Flying Out

This is the first post of what will hopefully be a continuous running log of what the G-Coy lads from Barking, Ilford and Dagenham have been getting up to in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. I’m writing this first part from a hangar in Turkey where we’ve stopped off to re-fuel.

This morning was a bit of a rude awakening as we had to get up at 1am to catch a coach to the airport. Most military flights leave from a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire called RAF Brize Norton. For the last couple of months, we’ve been based in barracks in Pirbight, Surrey so it took a couple of hours to make the journey.





This was the first military flight for many, and to be honest, it was no different to catching a normal flight to go on holiday. Everything was the same; check in, baggage checks, metal detectors and quite a long time spent looking at a clock in the waiting room. The only difference was that the check in girls were all wearing combats! The RAF Police are pretty thorough and, just like civilian airports, they even took nail scissors off us. I thought that was a little unnecessary considering we were all trained infantry soldiers. At one point, I thought Duffy was going to get strip searched. Lucky for all of us that he didn’t!

We flew out on a C17 which is a massive cargo plane with some seating. The inside of the aircraft is big enough to have a basketball court or a decent 5-s-side game. Unfortunately they would let us try. Being a cargo plane, there was a lot of space for us to stretch out and most of us go our heads down and had a sleep.



The first part of the flight to Turkey lasted about 4 hours. After 2 hours on the ground while the crew changed over, we set off on the second leg which was to take another 4.5 hrs to the city of Kandahar.



02.10.07

We landed in Kandahar at just gone midnight. After an arrival brief and a quick trip to the mess hall to get some food, we were all keen to get our heads down and grab a few hours sleep. The airfield was pretty dark when we got there so we didn’t get a proper look at our surroundings until morning. We awoke to a bright sunny day. Outside of our temporary accommodation, we stepped into a scene which could have been the backdrop to any news report on the Afghan war. The dusty grey of the ground seemed to merge into the early morning haze as we found ourselves amongst the hangars, buildings and blast proof walls of Kandahar Airfield.

After a full breakfast in a well stocked canteen, we were checked through into the departure lounge for Camp Bastion. Camp Bastion would become our home for the next 6 months. This lounge had a TV and so we sat back, tried to relax and watched the weather reports for the UK on BBC News 24. Although we were thousands of miles away from our families, it was strangely satisfying to see rain forecast for the UK while we were enjoying the sunshine – albeit in a war zone.

The next leg of our journey was by C130, the Hercules, which is the workhorse of the RAF. 40 minutes after take off, we were touching down on a slightly bumpier landing strip outside of Camp Bastion. Like components in a well oiled machine, we were escorted to transit accommodation where we will stay for the next 2 days to complete our induction to theatre training.

After a long couple of days travelling, we were given the rest of the day off to wander around camp getting to know the place. If our first sight of Kandahar airfield had been a surprise, our first impression of Camp Bastion was ten times as surreal. After 3 months of training, having seen pictures of the place, we were now in the picture. We had been catapulted from the green of Surrey into the middle of a barren, featureless desert. More to follow soon…