Sniper One

Heavy metal. A Challenger II Main Batde Tank from the Queen’s Royal Lancers

Mortar-damaged roof sangar. I left with Oost just ten seconds before a round came through the roof and exploded inside it

A US engineers’ convoy burns after its huge ambush on 1 May

Bored snipers watch a DVD during the July ceasefire. Left to right: Smudge, Harry, Ads, Longy and Pikey

Snipers in the roof-top sangar, with the ‘Royal Marine’ team hard at work on the right

The ‘Royal Marine’ sniper team. Buzz, left, and John, right, at work in the roof-top sangar

Dan receives his Mention in Despatches silver oak leaf from Brigadier Iain Cholerton, the Army’s most senior offficer in Wales

Dan’s Mention in Despatches certificate

Picture credits

Front and back cover photos of Dan: copyright Dan Charity/News International

Page 1: top and bottom, copyright Tom Newton Dunn.

Pages 2 to 5: all pictures copyright Sniper Platoon, 1PWRR, Telic 4.

Page 6: top, aviation-images.com; bottom, Sniper Platoon, 1PWRR, Telic 4.

Page 7: top and bottom, Sniper Platoon, 1PWRR, Telic 4.

Page 8: top, Aviation-images.com; bottom, Sniper Platoon, 1PWRR, Telic 4.

Page 9 to 16: all images on these pages copyright Sniper Platoon, 1PWRR, Telic 4.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders. The publishers will be glad to rectify in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention.

About the Author

Sgt. Dan Mills was decorated for his command of an eighteen-man sniper platoon during the siege of Al Amarah. During a long army career he has served in Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, and the Falkland Islands. Sniper One is his first book.

Praise for Sniper One

“A gritty, speedball run… strong, cohesive, and complete… it plugs the reader straight into the blood and guts of the action.”

—The Times (UK)

“A highly charged, action-filled, adrenalin-pumped, page-turning read that, frankly, knocks the socks off all previous British accounts in this genre.”

—Sunday Telegraph (UK)

“Full-on graphic detail… you can practically taste the dust and the cordite… . Quite simply, this is one of the best firsthand accounts of combat in the Second Gulf War that I’ve ever read.”

—Daily Express (UK)

“The most vivid account ever of total combat on Iraq’s front-line.”

—The Sun (UK)

Copyright

SNIPER ONE. Copyright © 2007 by Sgt. Dan Mills. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mills, Dan, 1968–

Sniper one : on scope and under siege with a sniper team in Iraq / Dan Mills.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4299-3342-1

ISBN-10: 1-4299-3342-9

1. Iraq War, 2003–—Personal narratives, British. 2. Mills, Dan, 1968– 3. Snipers—Great Britain—Biography. I. Title.

DS79.76.M475 2008

956.7044’38—dc22

2008020438

First published in Great Britain as Sniper One: The Blistering True Story of a British Battle Group Under Siege by Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Books

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