Armed Action: My War in the Skies With 847 Naval Air Squadron

Finished Armed Action: My War in the Skies With 847 Naval Air Squadron by Lieutenant Commander James Newton, DFC.  From the blurb.

"I couldn't see the tank. I couldn't see it . . . Someone was screaming over the radio. "Scream all you want, I still can't see it," I said to my pilot. The next explosion was so close it lifted my chest armour off my body in the shock wave. The noise brought me back to my awful reality. I looked out of the sight to see the shattered cockpit glass. The next one would be it and we knew it." Lieutenant Commander James Newton survived and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his bravery. In a career that has seen him on operations over Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland, and most recently Iraq, Newton is no stranger to being shot at. He has flown all the aircraft the Navy has and even ones it doesn't. Thrilling and fast-paced, this adrenaline-fueled journey through a pilot's life is a fascinating insight into life in the air.

His account describes the preparation for, expedition out to, and then the campaign by Naval Air Squadron during the second Gulf War.  

All military books have to make the decision of how much time to devote to the background and preparation for war versus how much time to spend on the war, campaigns, battles, or battle itself.  If it is your first military book, it almost doesn't matter, its all new.  However, if you read a lot of military history, then much of the induction, training, and transport becomes somewhat redundant.  Occasionally it is important, but it is often similar across wars, countries and even ages.  

In the context of Newton's story, there is three months of preparation and transportation followed by one month of engagement from March 20th to April 19th.  Because the account is centered substantially on Netwon's flights, there is an even tighter window of action.

All of which is to say, an interesting enough book but better for an interested novice rather than someone more accustomed to military biographies.  

If you want an account of an extended tour as a helicopter pilot in action, you are better off with Chickenhawk by Robert Mason during the Vietnam War.  

Newton two or three times alludes to the British having a lighter touch than the hard charging Americans in Iraq and speculating that that was due to Britain's experience as a colonial power and more recently in Northern Ireland in the seventies.

It was a common trope in England during the second gulf war but I have never seen a rigorous treatment of the hypothesis.  At the time, the British were tasked with what was seen as the easier task of conquering, holding and administering Basra in the south.  A Shia city hungry to be rid of Hussein.  The Americans were tasked with Baghdad and the rest of the country which was known to be much more challenging.

My recollection is that indeed, the conquest of Basra was easier but over the first year, Shia resistance increased and became increasingly difficult.  The early and relatively quiet conquest supported the purported soft touch approach.  The consequences of the later administration did not seem to do so.  

A couple of notable passages.  On page 114 there is the hard-nosed humor which passes for therapy among guys under stress.  Just before operations began, Newton (nicknamed Scoobs) is on the helicopter carrier in the Gulf as they ready for the invasion the next day.  

The following evening I managed to make a quick call home before the phone systems were shut down until such time it was considered safe to turn them back on.  It was an emotional conversation.  There I was on a ship in the Gulf, standing in my anti-flash suit, holding the phone in one hand and my respirator in the other, talking to my wife lying on the sofa back at our home in the West Country.  I felt a surge of . . . disappointment.  Perhaps I was just tired and ill and nervous about the looming war but she had nothing to say and after a terse exchange of goodbyes, I hung up and went back to my cabin.

'Lush, I think Suzi fucking hates me,' I said, throwing myself down on my bed.

Lush stuck his great big nose over the side of his bunk, looked at me with a broad grin on his face, and said: 'Don't worry, Scoobs, she's not the only one. We all fucking hate you. Good night.'

Newton was not part of the first wave in the invasion, instead manning the operations room aboard the carrier.  An excellent account of the tension of such an environment where everything is abstracted and experienced remotely.  From page 129.

For the 15 minutes it took the first wave of the helicopters to reach the oil stations, there was an incessant chatter over the radios, and you could also hear the guns of the Spectre gunships, still hammering away to keep the Iraqi's heads down. But when the first aircraft touched down and the pilot called in saying 'London' to confirm their arrival, there followed an awful silence.  The gunships had stopped firing just seconds before the troops began to arrive, and all talk on the radio suddenly came to a halt.  The silence on the airwaves was echoed in the operations room. For those few moments it was as if the world had stopped turning.  The pause lasted for probably no more than five seconds, but the shock of the sudden stillness made it seem much, much longer.  I distinctly remember looking around the room and seeing everyone frozen where they sat or stood; I watched a single sheet of A4 paper drifting off one of the controller's desks and floating noiselessly to the floor. It was a terrible wait.  For a moment I suspected the worst: that some or all of the first wave had been shot down as they came in to land. 

And then merry hell broke loose.