GULF WAR II: UNDER FIRE: My ride at dawn with Royal Irish

WE rode at dawn, the men of the First Royal Irish, the vanguard of the British assault in the desert redoubt of Iraq.

Crossing the mile-long breach in Iraq's southern frontier was like passing through the gates of Hell.

Our column thundered through the Ramailah oil field as well heads blazed at 600C (1000F) searing your face with their heat and making the morning air shiver with ash.

Ahead of us lay an unknown number of Iraqi soldiers, many incinerated in the ageing tanks and armoured cars with which they had attempted to defend Saddam and his evil regime.

Ahead too, were the terrified troops who has cast down their weapons in the face of the seemingly invincible Allied advance and hundreds of innocent civilians holding makeshift white flags to show their peaceful intent.

We moved swiftly into enemy territory pushing due north to secure a 50-mile frontline in the richest parcel of this fabled oil field. The black gold here bankrolls the Baghdad regime and its weapons of mass destruction. No wonder then that securing it was critical to the Allies.

Critical, too, it seems to Saddam for he had dispatched to meet us elements of his mechanised 18th division who played such a powerful role in the 1991 Gulf conflict but their rusty weaponry and fading spirits were no match for the battalion of the Fifth US Marine Corps who passed this way on Thursday night.

The devastation they left in their wake was to be the mission of the elite infantry of the 1st Royal Irish. On the eve of battle their commanding officer Lt-Col Tim Collins promised: "I shall cross the breach with the Royal Irish fanning out behind me like a cloak."

Yesterday, with his four fighting companies including one of fearsome Gurkhas, he kept his promise.

The advance party of 1,100 Marines had done their job well. Javelin anti-tank missiles had taken out the heavy armour waiting at the breach and bomblets dropped by mortar dispatched the resistance that remained.

The dead were piled in heaps at the border and also on the road to Basra. One man caught alone in a firefight had fallen by the side of the road. As I watched stray dogs began to circle. The Marines also lost one man here. A young platoon commander was shot through his liver and bled to death in front of his comrades, leaving one new widow in America this morning.

Exhausted, the Marines summoned the Royal Irish across the border at 3am yesterday. On each vehicle virtually all that was visible was the regimental shamrock.

I passed through the breach behind Lt-Col Collins as part of his forward tactical headquarters. Those behind us, I am told, left a sign for all who follow. It says: 'Welcome to Iraq, border secured by the 1st Royal Irish.'

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