British soldier awarded the Military Cross for fighting off 150 Taliban

The Sunday Times ^ | March 9, 2008 | Michael Smith

[Mean Daddy]

A BRITISH soldier who almost single-handedly took on 150 Taliban after he and his 50-man convoy were ambushed in Afghanistan has been awarded the Military Cross.

Fusilier Damien Hields used his grenade machinegun to destroy seven Taliban positions before his ambushers realised he was their main threat. After peppering his vehicle with bullets, they hit the 24-year-old soldier. He had to be dragged off for treatment by his driver after he tried to continue fighting.

[Keith Brown]

Men of Harlech?

[MattinNJ]

Wow-BTT

[SunkenCiv]

"I got through six boxes in about 15 minutes and we were winning the fight," he said. "They started it. We were going to finish it." ...Hields said: "It turned out the bullet had smashed a rib and gone out of me again without touching any internal organs which was very lucky. It was just a flesh wound really."

Gotta love that kid.

[Squantos]

Only quirks I encountered were the frigging Cyrillic lettering , symbols and such that haunted me my whole career. Only class I rolled was sino soviet chemical munitions markings. We had guide books for the field and classified microfiche etc yet the tests were from memory and tough.

As too specific ammo or munitions .....nothing memorable.

А Б В Г Д Є Ж Ѕ З И І К Л М Н О П Ҁ Р С Т Ѹ Ф Х Ѡ Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Ѣ Ю ІА Ѧ Ѩ Ѫ Ѭ Ѯ Ѱ Ѳ Ѵ Ѥ

[river rat]

My brain is exploding with the thoughts of what could have been accomplished with one of those pieces 40+ years ago....

It would have certainly saved a lot of lives — and ended a lot lives more quickly and efficiently...

[river rat]

"Man, you do NOT want to be in the open downrange from a MK-19!!"

Actually -- it's bad mojo to be in the OPEN downrange from ANYONE with ANY kind of a weapon..........even if you can't see the ba$taxxs who MIGHT be there!

It can flat a$$ ruin a nice day....

In the "open", it could take a cautious grunt -- hours to cross a few hundred yards.... Much better to remain under the canopy and take the longer route --- or at least wait for night!

I absolutely despised the "open"......that's why I simply can't comprehend how our warriors can function in the wide open spaces of the desert.....very very spooky to this old gunt....

[Travis McGee]

The navy had them in VN on river boats. A Mk19 plus a Ma Deuce is a fearsome combo.

[Travis McGee]

I totally hear you about operating in the open. All my training (and that’s all it was) was oriented to night and thick cover. Today, with prolific night vision and IR, it’s a different ball game. But I still want darkness and bushes and trees around me.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Oops! We certainly don’t want that for this brave soldier then do we... Thanks for enlightening me on this! ;)

[BnBlFlag]

Jolly good show, Old Chap!

[river rat]

Never saw (noticed) one before!

[Travis McGee]

I think they were strictly on certain navy gunboats, and not even on all classes of them.

[river rat]

We traded “gathered goods” with the crews from the PBRs and barges the Navy used to convoy supplies up river...

Dual .50s were the rig of choice....

We never learned how they got access to so damned much Scotch..
They never figured out that the AKs they got in trade were the poorly make Chinese models — NEVER the better made versions from Eastern Europe. Those from the GDR were prized “booty/spoils”.

[Travis McGee]

I remember those PBRs with the double gun tub up forward. Good boats. Boat guys are always kumshaw smugglers. They have a foot on land, and at a number of bases USMC, USA, USN, allied, civilian etc.

[batco-barry]

“good to see there are still fine soldiers in the british military”

‘Still’, always has been my friend..........

[archy]

We have Mk-19’s as well as M134DT’s at the office.......:o)

Jackalopes fear our security !

You guys have GOT to get a tank section one of these days....

[Little Ray]

Most journalists are too stupid to understand terms like “automatic grenade launcher.”

[Squantos]

They tried........we decided gunships were better.....:o)

We do have some UAV’s, albeit little ones, and some AIM 92’s scattered around the site to play with !

[Little Ray]

Congratulations to this man on both the award and his bravery. Howvere comments such as “They started it, and we were going to finish it”, are exactly the kind of thing that prompts the dislike of the military from a majority of British citizens as was shown by the army uniform saga last week. British troops should have more training on how to justify themselves morally and maybe then they'd sound less oafish and would come accross more affable to us civilians<

Jack, London, Uk

Where do losers like this come from? How can they be so shameless as to actually post this crap?

[archy]

The navy had them in VN on river boats. A Mk19 plus a Ma Deuce is a fearsome combo.

Back then the version we had was the Mk18 Mod 0, which we called *Philco-Fords* or *Honeywells* depending on the manufacturer and which were hand-cranked, like the old Gatling gun, feeding from a fiberglass fabric belt rather than metallic links. No, I was not in the Navy. Yes, we did swipe one of the Honeywells to mount in the loader's hatch of one of our tanks.

The Mark 19 was a post-Vietnam version, though some early Mk 19 Mod 0 or Mod 1 versions may well have been field-tested in the 1970s in the later days of the war. Nice thing about the Mk18 was that it DID use the same ammo as the M79 and XM148 grenade launchers [40mmx46SR] in 25-round belts that the ammo remained in as it fed through the gun- there was no removal of the ammo from the belt, which kept it reasonably reliable. The later Mk 19 guns used the higher-pressure 40x53SR linked round also used in the chin turret automatic grenade launcher in the chin turret of the early Huey Cobra gunships. I think the helo guns were the *Mark 20* gun in Navy small boat service, sometimes used in the gun tub instead of the twin .50s.