• The captain's first reaction was that the news was exaggerated before it crossed his mind that one of the bases might have been compromised.
• Karagita suffered sleepless nights as the near misses and small triumphs of the previous day kept replaying in his mind.
Image: KDF
The shocking news of the al Shabaab attack on KDF's El Adde operation base spoilt the jovial mood of Captain Samwel Karagita Gaita as he sipped his morning tea.
Gaita, who was based at the Manda Naval Base in Lamu, had been leisurely checking the day's happenings on social media when he came across a tweet proclaiming that the al-Shabaab had overrun a KDF base in Somalia.
In the book, The Soldier’s Legacy, Karagita says his first reaction was that the news was exaggerated. Then it crossed his mind that one of the bases might have been compromised.
“Instinctively, I left for my room and got my mission gear ready and awaiting any task that may arise,” he recalls.
A few minutes before reaching his room, the Detachment Commander, Major Mwende informed him that they had less than 10 minutes to be airborne en route to Wajir Forward Operation Base.
The two-hour flight to Wajir seemed to last forever for him.
After refuelling at the base, they were briefed that the El Adde KDF Forward Operation Base was under intense attack by Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices.
“We were ordered to immediately link up with other Joint Helicopter Command aircraft at Busar FOB which was the closest to El Adde,” Karagita recalls.
He and his co-pilot took off low-level to Busar from where other MD500 helicopters operated.
These helicopters had been mobilised from Dhobley and Somalia that morning and had already made two sorties to El Adde, firing rockets at the enemy.
“We came up with an attack plan and took off. In a team of three aircraft, two MD500 and a Z9WE, I saw a thick smoke about 10 nautical miles from El Adde. Moving closer, we saw looters removing stuff from the base.”
Karagita adds, “As soon as we attained a clear range I noticed flashes of exploding anti-aircraft rounds very close to our helicopter's windscreen. I informed Major Mwende who was the pilot-in-command and he immediately banked steeply in an evasive manoeuvre.”
The fighters turned quickly and fired back at the enemy gun until it went silent.
A kilometre away, they saw parts of the base burning as the enemy vehicles rushed to take shelter in El Adde town.
“We shot at them but all of a sudden, we were under fire again. This time it was from a nearby hill where another anti-aircraft weapon had been mounted overlooking the operation base. We kept evading and firing back until we ran out of ammunition,” he recalls.
They returned to Busar for rearming but it was clear that the mission had to change to combat – a Search and Rescue operation for the soldiers who had survived the attack.
Karagita and team refuelled and got airborne. Their search area was a 7km radius from the El Adde base.
“About 30 minutes into our flight, Busar operation base informed us that three soldiers had called for help from a maize plantation six kilometres West of El Adde town. We immediately turned and identified three maize fields in the said area and started searching all the while remaining armed and alert in case of an attack from the ground.”
They circled the fields several times without seeing anything but just as they were about to leave Karagita saw someone wave at them.
“We turned and saw a group of soldiers standing in the plantation, desperately hoping that we had spotted them. We circled around to clear the area and went in for a landing,” he recalls.
Another helicopter kept the watch as they landed.
“I could not help but see the relief on their faces as they climbed the Z9WE helicopter, one of them still having a piece of shrapnel stuck on his forehead. It was heartbreaking to have witnessed the darkest day for the KDF family. Our only consolation was that we had rescued the survivors,” the officer says.
Karagita suffered sleepless nights as the near misses and small triumphs of the previous day kept replaying in his mind.
The search for both survivors and victims of the attack intensified the following day. The search started at Damasa operation base but they exhausted the first fuel load without finding any survivors.
All they saw were four vehicles being towed from the El Adde base.
"We engaged and neutralised the enemy. They scampered into the bushes, abandoning the vehicles.”
About 5km west of the attack site, Karagita spotted another group of soldiers waving at them.
“There they are! There they are!, I shouted excitedly as I pointed to where they were. We circled the area around them before landing. Onboard our helicopter was Major Imbo, the immediate former Officer Commanding the El Adde Operation Base” recalls Karagita.
Major Imbo helped the first batch of wounded soldiers onto the chopper and since it was hard to convince the others to wait for the second round, the other helicopter which was watching overhead was forced to land and evacuate the remaining batch.
Meanwhile, the ground task force conducting the search and rescue operation had encountered several IED reinforced ambush and their armoured personnel carriers destroyed.
One of the survivors rescued by the ground team had gone without water for three days.
“We rescued more soldiers that day while flying low to evade rocket-propelled grenades and small arms. We also provided aerial surveillance for the ground teams as we combed the area until the mission was accomplished,” Karagita says.
It was hectic flying seven hours every day under enemy fire but the effort was worth it.