Gallery — Harry A. Dobson

Here are a few pictures from my last tour of Mali:

This is about as cool as I'll ever get...
Patrolling in the pickups
CCH Maxime Blasco, K.I.A 24/09/2021. This photo was taken the day after the infamous 'Azabara' mission back in 2019 during which his helicopter was shot down. He pulled two pilots to safety from behind enemy lines despite having a broken vertibrae in his back.
Me n' the boys
My loadout. Includes a rifle, pistol, grenade launcher, metal detector, plate carrier and a few kilos of exploisves. With it being so hot, we also had to carry around 9 litres of water bringing the weight of my gear to over 40KG.
Just to give you an idea of scale, the helicopter you can see in this photo is the 3rd largest military helicopter ever built, called a Chinook and can transport up to 55 troops.
Training
Patrolling around the homborix mountains
Hot on the trail of some insurgents just after a skirmish when we are hit by a sandstorm. The doc stops to help a local woman give birth.
Nothin' but sand.
Another of Max
It's already started to cool down here. Quite common for the temperature to rise to well over 50 during the hottest hours of the day
The FOB at Gao from above
Chinook's are powerful, they can haul around a lot of weight. We used them for re-supply's out in the desert
The bar where we hung out in an evening
Glamour shot
Big Dave after a mission that lasted all night. No shade to be found from the relentless African sun.
Meme being Meme
Our detatchment is surrounded by over 80 hostiles here. Double guard shifts for everyone and not much sleep.

The French army in Mali:

The V.A.B
The rainy season complicates things
A very rare tarmacked road. This is one of the only highways like this in Northern Mali
A bug.
To this day, I have never seen a night sky so clear. Sometimes when we slept out in the desert on patrolls, I'd lie on my cot with nothing covering me and fall asleep looking up at the milky way seemingly magnified to X100 and crystal clear
When a French convoy came into their town, the locals would queue for hours just to recieve medical attention from our combat medics
Their butcher's shops are a little different to ours...
I'm in here somewhere
Training
Timbuktu. I was stationed here for several months
Working with the Malian army

This is about as cool as I'll ever get...

Patrolling in the pickups

CCH Maxime Blasco, K.I.A 24/09/2021. This photo was taken the day after the infamous 'Azabara' mission back in 2019 during which his helicopter was shot down. He pulled two pilots to safety from behind enemy lines despite having a broken vertibrae in his back.

Me n' the boys

My loadout. Includes a rifle, pistol, grenade launcher, metal detector, plate carrier and a few kilos of exploisves. With it being so hot, we also had to carry around 9 litres of water bringing the weight of my gear to over 40KG.

Just to give you an idea of scale, the helicopter you can see in this photo is the 3rd largest military helicopter ever built, called a Chinook and can transport up to 55 troops.

Training

Patrolling around the homborix mountains

Hot on the trail of some insurgents just after a skirmish when we are hit by a sandstorm. The doc stops to help a local woman give birth.

Nothin' but sand.

Another of Max

It's already started to cool down here. Quite common for the temperature to rise to well over 50 during the hottest hours of the day

The FOB at Gao from above

Chinook's are powerful, they can haul around a lot of weight. We used them for re-supply's out in the desert

The bar where we hung out in an evening

Glamour shot

Big Dave after a mission that lasted all night. No shade to be found from the relentless African sun.

Meme being Meme

Our detatchment is surrounded by over 80 hostiles here. Double guard shifts for everyone and not much sleep.

The V.A.B

The rainy season complicates things

A very rare tarmacked road. This is one of the only highways like this in Northern Mali

A bug.

To this day, I have never seen a night sky so clear. Sometimes when we slept out in the desert on patrolls, I'd lie on my cot with nothing covering me and fall asleep looking up at the milky way seemingly magnified to X100 and crystal clear

When a French convoy came into their town, the locals would queue for hours just to recieve medical attention from our combat medics

Their butcher's shops are a little different to ours...

I'm in here somewhere

Training

Timbuktu. I was stationed here for several months

Working with the Malian army