Chapter 9

Fire Force – Continued

I am going to digress a little here as I feel that credit must be given to the one thing, or should I say unit, that made Fire Force so successful ... That was the development of the Selous Scouts ... In my opinion, without them the war would have been lost completely by the end of 75...

As Fire Force developed in 74 one of our biggest problems was reliable intelligence ... Often we would pull up over head a designated village or area, hit the ground running and find the Gooks had been gone hours before – We tried tracking and leapfrogging with little success as the Gooks just bombshelled as soon as they realized they had us on their tails ... Selous Scouts ended all that for us buy very sneaky means...

The area commander, through intel reports and local advice, designated various areas as Hot and Froze them ... All friendly forces, police, ground coverage and any other armed idiots withdrew out the area completely ... Once the Scouts were happy that a frozen area was clear the started very clandestine insertion of Pseudo Gooks and OP's ... These Pseudo Gooks were the scariest doods I have ever seen in my life ... They carefully went through the area and got a good feel for it then set up and called in Fire Force on to specific targets ... and then the Shit hit the fan for the Gooks – it was Fire Force kull a Gook a minute time...

Contact Contact Contact

Our new OC drilled all the stick leaders on what procedures he wanted the guys to follow and were well briefed and drilled before we went out to Darwin for our first Bush trip with the new Boss Maj Pat ... We arrived at Darwin and set up that evening with the Boss and 2ic disappearing to HQ ... At about 20:oo we noticed activity around our OP's room and then all the stick leaders were called – I wasn't part of this as I was still a lowly MAG gunner recovering from sore Nuts... (don't laugh it wasn't funny) - We were told to go and Gonk as we were to be up at first light ... I had scored a brilliant bed space – the corner bunker ... Cool, comfortable and out of everyone's way ... There were some advantages of being an MAG gunner, not many but a few...

Next morning at, O shit its not even light yet hour, the call out siren went and the guys started loading up and making their way to the Chopper pad next door ... The pilots and Techs strolled out and started pre flight and there was a really good buzz of expectancy going around ... I still knew shit as my stick leader only strolled up as the chopper turbine started winding up ... Cpl Dutch briefly told us that we were to hit a village that the Scouts had eyes on with confirmed Gooks in attendance ... We climbed in the Choppers and took off to a totally new Fire force approach ... The fly in was at very low level up vallies and behind trees ... It was so bloody low the trees were above us and I could swear we went under some telephone wire at one stage – why – the scouts had found that as soon as the Gooks heard the whine of a chopper the Gooks Bombshelled ... So our approach was a long hook behind some hills so that when K Kar pulled up the Gooks wer e totally surprised ... Each G Kar had already designated drop off point and they were to drop their first sticks and hustle back to the RL's pre positioned 5km away ... We were dropped in a Dried up Maize land that had no cover only a few mealy stalks sticking up ... We were stop 3 and stop 1 & 2 had been dropped off about a Km away on the other side of a small gulley that was densely vegetated ... K Kar opened up with its 20mm cannon and a few seconds later the radio squawked "Stop 1 Contact Contact there are f•©king Gooks everywhere, Vancy look to your left there is one running, don't worry K Kar got him" - Radio procedure sort of fell apart to first names at that stage as the Boss couldn't be bothered with call signs ... We hadn't seen any movement at that stage as all the action was on the other side of the village – The radio was quiet for a brief period and we heard a quiet voice come up on the radio ... Stop three watch out for that big hut in front of you as there are 2 Gooks in there – one with an RPD and we think the other has an RPG7 ... There was a brief silence for a moment and the Boss came on the air and said "Dutch, just flatten it" ... I was primed and ready, Dutch just looked at me and nodded his head ... I will say one thing about the MAG – it takes no prisoners ... I started on the right of the hut at about 6" off the ground and without taking my finger off the trigger I put 2 belts of ammo across the hut ... As the last round went off and the belt fell to the floor the hut seamed to sag a little then just collapsed in on itself ... Goofy shouted to Dutch that a Gook was legging it behind us and as Dutch was calling the boss on the Radio Goofy and I had a bit of target practice on moving targets ... Shit it was better than a range and still no one had shot at us – or so I thought ... How those 2 Gooks thought they were going to run away from us over clear ground I don't know ... The firing and the confusion was mind blowing but the boss had total control from above – the new stop groups were positioned and it seamed as though the contact was all around us ... In fact it was, as we later found out, had been dropped in the middle of the Gook camp not at the edge ... That was one of the longer contacts that we did that Fire Force ... Dutch's stick was the last out as we waited for the SB guys to arrive and search ... The SB guy arrived and told us to search the huts ... There was no way I was going in to one of those black hell holes under any circumstances and I told the Cop to F•©k off and do it himself – The cop walked up to the door and Kicked it in and was promptly shot at from inside ... He did cartoon like backwards Leopard crawl at High speed and Dutch asked him if he was OK – The poor guy was spluttering away and swearing but had no holes in him that we could tell ... Hut clearing went a lot quicker after that – it is incredible how quickly a White Phos grenade can clear a hut...