SAS: The Soldiers’ Story - Desert Storm

in January 9 to 1 the Iraqis began launching Scud missiles on Israel if Israel had retaliated it would have been politically impossible for the coalition Arab forces to remain in the wall the Western alliance against the right would have disintegrated the SAS were touched to go deep behind enemy lines locate the skirts and take them out earlier might have given victory - suddam Hussein they would cross the border in strength fully owned fully tooled up maximum initially they would then search until they located a mobile skirt position they would drive in guns blazing destroy it drive off into the night [Music] [Music] this film is about two successful missions deep behind enemy lines young trooper Matt's story the first mission is about the first shot fired in anger on the ground in the Gulf War the first kill wide-eyed up-close initially they talked about us doing some form of cease release because of all the hostages that have been taken in Kuwait and then moved towards Baghdad and then taskings changed throughout as theater actually built up the start looking at is going into western Iraq deep behind enemy lines and doing some form of assertion destroyed basically as a disruption force to draw the attention away from Kuwait [Music] there was very limited information on the enemy that was gonna bump into even though they said that they could be substantial we just went out there basically and just see him with come across we knew that we were better than anybody that will could I come across so I think that's where our their professionalism Ling clicked in it was a mixture of terrains well I don't think I can ever remember coming across any sort of desert environment like sand like you saw on there people saw the TVs it was very very rugged terrain we'd been driving all night at that stage we'd been across the border in the region of about four to five days been in his lair point is Lu P for most of the day and what we tried to do is get into dead ground into a depression in the ground if we could to keep concealed especially to great distance we put centuries out on the I ground which could then identify anything come into waters and come to the vehicles of big cabinets all the vehicles and basically just got on with that administration cleaning weapons sorting yourselves out getting some food down yeah and then get eventually getting some sleep the weather was in everybody's opinion horrific you know guys that have been to Norway said that they'd never ever been so cold and we didn't have the equipment and the clothing to to keep us warm I start to rubber a lot of cold injuries to me fingers and because the gloves that were we had weren't good enough they would only very thin leather gloves and your hands became very very hard and very cold as the time progressed me fingers the skins rose around me fingernails start to crack and on on all me fingers and and both thumbs which caused a lot of pain and especially as he got colder in the night and so what we were having to do was wrapped socks around crawls in socks and put socks over his hands because it was that cold you were gritting your teeth a lot more and I cracked a quite a few of my teeth at the back of my mouth because of just pure grit my teeth clothing was initially very limited with we was under the impression and I was intelligence and stated that was was it was quite warm out there Andrew but most of us went out with jungle combats or desert combats at the time which turned out to be quite poor and as normal SS smocks which is slightly wind resistant but in the temperatures that were going to come across the weren't that good at about three o'clock afternoon one of the centuries that was on I ground pointed across to lay down the the body there was a vehicle coming towards us a small Jeep type vehicle and all sudden he just drove straight towards us and we didn't know what the hell it was we obviously knew it was a rocky so you know you can only take it that it's obviously enemy [Music] [Music] [Music] because the immediate shop them Jesus said there's a vehicle coming to waters it did cause a bit of it an initial flap once we identified anyway [Music] [Music] he drove right up towards our vehicle and stopped within about 30 meters of it [Music] - driver got out the commander got out and two guys stayed in the back and we was all under the cabinet getting ready to let these guys out of it and as it came towards us I thought Jesus I'm gonna kill this bloke and you know the first kill as he came towards us one of our guys walked out with his weapon behind his back our lad lifted his weapon up at that point he had a stoppage but at the exact same point Angela going but except to take a great deal of time Jamaica now swagger at the same time and I'm talking of literally over seconds I got up with another guy and start moving towards the vehicle as we got there one lad was pulling up the body out of the bounds of that Jeb blood just spurted out which stuck him in mind you know because that's the graphic detail of it she make him up came over to the vehicle because you can okay get back into the vehicle said the guys ever another guy died very thing the other day rocky was massively traumatized because all of a sudden they were the reconnaissance group the command group for a very large artillery division and the information that they had on them gave the Allies a massive amount of information of what was going on in Europe in Iraq basically we was told afterwards when we eventually got back across the border there was somewhere in the region of third law thousand troops coming into our immediate area where we was and then at that point we was actually surrounded by them already the immediate shock of everything died down very very quickly we realize we've got three bodies we've got a prisoner of war we've got a vehicle deniable operation what the hell do we do with him initially was gonna bury the bodies there and then but it would have been ludicrous because their forces would have come to that location anyway and seen them because we could only dig very shallow graves so we got the prisoner threw him on the MSV and the bodies we threw him back in their own vehicle and one of our lads volunteered to drive the vehicle and he had an ulterior motive in doing so because this was a [ __ ] covered vehicle had a roof but it also there eita and the intention was that we would tailor vehicle business we then broke down as we call it and moved away from the location but Eddie in the opposite direction to what they came from I think we were in the region about 75 to maybe 100 miles behind enemy lines at this stage throughout that night was quite a nightmare because we were surrounded by a massive force and the intention was that Anela copter will come in that night take the bodies the vehicle and the prisoner war at that stage when we stopped and the guy got out of the vehicle that been driving the the bodies around all night II he he smelled quite badly because obviously these bodies were starting to decompose in the back of the vehicle but he was totally unaware of that because he'd been nice and warm all night in his in his little vehicle which was slightly amusing and it you know even though it was horrific what had happened and they look you know brought a few smiles on people's faces that he was nice and warm but he stumped too I haven't the helicopter came in and when he was dark and that they would fly ultra low level literally 10 or 15 feet off to the ground pilots were incredibly good at night night goggles we've got the vehicle ready with the bodies in the in the vehicle ready to push onboard the aircraft the helicopter landed massive amount of noise anyway the RF Lord master decided that that vehicle wasn't going anywhere near the other copter so was immediately in a predicament what the hell do we do with him the prisoner went on the aircraft bit of commotion and the aircraft took off we're still stuck with a an Iraqi vehicle with three dead bodies in it what do we do our fears would definitely the fact that if we keep taking these around with us and we do get captured they're gonna look at it and say well these people these European soldiers have got three of our many dead in there in a vehicle and they would probably kill us so we had to dispose of the bodies there's a gully and we just dug it out even more in the space of about half hour and we literally just threw the vehicle into the pit obviously with the bodies inside and shoved two anti-tank mines that we had that we carried around with us which a massive big mines shoved them under the vehicle poured the rest the kerosene and the diesel fuel that we weren't using around the vehicle shifted a big can of petrol inside the vehicle with the bodies and put a timer on the on the devices on the mines set the timer to go off I think it was around about five o'clock the following morning all that morning I should say and which would give give us you know five or six hours to get away as far away from it as possible and that's exactly what happened that's a long build we drove all night to it to find another location and literally about five o'clock that morning we didn't hear it but we could see a flash on the horizon was this thing that done up and hopefully incinerated and disposed of the evidence and the bodies that were there and the flash died down as it was just starting to come back daylight Victor to an Iraqi military installation responsible for communications and the guiding of mobile scuds heavily defended a classic hit and run nitrate that echoes the ACS days of World War two [Music] we used to get sitreps every night from a cause telling us what was going on and an intelligence report came in that was a big microwave installation to our north which they wanted us to go and wreck it with the intention of destroying it basically what we had was building a square building with a massive antenna in it with microwave dishes all around it and it was surrounded by a number of different vehicles buildings four cabins and the switch leg was tasked basically to go in into the installation with a big bag of explosives which would be on a safety fuse which would give us in the region of about a minute and a half to get back out the theory was that we might be fighting his way in and out because we didn't know how many troops are being there but that's how we was going to work it peace through superior firepower that's what how we was gonna do it those two vehicles that was very close to the object of two big vehicles one of them with what looked like a water Bowser or a fuel Bowser I was tasked to go and ID that one and just watch that everything was very very quiet you know you can literally hear a pin drop we never thought that we would fail in his mission as for thinking about not coming back yay attend him in mind every night it normally entered my mind just before we started off and at that point I would always think well is this gonna be the night you know and I'd say little things to myself and occasionally offer myself a little prayer that everything would be alright for not just myself but for all the boys shut the [ __ ] up we'd initiated the contact and the old place erupted it [Applause] guys were coming away from the installation we've gone before they exploded when we start taking some quite a bit of incoming it was a massive amount of fire coming from our light trace around four then side very it's a very weird feeling when you've got these wine called red onyx flying out here and there it's in the ground all around em first [Applause] some unknown reason not one bloke was actually touched we just were very very looking the other Vantage that reality is that we have the ball to go and do it you know the cliche is and it's very next may sound very silly in dares wins but at the end of the day we did have that going for us we knew what we were doing they didn't know the hell we were and we went in there and achieved his mission and we didn't lose anybody in doing something when we got back across the border a few weeks later a few of us approach the intelligence guys basically to stand race or finger poking and find out what actually [Music] they informed us that the the were in excess of between 250 to 300 enemy troops on that one location and we realized then that was we'd been up against a fast far bigger force but in no way superior every mobile column that set off to carry out a mission achieved their aim 100% successfully the Iraqis were forced to move their squads out of range of Israel those that remained were destroyed on the ground general Schwarzkopf decided he'd pay as a visit and he came and visited our squadron his personal jet came in and he came up and he shook hands with every man in the squadron and he gave us a speech and the speech was by far one of the most exhilarating speech to ever read in my life to hear this man sing our praises and this is when we realized the impact that we dad actually over there the major impact arose when he started mentioning about the Israelis himself saying that they'd gone to speak to the Israelis about not entering the war because of the threat of losing the the allies and he he emphasized the point that it wasn't until he mentioned that he had special forces in behind enemy lines that these Raley's then started to back down but it wasn't until the Israelis asked which special forces were were there and he said we've gotten British SAS in there behind enemy lines that they then did actually back down and when he said said this I found it the most exhilarating thing I've ever heard in my life there for some unknown reason that SAS soldiers had probably stopped the Israelis coming into the war and no other reason than that [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Ho Tac Tactical

Views: 291,728

Rating: 4.8182468 out of 5

Keywords: sas, special forces, special air service, 22nd SAS, special operations, military

Id: yFzbiJ1xZC8

Length: 24min 22sec (1462 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 17 2019