AFGHANISTAN - IMMEDIATE RESPONSE, MAJOR MARK HAMMOND DFC

Another first for The Daily Politics, we've been asked to review a book and offered an interview with the author.

I can't tell you much about the book as I don't have a copy yet and won't be interviewing Maj Hammond anytime soon, not having a clue as to what I might ask him, at least not questions with answers that wouldn't get him cashiered. I'll just have to use the journalistic standby of giving you the product blurb.

Major Hammond is a British Royal Marine pilot serving on an exchange with the Chinook force at RAF Odiham. He will deploy to Afghanistan again later this year

2006 in Helmand saw British forces engaged in the most ferocious fighting since the Korean War. For much of the time they were hanging on by their fingertips, holed up in remote platoon houses, outnumbered, facing relentless assault and nearly overwhelmed. Only the Chinooks kept them in the game. But that meant their crews putting down in hot LZs, exposing their aircraft to withering attack from an enemy for whom downing one of the big helos would be the ultimate prize. They had been lucky. So far. Then they launched their biggest operation yet: a complicated, high-risk airborne assault that launched a fleet of heavily armed helicopters into the Afghan Heart of Darkness. And then a report came over the net that one of the Chinooks was down . . . In Immediate Response, Major Mark Hammond, a Royal Marine flying with the RAF, tells the gripping inside story of the Chinook squadrons’ war for the first time. It’s a visceral, unputdownable combination of hi-tech and old-fashioned grit; an action-packed story shot through with a mix of aviation fuel and cordite.

The book is ghost written by Clare Macnaughton, she included some excerpts from the book and this note on her own experiences:

My husband is a Chinook pilot (although not the author Maj Mark Hammond) so it was quite a journey having to delve deeply into a world where I normally bury my head in the sand and pretend that he is not in a war zone at all but just somewhere where his absences continually inconvenience me because usually the kids are always sick and a domestic appliance blows up. Indeed, to have to confront that he actually flies in the face of certain death and that he's not on a beach holiday was significant. For me the threat to the CH47 force is now very real. To some extent I can't believe that 3 weeks ago a Chinook was shot down. Especially after spending a year researching the significance and impact of such an incident to be faced with it head on was shocking to say the least. Fortunately nobody died but I can't help thinking this is just the beginning, ­ at the end of the day there are only so many ways you can land and launch a Chinook and those boots need to get on the ground.

The book is available at Amazon UK (& .com): Immediate Response, Maj Mark Hammond it has ten reviews, all of them favourable.


I'm contemplating submitting some questions to the Major so if anyone would like to ask him anything leave your questions in the comments or email The Editor and I'll publish the responses with my review.

AFGHANISTAN - IMMEDIATE RESPONSE, MAJOR MARK HAMMOND DFC