RAF Musicians' Gulf War Experience (1991)

For members of the Western Band of the Royal Air Force this all started late in 1990 following a briefing at the bandroom at RAF Locking (Weston-Super-Mare).

Having just returned from a concert tour of Northern Ireland, as usual we unloaded our instruments, but before going home were summoned to a ‘briefing’ by the Director of Music, Flying Officer Duncan Stubbs.

Aware as we were of the developing situation in the Middle East, our worst fears were realised as we were informed of a new medical ‘war role’ for all UK military musicians, and our immediate training for deployment on active service to Saudi Arabia.

…get your life in order…”

The serious reality of the situation became clear to us all with the advice to “get your life in order” — the meaning of which needed no explanation…! Currently living in married quarters, for me this meant confirming my will, and most importantly finding and buying a house in record time so my wife and our three young daughters had somewhere to live if the unthinkable was to actually happen to me...

“…Cock, hook, and look…”

What then followed over the next 6 weeks was medical and weapons training, the like of which we’d not experienced before. Trained with the weapons of the time, as we would have to protect ourselves and our hospital casualties, the familiar ‘cock, hook and look’ routine to unload a weapon safely really had become one of the most important safety skills.

“…blot, bang, rub…”

However, the expression ‘blot, bang rub’ also became fixed in our minds, as we were further trained in decontamination procedures following any nuclear, chemical or biological attack, whilst still fully ‘suited up’ in IPE (Individual Protection Equipment) and the S10 respirator. However, little did we know the instruction to get our respirator on within 8 seconds of any air raid warning to minimise the effects of a nerve agent would become our most frequently used action, with the many terrifying scud missile attacks that we were to discover awaited our deployment. And if we still needed any further reminder of the potential effects of some of the weapons Saddam Hussein, 5th President of Iraq, might use against coalition forces, we were also taught how to administer the frightening needle of the combopen autoject into our own or someone else’s thigh if suffering the effects of a nerve agent.

As we now know, the combopen actually contained Pralidoxime Methane Sulphate, Avisafone, Atropine Sulphate and Citric Acid Monohydrate – I’m pleased we didn’t actually use it…on anyone…!

Such fears did however make us much more accepting of the ‘cocktail’ of injections described by many as ‘experimental’, such as anthrax and bubonic plague (and many others) given before our departure, with yet more following our arrival in Saudi Arabia.

Our training was then complete once we’d been issued with our own supply of NAPS (Nerve Agent Pre-Treatment Set) and BATS (Biological Agent Treatment Set) tablets — which looking so innocent in their innocuous warning covered packaging, would put such fear in our minds when subsequently we were ordered to start taking them following the first scud missile attack.

Now part of an operation of coalition forces from 35 nations against Iraq in response to its invasion and annexation of Kuwait, much of our training was in partnership with the US Air Force…and so began some rather more detailed and specific medical training, which also included understanding the very sad reality of battlefield patient triaging...

“…the first session was a lecture by the staff from a nearby US AES (Air Evacuation Squadron) on the subject of death…as we were expected to come across a lot of it…”

After only two days, our relative peace was shattered in the middle of the night with the first air raid. And so in what felt like blind panic and with a real fear for our lives, we put our respirators on whilst shouting ‘gas, gas, gas!’ as our training had taught us, hopefully within 8 seconds to avoid the potentially fatal effects of a chemical or nerve agent. Then followed the ever-complicated procedure of putting on our full NBC suits, gloves and helmet, whilst then checking each other with the ‘buddy buddy’ system to ensure everything was correct.

Of course, during our training this was all relatively easy, however in the real life situation when any mistake might become fatal, none of this was easy when completely terrified, stressed and working against the clock…!

The air raids subsequently became a very regular and frightening occurrence – Indeed, I now read there were approximately 60 Scud Missile attacks, and with each one we’d be listening for the explosion of the warhead or the noise we hoped demonstrated it had been ‘taken out’ by the locally based US Patriot Missiles, whilst also desperately awaiting the relative safety of the ‘All Clear’ siren.