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Video: Danish Light Cav. in Musa Qaleh Helmand - (siege)
On July 21, a month after the siege began, a relief column of Danish armoured reconnaissance troops reinforced by British signals specialists left the main British base at Camp Bastion to try to relieve the Pathfinders.The column reached the outskirts of Musa Qala, only to be attacked from three sides at once. We were engaged with heavy machinegun fire and rocket-propelled grenades, and to top it off the Taliban had blocked the road with barrels, said Lance-Corporal Darren Flames Sloan, one of the British troops attached to the Danes. A Danish Eagle armoured vehicle was destroyed by a mine and three crewmen were wounded. The Danes responded with their own heavy machineguns before calling in an American B-1B bomber to deliver the final blow before moving back into the desert to regroup. Inside the Musa Qala compound food and water had run out, and the Pathfinders were drinking goats milk. They were feeling isolated and slightly concerned as the Danes withdrew. Five days after leaving Bastion, however, the Danes finally managed to push into the compound to be met by a group of dirty, skinny and unshaven British soldiers, all smiling like seven-year-old schoolboys on Christmas Day. Most of us had lost a stone or more and we looked like the wild bunch, said one Pathfinder. We were unshaven, long haired, full of fleas and bugs and to be honest we didnt smell too nice. Posted by: 3dc 2008-03-29 |
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