I was just a private (2)
Somayeh Eslami
Translated by Abbas Haji Hashemi
2015-12-29
Mehr Ali Ebrahim Nejad is a veteran of the Iraq-imposed war on Iran. He went to the battle forefronts while he was still a teenager and fought for the country 90 months of the 94-month (nearly 8-year) war. The following is an excerpt of his Oral History Weekly's interview with about on the occasion of the anniversary of Operation Muharram (Monday, November 1, 1982). Here is the second episode of his interview with.
Eslami: They say it hailed at the night of the operation. What happened then?
Yes, it rained cats and dogs that night. The rain was a divine bounty for us but for the comrades in the Imam Hossein Division it was a disaster.
Eslami: It looks like they had to suffer a huge death toll during the operation?
It's unlikely. I have only heard stories about Imam Hossein division and its casualties. The truth is known only by God. I never pursued the truth. During the reconnaissance operation the nearby river could be crossed by our forces but after the storm, it turned into a torrent which took away a couple of the comrades. You know they drowned two by two as they jumped into the water to save the previous two ones who had jumped into the water to save others. This turned out to become a disaster for the division's forces. This is what we used to hear about their sacrifices. I should say we were already too busy to seek such stories. We just heard stories like this.
It had become somewhat usual to see real deus ex machinas in our operations and one happened during this operation because the comrades were already stressed about the circumstances but the rain and the way they were saved by just chance was enough for them to restore their freshness during the operation.
The rain helped us because it blindfolded the enemy and this allowed us to move more easily in the path we intended to, without being spotted by the enemy. We could climb up the rocks and hills and perform reconnaissance of the region.
Eslami: Didn't the rain hinder your progress?
Not really. We kept moving as we were before it fell rain that night. You know had it not rained we would have to tread forward more carefully not to be heard in our steps, which would slow us down. So, we would pace forward with the same speed with or without the rain.
Eslami: Did you suffer any casualties during the operation?
Yes, but not because of the rain. The sand in the region was in a way that made a sound while you walked on it. Now, consider at least 1000 troops moving at the same time. We were three divisions. A huge lot of people were walking at the same time. The rain did not slow us down, but completely soaked us. After we arrived at the designated spot, we waited a relatively long time for other troops to arrive. I think one of the reasons that caused a delay in the operation was because many guys were killed by drowning in the river.
Eslami: Was it cold?
Absolutely. It was even too cold for the guys to pass water, because they would have to wash themselves and this caused troubles for them in that cold weather. It was very difficult to keep moving under such circumstances.
Anyway, as I was a member of group of a comrades tasked with removal of booby traps and mines, we started off moving forward and were lucky enough that the lands had already been cleared of the mines, so no one had to be killed for removing the mines. You know the way we cleared the mines was by walking on them. This is how our comrades worked. We had assigned a number of volunteers to doing that and I was one of them.
Eslami: How did you share your responsibilities?
Decisions were always impromptu because no one had seen the area before us. The mine field was clear where it started and where it ended. The cleared lands were marked by our comrades for the troops could walk along. We usually marked strip of the land as wide as usually a meter or so for the troops to cross.
One of the interesting things that I saw there was that this guy, Hassan Kasaeian, who was a commander of a nearby division himself, was clearing the lands that was startling for me. A little further I saw this Iraqi guy who was like 4 times my size, I was nearly 48 kg at that time, and when I wanted to shoot this guy I saw my jam was jammed and wouldn’t shoot. I later called on the guys to shoot him and things turned ugly later on. And scuffles began. We were again lucky that there weren’t many Iraqis in the region and we easily outnumbered them and captured the area by an assault. They were only 40 or 50 of them but we were a lot more. As a matter of fact they had not guessed we would have arranged an operation in that region.
The trenches were sometimes made of concrete and sometime of soil. It depended on what the Iraqis had decided before.
Eslami: What did you see when you captured the region?
Trenches of the watchmen and a global canal that was linked to everywhere. Later on Iranian forces could trace Iraqis through the same canals. The canals gave us a perfect advantage in the front to open fire on Iraqi forces. This all happened during the night. In the morning, it was too stormy and dust covered everything and we couldn’t event breathe. The same day the cover forces arrived with more artery, machinery and machine guns that would sustain our presence in the area.
By the second night almost everyone was stationed in their own places and the area was completely in our hand.
Let me tell you a short story that happened to us in that desert. The night was too cold and not enough blankets were available for the troops to keep the warm over the night. One of the fellas soddenly came on and offered the guy clothes of Iraqis that he said he had taken from them. After a while we realized that the clothes were not as they were supposed to be, I mean they were wet, and guess what! They dampness of the clothes was because they belonged to the dead Iraqis that the guy had taken off from their bodies after the operation. You cannot thing how we felt at that night in which we could not even light fire to keep us warm a little bit.
To be continued...
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