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the Gulf, Lieutenant General Peter de la Billiere � himself an outstanding SAS officer who had served in numerous earlier campaigns, from Korea to Malaya, Borneo, Oman and Dhofar � had been trying his hardest to persuade the American Commander-in-Chief, General Norman Schwarzkopf, to send us in. But Stormin' Norman had a hang-up about using Special Forces; he had seen the American Special Forces make a hash of things in Vietnam, and now he preferred to use conventional methods � to soften up the Iraqis with bombs, and then overrun their positions with tanks, without wasting highly-trained special troops. Besides, he could get all the in�telligence he needed from satellites and reconnaissance aircraft. In the end, however, DLB persuaded him that SAS patrols would glean useful intelligence if they were inserted deep inside enemy territory, and the C-in-C agreed to our deployment. Hardly had he done so when Saddam Hussein started putting Scud missiles down on Israel, and neither satellites nor aircraft could find the mobile launchers. Sud�denly � and quite by chance � the regiment had a vital role to perform: to find the mobile launchers, put an end to the bombardment of Israel, and so prevent Israel entering the war with potentially disastrous consequences to the co�alition. Suddenly our future became more clearly defined. No longer mere BCRs, we were assigned a proper task. The big Special Forces punch was to come from 'A' and 'D' squad-rons, who would go in as substantial motorised patrols, each 18The One That Got Away heavily armed and half a squadron strong, tasked with find�ing the Scud TELs (transporter-erector-launchers) and calling in Allied aircraft to take them out. But the plan was that before the heavy mob was deployed, three eight-man patrols from 'B Squadron, designated Bravo One Zero, Bravo Two Zero and Bravo Three Zero, would infiltrate deep into Iraqi territory and lie up in OPs (observation posts) to report enemy movement, especially that of Scuds. De la Billiere believed that if we could establish OPs first, and start passing back useful intelligence, it would streng�then his hand in bargaining with Schwarzkopf and increase the chances of the big patrols being deployed. Naturally our own CO was as eager as anyone to get people in there. For our patrol, Bravo Two Zero, members were selected from a nominal roll, and according to their particular skills: besides fighting power, we needed a demolitionist, a sig�naller and a medic (myself). Our main task would be to gather intelligence; our aim was to find a good LUP (lying-up position) and set up an OP. From there we would maintain surveillance on the MSR (main supply route) which ran westwards from the town of Al Hadithah to three airfields known as H1, H2 and H3, and along which it was thought the Iraqis were moving Scud launchers. Once established, we would remain in the OP for up to ten days, reporting enemy movements by radio or Satcom telephone, and calling in fighter-bombers to attack any worthwhile tar�get. A subsidiary task was to blow up any fibre-optic communications links we could find. After ten days, we would either get a re-supply by helicopter, or move to a new location, also by chopper. Besides all our personal equip�ment, we would take kit for building the OP: 120 empty sandbags per man, vehicle camouflage nets, poles, and ther�mal sheets to put over the top of our structures, so that if Iraqis flew over with thermal-imaging kit they wouldn't be able to pick up the heat rising from our bodies. To practise the task we'd been assigned, we went out into some sandhills and dug in OPs. Now it so happened that I was pretty good at this, having done a lot of it with the Terri-torial Regiment in Germany, where one of our main roles Stand By . . . Stand By . . . Go!19 had been to construct OPs and man them for three weeks at a time. After the earth and rock of Europe, the sand of Arabia was a doddle. We began by digging a pit