Page 78 - QDG Year of 2022 CREST

76 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards
Op NEWCOMBE 3
As the sun finally set on 2022, I reflected on the task I had been set for the QDG’s journal – a task that I definitely did not leave to the last minute if my Mother asks! I flicked through the small diary I kept in Mali and scrolled through the photographs that all seem so far away from my current post in the Falklands. Thursday 24th March 2022, a day we ended at N15˚ 03’ 23.32” E00˚ 38’ 27.09”, sticks in my mind as one
had managed to catch up with an armed man who had fled on sight of them. The news of this meant that we had to launch into position quickly and that meant that all of the drivers and lead vehicle’s crew had to pick the best ground, a job that they did very well indeed. Within minutes we sailed past 3rd and 4th Tps in their cut off positions, crossing the ‘land bridge’ onto Hourara.
of the best days I had out on patrol with 1st Troop, A Squadron, 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards.
The locals were genuinely happy to see us, insisting that Tpr Firth tried out their new(ish) pushbike
Our first task was to establish a cordon to stop anyone from fleeing onto the far shore, once that was done and Sgt Grif- fiths had overwatch from some high ground, the Search Team within 1st Tp set about conducting area searches of the fields and likely cache locations. This was hot work, on foot, in the sun, wearing full personal protective equipment (PPE) rummaging around and leaving no nook or cranny uninterrogated. That after- noon we built a very decent picture of what had been
Starting as most days on
patrol did, with a first light
departure from the leaguer
on our mission of finding a
route from the Task Group
(TG) leaguer to the Squad-
ron’s (Sqn) leaguer location.
By now, everyone in the Sqn
was very familiar with this
role and it seemed to work
very easily in our opinion, the
A1 Echelon (supply lorries
and heavy vehicles) may
have a different opinion but
fortunately this is my article, so we did that role most swimmingly!
happening to that town in the past few weeks and months, the locals were very pleased to see us and the older men were almost too chatty! Towards the end of the day, we found some items of particular interest in a derelict shed. As 2nd Tp had found a weapon and the EOD
robot had already fallen over, we were told to keep eyes on overnight and that EOD would come out first thing in the morning. This meant that the Tp would have to
have double the amount of people awake throughout the night but it did give us a rare chance to patrol through the village in the day, through the night, and into the next morning – something that I was very excited for!
The first patrol we did walking just in front of a vehicle, giving us good cover from the slew-ring, and saving a bit of weight from our backs after such a long day on foot. This added to what was already a fantastic day. The locals were genuinely happy to see us, insisting that Tpr Firth tried out their new(ish) pushbike and forcing ice on us as thanks. One chap even recognised the British uniforms and asked if we were Light Dragoons, which we denied after throwing-up a little. On our way to the Desert Box that Sgt Grif- fiths had sited, we stopped by a field and chatted again to a man that was very friendly to us earlier. He wanted to gift us a watermelon, that we then gave him a bag of leftover rations for.
That night we mounted a foot patrol through the town, very quickly bumping into a young lad called Ibrahim and a group of young boys (12-18) who insisted
Shortly before midday, the CO released the Sqn to go to Hourara, a semi-island town in the River Niger that a year previously had been the site of a weapons cache that the Light Dragoons found on their patrol. The Sqn’s plan was
sound and every vehicle understood just what they were to do. As we entered what would have been the Terrorist Armed Group (TAG) reconnaissance screen 2nd Tp sent on the radio that they
The man and his watermelon
A selfie that the Spaniard (Cpl Mathieson RE) took on my phone