![]() A Channel 4 documentary, set to air on Sunday night, tells the story of the Kabul airlift from the point of view of the people that made it happen. ![]() But as is so often the case with military missions, the side to the chaos that is never really seen, the story that is rarely told, is that of the soldiers who got people out, and the “moral injuries”, as one wing commander puts it, which they still bear after doing their jobs. They needed to evacuate as many people as possible from an airfield which, within a few hours, would be swarmed by a sea of desperate people.įootage of the panic at Kabul airport – of people running after C-17s and carrying babies through sewage-filled canals – was being projected live around the world as people fled, 20 years of peace destroyed in a flash. Time was against them – in 14 days the Americans would withdraw and Kabul would fall to the Taliban, who by that point were at the city gates. “Well,” he replied, “you may want to have a think about the second one,” and hung up.ĭays later, Sqn Ldr Bird was the first on the ground with a small team in Kabul, preparing for what would be the British military’s biggest airlift since the First World War. If we’re talking Kabul and the Taliban have taken over and it’s the Fall of Saigon two, I need every single person you can give me.” “If we’re talking the Caribbean and it’s hurricane season and it’s a prison, 12. Over the phone, he asked how many people she would need, hypothetically, if she were to embark on an imminent evacuation – where from, he wouldn’t say. She had been away from base in High Wycombe for a couple of days when word got through that her commander had been trying to reach her. In August 2021, Squadron Leader Diana Bird had taken her new team of young RAF Police recruits out on an exercise to teach them how to get used to “being uncomfortable”.
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