Published: Wednesday, 12th November, 2008 12:30
Heroes under siege for 10 days
By Russell Steele
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SAFE AND SOUND: Ally, Stephen and Brendan are glad to be home safe after their time in Helmand.
THREE hero soldiers from Inverclyde took on the Taliban in a dramatic 10-day firefight — and lived to tell the tale.
Stephen Lynn, of Port Glasgow, and Ally MacKinnon and Brendan Blyth, both of Greenock, were under siege from the Afghan rebels during a prolonged battle which raged in the lawless Helmand province from 14 to 23 August.
The trio of Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were among a massively outnumbered group of 30 soldiers who faced a blitz of mortar and sniper fire from around 200 Taliban during a battle which is so infamous it has been given its own name — The Siege of Roshan Tower.
Stephen, 21, said: “We were told it was the biggest thing to happen in the seven years since Afghanistan was occupied.
“We were there as fire support, which meant Brendan and me were firing mortars at the Taliban and Ally was firing another missile called a Javelin. It started at 5.45am one morning when we heard two loud bangs.”
Those explosions were to be the first of 50 mortars to land that day, as both sides dug in for a deadly fight, which came towards the end of the lads’ seven-month stint in Helmand.
Stephen said: “It began at the same time each morning, went on until late afternoon, then they would hit us again just before last light.
“We were only getting a couple of hours sleep and when it all ended I think we slept for two days solid.”
Ally, 26, said: “When we went to the camp we were told it was quiet and it was to begin with — then all hell broke loose.”
The lads, who recently returned from the front line, had to contend with snipers opening up on their exposed camp, which was surrounded on three sides by enemy fighters.
Ally said: “I was lying flat on my back when a bullet from one of them flew just above my head.
“That was how close they were at times. They could be anything from 400 metres to two kilometres away.”
Stephen also had a narrow escape during the siege when a bullet ricochetted off a sandbag and narrowly missed him.
He said: “I’d stood up to fire a mortar and a bullet shot just past my face.”
Brendan, 26, added: “Our camp was not much bigger than a tennis court and was up on a cliff so we were pretty exposed. But the adrenaline just kicked in and we lost all sense of how long we were fighting for. We had to keep the whole thing quiet from our families so they wouldn’t worry more.”
As they bravely repelled the 10-day onslaught, the lads even managed to snatch these dramatic pictures which show them in the heat of battle.
They helped take out at least one enemy mortar team during the siege, which only ended when the Taliban finally exhausted a seemingly endless supply of mortars and moved on — but not after sustaining heavy casualties.
Now Corporal MacKinnon, Private Lynn and Private Blyth are safely back home with their loved ones. They will be joining some of the other soldiers from Inverclyde at a return parade in Dumbarton later this month.
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