Britain bids farewell to Camp Bastion for the last time

As words of welcome go, these were memorable: “What’s your blood group?”They were the first words spoken to us as we got off a Chinook helicopter that had just touched down in the new British base at Lashkar Gah, Helmand province.

It was early summer 2006 and our mission in this part of southern Afghanistan was just a few weeks old.

The situation was raw. In military parlance it was “kinetic” - that means lots of bang bang.

Our first night there was interrupted by a Taliban mortar attack. Soon afterwards we could hear and see the twin jet engines of an American F-15 overhead. It was there to deter further assaults.

The Brits hadn’t yet organised adequate security measures around the perimeter of what would be their HQ in Helmand.

In several villages around northern Helmand the British had established small garrisons as part of the "inkspot” strategy. We were supposed to introduce security and economic prosperity that would blossom outwards like ink on blotting paper. The Taliban wanted to rub out those inkspots and none more so than Sangin.

For us hacks from ITV News, the BBC and Sky, Sangin was where it was at. After a few days in Lashkar Gah the young captain moonlighting as the senior press officer came into our tent and told all of us that one crew had been selected for Sangin and that we would be leaving the next day. It was Sean Swan and myself.

We asked which person from the press department would be travelling with us. We were told no-one would because it was far too dangerous.

The pilot was good and motivated. The last helicopter into Sangin had been shot at. Our chopper followed the Helmand River at speed. We were so low we nearly got our boots wet. Suddenly we were down and being bundled out of the Chinook, which spent less than ten seconds on the ground.

The Paras were in Sangin and they were surrounded. They could only be supplied from the air. They had taken over two large houses and were being attacked round the clock. We climbed onto the flat roof of one of the houses and found ourselves ankle-deep in empty shell casings.

The Paras, the Royal Marines and others would show incredible courage in holding on to Sangin. At times they found themselves stranded and dangerously low on ammunition, but they held on throughout.

The British – and the Americans who eventually replaced them – lost more men in Sangin than anywhere else. But to what end, and why were we there?

The top brass admit that British forces in Helmand were under-prepared and under-resourced. The army’s famous “can-do” attitude was to blame. In 2006 we were still in southern Iraq. To agree to a new campaign in Helmand reflected what one think-tank has dubbed “a conspiracy of optimism” among our generals at the time.

Blood, sweat and years. Eight years later to be exact, and the British campaign in Helmand is over. It has cost the lives of 453 military personnel. Many more were horribly injured. And for what? Was it a just cause that ended up a lost cause? I don’t think we know yet.

The monstrous attacks on September 11 resulted in our Afghan War. Nearly 70 Britons were among the almost 3,000 people who died in the twin towers and the Pentagon. It couldn’t go unanswered.

We beat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. We then tried to beat the Taliban, but were unable to do so. They remain undefeated. But then so do we. We have handed over the security baton to the Afghan police and army. The 2014 fighting season has been particularly bloody. More than 2,300 Afghan security forces were killed between April and September. But the Taliban have not taken over. That’s not to say it won’t happen, but it hasn’t yet.

Back in June, when the Islamic State were taking over more of Iraq including it’s second city Mosul, there were predictions that exactly the same fate awaited Afghanistan.

But then came promising signs, most significantly the establishment of a unity government in Kabul. Two pragmatic rivals had reached an accommodation. Soon they would reach a bilateral security agreement that will see a residual American force of around 10,000 stay on in Afghanistan. (Surely the absence of a similar agreement in Iraq was crucial in the collapse of the Iraqi Army?).

We can’t know Afghanistan’s fate in our absence. We do know that our service personnel did their jobs superbly. The top brass landed them in it, but professionalism bravery and sacrifice saw them through.

Camp Bastion was our logistical base in Helmand. It was a small town built around a runway and it’s a place that Britain now leaves behind.

Earlier this month service personnel held a vigil at the Memorial to the Fallen in Bastion. It bears the names of those killed during the campaign. It has been dismantled and transported to the National Memorial Arboretum in the UK.

The epitaph is emotive and apt: “When you go home tell them of Us and say, for their tomorrow We gave Our today.”

ITV News Senior International Correspondent John Irvine reports from Camp Bastion in Afghanistan's Helmand Province.