HC_Deep Undercover_7of8_Behind Iraqi Lines
Transcript
00:00:00Iraq, 1991, deep behind enemy lines, eight members of Britain's elite special operations
00:00:26regiment, the Special Air Service, fight for their lives.
00:00:41The fate of the Allied coalition hangs in the balance.
00:00:51Over the next few days, their mission will turn into a disaster.
00:00:55Some of the men will be killed.
00:00:58Others will try to escape by walking 200 miles across the Iraqi desert, leaving in their
00:01:03wake an estimated 200 Iraqi dead and wounded.
00:01:07I've smelled dead bodies before, and I could smell it on me.
00:01:10There was just this rotting stench.
00:01:15Some will endure appalling torture at the hands of their captors.
00:01:20It's quite unnerving to be by yourself, knowing that everybody out there wants to kill you.
00:01:32Using the survivors' first-hand accounts, this film reveals the details of their mission,
00:01:38an extraordinary test of bravery and endurance.
00:01:45They are the men of call sign Bravo 2-0.
00:01:49This is their story.
00:02:20Eight members of Britain's elite special operations unit, the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment,
00:02:25or SAS, prepare to deploy behind enemy lines deep inside Iraq.
00:02:33Every individual knew that we shouldn't have been going in, and what we had, but we were
00:02:37all prepared to get on that helicopter and go for it.
00:02:42This was our chance, and nobody was going to be left behind.
00:02:54It was a slight relief, in fact, that all of the preparations had been done.
00:03:00Whether it's right or wrong, we'll find out sooner or later.
00:03:02But it's done, and let's just get on with it.
00:03:09The Bravo 2-0 patrol is led by Sergeant Andy McNabb.
00:03:14All eight of us were sitting in the Chinook, sat there in their own little worlds, really,
00:03:19thinking whatever they thought, whether they were excited or scared or apprehensive or
00:03:22whatever.
00:03:23Today, Andy McNabb cannot be identified, as a result of various undercover missions he
00:03:29participated in during the years of his service with the SAS.
00:03:46Unarmed and without escort, a Royal Air Force Chinook helicopter carries the patrol into
00:03:51Iraq.
00:04:01Corporal Chris Ryan is one of the other senior members of the team.
00:04:05You're in the helicopter here, and from my point of view, you've got no control over
00:04:10the travelling from A to B, so you just want to get this bit over.
00:04:14The game's started now, and you're in motion, and just get the job done.
00:04:21Chris Ryan is the only surviving patrol member able to talk about his experience in Iraq.
00:04:27The other men would face prosecution by the British government if interviewed.
00:04:34It's very cramped, very noisy, very hot.
00:04:37I think everybody's emotions were up and down because of how chaotic it had been to
00:04:45get this patrol mounted.
00:04:50Under the codename Operation Desert Storm, the liberation of Kuwait has begun.
00:04:59Just five days earlier, waves of British and American warplanes began bombing Baghdad and
00:05:04targets throughout Iraq.
00:05:08Iraqi President Saddam Hussein retaliated by firing Scud missiles.
00:05:15Two missiles have fallen in Tel Aviv, a third one is in the air.
00:05:25The civil defense here is telling everyone to put their gas masks on and go into a sealed
00:05:31room.
00:05:32Despite the very real threat that the Scud missiles could carry chemical or biological
00:05:35warheads, Israel made it clear to then-President Bush that the Scud attacks had to be stopped.
00:05:43Israelis told us at the highest levels that if we didn't stop those Scuds from shooting,
00:05:50they were going to go in and do it.
00:05:52They couldn't tolerate that.
00:05:55Suddenly the stakes could not have been higher.
00:06:00I believe that Israel threatened to use nuclear weapons in retaliation to a Scud attack, say
00:06:07that carried biological or chemical warhead.
00:06:10And as a result of that, I could see why the immense pressure was put on us about the Scud
00:06:15missiles.
00:06:16So I think that is the importance of the Scud missile.
00:06:19I think that is the true secret of why stopping them was so important.
00:06:27With all of the aircraft and technology at his disposal, General Horner could not find
00:06:32and destroy the mobile Scud launchers.
00:06:36They were too well camouflaged or shielded by the poor weather and lost in the vast Iraqi
00:06:41desert.
00:06:46We from the very beginning put all the available force that would have any impact that was
00:06:51within our capability against the Scuds.
00:06:55Unfortunately, that force was not adequate to the job.
00:06:59We could not stop the Scud launches.
00:07:02We had to find some new way to come to grips with this problem.
00:07:07And of course, that's where ground forces come into play.
00:07:21It was just getting to the last line because we wanted to use the maximum amount of darkness
00:07:26when we got over the border.
00:07:36Once we flew over the Iraqi border, we had to climb quite high to get over a dual carriageway
00:07:40to hide our noise.
00:07:44And we got illuminated by a Roland missile.
00:07:51For me, having the headphones on, it got me flapping, big time.
00:08:08We had lock-on from a missile site where the helicopter came down, hovered for a while,
00:08:15and they started taking evasive action.
00:08:18The voice procedure never changed on the net.
00:08:20It was breaking left, breaking left.
00:08:34OK, we're clear. That was close.
00:08:37The Chinook flies deeper and deeper into Iraq.
00:08:41The men inside span a range of ages, skills, nations, and experience.
00:08:48Andy McNabb, he was the patrol commander.
00:08:50I knew him quite well, quite an outwardly going guy, very professional.
00:08:56I basically grew up in South London, in a housing estate in America.
00:09:00Equivalent would be a project housing.
00:09:04I was arrested when I was 16 for breaking and entering in houses
00:09:08when I went to the juvenile detention system that at that time was called a ball store.
00:09:12Basically, if you joined the army, well, you'd get out of ball stores, so that was it.
00:09:16From 24-year-old Bob to 36-year-old Vince,
00:09:20former paratroopers, infantrymen, and a marine,
00:09:23all have specialist skills, medic, marksman, or explosives expert.
00:09:30One is a New Zealander, another South African, known around town as Dr. Sex.
00:09:35Another is a loner.
00:09:40Another member of the patrol we had who was a corporal by then was Chris.
00:09:46I'd been in the regiment since 1984.
00:09:49My parents were ordinary working class folk, weren't very wealthy.
00:09:54And it was always my ambition to join the army
00:09:58as a means of travelling and getting away, because we couldn't afford to go on holiday.
00:10:02The only way I saw of travelling the world was to join the army.
00:10:08Half of them are parents, most are married.
00:10:11Together, a tough and disciplined SAS team.
00:10:16We knew each other, we'd all worked together,
00:10:18we'd all been on the anti-terrorist team for six months before that.
00:10:21They're a good bunch of guys.
00:10:28Before we landed, all of the equipment was pushed onto the tailgate of the Chinook.
00:10:39The second in command of the patrol is SAS veteran Sergeant Vince Phillips.
00:10:46Vince and his three-man team, they were going to go out of the dust cloud to put out protection.
00:10:53My job then is to make sure that we've got all the equipment off,
00:10:56you jump off and they go, there's no ceremony about it at all.
00:11:07You get into a defensive position, the bird takes off.
00:11:17And you just let everything settle down, there's a lot of dust.
00:11:21The first thing that I realised was that it was quite cold, it was freezing.
00:11:26There was a stiff wind blowing.
00:11:30Then everything became silent for a while.
00:11:37And there is a time where you just stay there and tune in,
00:11:41because you're starting to get your night vision.
00:11:43So you're just looking at the sky and you're thinking,
00:11:46You just stay there and tune in, because you're starting to get your night vision.
00:11:50So you're just looking where everybody else is.
00:11:55We then saw things that shouldn't be where we landed.
00:11:59That's why we landed there, hopefully being desolate.
00:12:01We started to see trees in a plantation that was cut in the horizon.
00:12:10We then hear a dog in the distance.
00:12:13There shouldn't be this activity around.
00:12:16Nine out of ten times there's an animal, there's going to be humans.
00:12:23There was no other noise, the dog settled down.
00:12:25So we basically got our equipment, which was in excess of probably £350 per man,
00:12:30and then we started to ferry it, just like a bunch of sherpas moving it.
00:12:37It soon became apparent at this point that we weren't going to dig in.
00:12:41The ground that we were on was flatbed rock,
00:12:44and it was quite open and there was no vegetation to hide behind.
00:12:52The foot patrol moves across the desert that night
00:12:55until they find a dry riverbed, or wadi, to hide in.
00:12:59This would be their lying-up point, or LUP, for the daytime.
00:13:04From here, they would observe the nearby highway
00:13:08and report on any scud activity.
00:13:13So we then moved in to this LUP,
00:13:16which did give us quite a bit of cover, actually.
00:13:20It wasn't ideal conditions, because it was quite close to the road.
00:13:23We were open to the elements, and if anybody had come walking in there,
00:13:26they would have spotted us straight away.
00:13:34But when Stephen Lane, the patrol signaller, nicknamed Legs,
00:13:38sets up the radio to report in, he can't get through.
00:13:43The patrol has been given the wrong frequencies.
00:13:46They have no way to communicate with base.
00:13:50The patrol has been given the wrong frequencies.
00:13:53They have no way to communicate with base.
00:14:20We start hearing a bell, like a cow bell.
00:14:25It was up there somewhere behind us.
00:14:31The bell got sort of noisier.
00:14:34Vince came up to have a look of what was going on.
00:14:41And he said, it was goats. It was a load of goats coming up with a kid.
00:14:50It was a load of goats coming up with a kid.
00:15:06One of the lads then said that he'd locked eyes on them.
00:15:10So we had to take it as a compromise.
00:15:13We have to get out. We have to get out.
00:15:16You're compromised, that's it. There's nothing you can do.
00:15:20We did that a couple of hours before last light.
00:15:25So people got their bergens on, checking their weapons.
00:15:28People getting a lot of fluids down them as well,
00:15:31because then we know that we're going to have to start making distance now to get out.
00:15:36We decided to put shemags on them.
00:15:38A shemag is about a metre square length of cloth.
00:15:40Arabs wear them as a headscarf.
00:15:42We decided to wrap them around our head as a bluff.
00:15:46The truck started to move out,
00:15:49heading down towards the helicopter pick-up point.
00:15:55The patrol works to a predetermined procedure.
00:15:58If Bravo 2-0 has not been heard from for 48 hours,
00:16:01they are to be collected by helicopter.
00:16:04The 48 hours would be up that night.
00:16:07They now head for the designated emergency rendezvous point.
00:16:12I was in front. I looked up to my left.
00:16:15There was two guys there.
00:16:21I lifted my left hand above my head.
00:16:26As soon as I waved at them, they opened up.
00:16:37We returned fire at these two guys.
00:16:41At the same time, a dumper truck turned up,
00:16:44and guys started spilling out the back of the dumper truck.
00:17:11To our left, there was the sound of armour.
00:17:14But no-one could see it. I certainly couldn't see it.
00:17:19And it's a decision to be made. What are you going to do?
00:17:22Now run. There's nowhere to run.
00:17:25So all you've got to do is just stand your ground, which we've done.
00:17:31And far down on the left-hand side, a 66 went off.
00:17:36Shit.
00:17:43What you want to do is actually get a spade out and dig a big hole and disappear.
00:17:50The S.A.S. Bravo 2-0 Patrol has been compromised by Iraqi soldiers
00:17:55and is on the run, hundreds of miles behind enemy lines.
00:18:02Sergeant Andy McNabb and Corporal Chris Ryan
00:18:05are very much following in the footsteps of the S.A.S. Bravo 2-0 Patrol.
00:18:12The S.A.S. Bravo 2-0 Patrol has been compromised by Iraqi soldiers
00:18:15and is on the run, hundreds of miles behind enemy lines.
00:18:20The men who first created the Special Air Service 50 years earlier.
00:18:28An interesting aspect of the Special Air Service in the Gulf War
00:18:31was it was sort of a return to their roots.
00:18:34They were farmed in the Western Desert during World War II
00:18:37to carry out long-range patrols behind German lines.
00:18:41Created by Lieutenant David Sterling in 1941,
00:18:44the S.A.S. invented what we now call Special Operations.
00:18:50The regiment, as the S.A.S. is known, pioneered unorthodox tactics
00:18:54and the use of elite soldiers to fight behind enemy lines.
00:19:00Leading the way in fighting guerrilla movements throughout the world,
00:19:03the regiment remained largely unknown to the public until 1980.
00:19:12That May, the S.A.S. spectacularly ended a terrorist takeover
00:19:17of the Iranian embassy in London, killing the gunmen, rescuing the hostages.
00:19:22Numerous missions in the 1982 Falklands War
00:19:25and controversial action in Northern Ireland
00:19:27kept the S.A.S. in the headlines.
00:19:32I think the Special Air Service deserves its reputation
00:19:34as one of the world's great Special Operations units.
00:19:39Probably the best comparison of U.S. Special Forces
00:19:41to the Special Air Service is Delta Force.
00:19:44They're organized very similarly
00:19:47and they have very similar missions.
00:19:50For the British Gulf commander and former head of the S.A.S.,
00:19:52General de la Billière, the S.A.S. was the logical solution
00:19:56to the problem of who should go scud-busting.
00:19:59With U.S. Special Operations forces tied up on other missions
00:20:03and Commander-in-Chief Norman Schwarzkopf
00:20:05opposed to their use behind Iraqi lines,
00:20:08General de la Billière suggests the S.A.S. be deployed at once.
00:20:12I can tell you this is a very difficult sell
00:20:15because General Schwarzkopf was not enamored
00:20:18with Special Operations forces.
00:20:21It was the special relationship
00:20:23between de la Billière and Schwarzkopf
00:20:26that really made the difference, that carried the day.
00:20:30He was able to convince Schwarzkopf to let him try
00:20:33at very high risk to a small number
00:20:36of Special Air Service forces
00:20:39to go into Iraq and work with the Air Force overhead
00:20:42to stop the scuds.
00:20:46When they asked me about using the U.K. Special Forces
00:20:50on the mission, I said absolutely.
00:20:52I mean, you know, we know these people,
00:20:54we've trained with them, we've worked with them,
00:20:56we know them personally.
00:20:57They're absolutely top drawer.
00:21:09Come on.
00:21:12Half right, just over the hill.
00:21:14There was confusion, it seemed, on both sides.
00:21:17Nice, to your left, go down!
00:21:22I don't think they could see half of us as it all kicked off
00:21:25because they were firing crazily anyway.
00:21:32Just blatting away and the rounds were going sort of everywhere.
00:21:39All I knew was they were in uniforms,
00:21:42they had weapons and they were firing at us.
00:21:48Somebody there, which is the commander,
00:21:50has got to make a decision.
00:21:51Are you going to run, are you going to go forward?
00:21:53What are you going to do?
00:21:54Because otherwise, what happens?
00:21:55Everybody's staying still.
00:21:56Leaving their Bergen backpacks behind,
00:21:58the patrol advances into the Iraqi positions.
00:22:04We fought forward, fought forward.
00:22:09Go, go, go!
00:22:14There was more 66s going off.
00:22:20Nice smoke!
00:22:22What it is, is going forward, getting them flapping as much as us.
00:22:28So we can reorganise and run.
00:22:30Over here!
00:22:31On me, on me!
00:22:34At this point, we started pulling back,
00:22:37moving back in bounds about two or three metres.
00:22:47I can remember seeing tracer fire going over the tops of the guy's head.
00:22:55And returning round, returning fire.
00:23:03At that point, we were absolutely exhausted.
00:23:06I was sure one of the guys would have been hit,
00:23:08and through good luck, everybody came together.
00:23:21From that point, it's just running down,
00:23:23to get to the Bergens, to run away.
00:23:27There was quite an intense amount of fire coming down.
00:23:36It was time to dump the Bergens.
00:23:39You don't have to give these orders, they know it.
00:23:41You know, it's time to dump the Bergens.
00:23:50I was making a conscious note of what was in my Bergen,
00:23:52and for some unknown reason,
00:23:54all I thought of was this hip flask.
00:23:56I had a hip flask in there that had whiskey in,
00:23:58and it had been given to me at Christmas.
00:24:01So I ran back.
00:24:03And as I was putting my hand down to open the clasps,
00:24:06the Bergen just moved back, and it was hit.
00:24:12I screamed.
00:24:14I looked round,
00:24:16and I saw Chris and his Bergen sort of spin in the air,
00:24:19and go down.
00:24:20So straight away, we thought that he'd been dropped.
00:24:26And I can remember looking through the peripheral vision,
00:24:29and seeing large splashes in the ground.
00:24:35Got my hip flask,
00:24:37and then just started walking up.
00:24:40I couldn't physically run anymore.
00:24:43And I got parallel with the patrol commander, Andy McNabb,
00:24:46and we started laughing at this,
00:24:48and we both took a drink.
00:24:51He was working on bases.
00:24:52If he got back without it, his wife would kill him,
00:24:54let alone the Iraqis.
00:24:55If he got back without it, his wife would kill him,
00:24:57let alone the Iraqis.
00:25:25The team heads for the predetermined rendezvous point,
00:25:50where they expect an RAF helicopter to come and pick them up.
00:25:54We got to the pick-up point.
00:25:57There was no sign of any helicopter coming in.
00:26:04The promised rescue helicopter never even takes off
00:26:06from its base in Saudi Arabia.
00:26:10The patrol is on its own.
00:26:20And we started to then head north.
00:26:23A couple of members of the patrol were starting to suffer.
00:26:27Mal, the South African-born trooper,
00:26:29collapses with severe dehydration.
00:26:32Vince has injured his leg in the firefight.
00:26:37Alone, lightly armed, supporting injured men,
00:26:41the Bravo 2-0 patrol is stranded
00:26:44nearly a hundred miles from the closest friendly nation.
00:26:48What does headquarters know of their position?
00:26:51Is help on the way?
00:26:53Does anyone even realize they're still alive?
00:27:01After their discovery by Iraqi soldiers,
00:27:03the British SAS Bravo 2-0 patrol is on the run
00:27:07a hundred miles behind Iraqi lines.
00:27:13Just six days earlier,
00:27:14the SAS deployed to their front-line base in Saudi Arabia.
00:27:19It was the same day the first Scud missiles fell on Israel.
00:27:23They now had their mission.
00:27:41We were all based on an airfield.
00:27:43There was a hangar there, and we got a fastball.
00:27:46Behind the scenes, we were told that General Debellier
00:27:48was trying to persuade General Schwarzkopf
00:27:50to get the regiment behind the lines.
00:27:54Certainly our hangar that we lived in,
00:27:57it looked like a warehouse.
00:27:58There was boxes everywhere that we were moving around
00:28:00to make sort of small rooms.
00:28:04It was just kit everywhere,
00:28:05and people were trying to improvise.
00:28:10Andy and Chris' team was one of the first SAS units
00:28:13given the job to go into Iraq.
00:28:17There was three patrols that were going out onto the ground.
00:28:20Bravo 1-0, Bravo 2-0, Bravo 3-0.
00:28:24It was basically a radio call sign.
00:28:25It just simply means it's B Squadron, the second patrol.
00:28:31So we were tasked pretty quickly
00:28:32to put an observation post inside of Iraq
00:28:35with the idea of locating Scud missiles.
00:28:39That's all it was about,
00:28:40just get out there and stop the Scuds firing.
00:28:44But as soon as Andy and Chris began their hasty planning
00:28:46for the Scud-busting mission, things started to go wrong.
00:28:51We had no mapping.
00:28:52And in fact, our escape maps that we were given,
00:28:54which were made in 1951,
00:28:57the copyright belonged to the waterboard of Iraq.
00:29:01So everything was very old.
00:29:05We'd been given the satellite photographs.
00:29:07They were quite old,
00:29:09and we had interpreted them the wrong way around.
00:29:14They had just three days to make a plan of action
00:29:16and gather the equipment they required.
00:29:19The patrol quickly decided not to take any vehicles into Iraq,
00:29:23thinking they could conceal themselves better without them.
00:29:27They would now lack the ability to escape quickly
00:29:30and the extra firepower provided by the armed Land Rovers.
00:29:35The consideration to take vehicles or not
00:29:37wasn't a major deal at that time.
00:29:39It was one of the considerations.
00:29:41I was actually more worried about the lack of explosives
00:29:44and pistols, quite frankly.
00:29:47There was one pistol within the patrol.
00:29:49The squadron's pistols had disappeared at some point in transit.
00:29:56The patrol still had its automatic weapons.
00:30:00The regiment, in those sort of conditions,
00:30:02would use the Colt M16 family,
00:30:04and the M203 with the 40mm grenade launcher.
00:30:10We had minimis. That was the heavy gun within the patrol.
00:30:12We had a number of minimis.
00:30:15But even finding ammunition would prove a challenge.
00:30:19I can remember going round to guys in A squadron and D squadron
00:30:22and asking them for two or three grenades.
00:30:25Going round asking them for armour-piercing rounds.
00:30:33We had to make our own claymore mines
00:30:35to supplement the manufactured ones.
00:30:37And basically we were just going to the cookhouse
00:30:39and we were getting the ice-cream cartons
00:30:42and we would be filling them with scrap metal and nuts and bolts.
00:30:45Anything we could find as a projectile.
00:30:48And then using normal plastic explosives
00:30:51to make our own claymore mines.
00:30:55In ideal conditions, we would have been able to order
00:30:57whatever weaponry we wanted.
00:30:59But this was not. It was crisis management.
00:31:01Weapons had gone missing.
00:31:03We just basically had to beg, steal and borrow.
00:31:06So there was a shortage of everything.
00:31:09But the argument is, you've got to improvise,
00:31:11you've got to get on.
00:31:12They teach you how to improvise.
00:31:14They expect you to improvise.
00:31:15Now's the time to do it.
00:31:25The limited intelligence and lack of planning time
00:31:28leave the Bravo 2-0 patrol
00:31:30to rely on their own internal resources
00:31:33as they struggle against conditions in Iraq.
00:31:36Weather started to get quite bad.
00:31:39There was a lot of wind.
00:31:41You know, that cold wind that was coming through.
00:31:45We decided we'd just put our heads down, backsides up
00:31:47and walk as hard as we could.
00:31:49And that's what we did.
00:31:52And we walked for about an hour.
00:31:59All of a sudden there were jets coming from the north.
00:32:05And I had to make a decision.
00:32:07Do I get hold of my TAC-B to talk to these jets?
00:32:11They could be American jets coming from Turkey.
00:32:15A TAC-B, or Tactical Beacon,
00:32:17is a short-range distress radio tuned to Air Force frequencies.
00:32:23We fumbled to try and get the TAC-B out,
00:32:25pulled the TAC-B and started talking.
00:32:29Any call sign, this is Bravo 2-0,
00:32:31we're a grand slam, we're in trouble. Over.
00:32:34What came back, very weakly, was an American voice.
00:32:38Hello, Bravo 2-0, say again, say again, over.
00:32:42This is Bravo 2-0, we're a grand call sign, we're in trouble. Over.
00:32:49And then it all went crackly and these jets went off.
00:32:55It will be the only contact the unit has with the US aircraft.
00:33:00But the good thing was, number one, it was an American voice.
00:33:03Number two, it would get reported.
00:33:05They know that we're still alive, they know that we're in trouble.
00:33:09And we were in trouble,
00:33:11because what had happened is the patrol had split into two.
00:33:18Chris as the lead scout, Mal and Vince had split from me.
00:33:24And it was my fault.
00:33:27In the dark, literally within ten metres you've gone,
00:33:30there's no ambient light, there's no starlight,
00:33:32you're not going to find these people.
00:33:37There's not a lot you can do. You can't use white light,
00:33:40you're not going to shout.
00:33:43So there's nothing but we can do is just keep on going forwards.
00:33:47As a patrol commander, severely pissed off.
00:33:50After being discovered and then hunted by Iraqi soldiers,
00:33:53the SAS Bravo 2-0 patrol realises its only way to freedom
00:33:57is a 75-mile trek to Syria.
00:34:01But the worst has happened, in a storm the group has split in two.
00:34:10The group has split into two.
00:34:13One of them has been killed.
00:34:16The other has been wounded.
00:34:19SIREN BLARES
00:34:25I was aware, obviously, of Mel being right behind me and then Vince.
00:34:30And when I turned round, the rest of the patrol was missing.
00:34:36I had night sight and I couldn't see anything.
00:34:38Back right across the desert floor, we couldn't see the rest of the guys.
00:34:43We were all to blame, not for looking round.
00:34:46When Andy McNabb, who'd actually gone to ground,
00:34:49he should have made sure Vince had heard him when that patrol had stopped.
00:34:52It was basically a mistake and it was just something we had to live with.
00:34:58Chris Ryan now leads one half of the unit, Andy McNabb the other.
00:35:04During that night, we started moving to a more flat terrain
00:35:08and very hard, windswept sand and no cover.
00:35:16As we carried on, what we needed to find was somewhere to hide up in the day.
00:35:19Because you're not going to be moving in the day, you're going to hide up,
00:35:22use the night to carry on moving.
00:35:27We'd moved all that night and the ground that we'd crossed was very flat
00:35:30and it was made up of a lot of sharp rocks about the size of your fist
00:35:34and we all got badly blistered feet.
00:35:38SINGING
00:35:47Then we started to have sleep and within maybe 40, 45 minutes
00:35:51we started to have snow.
00:35:54And it was ridiculous, there was snow in the desert
00:35:57and being so far up north, it was the worst weather they had apparently for 30 years.
00:36:07Well, I've worked in the Arctic quite a lot
00:36:10and I'm a fully qualified mountain guide and I was worried now.
00:36:16We couldn't feel our hands.
00:36:18The cold was in your legs and your thighs and your spine, everything.
00:36:26As they lie there freezing, their thoughts turn back
00:36:29to the briefings and intelligence they'd gotten about conditions in the desert.
00:36:34INSURGENT
00:36:42The information that we were receiving prior to insertion was very limited.
00:36:46Our Int guys came up and they had very little information on the area.
00:36:51They couldn't tell us anything about the weather.
00:36:53The information we was given about the weather conditions
00:36:56up in that part of the country for January
00:36:59was temperate European type weather.
00:37:04I asked if they knew what the borders were like.
00:37:07They came up blank, they didn't know.
00:37:09So we were going in pretty much blind.
00:37:22Based on this information, the weather barely got a second thought
00:37:26as the men walked out to the Chinook.
00:37:29One of the guys, Mick, who I'd done selection with,
00:37:32said, listen, do you want a picture taken just in case nobody comes back anyway
00:37:35and we can always sort of, you know, send it to the families.
00:37:45This last photograph, taken of the group together,
00:37:47shows them all wearing lightweight smocks.
00:37:52In the warm Saudi sunshine,
00:37:54several even took their cold weather gear and sleeping bags
00:37:57out of their Bergen backpacks.
00:38:02The mistake will cost them dearly.
00:38:20The snow was coming down.
00:38:22All we had on us was our cotton desert uniform getting covered in snow.
00:38:27So it was just being dressed for a spring day,
00:38:30you know, European sort of winter.
00:38:36We didn't have any equipment, we didn't have any waterproofs,
00:38:39and here we are in the middle of the desert
00:38:42with a very high windchill factor soaking through to the skin
00:38:45and there's nobody coming to help us.
00:38:49We were still wearing shemags trying to retain body heat
00:38:52and the shemags that were around our face started to freeze
00:38:55and you could break off the ice.
00:38:58New Zealander Mike Coburn, who navigates for McNab's group,
00:39:01begins to decline.
00:39:05And he's starting to go down with hypothermia,
00:39:08certainly not in that drastic way of just going down,
00:39:11but he's mature enough to say,
00:39:13look, I think I'm getting a problem here.
00:39:17Hypothermia now becomes a serious threat to them all.
00:39:21Standard operating procedure means a patrol will never light an open flame
00:39:26because it could be seen.
00:39:28But without one, there's no way to make a hot drink.
00:39:33So people took the risk of compromise and of capture
00:39:37to get a brew on for Mike and for us as well.
00:39:40Of course, we wanted some as well, but there was a higher priority.
00:39:45Personally, at that stage, it was quite desperate
00:39:49in the way that you got the patrol split,
00:39:51guys starting to suffer from hypothermia.
00:39:54Everybody knew at some stage if we don't get killed by the Iraqis,
00:39:58chances are we're going to get killed by the weather
00:40:00if we don't actually crack on and make it to the border.
00:40:06And we carried on going on air bearing.
00:40:09Horrendous winds started to get us now and we were wet.
00:40:15Fingers were very numb and you were sort of cradling weapons
00:40:18as opposed to holding them.
00:40:20Just keep your head down out of the wind.
00:40:31In Chris's group, the already injured Vince Phillips
00:40:34deteriorates in the near-arctic.
00:40:36We'd been walking and Vince kept dropping behind.
00:40:41We were coming into areas where the snow had drifted.
00:40:48Vince said he couldn't feel his hands and he couldn't carry his weapon.
00:40:53Mel took Vince's M-16.
00:41:00It's a very difficult situation.
00:41:03At some point during that night, Mel had said,
00:41:06we've lost Vince.
00:41:24We backtracked and we started walking back into the storm.
00:41:33They search for Vince but cannot find him.
00:41:38I was in charge of it so I made the decision to pull away and leave him.
00:41:48We all knew what the risks were and, you know,
00:41:51it was just one of them things.
00:41:54You know, you don't feel great but you can't sit there
00:41:57playing with your emotions.
00:41:59You know, you've got to tuck them away and get the job done.
00:42:11It's hard, you know, you're leaving a colleague behind,
00:42:13you know he's going to die,
00:42:15but at some point the pay of us were going to go down.
00:42:20I can't lay the blame at anybody else's doorstep apart from myself
00:42:23because it was me that made the decision.
00:42:25Sergeant Vince Phillip dies that night from exposure.
00:42:30He is the first SAS fatality on the Bravo 2-0 mission.
00:42:35He will not be the last.
00:42:47During another freezing night on the run behind Iraqi lines,
00:42:50Andy, along with his men,
00:42:52Bob, Legs and Dinger,
00:42:54one of the two separated groups from the SAS Bravo 2-0 patrol,
00:42:58push on for the Syrian border and safety.
00:43:02I think the training and regiment helped cope with the moment very well.
00:43:06As an infantry soldier, you know, since the age of 16,
00:43:09I've been used to being wet, cold and hungry.
00:43:11That's part of a soldier's life.
00:43:14So those conditions are not totally alien.
00:43:17It's not about strength, it's about stamina.
00:43:20I thought I was as prepared as I ever was going to be
00:43:23and confident that I'd get into Syria.
00:43:31Mal and Chris, the two surviving members of the other part of the patrol,
00:43:35make their own way toward the Syrian border, over 80 miles away.
00:43:40We're probably covered another 35, 40 miles.
00:43:45We're probably covered another 35 miles that night.
00:43:48It was freezing cold, we were soaking.
00:43:50We just kept walking until first light.
00:44:01The sun came up.
00:44:02It wasn't enough to make you feel comfortable,
00:44:04but it was enough heat so you could get your feeling back in your hands.
00:44:08A few hours later, they hear the now familiar sound of a goat's bell.
00:44:26We'd been compromised by a young goat herder
00:44:28and initially I wanted to kill the guy.
00:44:31Mal's a gentleman and he made the right decision.
00:44:35Mal's a gentleman and he made the right decision not to do it
00:44:39because you can't go around killing every civilian that you come up against.
00:44:46He wanted to go off to see if he could find a vehicle.
00:44:49I was against it.
00:44:55He started to walk off with the young goat herder.
00:44:59It was a decision I could have ordered him to stay with me and not to move,
00:45:02but we were in an escape and evasion.
00:45:04If he got a vehicle and drove out, then all the best to him,
00:45:08but it was his decision to leave.
00:45:13By sunset, Mal has failed to return.
00:45:25And then a set of vehicle lights started heading directly towards the warden.
00:45:29The first set of lights were followed by a second set.
00:45:32They were coming in on an axis straight for me.
00:45:38So I got the .203 grenade ready.
00:45:41I opened the .66 up.
00:45:51I opened up with the .203 grenade onto the second vehicle.
00:45:58Moved forward and put a burst into each vehicle.
00:46:07There was no fire returned from them.
00:46:10Kept moving as hard as I could from that point.
00:46:18Chris doesn't know if Mal is a prisoner or free,
00:46:22dead or alive.
00:46:25Miles away, having spent the previous night avoiding Iraqi patrols
00:46:29and almost getting caught,
00:46:31Andy's group decides they need to cover some real ground
00:46:34to get to Syria before they are seen or die of exposure.
00:46:40They settle on an innovative approach, carjacking.
00:46:45I came up with the idea, let's hit a wagon.
00:46:48We could get to the border in an hour and a half, nothing.
00:46:55We decided we're going to do it.
00:46:57And the plan was quite simple.
00:47:00Myself and Bob Consiglio, Bob was going to lean against me as if he's injured
00:47:05and I'm going to wave down with a white light torch a vehicle.
00:47:1024-year-old Bob Consiglio, with just a few months in the regiment,
00:47:14helps Andy stop a car.
00:47:25It was fantastic getting in the vehicle,
00:47:27because the first thing that went on was the heaters.
00:47:30Dinger, another veteran soldier and father of two,
00:47:33eagerly seizes his first opportunity to smoke a cigarette.
00:47:38He was lighting up, he was getting all smoky in there
00:47:40and the heat was blasting.
00:47:42And the smell of the clothes, all that wet, musty smell.
00:47:46It was great, not only because of the warmth,
00:47:49but the feeling of movement, of moving.
00:47:52Feeling of movement, of moving at speed and being so close,
00:47:55because you couldn't get to the point where you could be able to taste the border.
00:47:59It was that air of confidence that, yeah, we're nearly there, we're nearly there.
00:48:07We had abandoned the taxi when we hit a permanent vehicle checkpoint.
00:48:15There was Iraqi soldiers who were coming down, not checking for us,
00:48:19they were actually very casually walking down, just talking with people.
00:48:23But it will be a point where we get to us.
00:48:27So what happened was Steve Lane initiated the contact.
00:48:39Just to get everybody's heads down, so we can run.
00:48:50The Desert
00:49:01Chris scans the desert for any activity as he walks on, alone.
00:49:07The quality of the maps that I had, I couldn't actually do any map reading,
00:49:10so it was basically following the line of the Euphrates.
00:49:13And then I could keep bouncing off the Euphrates to replenish my water.
00:49:16I didn't have any food.
00:49:18And just basically keep heading west until I hit the border.
00:49:22I knew it was probably about 70 to 80 miles.
00:49:27I had the patrol night sight and it was invaluable.
00:49:30It was probably the best piece of equipment that I had.
00:49:32I would periodically just look through it.
00:49:35If there was a military vehicle, you could pick it up.
00:49:38If anybody was smoking, you would pick the light up.
00:49:43That actually saved me quite a number of times.
00:49:47Andi's group
00:49:52Andi's group is now only about seven miles from the Syrian border.
00:49:57And we were still at that point, we were still five men.
00:50:01I was up the front, Mike was with me.
00:50:04And that's when the contacts died.
00:50:07Andi's group
00:50:15It was just chaos, absolute chaos.
00:50:19The Iraqis were firing at what they thought were pockets of us.
00:50:24We were firing back at them.
00:50:27They were firing at each other.
00:50:31People got split, I suppose.
00:50:33Myself and Mike.
00:50:36Bob Consiglio on his own.
00:50:40And Steve Lane and Dinger.
00:50:48So there was that time during this contacts that was going on where Bob got killed.
00:50:56I could hear his Minimi going.
00:51:03That stopped.
00:51:06Then there was more gunfire.
00:51:10And then that stopped.
00:51:29Myself and Mike, we still carried on forward.
00:51:32And up on the high ground you could actually see the lights of Syria.
00:51:38As we come up the road, lots of shouting and an AK went off.
00:51:44Just meters away.
00:51:49In my head at that time, as far as I was concerned, he was dead because he'd dropped.
00:51:55Thinking Mike and Bob have been killed and with legs and Dinger missing,
00:51:59Andy runs for the border, now only a mile away.
00:52:04And it was starting to get first light.
00:52:07I'm actually thinking, well, am I the only one who's going to make this here?
00:52:13So I found a drainage culvert and I just got myself tucked in there.
00:52:19And all I wanted to do was wait until the last light.
00:52:22Once I got in there and it was very sort of confined, I felt quite confident.
00:52:28By three o'clock, that was it. Three more hours to go. I've cracked it.
00:52:34A vehicle started approaching.
00:52:39Then it was obvious there was more vehicles behind.
00:52:42But there was nothing new. This has been going on all day.
00:52:46But this time they stopped.
00:52:48From the initial team of eight men,
00:52:51only two members of the SAS Bravo 2-0 patrol remain alive and free behind Iraqi lines.
00:52:58Separately, both are trying to reach safety in Syria.
00:53:10It didn't hit me until the following morning that I was back in Syria.
00:53:14It didn't hit me until the following morning that I was by myself.
00:53:17And that's when, if there was any emotions or fear, it kicked in.
00:53:22I thought back to things that my mum had said to me when I was, you know, at school.
00:53:25And, you know, one thing she said,
00:53:28if everything gets on top of you, just have a good cry.
00:53:31And I tried to cry and I couldn't and I ended up laughing.
00:53:34And I was lying in a waddy bed, laughing my head off.
00:53:37And at that point, the fear, the anxiety, everything left me.
00:53:46I checked my feet and my toenails were all coming off.
00:53:52The blisters were starting to look as if they were infected.
00:53:59It was just a case of trying to keep them clean.
00:54:07I was captured at about 4.30 on that day.
00:54:15And there was this moment of trying to bluff myself, saying,
00:54:18no, no, no, no, no, they're just getting out to do stuff, you know,
00:54:21they don't know I'm here.
00:54:24But then they just started firing into the ground around the culvert.
00:54:30And they obviously wanted me to come out, but I weren't coming out,
00:54:33they were going to have to drag me out.
00:54:36They were going to have to drag me out.
00:54:51Andy is taken to an army base, where he locks eyes on Dinger,
00:54:55whom he last saw in the previous night's gun battle.
00:54:59And as I got dragged out, I saw Dinger, his head as big as a football,
00:55:03it had his ear nearly cut off.
00:55:05Dinger had been captured that morning.
00:55:08It was actually a strangely comforting feeling to know
00:55:11that someone else was there, opposed to just me.
00:55:27It is quite unnerving to be by yourself,
00:55:30knowing that everybody out there wants to kill you,
00:55:32and there's no... you've got no friends,
00:55:35and nobody's coming to help you.
00:55:42I could describe every place I laid up for that period of time.
00:55:48Waiting for nightfall.
00:55:52Walking again.
00:55:59Lying up.
00:56:03Lying still on rock for 12 hours becomes very uncomfortable.
00:56:10My feet just got worse and worse as the days went on.
00:56:16I was losing weight rapidly, because I wasn't eating,
00:56:20because of the cold.
00:56:22It was the coldest winter Iraq was having in 30 years,
00:56:25and then the amount of ground I was covering every night,
00:56:28the weight was just coming off me.
00:56:33It's now known that some of the patrol's garbled radio signals
00:56:37from three days earlier did reach SAS headquarters,
00:56:41but the information was incomplete.
00:56:44In essence, the team simply vanished.
00:56:49A night after everyone in the group, except Chris,
00:56:52were either killed or captured,
00:56:54an Anglo-American rescue mission is finally sent to look for them.
00:57:03Two helicopters scoured the most likely route
00:57:06the patrol would take to Saudi Arabia in the south.
00:57:09But in another of the mission's catalogue of errors,
00:57:12the rescuers have not been told that in fact
00:57:15the team planned to head north, for Syria.
00:57:18The searchers find no trace of them.
00:57:26It is the 11th night of the unrelenting coalition bombing of Iraq.
00:57:31They're getting bombed every night,
00:57:33and they're taking civilian and military casualties.
00:57:36And there I am.
00:57:39So you can take your frustration out.
00:57:49During the next night,
00:57:51Chris Ryan finds a small stream near some buildings.
00:57:56It was clear water that was running through this.
00:57:58And it had whitewashed to the bottom of the stream bed.
00:58:01And I presumed it was a spring.
00:58:03Now, the water I'd been drinking from the Euphrates,
00:58:06it was dirty, it was black and filthy water.
00:58:09So I filled my water bottles up,
00:58:11and I didn't taste the water at the time,
00:58:13and then moved out of this area.
00:58:23As dawn approaches, Chris takes refuge in a drainage system.
00:58:26Chris takes refuge in a drainage culvert under a road.
00:58:31I went to take a drink of water,
00:58:34and it burnt my mouth.
00:58:38And it had a metallic and lemon type of taste.
00:58:43Now, my gums were receding anyway,
00:58:46and they were bleeding quite bad.
00:58:48But this stung my mouth, and I couldn't understand
00:58:50what I'd had in my water bottle to change the taste of this,
00:58:54because this water was crystal clear.
00:58:57Only later does Chris discover what he'd been drinking.
00:59:02I'd ended up in a chemical processing facility,
00:59:06and it was described to me afterwards
00:59:08as a yellow cake processing facility, a nuclear plant.
00:59:16Having been moved between a series of army camps,
00:59:19and received a number of beatings,
00:59:21Andy and Dinger are finally taken
00:59:23to a secret military facility in the Iraqi capital.
00:59:27When I arrived at the interrogation centre in Baghdad,
00:59:30straight away I knew that, you know, in severe trouble.
00:59:44Every decision I made, you know,
00:59:46I would sit down and have a conversation with myself
00:59:49and double-check that it was the right decision,
00:59:52constantly talking to myself.
00:59:54Physically, you're taking the punishment
00:59:56and the pain every night.
00:59:59And then, from a mental point of view,
01:00:01you have to drive yourself on and rise above any pain
01:00:04and just try and numb your brain.
01:00:08I started collapsing, hallucinating,
01:00:11and it had been like a sleep deprivation exercise.
01:00:14You couldn't physically sleep, it was too cold.
01:00:17You would nod off for ten minutes,
01:00:19and you'd wake up shaking violently.
01:00:23You would just go straight into, like, a deep dream.
01:00:30There was periods of time where my daughter
01:00:32would come out in front of me.
01:00:36I could even hear the rocks, you know, moving on her feet.
01:00:42And putting her hand out, and I was trying to grab her hand.
01:00:48I knew she wasn't there, but it was,
01:00:50there was this image there, and, you know,
01:00:51I was mesmerised by it and trying to get a hold of her.
01:01:10There was no noise, no shouting, no noise, nothing.
01:01:14I was blindfolded.
01:01:21And it just felt not good, not good at all.
01:01:24You knew it was a sort of serious time,
01:01:27and it was an interrogation centre,
01:01:29because what they're trying to do is instil fear,
01:01:32which they did, without a doubt.
01:01:51Seven days after they are dropped behind Iraqi lines,
01:01:54the eight-man SAS Bravo 2-0 patrol has been separated
01:01:59after a running battle with the Iraqis.
01:02:02Some of its members are dead, others missing.
01:02:05Chris Ryan is alone, struggling to cross the Iraqi desert.
01:02:10Andy McNabb and Dinger are prisoners of war.
01:02:13I got moved to an interrogation centre with Dinger in Baghdad.
01:02:27The actual cells were quite old and decayed.
01:02:30The walls were blood-stained.
01:02:33There's guys who engraved pictures on there.
01:02:36Some of the prisoners are still there.
01:02:39Somebody's written in English,
01:02:41a dedication to his son that he's never going to see again.
01:02:54Nobody wore watches, nobody spoke when they come into the cells.
01:02:58So you couldn't tell the time, you had no idea of the day,
01:03:02nothing. It was your little world.
01:03:08Nobody knows whether we're alive or dead.
01:03:11They had the TAC-B signal from the American pilot,
01:03:14but nothing happened from that.
01:03:27And it was a routine.
01:03:29There's part of the system to come in and beat you up.
01:03:32And at one stage, the blindfold was pulled off,
01:03:35and I saw the hook up in the ceiling.
01:03:45Which got me totally worried for days and days about that.
01:04:02And I got picked up and taken into an interrogation room.
01:04:18Strangely, going into an interrogation room,
01:04:21for that first second was actually nice,
01:04:24because it was warm and you had familiar smells.
01:04:31How are you, Andy?
01:04:35All we need to know, Andy, is what are you doing in our country?
01:04:40Part of a search and rescue team,
01:04:42which obviously wasn't the answer that they wanted.
01:04:50Why are you lying?
01:04:52This can all be over, Andy.
01:04:55Talk to me.
01:04:57I want to help you.
01:04:58I am the only friend you have left.
01:05:01Andy sticks to the patrol's cover story,
01:05:03that they're part of a search and rescue mission,
01:05:06sent into Iraq to find downed pilots.
01:05:08No more lying.
01:05:11He's been trained never to admit being a member of the SAS.
01:05:15Stop lying! We know you are lying! You are lying!
01:05:23Why are you doing this to yourself, Andy?
01:05:26Why?
01:05:31Tell us what you were doing here!
01:05:37Just tell us what we need to know!
01:05:40Just tell us what we need to know!
01:05:43You are lying!
01:05:45Tell us what you are doing here!
01:05:57Now, at this point,
01:05:59I was suffering really badly from dehydration.
01:06:03My gums were all receding, my teeth were loose.
01:06:08On my body, you know, there was pus coming out of my fingernails.
01:06:13My feet, well, there was pus oozing out of all the cuts.
01:06:17I couldn't breathe.
01:06:19I couldn't breathe.
01:06:21I couldn't breathe.
01:06:23I couldn't breathe.
01:06:24My feet, well, there was pus oozing out of all the cuts.
01:06:27And I've smelled dead bodies before,
01:06:30and I could smell it on me.
01:06:32There was just this rotting stench.
01:06:40Andy.
01:06:44Andy.
01:06:46Tell us what you are doing.
01:06:48No!
01:07:01It's our responsibility to hold off,
01:07:05as long as possible, with what we know.
01:07:08It's all about damage limitation.
01:07:12Andy has to buy time for the other SAS patrols in Iraq,
01:07:15to be withdrawn or redeployed.
01:07:19And it's not that bad to do emotionally,
01:07:23purely because the people that you're talking about
01:07:27are people that you know.
01:07:29There's a guy in D Squadron, I come from B Squadron,
01:07:32I'm the godfather of his children,
01:07:34and I might be responsible for him being dead.
01:07:41What I tried to be,
01:07:42in the beginning I was bluffing it,
01:07:44within the, I don't know, three or four days,
01:07:46it was real, was just be a snivelling, lowlife,
01:07:50the grey man, you don't know where you are, what's going on,
01:07:53totally submissive.
01:07:55Because what you want to do is get to the stage
01:07:57where they think, well, why are we spending time and effort
01:07:59on this thing?
01:08:01Because what value is he?
01:08:13Once I started walking that night,
01:08:16that's when the problems really started with hallucinations.
01:08:23And it would be like electric shock going through your head,
01:08:27and somebody punching you really hard from behind.
01:08:32And then you get back up and just started walking again.
01:08:43Dinger suffers the same routine of beatings as Andy,
01:08:46until one day they're temporarily put in the same cell.
01:08:52So when we were in the cell together,
01:08:54Dinger was able to tell me what happened to him and legs
01:08:57after they'd crossed the Euphrates.
01:08:59Stephen Lane, known as Legs, died on the day Andy was captured.
01:09:05After crossing the freezing, 600-yard-wide Euphrates River,
01:09:09Legs collapsed.
01:09:13Knowing that only emergency medical treatment could save Legs,
01:09:16Dinger gave himself up to an ambulance.
01:09:19He was taken to the hospital,
01:09:21where he was admitted to the intensive care unit.
01:09:24He was in the intensive care unit,
01:09:25where he was admitted to the intensive care unit.
01:09:27Knowing that only emergency medical treatment could save Legs,
01:09:29Dinger gave himself up and both were captured.
01:09:32Steve Lane died at some stage after the capture,
01:09:36and Dinger had been caught.
01:09:40We were getting bombed every night by Allied bombing.
01:09:45I had a talk with God once.
01:09:47He used to be in the top right-hand corner of the cell.
01:09:49And I said, well, if you get us out of this,
01:09:51basically I'll be your best mate.
01:09:55As far as I was concerned, that wasn't happening.
01:09:59So what I started doing was just screaming out,
01:10:01saying, well, just do it. Let's get it over and done with.
01:10:04I'm going to be dead soon.
01:10:06Let's just do it.
01:10:09And in fact, at that stage, Dinger was in the next cell,
01:10:12screaming out, no, he's not. He's joking.
01:10:15And then I had a guy who came in who said he was a dentist
01:10:24from Guy's Hospital, which is one of London's major hospitals.
01:10:27This guy, fantastic English.
01:10:29I was told that what he was going to do
01:10:31was actually sort out my cracked molars at the back.
01:10:38And he said, well, if you get us out of this,
01:10:41basically I'll be your best mate.
01:10:43And he pulled out one of the segments on the right.
01:10:48It's that instant pain.
01:10:58One of the major things that got me through
01:11:00was thinking about my daughter.
01:11:06And I said, well, if you get us out of this,
01:11:09basically I'll be your best mate.
01:11:11It was just actually fantasising,
01:11:13walking with her initially in the pram.
01:11:20Then I'll be walking her to her first school.
01:11:27Then we'd walk as she got older.
01:11:34Eventually walking into getting married.
01:11:41And then I got married.
01:11:55Then after about five days of this,
01:11:57the interrogators try a new approach.
01:12:00You are all alone, Andy.
01:12:02You are going to die here.
01:12:04They said, look, we've got members of your patrol in hospital.
01:12:07If you don't tell us what you've been doing,
01:12:08what you know and what you don't know,
01:12:10we're going to simply let the other people die.
01:12:12It's up to you, Andy.
01:12:14You will be responsible for their deaths.
01:12:16They are your friends, aren't they?
01:12:18Let's stop wasting each other's time, eh?
01:12:22Went back to the cell and then started to think about it.
01:12:28As far as I was concerned then,
01:12:30we'd fulfilled our requirement
01:12:33of giving that time for a damage limitation.
01:12:36What there is now, there's responsibility to ourselves.
01:12:39We fulfilled our requirement.
01:12:44Andy then tells the Iraqis another lie,
01:12:47that his team is the reconnaissance element
01:12:49of a regular British infantry unit.
01:12:52During his entire imprisonment,
01:12:54he will never mention the SAS.
01:13:06I'd come to the decision that I couldn't sit down anymore
01:13:09because I'd have to get up again, and once I got up,
01:13:11all the blood rushing back down the bottom of my feet.
01:13:14I've never felt pain like it in my life.
01:13:17It was excruciating.
01:13:23I would just start shuffling
01:13:25until my feet went numb again and then start walking.
01:13:33Well, after that night, I would just stop
01:13:34and put my rifle down and lean over my rifle.
01:13:39Take a rest and then carry on walking.
01:13:41It was too painful to sit down.
01:13:47As soon as the water became an issue,
01:13:50I was deteriorating very, very fast.
01:14:05Despite Andy's false confession,
01:14:07the guards continue their brutal treatment.
01:14:15It was a noise of them coming to the doors.
01:14:25They used to be scared, very scared indeed,
01:14:29because they used to throw the bolt
01:14:31and unlock the door.
01:14:32They used to throw the bolt and unlock the lock,
01:14:35but they couldn't push the door open
01:14:37because the top of it used to jam.
01:14:43The noise of that used to be one of the most scariest things,
01:14:46and it still sort of affects me now.
01:14:59By then, you know, there was sort of
01:15:02a sense that they've already sort of defecated on the floor
01:15:05and it was all over the place,
01:15:07and I just used to curl up in it,
01:15:09hoping that they'd get bored and go to the next cell.
01:15:32When I got close to the border,
01:15:34all I could see was a barbed wire fence.
01:15:44I managed to get across this obstacle,
01:15:48thinking I was still in Iraq.
01:15:50Then I collapsed
01:15:55and came to the next morning
01:15:57hallucinating about the members of the patrol.
01:15:59One of the guys shouted,
01:16:01hurry up, the guys are waiting for you.
01:16:03But I couldn't understand, you know,
01:16:05why I was in this state.
01:16:07And at that point, I knew things had gone too far.
01:16:10Once I started to hallucinate, you know,
01:16:12about guys in the squadron, I needed water.
01:16:24When I was walking up to that house,
01:16:25if I was in Iraq, I was going to kill everybody.
01:16:29A young guy came out and greeted me
01:16:31and I just kept asking,
01:16:33is this Syria, Syria?
01:16:35And when I mentioned Iraq,
01:16:37he pointed over and he said,
01:16:39Iraq, they're insidious here.
01:16:42And then he took me in, gave me some water.
01:16:47It was very clean, just fresh, just ice cold.
01:16:52You know, it was just tasteless.
01:16:54You know, it was just tasted absolute heaven.
01:16:58And then I started to take my boots off
01:17:00to clean my feet out.
01:17:02He then brought me a little glass of sweet tea
01:17:05which seemed to pick me straight up.
01:17:09He soon established that I needed to see the police.
01:17:18They then dressed me up in Arab clothes.
01:17:24And took me out to the vehicle.
01:17:29I was talking to them but they wouldn't say anything.
01:17:34We drove for about an hour or so
01:17:36and we came out to an area in the open desert.
01:17:41There was two Mercedes parked there
01:17:43and there was a group of guys at the back
01:17:45and one of them was mucking around with a pistol.
01:17:54Pulled me out of the vehicle.
01:17:58Pushed me down.
01:18:01And I was aware of a guy walking around at the back of me
01:18:04and that's where, you know, I just thought
01:18:06they brought me out here to execute me.
01:18:24And then they lifted me up
01:18:26and then put me into one of the backs of the Mercedes
01:18:28and then we drove off.
01:18:32Nobody will ever know why the Syrians,
01:18:34members of the Allied coalition,
01:18:36treated Chris in that way.
01:18:38Perhaps years of anti-Western sentiment
01:18:40could not be washed away overnight.
01:18:42A lot of the guys that lived around the borders,
01:18:44you know, their cousins would have been Iraqis
01:18:46and, you know, obviously,
01:18:48they didn't want to be seen as terrorists.
01:18:50They didn't want to be seen as terrorists.
01:18:51They didn't want to be seen as Iraqis
01:18:53and, you know, obviously,
01:18:55official policy was to help coalition forces
01:18:57but they may not have agreed with that.
01:19:00I think any psychological problems I had
01:19:02were caused from them events.
01:19:05You know, I had a...
01:19:07During my seven days escape and evasion,
01:19:10I had an aim and a goal to achieve,
01:19:13to get over the border
01:19:15and then I thought I'd be safe
01:19:17and then all of a sudden
01:19:19I'm faced with possible execution.
01:19:21So I think psychologically
01:19:23the damage was done there.
01:19:26Now transferred to a more regular military prison,
01:19:29Andy and Dinger get to talk
01:19:31to their South African colleague Mal.
01:19:34Mal? Mal!
01:19:36He had been captured soon after
01:19:38he left Chris in the desert.
01:19:40None of them know that, in fact,
01:19:42Chris has already made it
01:19:44to the Syrian capital, Damascus.
01:19:49I think one of the brightest moments
01:19:51I've ever seen before
01:19:53is when the SAS survivor
01:19:55showed up deep in Syria.
01:19:57You talk about individual courage
01:19:59and dedication,
01:20:01he was all our hero.
01:20:04The Syrians hand Chris over
01:20:06to the British embassy
01:20:08and he's flown back to the SAS base
01:20:10in Saudi Arabia.
01:20:15In the days since the Bravo 2-0 patrol
01:20:17has been sent into Iraq,
01:20:19the coalition deployed
01:20:21by the U.S. Air Force,
01:20:23led by General Wayne Downing,
01:20:25to continue the war against the Scuds.
01:20:27I met Chris Ryan
01:20:29shortly after he came out.
01:20:31He came out to our operational base,
01:20:33debriefed me,
01:20:35and then I had him debrief
01:20:37one of our patrols that was going in
01:20:39because he had such great information.
01:20:41The knowledge gained
01:20:43from the experience
01:20:45of the first Bravo patrols
01:20:47and details passed on by Chris Ryan
01:20:49mean that only vehicle-mounted teams
01:20:51know that the terrain and weather
01:20:53are far more hostile
01:20:55than originally feared
01:20:57and that the Bedouin herdsmen
01:20:59pose a real threat
01:21:01to the special forces units
01:21:03that follow Bravo 2-0.
01:21:10Over the next weeks,
01:21:12several more SAS and U.S. teams
01:21:14hunt Scuds throughout western Iraq.
01:21:223-7, you got them now.
01:21:24We're going home.
01:21:33It has never been documented
01:21:35how many, if any,
01:21:37mobile Scud launchers
01:21:39the combined special forces
01:21:41bomber operations destroyed.
01:21:43Prior to the SAS going behind enemy lines
01:21:45and helping us put air power
01:21:47at least in the vicinity
01:21:49of the Scud launches,
01:21:51we had five Scud launches a night.
01:21:53After they came into it,
01:21:55we averaged one Scud launch a night
01:21:57for the remainder of the war.
01:21:59Now, to me, that is significant.
01:22:05Crucially, Israel never intervened in the war,
01:22:07so the Scud-busting mission
01:22:09did succeed in the end,
01:22:15even if it did get off to a shaky start.
01:22:19God bless Bravo 2-0.
01:22:21Whenever you're the first one in,
01:22:23it is the unknown.
01:22:25Once they go in,
01:22:27things that are unknown become known.
01:22:29Had we put an American Bravo 2-0 in there
01:22:32before the Brits,
01:22:34we'd have had the same thing happen.
01:22:36The same thing.
01:22:39The Allies have just stopped firing in the Gulf War.
01:22:42Thousands of Iraqis have been taken prisoner.
01:22:45Many more have been killed in the fight.
01:22:52This is not a time of euphoria,
01:22:55but it is a time of pride.
01:22:57Pride in our troops,
01:22:59pride in the friends
01:23:01who stood with us in the crisis.
01:23:03As part of the ceasefire agreement
01:23:05following the swift coalition victory
01:23:07in the 100-hour land war,
01:23:09all prisoners of war are released.
01:23:14Now on his way home,
01:23:16a surprise awaits Andy
01:23:18at Baghdad airport.
01:23:19So I went down,
01:23:21and there was Mike
01:23:23lying in bed,
01:23:25which was wonderful.
01:23:30It is the first time Andy has seen Mike Coburn
01:23:33since that fateful night by the Euphrates River
01:23:35almost six weeks before
01:23:37when he'd seen his friend gunned down.
01:23:41After being shot in the arm and leg,
01:23:44Mike had been held in an Iraqi prison hospital.
01:23:50Andy and Mike leave Baghdad as they arrived,
01:23:53anonymously.
01:23:59After months of treatment,
01:24:01Mike Coburn stayed in the SAS regiment
01:24:03for several years
01:24:05before retiring to civilian life.
01:24:09South African-born Mal
01:24:11also continued to serve in the SAS
01:24:13after the Gulf War,
01:24:15before retiring.
01:24:17Both now work in the security business.
01:24:20Dinger remains on active service
01:24:22in the regiment
01:24:24and cannot be identified.
01:24:31Three members of the patrol
01:24:33did not make it home.
01:24:38Sergeant Vince Phillips,
01:24:40a veteran soldier
01:24:42with nine years' service in the SAS,
01:24:44died of hypothermia
01:24:46that first night on the run.
01:24:48Well, I wish he was alive here today.
01:24:52But, you know, as a brother,
01:24:55a son to my parents,
01:24:57he was one of the best.
01:24:59He had two daughters
01:25:01which he fought the world off,
01:25:03little Lucy and Sharon.
01:25:09Vince died
01:25:12and I was the only one left.
01:25:13Vince died
01:25:19for Queen, country
01:25:22and his regiment.
01:25:27Stephen Leggs Lane
01:25:29died of exposure
01:25:31after swimming the Euphrates with Dinger.
01:25:36Also a husband and father,
01:25:38he was posthumously awarded
01:25:40the Military Medal.
01:25:44The youngest member of the team,
01:25:46Bob Consiglio,
01:25:48had been in the regiment
01:25:50for less than a year.
01:25:54He died fighting a rear-guard action
01:25:56covering the patrol's withdrawal.
01:26:02Buried in the regimental cemetery
01:26:04in Hereford, England,
01:26:06was Bob Consiglio,
01:26:08a veteran soldier
01:26:10with nine years' service in the SAS.
01:26:13He was also posthumously awarded
01:26:15the Military Medal
01:26:17for his bravery.
01:26:19Bob was in my troop
01:26:21and I was devastated.
01:26:23He'd ate his last meal
01:26:25in the United Kingdom
01:26:27in my house before we left.
01:26:29He was a likable guy
01:26:31and he was a brave man
01:26:33and it was quite hard to accept.
01:26:44Bob Consiglio
01:26:46died of exposure
01:26:48after swimming the Euphrates
01:26:50with Dinger.
01:26:53I'm very proud of the patrol
01:26:55and my role in it.
01:26:57On that job,
01:26:59as the commander,
01:27:01I've made decisions.
01:27:03Some were good, some were bad.
01:27:05The majority of people survived,
01:27:07which was more important
01:27:09to me personally
01:27:11than achieving the mission.
01:27:13The whole patrol
01:27:15was a disaster
01:27:17from the beginning to the end
01:27:19and we all made mistakes,
01:27:21right from the head
01:27:23right down to the lowest
01:27:25ranking member of the patrol.
01:27:44It's affected every member
01:27:46of the patrol
01:27:48in one way or another.
01:27:50From my side,
01:27:52I've got physical scars.
01:27:54There's dreams.
01:27:56You'll see something
01:27:58or smell something
01:28:00and it'll fire it back
01:28:02and you get dreams, flashbacks.
01:28:04I had to make
01:28:06some harsh decisions
01:28:08when I was out there.
01:28:10Three members of the patrol
01:28:11so their memories
01:28:13will always be strong
01:28:15and they'll stay with me.
01:28:41violin plays softly
01:29:02violin plays softly
01:29:11violin plays softly