How Mark Donaldson earned a VC fighting his way out of a Taliban ambush
Trooper Mark Donaldson was part of an Afghanistan patrol in the Ana Kalay Valley when they noticed women and children suddenly flee the area. What followed was a gruelling Taliban ambush that claimed the lives of at least 12 coalition troops. This is the story of how Donaldson earned his Victoria Cross.
Following the phenomenal success of the groundbreaking documentary series Voodoo Medics, The Daily Telegraph is bringing you War Stories — powerful tales of courage and heroism — with exclusive book extracts from the frontline. This is the story of how Mark Donaldson, VC, received a Victoria Cross medal.
In 2008, three weeks after he was blown from the front turret of a Bushmaster that hit an improvised explosive device and sustained wounds to his hands and knees, Trooper Mark Donaldson was back in active service and involved in a battle which earned him a Victoria Cross.
The action occurred following a significant increase to Australia’s commitment to Afghanistan to combat a growing Taliban insurgency.
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On 26 August, 11 Australians from Special Air Service Regiment’s 3 Squadron and two engineers from the Incident Response Regiment joined United States Special Forces in a joint operation from Forward Operating Base Anaconda, northeast of Tarin Kowt.
Based on earlier successes, the plan was to use part of the combined patrol as bait, drawing the Taliban into a trap laid by the rest of the assaulting force.
The patrol got to work and showed immediate success. Three Taliban insurgents were killed by an SASR sniper team as they were observed moving to intercept a Humvee convoy.
A further engagement ensued when a vehicle approached to recover the bodies, resulting in a further eight Taliban dead.
The patrol then focused on the Ana Kalay Valley, near the village of Khas Uruzgan, a known hotbed of Taliban activity.
On the evening of 1 September two patrols, known as call signs India 1 and 2, moved off to establish an overwatch in the rugged mountain above an area where a further engagement was expected.
The five Humvees that comprised India 3 and 4 set off from the base the following morning to act as the bait.
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Inside the vehicles were 37 United States, Australian and Afghan soldiers, and an Australian Explosive Detection Dog, Sarbi.
From their overwatch position, India 1 and 2 killed seven Taliban insurgents as the latter moved to intercept the Humvee convoy.
Later that day, the Humvees spotted more Taliban fighters but did not open fire, as children were seen among the insurgents.
Intercepted Taliban radio chatter made repeated references to an ambush throughout the day but such threats were rarely known to materialise.
Since the Afghan drivers and interpreters had not been issued with night-vision goggles, it was important that the patrol returned to base before dusk.
India 1 and 2 had to make the arduous return journey on foot and the Humvees had no alternative but go back the way they had come in.
As the afternoon wore on radio chatter suddenly went quiet and women and children previously seen during the patrol fled the area.
Not long after 3pm the air erupted in Taliban fire as the Humvees made their way down a small rise about 4.5 kilometres from base.
India 3 and 4 were engaged from four concealed positions: two in front, and another two from the rear, about 300 metres from a densely wooded area known as the “green belt”.
Donaldson was in the rearmost vehicle, which had just passed through a narrow defile, when he noticed “rounds and rocket-propelled grenades were zinging past the cars … kicking up the dust all around us”.
Taking up positions behind their vehicles, the Australian and American patrol members returned fire with .50-calibre and 7.62-calibre machineguns and 40-millimetre grenades.
An American joint terminal attack controller co-ordinated a gun run from two F/A-18 Hornets that suppressed the Taliban fire coming from the north.
Donaldson, who had earlier been engaging the Taliban at 50 metres with his M4 carbine, was able to suppress some of the fire by letting off 84-millimetre rounds and 66-millimetre rockets.
Despite these efforts, casualties mounted as the Humvees continued to draw Taliban fire.
Donaldson and two other Australian patrol members ran out into an exposed position to draw fire away from the vehicles and their wounded.
When Donaldson rejoined the convoy, he and his patrol members ran around the Humvees, returning fire at every opportunity: “We were drake-shooting across the likely enemy positions, raking them with fire, but it was depleting our ammunition.”
“I’d gone through all six of the magazines I’d brought with me … but I still needed more, and picked up extra from the back of the car.”
After two hours of constant fighting, the Humvees were approaching the end of the valley when the lead Humvee was sprayed with shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) airburst that ejected two men from the vehicle — an Afghan interpreter and an Australian engineer, Sarbi’s handler.
The engineer was able to dust himself off and continue with the convoy, but Donaldson saw that the interpreter had been severely wounded, with “half his face taken off by shrapnel”.
Under small-arms, machinegun and RPG fire, Donaldson sprinted 80 metres to recover the motionless interpreter, returning him to the vehicle before it passed through a chokepoint and accelerated back to Anaconda.
Accounts are not yet publicly available for the action in the Ana Kalay Valley, but eyewitness testimony indicates this relatively small force of 37 coalition troops had spent four hours extracting itself from an ambush involving an estimated 100 to 150 insurgents.
Of the 12 known casualties, one American was killed and nine Australians and one Afghan were wounded.
Sarbi, having bolted after her handler was blown from the Humvee, was listed as missing but was recovered by United States Special Forces 14 months later.
Following the ambush, Donaldson completed his six-month tour of Afghanistan and returned to Australia and was married.
Two weeks later learned that he had been awarded the inaugural Victoria Cross of Australia for his actions in the Ana Kalay Valley.
Donaldson, who had previously been operating under a protected identity, was thrust into the public light as a national hero.
Despite this, he returned to Afghanistan four more times between 2009 and 2010. By then a corporal, he was shot in the back of the thigh during a contact with the Taliban on June 25, 2012.
Donaldson was named Young Australian of Year in 2010, and left the SASR in 2015.
His first forays into the civilian world involved taking up an assistant coach position with the NSWs Blues in preparation for the 2017 NRL State of Origin and becoming a strategic
defence adviser to Boeing.
Humble and self-effacing, Donaldson reflected on his Victoria Cross action during an interview at the Australian War Memorial in 2009: “I don’t think of myself as a hero, no way. On that day in particular, I did my job, like all of the other blokes, and we got out of there.”
“We’d done a lot of very successful jobs before that, and did a lot after too. It’s just combat and any soldier who’s been in it will tell you that it just happens and that’s the way it is.”
For Valour: Australians Awarded the Victoria Cross, by Aaron Pegram and Craig Blanch, NewSouth Publishing, AUD$79.99, Published 1 November.
Citation in Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, January 20, 2009
DONALDSON TROOPER MARK GREGOR
SPECIAL AIR SERVICE REGIMENT, AUSTRALIAN ARMY
2 SEPTEMBER 2008, ANA KALAY VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN
For most conspicuous acts of gallantry in action in a circumstance of great peril in Afghanistan, as part of the Special Operations Task Group during Operation Slipper, Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan.
On 2 September 2008 Trooper Donaldson was outstanding in the manner in which he fought during a prolonged and effective enemy ambush. On numerous occasions, he deliberately drew the enemy’s fire in order to allow wounded soldiers to be moved to safety.
As the battle raged around him he saw that a coalition interpreter was lying motionless on exposed ground.
With complete disregard for his own safety, on his own initiative and alone, Trooper Donaldson ran back eighty metres across exposed ground to rescue the interpreter and carry him back to a vehicle.
Trooper Donaldson then rejoined his patrol and continued to engage the enemy while remaining exposed to heavy enemy fire.
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