# Battle of Panjwai , Legion Article



## HItorMiss (4 Sep 2007)

Here thought some of you might enjoy the read. The Journalist who wrote the article took great pains to get this right, Talked to every key player and some of the little ones too and then sent what he wrote to them for fact checking. It's as close to being accurate as you are ever going to get. This is the lead up article to a 3 part series. The next comes out in 2 months I believe. I had to split the article in half due to post limit, I will post the other half and mark it part 2.

So with out further ado I give you......

*Operation Medusa: The Battle For Panjwai*
Part 1: The Charge of Charles Company
by Adam Day


Within sight of the infamous white schoolhouse, epicentre of the insurgency in Kandahar province, the hastily assembled Canadian force entered the kill zone. An enemy signal flare shot up across Charles Company's lead elements and there aren't many polite words to describe what happened next.

Rick Nolan died. 7 Platoon's warrant officer, its heart and soul, was sitting in the passenger seat of a lightly armoured G-Wagon when a rocket-propelled grenade came crashing through the windshield. Sitting in the back seat were a medic and an Afghan interpreter, both badly wounded. Corporal Sean Teal, dazed but mostly unhurt, jumped into a hail of bullets and went to find help. The G-Wagon never moved again.

Shane Stachnik died. The engineer sergeant was standing in his armoured vehicle's air sentry hatch when an 82-mm recoilless rifle round blew them apart. Most inside were wounded or unconscious and the vehicle went radio silent. Call sign Echo 3-2 was out of the fight.

The enemy were hidden in their trenches and fortified buildings, firing from three sides. The Canadians were enveloped. Bullets kicked up dirt cinematically. Rockets screamed in. Every Canadian gun that could still fire blasted away at the muzzle flashes in the distance. 

A Canadian armoured vehicle, full of wounded and dead, reversed at high speed out of the kill zone only to crash backwards into a ditch, where it was hit by several RPGs. Call sign 3-1 Bravo was stuck and dying. It never left the ditch.

The radios were full of screaming voices, some calling for medics, some just looking for help. As the firing and explosions continued, many soldiers began helping their wounded friends, focusing on their own rescue mission, fighting their own war. Time got all messed up. It went too fast or it went too slow; hours seemed like minutes and some seconds took forever. Wounded men crawled across the ground looking for cover. Everywhere there were acts of unimaginable courage.

Yet more would die. Private William Cushley, legendary joker, friend to seemingly everybody, was killed alongside 8 Platoon's warrant officer, Frank Mellish, who came forward to see if he could help after he heard his friend Nolan was in trouble.

It went on and on for hours. An officer sprinted across open ground armed now only with his pistol, looking for his comrade. The enemy kept firing. The company sergeant major went down.

They fought through one calamity after another. And the wounded piled up. Some were hit more than once. Others were wounded in ways that couldn't be seen.

Through it all the calm voice of Charles' commander, Major Mathew Sprague, himself under fire, came over the net, directing his men through the chaos, calling in air strikes and artillery. But the enemy was dug in too deep and hidden too well. They poured unrelenting, if poorly aimed, fire on the trapped Canadian force. 

When an errant 1,000-pound bomb, dropped off target by a coalition aircraft, came bouncing through the Canadian lines and ended up right in front of them, there was little left to do but retreat. 

Captain Derek Wessan radioed Sprague at call sign 3-9er. "We've gotta get the f--k out of here," he said. "And then we've gotta blow this place up."

Of the 50 or so Canadian soldiers that went into the kill zone that day, no fewer than 10 were wounded, four were killed and at least six became stress casualties.

Even now, even with a year's worth of hindsight, it's still hard for any one person to say exactly what happened that day.

What's known for sure is that five soldiers in that fight received Canada's third highest award for bravery--the Medal of Military Valour--while another, Corporal Sean Teal, received the Star of Military Valour--Canada's second highest award, just beneath the Victoria Cross. One other soldier was mentioned in dispatches. 

The ambush at the white schoolhouse took place Sept. 3, 2006, on the second day of Operation Medusa, NATO's first-ever ground combat operation, and Canada's largest combat operation since the Korean War. 

That it was a huge battle fought heroically against long odds is clear. But what's less well known are the controversial circumstances that prefigured the battle. This was a struggle that saw a general's strategic instinct--his feel for the shape of the battle--lead him to abandon a carefully laid plan and overrule his tactical commanders in the field in order to send Charles Company on a hastily conceived and ultimately harrowing attack against a numerically superior enemy in a well-established defensive position.

That story, and more, will be detailed here, in Legion Magazine's three-part report on the Battle of Panjwai, which begins with the background to Op Medusa and the behind-the-scenes controversy that shaped the deadly Sept. 3 attack.

Op Medusa was the largest operation in Afghanistan since 2002 and it was intended to disperse or destroy the hundreds, if not thousands, of insurgents that had gathered about 20 kilometres southwest of Kandahar city, in a district called Panjwai.

In 2006, Panjwai was the insurgency's simmering heartland. For a whole generation of Canadian service members, the mention of Panjwai will almost certainly conjure hard memories of small villages and complex defensive terrain, intractable hostility and endless roadside bombs. Of the 66 Canadians killed in Afghanistan since 2002 (as of July 10, 2007), almost half died in Panjwai.

Panjwai is the spiritual and literal home of the Taliban movement. It's the birthplace of their as-yet-unaccounted-for leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, and the place where the movement began in the mid-1990s.

The district is centred on the Arghandab River and the town of Bazaar-e-Panjwai. Bordered on the south by desert, Panjwai is dominated by a few massive, singular mountains--Masum Ghar and Mar Ghar. 

Since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, Kandahar province had been mostly an American responsibility. When the Canadian battle group moved south from Kabul to Kandahar in early 2006, they discovered quickly that Taliban activity was high, and it was centred in Panjwai.

Throughout the first six months of the new mission, the first rotation--largely comprised of soldiers from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry--routinely fought insurgents in and around Panjwai. 

Op Medusa was meant to change all that. It was going to be a decisive victory in the Battle of Panjwai.

Brigadier-General David Fraser controlled Medusa from his headquarters at Kandahar airfield, the sprawling coalition base just outside Kandahar city. Fraser was not only Canada's highest-ranking man on the ground, but he was also NATO's commander in southern Afghanistan.

Out in the field, the battle group was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Omer Lavoie, the tough-talking commander of the 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment, a man described by several of his men as a soldier's soldier. The Canadian component of his force was comprised of the 1RCR, a complement of 2 Combat Engineer Regt., 2 Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, medics from 2 Field Ambulance and various support staff for a total of about 1,050 Canadians. 

While trouble had been brewing in Panjwai for some time, when Lavoie and his RCR battle group arrived in Kandahar in early August 2006, just as NATO was taking command from the Americans in the south, the situation there reached a critical point. Expecting to conduct a counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan, Lavoie was surprised to discover that a threatening number of enemy fighters had gathered just outside Kandahar city. 

"We took over right on the threshold of the transition to NATO," said Lavoie. "So I think the Taliban decided that they would either test or show that NATO didn't have the resolve to conduct combat operations to the extent that U.S. forces did." 

Within hours of the Aug. 19 ceremony that marked his assumption of command over the Canadian battle group, Lavoie got a first-hand look at the real situation in Panjwai.

A few days before, Lavoie had ordered a small company-sized force to go camp out on the high point Masum Ghar and observe the area for enemy activity.

Three hours after taking command, at about 7:00 p.m., Lavoie received a message that between 300 and 500 insurgents were attacking his force out at Masum Ghar. "What happened, of course, was the Taliban, seeing our vehicles up on our hill and not liking the idea, decided to launch a fairly significant attack," said Lavoie. "I finally got forward to the position at about 4:00 a.m. In the end we killed about 100 Taliban and took no friendly casualties, so it was a good way to start off.


http://www.legionmagazine.com/features/militarymatters/07-09.asp#1


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## HItorMiss (4 Sep 2007)

Part 2

*Operation Medusa: The Battle For Panjwai*
Part 1: The Charge of Charles Company
by Adam Day


"But the significance of that was that it sent a very strong message to us, and by extension NATO, that if they could mass that size of an attack there was a significantly greater proportion of enemy in that area than was anticipated, based on what our predecessors had noted; so that battle of Panjwai on August 19 was the precursor to Medusa.

"Almost immediately I was called back to the brigade commander (Fraser) and given a warning order to anticipate having to conduct a major combat operation in the Panjwai area to defeat and push this sizable enemy element out--so Medusa started from my perspective right at that time." 

Back in Kandahar, Fraser too noted the shift in Taliban tactics.

"We also found out the Taliban had changed their tactics. They went from small group hit-and-run to conventional come-and-get-me. Their intent was to prove to the world and the Karzai government that they could take us on. It was the culmination of their 2006 idea, I won't even say campaign plan. It was their idea of how they wanted to finish off the fighting that year, and finish off the fighting in total. They thought they could win it then. 

"What they underestimated was that I was onto their plan, I knew what their intent was," said Fraser. "I had determined they wanted me to attack them head on, à la World War I, at enormous cost in soldiers, both Afghan and coalition. But I would not accept that as an acceptable course of operation.

"So we adapted and wrote a plan to counter their intent, designed to mitigate collateral damage to Afghans and their fields and their huts, and also to mitigate the threat to my soldiers, both Afghan and coalition.

"We circled the wagons, so to speak, around the Taliban, and forced them to pop their head up so we could lop it off."

The plan for Medusa was big and seemed quite solid. In total there would be almost 1,400 coalition soldiers on the ground with the battle group and thousands more supporting them. According to Fraser, he spent much of August working up the plan. 

"This was a big effort, from a brigade point of view; I pulled in troops from my entire brigade, which comprised nine nations across four provinces, down into Panjwai because the Taliban were not going to win. I was very firm. I said 'You've taken on the wrong guy if you want to take on Dave Fraser, 'cause I'm going to beat you here.'"

On the ground, there were several distinct forces ready to close on the enemy. Lavoie's Canadian force was Charles Company in the south, coming through Bazaar-e-Panjwai, with Bravo Company in the north, fighting southward. On one flank was Task Force 31, comprised of coalition--mainly U.S.--Special Forces and also Task Force Grizzly, an American company. With a Danish squad in position to the west and a Dutch Company patrolling the perimeter to the north, the enemy were pretty much surrounded.

Op Medusa began at first light on Sept. 2 with an attack on two axes, with the main effort being in the south. There, Sprague and Charles Company, in the main, were to seize the high features around Panjwai--Masum and Mar Ghar--and isolate the town of Panjwai itself. They would advance right up to the south bank of the Arghandab River, but not across.

"At 5:30 a.m., we moved out. The entire operation was based on my H-hour, which I had chosen as 6:00 a.m.--that being the time at which I intended to launch my forces to secure Masum Ghar," said Sprague. "As it turned out, at 6:00 a.m. sharp we had secured Masum Ghar. By 6:15 a.m. I had declared no pattern of life across the river in Pashmul, save for groups of insurgents with whom we began to trade fire."

According to the original plan, having seized the high points around Panjwai and to the north, the battle group would take the next several days to batter the Taliban--who were now trapped in a fairly small area, perhaps five square kilometres--into submission. 

However, that carefully prepared plan began to change almost immediately. 

"In the original brigade instruction, once I had confirmed that there were no civilians present, a pre-arranged air strike using precision guided munitions was supposed to simultaneously hit between 10 and 20 known insurgent command and control nodes," said Sprague. "For whatever reason, this didn't happen and the strike was cancelled by the brigade."

Nonetheless, on both high points, the Canadians set up firing lines of armoured vehicles and proceeded to blast away at targets of opportunity across the river throughout the morning and afternoon of Sept. 2. 

"The intent then," said Lavoie, "once that area was seized and the enemy was hemmed in from the north and the south, was to continue to engage the enemy for the next three days with primarily offensive air support but artillery and direct fire as well, in order to, from my perspective, determine where the enemy actually was, and to degrade the enemy's ability to fight before we actually committed the main force into the attack." 

And it was quite a place to attack. If Kandahar is the strategic centre of Afghanistan, and the Panjwai district is the key to Kandahar, then the area around the town of Bazaar-e-Panjwai, which includes the small village of Pashmul, is at the very heart of the whole situation.

This, roughly speaking, was Objective Rugby--the area just across the Arghandab River, centred on the white schoolhouse, where Charles Company would cross the river to be ambushed in just a few hours. 

Objective Rugby was a place the Canadians knew well. On Aug. 3, 2006, the PPCLI was involved in a hellish battle at the white schoolhouse that led to the deaths of four soldiers--Sergeant Vaughn Ingram, Cpl. Christopher Jonathan Reid, Cpl. Bryce Jeffrey Keller and Pte. Kevin Dallaire--with six more wounded. Also during that fight Sgt. Patrick Tower was awarded the first Canadian Star of Military Valour.

"This was the ground the enemy had chosen to defend," said Fraser, who, having been in command on Aug. 3, just one month prior, was well aware of what happened that day. "Rugby was where we assessed that the Taliban wanted us to fight them on. That was their main battleground. Their whole defence was structured to have us coming across the Arghandab River in the south and fight into Rugby. And the schoolhouse was the area in the centre, where there were big killing fields to the east and the north."

Given the recent history of Objective Rugby, and the evident buildup of enemy forces in the area, the battle group was looking forward to taking their time before going across into Taliban territory. According to the plan, they had lots of time.

"There were a series of deceptions and feints planned in those three days to cause the enemy to react," said Lavoie, "so that we would be able to see where he was so we could plan the final attack."

But this was not to happen. The plan was about to change.

At about 2 p.m. on Sept. 2, Fraser visited Masum Ghar to check out the situation. At that point in the afternoon, insurgent activity had tapered off. 

Seeing this, Fraser gave the order to cross the Arghandab. While many of the guys on the ground were wary of heading off into enemy territory with so little preparation, shortly after, as ordered, Sprague led 7 Platoon and an engineer detachment out into the riverbed to map out the crossing. 

The order then came down to leave 7 Platoon camped in the riverbed for the night. This was duly arranged, and the platoon began to hunker down. However, a short time later a conference of senior leaders at Masum Ghar decided there was no tactical advantage to leaving the platoon dangling out on the edge of enemy territory, and they were pulled back just as darkness fell.

At about midnight, Lavoie was again ordered by Fraser to launch an attack across the river. 

To the guys on the ground, this order made even less sense. But for Lavoie, managing to get that order postponed was no small feat. According to several sources, the conversation about whether it was a good idea to launch a spur-of-the-moment midnight attack into what was probably one of the most heavily defended hostile positions in Afghanistan did become quite animated.

Lavoie got on the radio and told Fraser that to cross now was not a good idea. It was too risky. They didn’t know the river’s flow rate or its depth, nor were any fording sites marked. And they had little intel on enemy positions.

While Lavoie’s stand earned him the undying respect of his soldiers, it was not an easy thing to do.

"(Lavoie) and I had some pretty serious discussions, because we were talking about the hardest fight either one of us had ever done in our military career," said Fraser. "So the fact that we could have a frank and open discussion attests to the level of trust and co-operation we had, that we weren't afraid to speak our minds. And you need that, because as commanders we're dealing with lives of soldiers, and lives of Afghans. We were talking about the big step of going across the river, metaphorically and literally, to finish off the Taliban."

Nonetheless, this argument was merely to get the midnight attack postponed. The orders were now to attack at first light on Sept. 3, still a full 48 hours earlier than planned and without the promised bombardment.

Several questions remain to this day for the men who had to follow out these orders, but they can all be reduced to this: why abandon the plan and bring forward the attack? 

Indeed, it's hard to see what caused the need to hurry--the Taliban were trapped and surrounded, it was now just a matter of lopping their heads off. As Fraser himself notes, the very heart of the Taliban strategy was to draw them into costly ground conflict.

As one RCR officer said, it's not like they were racing to save Ottawa from an invading force. "What's the rush?" said another RCR officer. "We know where they are, it's a free fire zone."

There was, in fact, no rush. Though Fraser agrees there was pressure from above to get things moving, he says that wasn't a real factor.

"There was pressure from every quarter. I told people above me that we were going to play this the way we intended to play this. It was gonna take time, and it took a long time."

Instead, the decision to bring the attack forward was based, in large part, on Fraser's appraisal that the enemy had weakened and was ready to be exploited. 

"So, the intelligence I was receiving, and also the information I was receiving from my other task force commanders that were part of this battle, not just Omer Lavoie, and talking to Afghans: we were ready. We were at the point where we could press this thing home. Yeah, we could have stuck to the plan, but, again, you start to ignore the enemy, what he's doing, what intelligence is on the ground.

"You fight the enemy guided by a plan. You don't fight a plan. If you fight a plan and ignore the enemy, you will fail. You will incur lots of casualties and you will fail. A plan only gets you thinking and gets you to meet the enemy. And the enemy has a vote. So, on (Sept. 1) or (Sept. 2), I had decided the situation was changing so that we could attack. I gave (Lavoie) the orders on the 2nd to attack. It was in advance of what the plan said. Well, I don't care about the plan." 

Despite the fact, made apparent the next morning, that Fraser's appraisal of the situation turned out to be demonstrably optimistic, the bottom line for the general is that he believes there was nothing to be gained by 48 hours of additional bombardment. 

"Well, I listened to what they had to say," he said of his cautious tactical commanders. "I knew a lot of enemy were there. But, you know, you do two more days of bombardment, how many do you kill? How do you know that? You guess. 

"No matter if you went in on the 2nd, the 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th, guess what ladies and gentlemen? It is a difficult thing to cross a river and to go into a main defensive area where the Taliban were waiting and wanted to fight on. It would have been gut-wrenching, whatever day was picked to go across that river."

Gut-wrenching it may have been, but according to the soldiers who did it, it would have been a much different event if they had stuck to the original plan. As Sprague notes, the extra time would have given the Canadians several major advantages in addition to reducing or destroying the buildings that were to give the Taliban such excellent cover and concealment.

"We could have used that time to conduct feints, force the insurgents into reacting to our manoeuvre. We could have used our manoeuvre to draw them out into positions where our firepower could have decimated them and at the very least we could have seen their reactions to our movement."

"The old adage is, 'time spent in recce is seldom wasted.' We never got to do a recce. Therefore, we never had a tactical plan because we never had time to make one." 

Despite the arguments of his tactical commanders, Fraser would not be deterred.

"The decision was 'we're gonna go in' and 26 years of experience in seven different operations told me now was the time to go in there and finish this thing off."

In the end, of course, the only thing that was very nearly finished off was Charles Company.

As for Lavoie, he'd made his stand, but orders were orders, and, one way or another, the attack was going in.

"He's my commander," noted Lavoie diplomatically. "And I guess in his mind he thought that was the course of action to follow." 

At first light the next morning, Sept. 3, Sprague gathered his platoon leaders and supporting officers for hasty orders. With less than 15 minutes to make a plan, what was said didn't amount to much more than, 'We're going across. Follow me.' It was to be an old-fashioned WW I-style assault into the guns, albeit on a smaller scale. It was the charge of Charles Company.

So, with little if any battle procedure, no reconnaissance and intel that was either insufficient or wildly wrong, Sprague led his force down the bank and into the river. This was Canada's first company-sized mechanized combined arms attack on a fixed position since Korea, at the heart of NATO's first-ever battle, and it was like nothing they'd ever trained to do. It was rushed and it was risky--doctrine was out the window. 

Across the river and onto the far bank, the engineers made their breeches and Charles crawled up into the fields beyond. 

They moved into enemy territory, unaware of what was about to happen. 

Everything was quiet. It was all to come.

In the next issue: First-hand accounts of Charles Company's desperate fight and seemingly endless misfortune as the unit takes almost 50 casualties in just over 24 hours.  


http://www.legionmagazine.com/features/militarymatters/07-09.asp#1


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## HItorMiss (5 Sep 2007)

Alright I gotta ask...


No comments, no analysis nothing? I am kinda shocked really.


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## RHFC_piper (5 Sep 2007)

I think we're all just waiting for the next installment.  ;D


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## GAP (5 Sep 2007)

RHFC_piper said:
			
		

> I think we're all just waiting for the next installment.  ;D



Why interupt a good story.....


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## RHFC_piper (5 Sep 2007)

GAP said:
			
		

> Why interupt a good story.....



Hell... I was there, and I want to know what happens next... riveting.


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## HItorMiss (6 Sep 2007)

Sadly the next installment isn't until November I think.

How about this, I am surprised no one has comments about the leadership and or calls made by higher. I know it's arm chair quarterbacking and falls into the hindsight is 20/20 but I was pretty sure something would have been said. Maybe it's just everyone waiting for the second part of the article.


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## armyvern (6 Sep 2007)

HitorMiss said:
			
		

> Sadly the next installment isn't until November I think.
> 
> How about this, I am surprised no one has comments about the leadership and or calls made by higher. I know it's arm chair quarterbacking and falls into the hindsight is 20/20 but I was pretty sure something would have been said. Maybe it's just everyone waiting for the second part of the article.



I suspect you're correct D. It'd be akin to writing the book report after reading only 1/2 the book.


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## RHFC_piper (6 Sep 2007)

HitorMiss said:
			
		

> Sadly the next installment isn't until November I think.



I hate cliffhangers.



			
				HitorMiss said:
			
		

> How about this, I am surprised no one has comments about the leadership and or calls made by higher. I know it's arm chair quarterbacking and falls into the hindsight is 20/20 but I was pretty sure something would have been said. Maybe it's just everyone waiting for the second part of the article.





			
				ArmyVern said:
			
		

> I suspect you're correct D. It'd be akin to writing the book report after reading only 1/2 the book.



Exactly...  Although, I do have my opinions about the event... I just choose not to post them here... yet.


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## Kiwi99 (6 Sep 2007)

What is interesting in what follows about Charles Companys fight on Sept 3rd, is the way it mirrored almost exactly what happened a month to the day prior in the same place at the same school.


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## HItorMiss (6 Sep 2007)

Kiwi

You know that has been talked about a time or two....

One would have thought that perhaps a different approach would have been sought after by the general and his planning staff.


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## MG34 (6 Sep 2007)

After seeing th ground from both north and south, why a southern appoach was considered at all is the big question, it's odd that nobody has lost their job over some of what happened over there.


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## GAP (6 Sep 2007)

Have been in operations where we questioned the sanity of the deciding command as to why we were to do it a particular way. A couple I remember quite vividly would have resulted in us getting slaughtered if we had gone the logical way....they had lanes covered by secondary lanes/bunker systens, etc....kinda like the goldfish bowl concept....


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## Greymatters (6 Sep 2007)

HitorMiss said:
			
		

> No comments, no analysis nothing? I am kinda shocked really.



On top of waiting for the story to finish, I think there are very few people qualified to pass judgement on what was right and wrong about the decisons made during that time.


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## vonGarvin (6 Sep 2007)

OK, a year later, the monday morning quarterbacks are coming out of the woodwork. I wasn't there, I don't know what the General was thinking at that time, or what all the conditions were that made him make the executive decision to go ahead.  All I can say is this: get ALL the facts or STFU.  Heck, soldiers have always second guessed decisions from on high, from Carthage to Juno Beach to "The White School".  Soldiers will continue to do so.  All I can say is this: the enemy always gets a vote in your tactical plan, and maybe 3 September 2006 was the day that they voted most strongly.  I don't know: I wasn't there.


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## HItorMiss (6 Sep 2007)

I agree that his seemingly biased spin is not what I personally was looking for.

What concerned me in the article itself was BGen Fraser comments such as "I don't care about the Plan" that to me is worrisome in any leader. We come up with plans to guide the flow of the battle. I agree 100% that no plan survives contact with the enemy but there was no contact with the enemy until we rushed the plan. Would 3 days of Arty and Direct Fire and Air strikes have made a difference, I have no idea. I know that the concussive force of it may well have wore down some resolve to stay and fight and it "MAY" have broken up some of the defensive positions they used for their fighting postions.

In the end though I know only the small picture of how to fight a battle (section and Pl level) and maybe the rudiments that there is a much much grander scheme of maneuver. I do know that no attack should be done without proper Recce when you have the time to insure it is done. A hasty attacks exist for a reason and this should not have become a Hasty attack. But let's get one thing straight this is all MY OPINION and that opinion is the opinion of a simple Cpl.


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## Kiwi99 (6 Sep 2007)

Interesting article.  Maybe a bit bias, no bog deal.  I believe that by showing that bias he was able to really get across the feelings of the soldiers in the company.  It is hard to put emotion into a story when you don't pick a side.  Glad it got bought up as well.  I am intimatley familiar with the battle area of that day  and can totally understand how pissed the roops in that company must be.  When they relieved us in Aug we talked with Charles Company leadership  (JNCO,SNCO and Officer) about that area and what had happened to us.  They knew what they were getting into and they were under the impression that they would have the resources they needed.  But to send them in  with 15-30mins notice, as stated in the article, is irresponsible.  Big thumbs to the dudes in Charles Company for their efforts that day, bloody well done.  It is a shame that you were let down.  You are not alone though,  I know exactly how many of you feel about certain people and I agree 110%

Kiwi


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## Kiwi99 (7 Sep 2007)

Furthermore, maybe there is too much emphasis on Fraser being the guy to blame.  He may have planned Medusa, but it is the CO that has too meet the intent.  Bde Comd tells him to take the school.  CO comes up with a plan and the comany carries it out.  Going straight up the guts, espcially in that enviroment, was a bit nutso, (and I am qualified to say that).  But the Bde commander does not tell them how to take and objective, he simply tells them what objective to take.  The man in question may be many things, but after a good discussion at work, he is responsible for planning Medusa, not for planning a cbt team attack.


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## HItorMiss (7 Sep 2007)

Intresting take and not one I disagree with totally. However I will counter that when not given enough time to plan a proper scheme of maneuver what is a left for options except the know route which was semi proved from the last days small Recce? As well the original plan that everyone knew had the same route(ish). Something else that should be taken into account is that there were few if any other places to cross that river bed that were covered by fire and that as well channeled the assault force. Personally I believe the actions taken by 99er on that day to have been very bad judgement and his words since to be well troubling.

In defence of LCol Lavoie could he have changed the attack plan, I would say certainly but not without repositioning his entire BG and then giving even further delay to carrying out Gen Fraser desire to attack at once. Either way rock and hard place right. Attack now using a route you are semi sure will get your forces across safely but may not be the best route to attack from and follow your commanders intent OR you can delay the commanders intent and further raise his ire and reposition an entire BG and in so doing perhaps change the entire course of the maneuver scheme for Medusa.

I don't see it being a win/win for the CO.


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## RCR Grunt (7 Sep 2007)

Kiwi99 said:
			
		

> What is interesting in what follows about Charles Companys fight on Sept 3rd, is the way it mirrored almost exactly what happened a month to the day prior in the same place at the same school.



From what I understood from the orders group, the actions the month prior were taken into account.  The intent was to employ a feint,  go in the same way the Patricia's did a month prior.  Timmy sees this, Timmy says "Oh!  Here we go again!  Places everyone!"  Then, instead of the frontal, we stop, wait, and BOOM!  Al these simultaneous precision strikes were to occur to cut the head off the snake, then 3 days bombing and plinking to convince them that all is lost, then stroll across the river and waltz through Panjwai district .... ofcourse we all know something completely different happened.

Kiwi, I think I rode as your gunner back from Spin on your return to KAF...


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## Brad Sallows (7 Sep 2007)

This is exactly the sort of action that would make an intriguing article if it were written by someone with the time, energy, and motivation to read the war diary, signal logs, and all other accessible associated documents of record; and to interview every involved participant humanly possible.  Otherwise, each person is like the blind man describing his part of an elephant - which isn't too embarrassing, unless you're the guy who had the bad luck to wind up at the back end.


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## amcd (8 Sep 2007)

As to Brad Sallows comment, yes, I agree. I spent literally months investigating this story, trying to find information, but it's not so easy to track everybody down and convince them to talk. And yes, I would love to see the radio logs. I have tried to get them, really tried, but have had no luck so far.

(I am the author of the story above, btw.)

On the topic of getting more information, I have a request. I would like to hear from anyone who was in Panjwai between Aug. 3 and Oct. 14, 2006. I'm not looking for anything controversial (the controversial part is done), I just want to hear stories from guys who were there. PM me and I can set it up through public affairs if necessary.


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## Babbling Brooks (9 Sep 2007)

For any who are interested, I spoke with BGen Fraser at the CFC in Toronto on Friday afternoon about this, and have posted some of that conversation along with my own thoughts on the matter here:

http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2007/09/hindsight-on-medusa.html


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## HItorMiss (9 Sep 2007)

Brooks I read your piece, You write well. But since I don't believe a word Fraser says I think it's a useless piece of damage control on his part. But again that's my opinion.


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## Garett (9 Sep 2007)

> DB: The question is whether you were able to maximize losses to the enemy and minimize losses to yourself at the same time, and that's the question that's really being asked.
> 
> DF: A thousand to five...*but quite frankly one is too many*...



If thats true, then we shouldn't be there.


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## midget-boyd91 (9 Sep 2007)

HitorMiss said:
			
		

> Brooks I read your piece, You write well. But since I don't believe a word Fraser says I think it's a useless piece of damage control on his part. But again that's my opinion.



Was there any feeling among you folks on the ground that the Taliban would filter away during three days of bombardment?


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## HItorMiss (9 Sep 2007)

To answer your question without violating OPSEC is not easy however I can say that were there avenues of escape available, Yes there were, could they have done so without being picked up by higer assets and then engaged by a follow on force or asset, not likely. Again IMO


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## Brad Sallows (10 Sep 2007)

One of the most common criticisms mounted by armchair hindsight generals is that "so-and-so should have moved sooner".


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## 1feral1 (10 Sep 2007)

That Legion article had my hair standing up on the back of my neck.

Looking forward to the next part.

A whole new generation of Vets having their story told in yet another war.

Good on ya's,

Wes


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## Babbling Brooks (10 Sep 2007)

HitorMiss, you could well be right, it could be damage control on the general's part (although I spoke to more than just Fraser on this issue).  As I said, I don't know enough to be sure.  But I'm not sure anyone other than Fraser knows enough to be sure.  I don't think we'll really know until we can look at the intel he had - and that could take years to see the light of day.

Not much comfort in that for the guys who had to go in there, though.  I really wish _they_ could have the decision explained in a bit more detail than he's giving, but such is OPSEC, I guess.


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## Old Sweat (10 Sep 2007)

The following editorial from the Ottawa Citizen of 10 September 2007, which is re-produced under the provisions of the Copyright Act, dicusses the theme of the article in general terms. It does not take sides other than to note that the comparision to the First World War is a bit much.

Warring expectations
The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Monday, September 10, 2007

Modern warfare has evolved, and so have the expectations of the people watching from home. We expect our side to win every battle, and to do it with few, if any, casualties.

And most of the time, that expectation is met, and we at home forget just how astonishing that is. How different from wars past when Canada put uniforms on civilians and sent them across the ocean to be killed. We sometimes forget that during the First World War our boys -- and they were boys -- were slaughtered en masse fighting for an inch or two of mud.

An article in the recent edition of Legion Magazine has sparked an animated discussion about a battle that happened in Afghanistan a year ago in the Taliban heartland.

It was the beginning of Operation Medusa. Coalition forces had the enemy surrounded. The Canadian general in charge could have waited a few days, ordering air strikes to "soften" the Taliban so that the final Canadian assault would be easier. Instead, he sensed an opportunity and chose to attack. Four Canadian soldiers died and 10 were wounded.

Soldiers and civilians have the prerogative to study and question battlefield decisions, to glean what lessons we can. But we must also maintain some perspective.

The writer of the Legion Magazine piece describes the battle as "an old-fashioned WWI-style assault into the guns, albeit on a smaller scale. It was the charge of Charles Company." The allusion to the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War seems hyperbolic, as does the comparison to the First World War. It's a bit like saying the difference between a summer thunderstorm and a hurricane is only one of scale. The Canadian losses in Afghanistan do not compare with the bloodbaths -- scores and scores of soldiers dead in a day -- at the Somme, Ypres, Passchendaele.

Soldiers have always had reason to grumble and be skeptical, even in those days. The men who fought at Ypres had to put up with the eccentricities of the defence minister, Sir Sam Hughes, who defended the problematic Ross Rifle and patented a shield-shovel that was useless at either function. The worth of Dieppe, in the Second World War, will probably always be debated. The recent controversy over a display at the Canadian War Museum, about the bombing of German cities in the Second World War, shows how long these debates can last. Even hindsight cannot always discern wisdom or error in war.

The general who made the critical decision in Afghanistan has argued that Operation Medusa was a blow to the Taliban, in which Canadians showed remarkable bravery. Obviously we all would have preferred that it be won without a single Canadian casualty. Pte. William Cushley, Warrant Officer Frank Mellish, Warrant Officer Richard Nolan and Sgt. Shane Stachnik are missed.

But it's also fair to question the expectation, unspoken though it usually is, that Canadian soldiers will only die if commanders make mistakes. War is dangerous, and always has been. We are lucky to live in an age that mourns every soldier as he or she deserves to be mourned, that counts every death and remembers every face.


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## HItorMiss (10 Sep 2007)

Intresting editorial....

How about this, 2 Pl's of Charles rushed across a river bed with American and ANA attachments into a heavily defended enemy strong hold with properly sighted field's of fire, from everything I have studied on WW1 and many of the hasty efforts from WW2 seems pretty much on par with going over the top or storming the beach. Mind you as the author of the article points out it was a smaller scale. Maybe the person who wrote the editoral should do a little research before trying to down play or remove the parallels in history. I know the author did.

I say the same about TF1-06 units that attacked the School house as well, sometimes you need to do something twice before you learn I guess....


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## footsoldier32 (12 Sep 2007)

Ok, so I have to put my two sense in here.  All I have to say about this whole scheme of talk is that I think many should be carefull talking about something that they know nothing about.  There are a few of you who do know about the ground issues (and I fully understand your issues), but there was one comment about the CO, that I will not tolerate without a comment.  There are things that you may never be privy to and I am not going to comment on them here, but please understand that 9 TF3-06 is a man who fought tooth and nail for his soldiers and I have witnessed it countless times.  He is an extremely intelligent man whom I would follow into the gates of hell armed with only a squirt gun. So, in my opinion, he is well outside the fall of shot of a couple of the comments.  To the soldiers from both C Coys commenting on here...Never Pass a Fault and as a great PPCLI WO told me once that the PPCLI reply to that was Never Admit to One.  Have a Royal Day.


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## ArmyRick (12 Sep 2007)

I will keep my opinion to my self (I was NOT there). But I have talked to guys in that battle. Its interesting some of things that happened.


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## McG (12 Sep 2007)

It is probably time for this thread to be locked. At least until the final installment of the article.  Names are being hauled through the mud, and for OPSEC reasons it is very unlikely that the owners of those names can be defended (at least, not in any more detail than a simple "STFU because I know better" statement ... and those never go well).

As always, appeals can be made to Mike Bobbitt for the lock to be removed early.


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## FascistLibertarian (2 Apr 2008)

I have been reading up on Operation Medusa and was just wondering if anyone had or knew where to find (if they are open source of course) maps showing the disposition and movement of the the various units involved in the operation.

Thank you very much.


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## RHFC_piper (2 Apr 2008)

FascistLibertarian said:
			
		

> I have been reading up on Operation Medusa and was just wondering if anyone had or knew where to find (if they are open source of course) maps showing the disposition and movement of the the various units involved in the operation.
> 
> Thank you very much.



I believe you will have a very hard time finding accurate maps depicting the battle... at least for now.  That area is still in use/occupied and a lot of the maps would/could be considered OpSec.  

There are, however, some interesting graphical maps/interpretations floating around the archives of some MSM sites.. They're not very accurate, but they're pretty close.

If you do find some maps, please let me know... I've been looking as well.  I have some maps of the area and I've marked them as to where I believe we were, but I could be wrong.  Most of my memory of those days are pretty blurry... 

Good luck.


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## westie47 (2 Apr 2008)

Any idea when the next two parts of the story are coming out????


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## FascistLibertarian (2 Apr 2008)

> That area is still in use/occupied and a lot of the maps would/could be considered OpSec.



True. I am sure in the future it will be open source. Thanks anyways!

Stuff like this is just much easier for me to understand on a map:

_Lavoie's Canadian force was Charles Company in the south, coming through Bazaar-e-Panjwai, with Bravo Company in the north, fighting southward. On one flank was Task Force 31, comprised of coalition--mainly U.S.--Special Forces and also Task Force Grizzly, an American company. With a Danish squad in position to the west and a Dutch Company patrolling the perimeter to the north, the enemy were pretty much surrounded.

Op Medusa began at first light on Sept. 2 with an attack on two axes, with the main effort being in the south. There, Sprague and Charles Company, in the main, were to seize the high features around Panjwai--Masum and Mar Ghar--and isolate the town of Panjwai itself. They would advance right up to the south bank of the Arghandab River, but not across._


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## midget-boyd91 (2 Apr 2008)

Here is a pdf map of Panjwayi. You can magnify it quite a bit and see some detail.
http://www.aims.org.af/maps/district/kandahar/panjwayi.pdf

Midget


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## RHFC_piper (2 Apr 2008)

FascistLibertarian said:
			
		

> True. I am sure in the future it will be open source. Thanks anyways!
> 
> Stuff like this is just much easier for me to understand on a map:
> 
> ...



You can find Bazaar-e-Panjwai and Masum Gahr on Google Earth; that where we (C Coy) were sitting on the 2nd.   Then we moved north on the 3rd, across the Arghandab...  Thats about the best map you're going to find for now.  Hope that helps a bit.


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## Haletown (3 Apr 2008)

Anyone looking for a crisply written account of operations in Afghanistan - Yesterday I received my Winter 2008 edition of the  Canadian Military History Journal  (http://www.wlu.ca/lcmsds/cmh/cmhindex.html)  and there is an OPSEC cleared article by  Sean M. Maloney   "Incursion at Howz-e-Mada, An Afghanistan Vignette" (pg 63-78)

Very well written, rich in details including maps and photos to assist with the written terrain analysis and extensive use of "insider type" information - 

Great read.


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## Armymedic (1 Aug 2010)

The rest of the articles:

http://www.legionmagazine.com/en/index.php/2007/11/operation-medusa-the-battle-for-panjwai-2/


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## Armymedic (1 Aug 2010)

the final installment:

http://www.legionmagazine.com/en/index.php/2008/01/operation-medus-part-3-the-fall-of-objective-rugby/


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