Hammer of God

Chapter 8

RAF Habbaniyah was a sprawling complex tucked away in a wide bend of the Euphrates River west of Fallujah, some 500 acres of land surrounded by seventeen miles of steel fencing, studded with block housed machinegun positions every 300 yards. Yet the base was very vulnerable to any determined attack, being dominated by a low plateau that was now seething with over 9000 Iraqi soldiers. The tiny garrison there was as far from help as any in the British Empire might be, or so they thought. The sign at the main gate to the base pointed in one direction to Baghdad, listing the distance at 55 miles. Below this another arrow pointed out the Mecca of the empire, reading: “London 3287 Miles.”

The base was laid out in typical British efficiency, between the river and a water canal that ran along its southern perimeter, and marked a thin boundary between the facility and the ground rising to the plateau. It had a Civil Cantonment for the service personnel families and wives, a hospital, mess halls for officers, sergeants and rankers, all laid out in a patchwork connected by roads with proper names: Grantham, Kenley, Cranwell, Andover. On Tangmere Road there was a cool cluster of shade trees known as the “Command Garden” near the HQ building, and opposite this, on the north side of the base near the river, was the Air House, now absent commanding officer Smart. There was even a racetrack, polo pitch, and golf course for recreation to finish off this little island of civility in an otherwise desolate and wild land. Now these open spaces had been used to disperse planes from the crowded airfield on the southwest quadrant of the base.

Colonel Roberts had men haul away the old WWI howitzers that had been sitting as show pieces out in front of the Officer’s Mess, and they had been put to good use that day. And the men of the Number 4 Flying School had an exhilarating day as well, proud that they were now renamed “Habbaniyah Air Striking Force.” They were pressing everything that could fly into the battle the following day, and dusk found the base still in a hustle of feverish activity.

Flight Lieutenant Maurice Skeet was in charge of a flight of old Vickers Valentia biplanes, a round nosed transport with an open cockpit and room for twenty people in the long enclose fuselage. He had been looking for Air Vice Marshall Smart to see if he could get permission to move his flight to a safer location on the polo pitch earlier, but in the heat of the moment he had gone away unsatisfied. The resulting Iraqi artillery bombardment that day had riddled his Valentias with shrapnel, rendering them all unserviceable. As the planes had been rigged out as makeshift bombers, they now were a liability sitting there with live ordnance.

“Come on then, he said to his crews. We’d best get those bombs off and back into the magazines. One of the Wogs might just get lucky and put a round right on top of us. Start with number 2792-that one has four 500 pounders-then on to the rest. Then it’s into the nearest ARP for the lot of us. We’ll get no digs in the billets tonight. Too much of a target.” The A.R.P. was short for the “Air Raid Precaution” trenches that had been dug all around the base.

The crews set to work, but down south on the perimeter, Colonel Ouvry Linfield Roberts had the men of the King’s Own Rifles, and several companies of Assyrian Levees, ready to go ‘over the wire’ and make a night attack on the plateau. The Iraqis had been bringing up reinforcements, occupying and closing the bridge over the Euphrates to the east at Fallujah, and even sending a small force of armored cars up to Ramadi to the west. Slowly but surely, they were sealing off the base to isolate it from all outside contact or supply.

Now Colonel Roberts had to decide what to do about the situation, and he had a mind to take aggressive action in spite of the disparity in force. They were lucky their air strike had not provoked a general attack by the enemy. Earlier that day eight Iraqi armored cars and three tankettes had approached the Fallujah gate, but when confronted with three of the British armored cars mounting AT rifles, they turned away. But they’ll soon realize that’s about all we have to stop them, thought Roberts. I can’t let them sleep on it tonight. We’ve got to move them off that plateau.

As the sun set, Roberts gave orders to black out the entire base. Any light might only serve as a beacon for enemy planes, and the order seemed to produce good results. As darkness settled over the base they heard the sound of an aircraft overhead, but it passed on by uneventfully. Some minutes later they heard bombs falling and exploding in Ramadi to the west, which the enemy had mistaken for their own encampment.

Captain Cottingham came over from one of the native companies to complain about a gun position north of the river that had been shelling the Cantonment that day.

“Then take your company across and get after them,” said Roberts, sending No. 8 Kurdish Rifles to their first action of the war. For his own part, Roberts was taking two companies of the Kings Own Rifles, and he had the No. 4 Assyrian Company in lorries ready to sortie out should his small force get into trouble. The men assembled to either side of a perimeter blockhouse, moving out with all the stealth they could manage. It was soon found that the enemy had patrols out as well, and the chatter of a machine gun broke the hushed darkness.

Three British Armored Cars, nicknamed “Coffee Pots,” led the way out the Uxbridge Gate and across a narrow bridge over the canal. They then swung off to the right to find a way up onto the plateau while the Kings Own Rifles fanned out. No sooner had they assembled for the move up the furrowed gullies of the plateau flank, when they were taken under withering machine gun fire.

“Bloody Hell!’ said Lt. Colonel Everett. “They’re dug in, and with Vickers guns.” The British had armed much of the Iraqi army that was now made their enemy, and the attack planned by Roberts soon became a difficult situation, with men pinned down on the dry slopes and casualties starting to mount. Everett got to a telephone and reported this to Roberts, who quickly sent up a truck with a Vickers MG and a 3 inch mortar for support. The night was soon thick with the sound of rifle fire and machine guns, and Major Cooper was desperately trying to get the two old 4.5-inch howitzers into shape to fire again. It would take an artificer flown in from Basra to sort those guns out now, so for the moment, they had only a few trench mortars and anything they might capture from the enemy.

Two squads of A company made a rush on one Iraqi position, driving off the Wogs with a bayonet charge and taking possession of two 3.7 inch guns, which they promptly turned on the enemy farther up the slope. But it was clear that Colonel Roberts’ attack was not going to get up that hill tonight, and might not even make it safely back over the canal to the base.

“This is no good,” he said, exasperated as a runner brought in the casualty count. “We’ve too few men to see them picked off like this on that slope. Everything depended on our getting up there unseen.” At that moment there came an odd thumping sound in the distance, and he turned his head, listening.

“Those aren’t guns,” he said, first thinking he was hearing shell fire. Then he thought it must be bombs falling again on Ramadi, but he was very wrong.

Just south and east of the plateau, four helicopters were coming in very low over the waters of the wide Habbaniyah lake. Their lights darkened, they were heading for the wrinkled shore at the base of the plateau, where wadis and gullies had been cut into the dry ground. Thus they were below this undulating terrain, heard but not seen, when they reached the shore and hovered in billowing clouds of dust. Men in dark uniforms and Kevlar body armor leapt from the open doors, sliding down ropes on either side of the helos and then fanning out to immediately establish a perimeter on the LZ. The heavy weapons caches were lowered last, and what amounted to a light company in actual numbers was soon assembling into five man teams.

Troyak had command on the right flank with four squads of his Black Death Marines. Their faces were streaked and blackened with war paint, eyes mounting infrared night optics under their dark helmets. Two men were already setting up the 82mm mortars, and others were sorting out the remaining heavy weapons and getting them off to the rifle teams. On their right, squads of the Argonauts had deployed off the three X-3 helos, which were now loudly revving up to begin their attack from above. The helicopters were going to bring the considerable weight of their firepower against the enemy first, and the men of the King’s Own Rifles were soon treated to an amazing display.

Dark, noisome shadows thumped and hovered over the plateau, the night optics and thermal imaging clearly seeing the enemy gun positions, their barrels still hot from the day’s long work in bombarding the base. Now the deadly fire of modern precision weapons began to rake the positions with terrible effect. The hiss and roar of ground attack missiles split the night as they lanced in. The four Shturm AT missiles found old Iraqi Armored cars and blew them to pieces in a heartbeat. Then the gunners on the ‘Big Blue Pig’ rotated the long barrel of the 30mm autocannon, and its rapid pulsing fire punctuated the night, sending hot streaks of tracer rounds down on the enemy below.

The rocket pods of the X-3s soon joined the action, their missiles blasting into the enemy machine guns and 3.7-inch howitzer positions. Several guns were blown into the air, and went tumbling down the slope, and the whole scene on the plateau dissolved into utter chaos. Then Troyak heard the snarl of the four barreled rotating Minigun on the KA-40, a grim smile on his face as it began raking the unseen enemy. He waited, eyeing his service watch until the hands struck midnight, which was the time designated for his advance. The seconds ticked off, and then he shouted to his men in a hard voice.

“Marines! Follow me!”

The Black Death surged up the furrowed wadi, reaching the crest of the plateau where they saw the chaos of the battle. Fire of burning trucks and tent sites was masked by rolling smoke, and there came an enormous explosion as the autocannon hit a supply dump and ignited the ammunition there. The helicopters were now well to the east, having raked their way along the entire enemy position with their lethal guns and missiles, and now swerved off into the sky, like evil black fire-breathing dragons.

They heard the full throated shout of the teams on their left: “ Argos Fire!” Then the Argonauts charged up the slope, their assault rifles soon barking out fire as they advanced. Between the two forces there were no more than sixty men, but each man carried a modern assault rifle, and every squad had a machinegun. They had firepower exceeding that of the entire battalion of the King’s Own Rifles on the north side of the plateau, and they were using it.

Troyak worked his way forward, crouching low and leaping into what was once an enemy dugout. He whistled for his Marines to move up, establishing a line, and then using his night optics to surveill the situation. There was one brave Vickers MG position that had survived the helo assault, and it was chattering at the Argonauts as they advance with wild indiscriminate fire.

“Zykov! RPG!”

The corporal was ready with the weapon, and quickly blasted the bunkered position with a thundering roar. Then the sound of the auto grenade launcher the Russians had used so effectively in their mission to Ilanskiy cut through the night, and a hail of deadly bomblets saturated the ground ahead of their advance. The Iraqi soldiers that caught a glimpse of the Marines were terrified by these big men looming out of the night, with faces blackened and studded with night vision equipment that looked like devil’s horns, eyes that seemed to glow with an ungodly light. They heard them speaking and growling in a strange language, then saw the horrific fire erupting from their weapons.

One officer, trying to rally his men, instinctively fired a pistol at Troyak, but the heavy reinforced Kevlar body armor took the glancing round, and he was unharmed, gunning down the man in reprisal. The word soon spread that demons from hell had risen in the night, men so fearsome that they could not be killed. Hundreds dropped their rifles and simply fled, their eyes wide with fear.

This was the last resistance of any consequence. There were upwards of 9000 men on the plateau, but they were all wildly streaming to the east, abandoning their guns, leaping onto any truck that would still run, or atop horses and camels as their officers vainly shouted at them, waving curved Scimitars in the night. The rout had begun, and the line of sixty men moved forward, driving it relentlessly on with withering automatic weapons fire cutting down any group of the enemy who had the thought to turn and fight.

On the north side of the plateau the King’s Own Rifles watched the helicopter assault in utter disbelief. Some first thought that the planes had been sent up to support them, but Colonel Roberts knew that was not so. He gaped at the fireworks in the sky, hot missile fire, the rattle and pock of the auto cannons, the howl of the miniguns. It was as if a host of wild Jinn had swept in from the dark lake, breathing terror and death as they came.

When Lt. Colonel Everett saw the enemy lines break and run, he finally took heart. His men would have braved their task in spite of the odds, wearing down the will of the Iraqis to resist, day after day, as the Tiger Moths bombed from above, and he continued to mount aggressive night forays against the flanks and shoulders of the plateau. But they did not have to work quite so hard this time around. Men from another world were coming up the high, stonyplateau like banshees in the night. Though he could not see the commandos and Marines, he could hear their assault, and when the Iraqi troops turned and fled in terror, he blew hard on his whistle and gave the order to charge on up the hill.

Up above, one of the X-3s was observing and putting in additional fire support when they noted the movement by the British troops. Popski was just behind the advancing Marines, listening on a headset that had been given him, delighted with the gizmo. Troyak had showed him how to pinch off the send button when he needed to communicate with the Sergeant, and now he called up with the news that friendly troops would soon be on their left.

Troyak stood up, raising a fist to halt his men, and he looked to see the Argonauts had done the same. He took a look at the enemy troops fleeing madly before their advance and knew the hour was won. There was no point pressing the attack now, and it was decided to leave the action to the Kings Own Rifles, and the Number 4 Company of the Assyrians who came rushing in for support. He ordered his men to go to ground, dark shadows that suddenly seemed to be swallowed by the earth. Then, with precise and well coordinated movements, the fire teams broke off and withdrew towards a pre-designated position where they were to meet up with the helicopters.

Their work here was done.

Twenty minutes later they boarded in a storm of dust, rising up into the desert night. Popski’s cheeks were red with the cold night air and the exhilaration of the action he had witnessed.

“Damn good MGs on these birds,” he said to Troyak. “And where can I get me one of those handy rifles of yours?”

The Sergeant handed him his own assault rifle. “I’ll have to show you how it operates, but with a little training you’ll fall in love with that in no time.”

Popski nodded, looking down onto the plateau that was now a broiling, smoking scene of devastation. Of the thirty guns the Iraqis had brought in to shell the base, twenty seven were destroyed or captured. The three that escaped had been moved earlier by trucks to the far side of the Euphrates. The Kings Own Rifles reached the scene in utter amazement, and groups of weeping Iraqis fell at their feet to beg for mercy. Colonel Roberts two companies quickly had over 500 prisoners, and the rest were fleeing madly east, their war on the British over for the moment.

The four helos turned west into the night, their mission plan now calling them back to Tango-1 just across the Jordanian border. There they would suck up the last of the aviation fuel they had ferried in earlier, and begin the ride to Palestine. Along the way they saw the long column of King Column en route to the relief of RAF Habbaniyah. They would leave the rest of the action there to the British who would now try to use the tiny garrison and these small flying columns to good effect, relieving the base, and then toppling the incipient rebellion of Rashid Ali and sending the German Ambassador fleeing to Mosul.

But it was far from over. When he got news of the rout of the Iraqi Army at Habbaniyah, he could hardly believe it. He was immediately on the phone to higher authorities, his voice angry in the night. “It’s the British!” he exclaimed. “They have driven off all the troops we sent to capture Habbaniyah, and now I have word more units have arrived from India at Basra. They will be coming for Baghdad next! You must launch your operation immediately, before we lose everything here!”

Then he stormed away to his motor car and the long ride to Mosul. But “Operation Anvil,” a plan that had been simmering in the mind of the Fuhrer for some days now, would become a timely reprisal to face the emergency, and the hammer was about to fall.