Operation 417 Down

EK417: Operation 417 Down

CHAPTER TWELVE: Strike Swiftly, Strike Beautifully

It was a long 40 meter drop, in under 30 seconds all 25 men were on the ground it was quick, but in a combat zone it felt like a 400 meter drop instead of 40 meters. Operation is a go for alpha platoon - now for our next phase of the operation was to make our way to the proposed grid reference which the aircraft was sited, being aware of the armed presence of the WRF force we set out on a rugged and long hike across the Afghan mountains, it was pretty cold however walking a few kilometers made our bodies heat up, at first it wasn't much of the issue however eventually the heat started to kick in and our operation performance was affected both physically and mentally.

it was now 13:35, half an hour after we got dropped off, we covered 20 kilometers and only have 50 meters to go, our strike method was to strike swiftly at night, advantage to this is that we could have darkness as our cover, and the disadvantages, with 450 soldiers it not going to be a quiet approach, so we much keep as low and quiet as possible so we don't alert the guards, just imagine 450 of us stomping down the bush towards the location, we would sound like a bunch of elephants to start off with and secondly we would properly be bombed into pieces before we even get there.

With the rough terrain and poor Afghan weather slowing us down, we eventually arrived into the strike radius of the location, it took us 4-5 hours to get to this location.

Me and my men were now in the strike radius, which means we are less than 3 kilometers from the location - all radio and electronic equipment are to be switched off and rifles are to be ready, this is properly one of the nerve racking moment when preparing to fight a battle, from the radius we could start to hear voices of the WRF men, they were speaking of what believed to be Russian language, but for the next half an hour 450 men were being spread out to form a circle around the location surround the base and attack the men by surprise.

It was now a waiting game, waiting for the sun to rise down so we could attack, and we also observe the base planning out any possible shortcuts and locations, the game was on....there's no turning back.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Green Light, Zero Two Alpha

It was now 19:30 the sun has completely set and there was complete darkness, to support the night vision for the men fighting they quietly installed NVG's (Night Vision Goggles) to their helmet, radios were now being switched on at the last few minutes so that we can communicate during the attack and so that we could hear the final signal before we commence the attack.

Moments later a radio transmission came through the radio, it was from the command center;

"Zero-Two Alpha, this is 0-Alpha, you are now granted to strike, I say again, you are granted to strike on the base, Good luck, 0-Alpha, OUT"

This was it, we're about to go into a dangerous fight and the lives of 300 passengers lay in our hands, trying to hold our emotions inside the team of 450 personnel from America and Australia checked their weapons once more, then from the mountains 1.2 kilometers away 3 SASR snipers fired their weapons into the soldiers that was on the guard tower, which marked the signal to strike.

In an instant 450 men slide down the small slope firing at the soldiers running out of the tents, I lead my platoon into the center gate where we held off enemy fire, our objective was to get to the holding room on the other side of the base, however there was heavy fire and soon more enemies arrived from their secret underground tunnel which we not find out about.

It was not long before we received some casualties, fortunately it wasn't anyone from my platoon but same platoon or not, if we see a friendly being shot we must rescue them, there was blood all over his right leg when we dragged him to safety, the medic soon took over and we continued to the next cover which was the water tanks. As we were moving a large explosion went off 8 meters from us knocking us to the ground with the force, the explosion was from the enemy, they had fired mortar shells towards my position from the hills in attempt to slow us down, the US Marine radiomen soon later radioed into the SASR Snipers and within 2 minutes the explosions ceased.