Original subtitles

Narrator: A drug-crazed murderous warlord

has captured 11 peace-keeping soldiers.

[ Grunts ]

He was a paranoid schizophrenic --

mad, basically.

Narrator: An elite special forces unit is mobilized.

Dozier: These guys are united in the ability to

just keep going when the going is hellish.

Narrator: A daring and dangerous plan is drawn up.

The odds were against us, totally.

Narrator: As executions are threatened,

the special forces explode into action.

They are outnumbered five to one,

they are outgunned with heavy artillery,

and their enemy believes in black magic.

Now on "black ops,"

go behind the scenes on a mission so dangerous,

they call it "operation certain death."

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

August 2000, Sierra Leone,

a small war-torn nation on the west African coast.

[ Gunshots ]

For almost a decade,

a loose alliance of murderous rebel gangs

has been fighting for control of the country.

Their leaders are driven by the prospect of fabulous wealth.

This is the world center of

the trade in illegal blood diamonds.

Blood diamonds had become an extraordinarily important factor

in the violence which was going on.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

Narrator: There are daily raids on undefended rural villages.

The rebels often take all the children away,

turning them into child soldiers.

Those left behind were often punished by amputation.

They would chop arms off

short-sleeve or long-sleeve style.

So, short-sleeve was above the elbow.

Long-sleeve was below the elbow.

The aim of doing so

was to spread terror across the country

in some strange way to prove their power.

Narrator: One of the most brutal of these gangs

is a group of about 1,000 fighters

known as the West Side boys.

Lewis: The West Side boys --

drugs and alcohol,

that's how they fueled their war.

Hoon: They were rounding up local women,

and there's little doubt that sex and drugs

featured quite prominently in their behavior and activities.

So they were a dangerous group of people

simply because they were totally unpredictable.

Lewis: If that wasn't bad enough,

they had this belief that voodoo would protect them

to such an extent it would make them bulletproof.

Narrator: One man who served

nearly two years with the West Side boys

is 26-year-old black Zorro.

He was recruited by the rebels, age just 14,

and rose to become a trusted junior officer.

[ Speaking indistinctly ]

Interpreter: Well, we used to smoke plenty of marijuana,

and as for drink,

we had lots of homemade strong alcohol called hard wine.

Cocaine was sometimes available,

but heroin was all over the place.

If you went to the jungle at that time,

you would find everybody high on heroin.

I was often high all day.

The drugs made me feel strong and ready for battle.

As soon as I took them, I was ready for any fight.

Narrator: To save Sierra Leone from total collapse,

a global coalition intervenes with military force.

British troops, in particular,

play a leading role in keeping the peace

and in training the local army to stand on its own.

Hoon: We were demonstrating a wider commitment of the Western world

to what, at the time, was a struggling democracy

in a very poor part of Africa.

So I think that was an important symbolic value

in our intervention.

Narrator: On a quiet Friday afternoon,

11 military training advisers

from britain's royal Irish regiment

set out on a routine patrol.

At this junction,

their commander, major Alan Marshall,

decides to turn down a dirt road,

leading into the jungle.

He is heading straight into

the heart of the West Side boys' territory.

Interpreter: I don't know why they left the main road

and came into our territory.

It was a no-go zone for anybody except us.

Lewis: The unofficial reason may be

that he was actually there with a mission

to try and scope out what their forces were like,

how powerful they were,

what weapons they were armed with,

and what they would be like as a fighting force

to come up against.

Narrator: The British don't realize they've already been spotted

by West Side boys' scouts hiding in the forest.

Interpreter: We saw them as a major threat.

They came to our camp without authorization.

We didn't know their intentions,

and we thought they were here to spy on us,

so we couldn't just let them leave.

Lewis: They reached the riverside,

where one side of the rebel base is situated,

and immediately that they get there...

[ Gunfire ]

...they're surrounded by what can only be described as

a seething, screaming mob of West Side boys.

Narrator: Heavily outnumbered, and with no means of escape,

the soldiers are forced to surrender.

It's very clear very quickly

that this is not a friendly situation.

Narrator: The well-trained, well-armed British

are taken prisoner by

this crazed mob of drugged-out jungle gangsters.

[ Grunts ]

Interpreter: We arrested the soldiers

to get attention from the international community.

We wanted to stop hiding in the jungle,

and we thought we could use them to get what we wanted.

Narrator: The 11 British soldiers

are beaten,

stripped of their valuables,

and taken off to a stinking jungle hut.

[ Bell chiming ]

At ministry of defence headquarters in London,

news of the missing soldiers reaches britain's chief general.

We weren't sure just how serious it was to start with.

I knew about the West Side boys.

I'd been to Sierra Leone.

I'd been briefed about them.

But I wasn't quite sure what they would do.

Narrator: General Guthrie and defence secretary hoon

convene a crisis meeting

in their situation room deep in the basement.

Guthrie: Problem was --

how were we going to get these people

who'd been kidnapped, who were in tremendous danger,

from either being tortured, killed,

or split up around Sierra Leone?

So there was a real urgency about this.

Lewis: They knew nothing. They had no intelligence.

They had no eyes on the rebel base.

They didn't know the rebel numbers.

They didn't know what weaponry they had.

And most worryingly of all,

they didn't know whether the British soldiers

would get killed in the rescue operation.

Narrator: The British are haunted by the memory of

another disastrous hostage crisis in Africa

seven years earlier.

This was the infamous black hawk down incident.

18 American servicemen were killed

when their helicopters were shot down by a rocket

and their bodies paraded through

the streets of mogadishu, Somalia.

Obviously, reports are going to the prime minister.

He would be briefed.

Guthrie: And I remember him saying, "well, this is very dangerous."

I said, "yes, very dangerous."

"Are people likely to be killed?"

I said, "almost certainly."

Narrator: Terrified of the fallout from a failed rescue,

the British government decides to

try and negotiate for the hostages' release.

Hoon: My instinct was always that

British soldiers could not be taken prisoner

without us taking clear action to release them.

At the same time, I recognized that

that could come through negotiation.

Narrator: If negotiations fail,

there will be no choice but to take the hostages back by force.

[ Shouting, gunshots ]

Narrator: Deep in the jungles of a war-torn African country,

a group of 1,000 drug-crazed rebel fighters,

the West Side boys...

Have taken 11 British soldiers hostage.

These soldiers are part of

an international peace-keeping effort

to end Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war.

But while out on a routine patrol,

they drove straight into

the heart of West Side boys' territory

and were captured.

[ Grunts ]

I was perfectly content for negotiations to be begun,

but, I have to say, in the background, as well,

we were always preparing to take military action

to release them.

Narrator: Three days into the crisis,

a team of specialist negotiators from Scotland yard

arrive in Africa.

They will try to peacefully secure the hostages' release.

Leading the talks on the rebels' side

is their commander, a 24-year-old warlord

calling himself

"brigadier general" foday kallay.

[ Gunfire ]

Lewis: Kallay was paranoid schizophrenic.

He was certainly very paranoid and very deluded.

Interpreter: Foday kallay was the best commander we had.

He was a skilled soldier, and he led from the front.

Lewis: He was so deluded, to the extent that he believed

his rebel group had the power to, for example,

force the British out of Sierra Leone.

Interpreter: Everybody knew that

when he gave orders you had to follow them

because he took responsibility for all his soldiers.

Narrator: At his first meeting with the negotiators,

kallay makes a rambling series of demands.

These range from simply

wanting an amnesty for the West Side boys

to outrageously insisting all British leave the country.

Most insanely of all,

kallay himself wants to be named president of Sierra Leone.

Morrison: In some cases,

it will quite apparent from the early situation

that the prospect of a successful negotiated solution

with the victims coming out unharmed is low.

Narrator: The negotiators are walking a dangerous tightrope.

Kallay's demands can never be met,

but the team must make him believe they might.

The hope is that as long as he keeps talking,

the hostages will be kept alive.

Morrison: Clearly, they didn't wish to kill them at the outset

and they saw some value in them,

and that's why they kept them alive.

So that was the good news.

The bad news in this situation

is the unpredictability and the volatility,

so in the blink of an eye, you can move from

a situation where you have

stable, well-treated hostages

to them being killed.

Narrator: To confirm that the hostages are being well-treated,

the negotiators insist on meeting with major Marshall,

the patrol leader, in person.

Kallay agrees.

It's a decision he will come to regret.

Lewis: Major Marshall, the man who was in charge of

the British patrol that had been captured --

he recognized in these meetings

an opportunity to pass over some vital intelligence

in a clandestine fashion to the British side.

The people who have been abducted here

were professional military people.

They foresaw, you know, where this was going.

What he had done is, during the various walkabouts

that the rebels had proudly given them of the base,

saying, "there is our anti-aircraft weapons,

and there are our mortars," and these kind of things --

during those walkabouts, major Marshall had noted down

every single defense that he could see.

Back in their room,

where they were locked in in captivity,

he had drawn up a detailed map of the rebel base,

mapping out all the positions and all their strengths.

And he'd taken that piece of paper,

rolled it up very tightly,

and poked it inside a pen lid.

Narrator: When major Marshall meets

one of the men from Scotland yard,

they shake hands...

And make a secret exchange.

If kallay spots what they are doing,

it will be a disaster.

But incredibly,

the negotiator manages to put the object in his pocket

without being noticed.

Morrison: I wouldn't characterize these as

a highly professional group of hostage takers.

The fact that they allowed that handshake

allowed the exchange of intelligence.

That was not a shrewd move on their part.

Narrator: It's an unexpected, but crucial breakthrough.

At last, the British have some intelligence

to begin planning a rescue mission.

And there is only one group

that has the skills to carry it out --

britain's legendary special-forces unit...

...the s.A.S.

They are the pioneers in the art of black ops,

with a history stretching back as far as world war ii.

Dozier: The s.A.S., the British special air services --

they are the special-operations force

that we modeled all of our special-operations after.

They set the model for the rest of us to follow.

Narrator: Through the years,

they have constantly adapted and improved,

playing a crucial role in every major British conflict.

From the streets of northern Ireland

to the polar wastes of the Falkland Islands

to the deserts of Iraq,

the s.A.S. Are famous for

being ready to fight in any environment

and to carry out their missions with absolute secrecy.

Go! Go, go, go!

Small unit, just a few hundred people,

the elite of the elite.

They have to go through a brutal entry course

to prove that they measure up.

It washes the majority of the applicants out.

Narrator: Those that make it through

the notoriously difficult selection course

are honored by having the s.A.S. Wings and dagger

pinned, or badged, to their army berets.

I joined the army to be a soldier

and take up the duties that that includes.

And as a badge member of the s.A.S.,

that is about as pure as the driven snow as you can get

in terms of soldiery.

Narrator: The s.A.S. Have two particular specialties.

One is storming difficult targets.

In London, in 1980,

they famously rescued 19 hostages...

[ Woman screaming ]

...breaking a terrorist siege of the iranian embassy.

They don't have all the special gear

that the Americans have.

What the s.A.S. Guys will tell you is, "yes.

What we lack in gear, we have to make up for in skills."

Narrator: Their other great skill is jungle warfare.

[ Soldiers yelling indistinctly ]

Jungle warfare is, in many people's eyes,

one of the purest forms of fighting.

You've got to really get attuned in with your surroundings.

There's no open spaces. It's closed in.

It's a tight environment.

It's always on top of you.

Narrator: Now the unit is preparing to

put both of these specialties into practice

and start planning an audacious rescue

using the smuggled map.

The crisis has been dragging on for almost seven days,

but the negotiators continue to

try and seek a peaceful settlement.

Kallay is now asking for something more reasonable --

some medicine for his camp

and a satellite telephone so he can call the media

and announce his grievances to the world.

The British quickly agree

if they can have some hostages in return.

Morrison: That was a major, major negotiating success.

Five hostages were released

in exchange for a satellite phone and medicines.

Now, that was a win-win situation

because, one, it is worthwhile

having effective and good communications

with the hostile elements,

two, medicines are a good idea,

particularly if they're gonna be used

to treat any of your individuals,

and, three, it provides an intelligence opportunity.

Narrator: It's a masterstroke

which will change the course of the operation.

Almost half of the men are now free.

What's more,

the British can use the signal from the satellite phone

to pinpoint kallay's secret hideout.

Unknown to him,

or anyone outside a select inner circle,

a task force has arrived in Sierra Leone

to begin secret preparations for a rescue.

It consists of about 300 men.

Most are from britain's front-line airborne force,

the parachute regiment,

known to all in the British army as simply "the paras."

But they are merely there as support troops.

The rescue itself will be handled by

a 50-strong team from the elite special air service,

the s.A.S.,

and about 20 colleagues

from the British royal Navy's own special-forces unit,

the s.B.S., or special boat service.

To avoid arousing any suspicion,

their mission is given an innocuous code name --

operation barras.

Hoon: I've often asked, how on earth did britain choose

these rather curious names for its operation

in contrast to the United States

that talks about operation freedom

and has rather dramatic names for their military activities?

And the answer is, I'm afraid,

rather prosaic and probably very British,

which is that we allow a computer

to generate randomly names

that are then, provided they're appropriate,

allocated accordingly.

Narrator: With the tacit support of the Sierra Leone government,

the men of operation barras establish a covert base

just outside the capital.

It wasn't until that we moved forward into Sierra Leone itself

that the focus starts coming down.

And then you start thinking, "right, this is gonna happen."

Your kit's being packed

as to what you want to take in with you.

You're beginning to get a bit more intelligence.

Briefing boards are going up.

We need to be ready for it.

Narrator: The s.A.S. Start gathering as much intelligence as they can

about the rebels and their jungle hideout.

Their preferred plan is

to send a small team upriver at night in s.B.S. Boats.

Moving in total darkness and total silence,

the rescue team can secretly enter the rebel camp,

sneak into the hostage hut,

and quickly escape with the prisoners --

hopefully without a shot being fired.

As the troops wait for the green light,

they begin rehearsing for their mission.

Campion: There was a floor plan built of the village

so that you knew roughly how far you had to go,

what your limits of your particular arcs were

and that sort of stuff --

an arc being

where you can fire and where you can't fire.

At the height of battle, it could become quite confusing

as to who's where and who's doing what.

This...

Narrator: But there's still

no permission to mount the rescue.

The final go can only come from

defence secretary Geoff hoon in London.

The fate of the six remaining British hostages

hangs in the balance.

If a bargain cannot be struck for their lives,

there will be an epic battle to free them.

[ Gunfire ]

Narrator: Deep in the jungles of Sierra Leone,

six British soldiers remain hostages

of an African gang known as the West Side boys.

Fueled by drugs and voodoo,

these rebels are notorious for their brutal methods --

looting...

Amputations...

Rape...

And murder,

even on children.

At the head of this thousand-strong force

is foday kallay,

a drunken maniac with delusions of grandeur.

[ Speaking indistinctly ]

Interpreter: The brits were cocky.

We would give them orders, and they would say, "no.

We won't accept your command."

They were extremely stubborn, actually.

Sometimes we would talk to them,

tell them what to do,

and they would ignore us.

They really did not make life easy for themselves.

Sometimes kallay would have to slap them around a bit

to make them understand.

He would shake them up and hit them hard.

He had to treat them roughly so they knew he was in charge.

Narrator: Defence secretary Geoff hoon

has still not authorized a full-scale rescue mission...

...but he has given the go-ahead

for a secretive and highly dangerous operation.

A four-man s.A.S. Surveillance team

stealthily enters the jungle.

Their job is to provide more detailed intelligence

about conditions in the rebel base.

In the first place,

they had to be inserted around the village --

actually meant that some of them spent several days in swamp,

crawling through some of the most unpleasant conditions

I think anyone could face.

Narrator: Moving and operating in total silence

and advancing just a few feet each hour.

The men slowly approach rebel territory,

looking for a concealed position

where they can see but not be seen.

Lewis: That team was tasked with

setting up an observation post, an o.P.

An o.P. -- It's like a grave dug in the jungle floor.

Dozier: They know how to quietly get into a scene if necessary,

whether it's marching into a jungle invisibly

and sitting in an observation post

under a tarp for three weeks,

staring at a target --

nobody knows they're there.

That's what they do.

Lewis: You dig a pit, you jump in the pit,

you cover it with vegetation,

and you lie there for as long as it takes

to keep eyes on the base

until either the mission is called in and it happens

or the mission's called off, and you withdraw.

Narrator: This kind of surveillance is another s.A.S. Specialty,

and it takes incredible reserves of patience and skill.

The men must eat, sleep, and maintain their watch

for days on end,

making only the smallest of movements.

Dozier: Throughout the special-operations world,

they have this expression "the quiet professionals."

And these guys, when they're out on the mission,

that's really what they are.

Narrator: Straightaway,

they discover three pieces of bad news.

First, the captives are no longer in the rebel base

where they were originally taken hostage.

They have been moved across a wide river

to a smaller camp, even deeper into the jungle.

Second, the original plan for the assault along the river

will not work.

It is full of concealed sandbanks,

and the special-forces boats can't use it.

On top of that, the jungle is so thick

that an approach by land is also impossible.

The only option is a full frontal assault by helicopter.

Campion: If we'd have sneaked up and not fired a shot,

taken everybody down without killing anybody,

then that would have been the preferred option.

As it was, it couldn't pan out that way.

We couldn't get to them.

We couldn't do it that way, so, you know,

we had to go in and give them a bloody nose.

Narrator: The only helicopter up to the job

is one of the biggest in the world...

...the twin-rotor ch-47 chinook.

But an air assault using one of these beasts

has its own specific problems.

Hoon: Well, the obvious thing about a helicopter

is that they are very noisy,

and the element of surprise is lost

if the enemy can hear a helicopter coming at a distance.

Narrator: Chinooks can carry a huge payload,

but they're also slow,

hard to maneuver,

and easy to spot --

hence their unofficial nickname, "the flying school bus."

Guthrie: If a chinook gets hit and knocked out of the sky,

we have a large number of s.A.S. People in it,

and it would be very serious.

Narrator: To make matters worse, most of the West Side boys

remain in their main base on the South side of the river.

They have a battery of heavy weapons,

including rocket-propelled grenades,

heavy machine guns,

and mortars --

any of which could easily shoot a chinook out of the sky

or rain artillery fire down

on the hostage camp across the river.

Any rescue mission would quickly turn into a suicide mission.

The s.A.S. Commanders must rethink the entire operation.

Time is running out.

Rebel leader foday kallay is getting more and more impatient

with the endless rounds of negotiations.

It could change in the blink of an eye.

It was highly unpredictable, highly volatile,

and groups like this had already killed many times before.

Even if they were compliant today,

you could not in any way be assured of

the safety of the hostages tomorrow or the day after.

Narrator: The negotiators from Scotland yard

call kallay daily on a satellite phone,

but with each conversation, he becomes more unpredictable.

He is spending his days taking drugs

and drinking heavily.

By the start of every afternoon, he is thoroughly drunk.

Eventually, due to the lack of electricity in his camp,

kallay's phone runs out of battery

and goes dead.

Guthrie: We had a message saying,

"negotiations have failed."

Narrator: The safety of the hostages

is now at serious risk.

Interpreter: One evening, he called us all out

and said, "we're going to shoot one of them."

He took major Marshall, the British commander,

to the edge of the jungle,

made him kneel.

They put an assault rifle to his head...

And basically pulled the trigger.

[ Gun clicks ]

Narrator: Kallay's rifle is empty.

But next time, in all likelihood,

it will be loaded.

When news of this outrage arrives in London,

Geoff hoon decides that

the time for talking is finally over.

We were certainly receiving very detailed information

about what was going on inside the huts

where our men were being held prisoner,

and I think one of the key pieces of information I received

is that they were being subject to mock executions.

Weapons were being pointed at them,

apparently being fired.

[ Gunfire ]

And that kind of behavior was totally unacceptable

as far as I was concerned.

Narrator: Operation barras is a go.

Everyone involved in the mission

knows the odds are stacked heavily against them.

In fact, the mission is so dangerous,

the men on the ground have given it their own name.

When they realized they could go in via air,

that was when the men of the s.A.S.,

the men who were tasked to go in and do this hostage rescue,

coined the phrase, the nickname for the mission,

"operation certain death."

Narrator: Assuming they even make it to their target

without being shot out of the sky,

the rescue force will be outnumbered

more than five to one,

and their enemy,

who believe black magic makes them invincible bullets,

will fight fearlessly and recklessly.

Interpreter: In a battle,

you don't check to see who you kill.

When I fire my weapon, there will be many victims.

I don't know who is dead or alive.

All I know is when I pull the trigger,

the bullets will be flying around each other,

and no one will be left in front of me.

Narrator: The men of operation barras

are assembling before dawn to launch their attack --

a dangerous air assault on a well-defended jungle hideout.

The mission will be personally overseen

by general Charles Guthrie --

one-time commander of the s.A.S.,

now overall head of britain's armed forces.

Guthrie: We had a very good plan,

but it was a risky plan because in these things,

you never quite know what the enemy are going to do.

Narrator: Guthrie makes things plain to his political masters.

The mission to rescue six British hostages

is likely to incur heavy casualties.

Hoon: General Guthrie made clear

that this operation was not without risk,

that he could not guarantee

that we would not lose soldiers in the process.

Narrator: In an attempt to overcome

the staggering odds facing the rescue team,

general Guthrie signs off on a new strategy --

two simultaneous attacks.

First, a team of about 50 elite s.A.S. Troops

will approach the small jungle camp on the north bank --

gberi bana.

This is where the captives are located,

along with rebel commander foday kallay.

To surprise the rebels,

they will fast rope down from the hovering choppers,

landing just feet from the hostage hut.

Campion: We didn't know what to expect,

so all the time that we know where the hostages are

is the time that we have to act in.

Because if they take them somewhere else,

it's jungles and jungles and jungles.

Narrator: At the same time, the force of 150 paratroopers,

who've been waiting in reserve,

will launch the second attack.

Landing by helicopter on the South side of the river,

they will strike at the main rebel base, magbeni,

to distract a large force of West Side boys there

and disable their heavy weaponry.

The mission is planned for dawn on September 8,

the 15th day of the crisis.

But at the very last moment, there's a hitch.

The s.A.S. Observation team hiding in the jungle

sends an urgent message.

Hoon: The mission was originally planned

for first light on a Saturday morning.

But, in fact, those who had been literally crawling through swamp

in order to get near to the huts and near to the village

took longer than they had planned.

Narrator: The plan requires the observation team

to move within a few feet of the hostage house

to provide covering fire,

but they must move at night at an agonizingly slow pace

to avoid being spotted.

They ask for a 24-hour delay.

Because of the time it took to get into position,

it actually was delayed until Sunday morning.

[ Speaking indistinctly ]

Interpreter: The night before the attack,

everybody was out of it.

We had all been partying.

I was in my hut taking lots of drugs

because it was raining outside.

We had no idea what was about to happen.

Narrator: One day later,

operation certain death finally lifts off.

They fly out to sea and muster off the coast.

Campion: I don't think there was a guy there

that didn't leave a letter with one of his best mates

to give to his loved ones should something happen.

Narrator: Two chinook helicopters

are carrying the 50-strong s.A.S. Contingent,

followed by a third

with the first wave of support troops from the paras.

Each s.A.S. Man is carrying more than 80 pounds of gear,

including his body armor,

his m14 assault rifle,

and enough ammunition and grenades for hours of fighting.

Campion: You know your job inside out by then,

so you know what your mate's gonna be doing.

You know where he's going when he gets off the chopper.

You know what you're gonna do if it doesn't manage to go that way.

The plan's in your face now.

It's stored up here.

You know, you're just waiting for that ramp to come down now,

and you're off.

Narrator: After a 10-minute flight,

the helicopters are on final approach to their targets.

Lewis: The four-man observation team

were in contact with the pilots and telling them,

"you can come in. You can come in.

"There's no one moving. There's no one moving.

It's light enough to see. It's light enough to see."

And so the airborne assault force

flew up to the rebel base,

using the river upon which the rebel base was situated

to hide their progress as they came in.

So the helicopters were invisible to the naked eye,

but far more importantly, you couldn't hear them

because the jungle to either side of the river

masked the approach of the assault.

Narrator: At 6:30 in the morning,

the thunderous noise overhead rouses the rebels.

Interpreter: Early in the morning,

I stepped outside my hut,

and as I was looking around,

I heard a strange sound.

I turned to see a huge helicopter coming in.

Then men started to drop down from ropes onto the ground.

By now, the helicopter was overhead,

making a huge wind.

I was scared.

Narrator: The most urgent objective is the hostage hut.

The entire operation hinges on getting to the captive soldiers

before rebels get there first and execute them.

It is now that the observation team,

who had been lying almost motionless

for a week in the jungle,

finally break cover --

just in time to kill the rebels guarding the hostage hut.

Lewis: They fight their way in there, and they scream out,

"British soldiers! British soldiers!"

British soldiers!

Move, move, move, move, move!

And so the hostages know

it's the friendly force coming to rescue them

that they've been dreaming of happening for some time.

Narrator: Across the river,

in the main rebel stronghold of magbeni,

the support force from the parachute regiment

is slowly approaching their target.

Their mission is to prevent the core group of West Side boys

interfering with the rescue.

But as soon as they reach the edge of the base,

disaster strikes.

Very quickly, things go really quite badly wrong.

A mortar round goes up

and lands in the tree under which

the command element of the parachute regiment guys

is situated.

It explodes in the tree, so it's like an air burst.

And very, very quickly,

you've got the whole command element

of that parachute regiment force

injured and taken out and needing evacuating.

Narrator: The only member of the eight-man command unit

to escape serious injury

is a young officer, captain Danny Matthews.

[ Gunfire ]

He now finds himself

directing a major battle for the first time.

Quickly regrouping his troops,

he orders them to eliminate the main source of danger --

the mortar.

And they take it out.

By this time,

in the smaller jungle camp on the north side of the river,

the rebel army is now fighting back.

The s.A.S. Realize that the battle on the ground

is not going according to their carefully orchestrated plan.

Campion: When I left the chopper,

we took fire from a direction

that we hadn't planned to take fire from.

We all ended up stacked up in a completely different way,

facing a completely different part of the village

than we were going to

because we took so much fire from behind.

Interpreter: I tried to gather my group together

on the edge of the forest.

I took cover behind one of the buildings.

I could see things were getting very hot,

so we moved out.

Hoon: We knew how heavily armed the West Side boys were.

There is little doubt, either,

that they fought and they fought hard

once they realized what was happening.

Narrator: The disciplined special forces

manage to hold the rebels at bay

long enough for the hostages

to be escorted to the helicopter landing zone.

Campion: You can't afford to switch off.

It would be a terrible shame to go through the village,

rescue all the hostages, have a marvelous day out,

and then get shot getting on the chopper on the way out.

Narrator: The mission appears to be on the verge of success,

when one s.A.S. Soldier is hit by a wild spray of gunfire.

[ Gunfire ]

Lewis: A soldier called Brad tinnion,

who was a legend within the s.A.S.,

was hit and seriously wounded.

Narrator: There are several serious casualties

on one side of the river...

A dying s.A.S. Trooper on the other side.

And although the hostages have now been freed,

they are still not out of danger.

The success of operation certain death

hangs in the balance.

Narrator: A fierce battle is raging

on two sides of a jungle river.

200 British troops are fighting to rescue 6 soldiers

taken hostage by the West Side boys,

a brutal African rebel militia 1,000 strong.

These guys are united in the ability to

just keep going when the going is hellish.

Narrator: Although the rebels

could not shoot the British helicopters down,

they have inflicted serious damage

on the two units fighting their way through the jungle.

Campion: The odds were against us, totally.

We flew into their village, into their backyard

with two of the biggest helicopters in the world.

By rights, I mean, if they'd have been switched on,

they should have smashed those choppers

straight out of the sky.

Would have been lucky to get anybody in there.

Narrator: One of the men, trooper Brad tinnion,

is seriously wounded.

Hoon: Tremendous efforts were made, I know,

to save his life.

A helicopter pilot picked him up and took him out

to a ship that we had stationed off Sierra Leone.

Sadly, he had died

before further medical attention could be given to him.

Narrator: By now, all six hostages

have also been flown out to the waiting ship.

In London, general Guthrie,

himself a former special-forces soldier,

receives a coded message from the field

just before appearing live on morning TV.

We decided to attack

the place where the hostages were being kept

at half past 6:00 this morning.

So the situation is still very confused.

There is fighting going on,

but the first indications are that the hostages are safe.

I don't know what condition they are in,

but they are safe.

[ Gunfire ]

Narrator: The hostages may be safe,

but the battle is not yet over.

Interpreter: The men who went to join the battle

were all killed.

Many of them were sharing their hut with me.

I lost most of my friends.

Narrator: Objective number 2 for the s.A.S.

Is the rebel leader foday kallay.

One of the four-man fire teams

is assigned to take down his house.

They basically kick open the doors

and clear each of the rooms.

And in one of those rooms is a bed, you know,

a wooden bed with a mattress on top of it.

And they're about to leave the room

'cause there's no one else in there,

when someone, some smart guy thinks to look under the bed.

And cowering underneath the bed,

not able to move,

not able to say a word

is the West Side boys' leader, foday kallay,

the guy who was demanding that

he be made the president of Sierra Leone.

[ Gunfire ]

Narrator: With their leader now a prisoner himself,

the rest of the West Side boys melt away into the forest.

Interpreter: We had no support left,

so there was no way we could offer resistance

in our part of the village.

All I heard was the sound of British heavy weapons,

so I decided the best thing to do

was escape while I could.

Black Zorro and several others

fled into the jungle

and ran as far as they could from the battlefield.

The British were now left standing alone.

All of the hostages from the royal Irish regiment

made a full recovery.

Many still serve in the British military to this day.

Foday kallay, the rebel leader,

was put on trial and sentenced to 50 years in prison.

The other West Side boys that survived the battle

joined the reconciliation process

and returned to civilian life.

Today black Zorro is homeless,

living on the streets of freetown, the capital city.

Interpreter: Well, the West Side boys broke up,

and everybody went their own ways.

Those that survived have to keep surviving.

Those that were captured have to face up to prison.

And that was the end of us.

We're finished now.

Narrator: Operation barras

had a massive impact on Sierra Leone.

In the months that followed,

rebels all over the country laid down their arms.

Lewis: It sent a message to the rebels

which was clear and could not be misinterpreted --

"if you continue to do what you do,

"we will come after you,

"and we will hunt you down in your rebel bases,

"wherever you are in the jungle

"with ultimate force

and your days are numbered."

Narrator: Today Sierra Leone is still poor,

but it is peaceful.

This one mission brought a decisive end

to years of conflict,

and it's all due to

the skill and bravery of the s.A.S.