Barbara and flew down to Battersea to spend time with her whenever the opportunity arose. My good friend Crocker, Major Crocker, the second-in-command of the regiment at that time, was also having an affair with a woman from London. We would often conspire together, over a brew in his office, to concoct excuses for us to visit Group Headquarters in Chelsea, a visit which could not possibly be done by train or car and would, invariably, involve an overnight stay. If we couldn’t think of any good reason for staying overnight then I could always resort to the ‘bad weather grounding us till daylight’ option, or even affecting a technical fault that would take some time to resolve. The guys back at the Flight in Hereford soon got to know that once the second-in-command and I had departed for London there was no way we would be back before the next day. Crocker’s mistress had her own flat in Kensington but Barbara was married to an inspector in the Metropolitan Police so we would usually spend the night, or at least part of it, at the Special Forces club.