The Ground War Begins

Marine Lieutenant Colonel Eddie Ray led the 1st Marine Regiment’s charge to Baghdad as commander of the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance (LAR) Battalion at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. This was not his first taste of battle. Ray is a decorated veteran of Operation Desert Storm. It is hard to believe that it has been twenty years since coalition forces ejected the Iraqi Army from Kuwait. Contrary to popular belief, the Iraqi Army stood and fought our advance into Kuwait. Following is a short, updated, excerpt from “The Gulf War Chronicles” which reveals the details of Ray’s first encounter with Saddam’s army.

By the end of the first day of the ground war, Task Force Ripper had Al Jaber Airfield, in Southern Kuwait, under siege and Task Force Papa Bear was protecting the right flank of the 1st Marine Division. General Thomas Draude, the 1st Marine Division’s assistant commander, had led the division’s “Jump” CP forward into Kuwait during the afternoon. He set up the forward command post somewhere between Task Force Ripper and Papa Bear with the burning Burqan Oil Field just east of his site. A young intelligence captain cautioned the general that he believed the Iraqis were massing for a counterattack in the center of the facility. Draude discounted the warning believing that no one could tolerate the heat from the dozens of fires raging throughout the field.

Throughout the night of 24-25 February, 1991, Marines received more and more information indicating that there was an Iraqi armor brigade and a mechanized infantry brigade on the 1st Marine Division’s right flank in the Burqan Oil Field. So, plans were made to flush these Iraqis out with a massive artillery barrage the next morning.

Prior to the artillery barrage, at 0715, the commanders of Task Force Papa Bear started a morning staff meeting at their field headquarters, just southwest of the Burqan Oil Field. As the Regiment’s senior officers were discussing the day’s plans, a single Iraqi tank and a Chinese-built Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) appeared not one hundred yards from the officers. Smoke from the oil fires was so bad on this morning that the Iraqis had wandered unseen through the Marine sentry posts. Fortunately these Iraqis had ventured out to surrender. Their senior officer volunteered that the rest of his brigade was close behind and that they wanted to fight.

Around 0815, five battalions of Marine artillery began pounding the suspected Iraqi positions in the Al Burqan Oil Field. Sixty-six howitzers fired two hundred forty-four rounds in the first volley. Three minutes later a second salvo unleashed nearly five hundred more rounds. The young intelligence officer had called it right. The Iraqi 5th Mechanized Division had spent all night massing in the cover of Burqan preparing to counterattack the 1st Marines.

Within fifteen minutes, RCT-1 reported: “T-62s everywhere, scattering like cockroaches from the Burqan Oil Field.” Papa Bear’s commanders immediately called for close air support. Captain Randall Hammond responded to the call for help. He brought his four Cobra helicopters in to attack the advancing Iraqis. Smoke still obscured the battlefield, but unlike the night before, the Arabian sun helped the Cobra pilots see through the billowing smoke. Scout Marines on the ground painted targets for the Cobra pilots while they launched their Hellfire missiles at the Iraqi armored vehicles. With the help of Hammond’s Cobras and other pilots, the 1st Tank Battalion beat back the brigade-sized attack on Papa Bear’s position after three and a half hours of fighting. The combined air-ground defense destroyed fifty tanks and twenty-five APCs. Papa Bear’s Marines herded three hundred dazed Iraqi soldiers from the battlefield.

Eight miles to the north, General Draude monitored Papa Bear’s battle from the 1st Division’s forward command post located on the western edge of the Emir’s Farm. The Emir’s Farm was a small oasis located directly to the east of the Division’s breach head. Only a rifle platoon and a LAV platoon from the 1st LAI Battalion protected the Division forward command post. Captain Eddie Steven Ray had his seven LAV-25s positioned on a screen line, about a quarter of a mile east of General Draude’s command unit. The rifle platoon was dug in to Ray’s north.

Around 0930, Iraqi artillery rounds began falling near the rifle platoon. Ray raced north in his LAV, to find Iraqi Armored Personnel Carriers (BMPs) disgorging troops on the edge of the oasis. Ray and the rifle platoon opened fire on the advancing Iraqis. Realizing that his division commander was in immediate danger, Captain Ray called for his platoon to come north and engage the enemy.

Meanwhile, General Draude and his staff watched as an Iraqi mechanized brigade attacked out of the oasis. Draude turned to an aid and quipped. “If I die today, my wife is going to kill me.” The 1st Marine Division’s Operations Officer, Colonel Jerry Humble, immediately called Task Force Ripper for reinforcements (armed with TOW missiles), then called I MEF headquarters.

“We need some help!” he exclaimed. “Send all the Cobras you can.”

A MEF staff officer replied that everybody was in a fight. Colonel Humble raised the handset into the air, waited a few seconds, then said: “…we’re in a REAL fight at Division Forward.”

“Oh, shit, I hear.” the staff officer answered.

Meanwhile, Ray began picking off BMPs with his 25-mm cannon fire. Within minutes, Ray’s other LAVs were on line. Artillery support was out of the question. The enemy was too close. Within moments, two Cobra gunships swooped in at low level. Ray directed their rocket fire by shooting his 25-mm cannon at Iraqi infantry positions.

Then Ray counterattacked. Supported by the gunships overhead, Ray’s seven LAVs rolled forward toward the oasis. More Cobras arrived and the LAV platoon pressed the attack, destroying everything in sight. Captain Ray and his men swept through the oasis. The Marines halted on the eastern edge of the Emir’s Farm. Thirty-eight burning Iraqi armored vehicles lay scattered behind them. Ray had not only protected the command post but his aggressive counterattack completely destroyed the Iraqi brigade. Captain Ray received the Navy Cross for his courage under fire that day.

Discover what really happened in Desert Storm. Visit www.gwchronicles.com and purchase your copy of “The Gulf War Chronicles” today.

It is difficult for me to believe that January 16th will mark the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of Operation Desert Storm. It is one of few historical events that stand out in my life. I remember our first man in space and the Cuban Missile crises. I remember walking across the football field in my high school and someone coming up to tell me, “The President has been shot!” I remember walking between buildings at work in Orlando and looking up to see a large ball of smoke where the space shuttle Discovery once was.

Most everyone remembers where they were when they first learned that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I was arriving at my office with my wife. I had pulled into my parking space when the newsman broke in and said, “We have just received a report that a plane has crashed into a building in New York City. We will have more on tomorrow’s news cast.” I don’t think any news event in history could have been more under-reported at that moment. Within minutes, America knew that this was no ordinary incident.

And, I remember the beginning of Operation Desert Storm. I had been following the events in Kuwait since Saddam invaded the tiny oil emirate in the previous summer. I had closely followed the American military deployments and when I stepped on an airplane on the morning of January 16th, I knew that the war would be starting soon. I was on business travel, flying from Orlando to Los Angeles to make a presentation to a perspective customer – the Air Force Space Command.

We landed in Los Angeles in mid-afternoon and I checked the television in the closest bar to my gate when I got off the plane – nothing. I collected my luggage and rode the bus to the rental car parking lot. I got into my car and turned on the radio to hear the first report that planes were in the air and Operation Desert Storm had begun. I remember it like it was yesterday, but it was twenty years ago.

When the Operation was over, seven weeks later, I sat dumbfounded. The media did not give us the details of the fight. I immediately started researching to learn the details of our fight to eject Saddam from Kuwiat. And, twelve years later, I published “The Gulf War Chronicles.” Following is an excerpt from chapter 1:

THE FIRST NIGHT: THE MOTHER OF ALL BATTLES

Before midnight on the 16th of January 1991, the wheels had been set in motion for the most devastating air attack in history. Ships carrying Tomahawk missiles were in their assigned launch positions. E-3 Sentry, Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft were flying in four surveillance racetracks just south of the Saudi/Iraqi border. One hundred eighty tankers were orbiting south of the AWACS, just out of range of the Iraqi early warning radar. Fixed wing and rotary aircraft were being readied for battle.

The staggering firepower of the United States Armed Forces had been brought to bear on the northern Saudi Arabian border in just a little over five months. The Marines were concentrated along the Persian Gulf and thinly dispersed along the Kuwaiti border in small, fast moving screening units. These Marines were mounted in High Mobility Multi-Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs) and Light Armored Vehicles (LAVs). The forward units were deployed to signal advance warning of Iraqi offensive thrusts into Saudi Arabia. Farther to the south, the remainder of the American force was positioned for counterattacks on advancing Iraqis or massed around forward supply and air bases. Every airfield within striking distance of Iraq and Kuwait was crammed full of Allied aircraft.

Six Navy Aircraft carriers ringed Iraq in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Hundreds of aircraft from America’s newest F-117A Nighthawks, to the venerable B-52 Stratofortresses, were being readied for war. The airfields were so crowded that there was no room for the B-52s. They would fly their first missions directly from their bases in Spain, Diego Garcia, and even Louisiana.

The largest logistic chain in history stretched from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf all the way back to both coasts of the United States. The pipe was full. Supplies and additional heavy armor units from the United States and Europe continued to pour in to Saudi Arabia. The hammer was cocked. There were rounds in the chamber and the trigger was being squeezed.

January 17th heralded the culmination of years of acquisitions of high-tech systems and the build-up of a highly motivated and trained all-volunteer professional military; months of deployments, planning, and “sharpening the sword”; weeks of diplomacy; and days of tension. The U.S. was planning to fight a four dimensional war (Air-Land Battle) for the first time. It was to be orchestrated in a precise time sequence. The Iraqis, on the other hand, were preparing to fight a two dimensional war of attrition. They had no concept of air superiority, timing or tempo. The Coalition would fight World War III while the Iraqis would fight World War I.

At 0001 on the 17th, two-dozen F-117 Stealth fighters from the 415th Tactical Fighter Squadron started taking off from a secret airbase located deep in the mountains of Saudi Arabia. These ultra-high tech aircraft would lead the manned air assault deep into Iraq. Within an hour, over three hundred additional attack aircraft began taking off from aircraft carriers and airbases all over the Persian Gulf. These attack aircraft were refueled and stacked up south of the Saudi border like jets on approach to O’Hare airport on a snowy Christmas Eve. At exactly 0140 the USS Wisconsin started launching Tomahawk Cruise missiles to join other Tomahawks being launched from the USS San Jacinto in the Red Sea. Tomahawk missiles would be the first to penetrate Iraqi airspace, flying under the radar and racing toward their targets at an altitude of fifty to one hundred feet above the terrain. The Tomahawks were launched at precise times so that they would reach their targets in concert with the rest of the first attack.

At a remote base in Western Saudi Arabia two teams (each consisting of four AH-64 Apache helicopters from the 101st Air Assault Division and an Air Force Pave Low helicopter from the 20th Special Operations Squadron) took off at approximately 0100. Each Apache was armed with four Hellfire missiles, two 2.75-inch rocket pods containing fleshettes and 1,100 rounds of 30mm ammunition.

The Pave Low helicopters accompanied the Apaches to provide the GPS navigation needed for the mission, additional Electronic Countermeasure (ECM) and rescue capability. This small but deadly force, commanded by Army Lieutenant Colonel Richard Cody, was code named TASK FORCE NORMANDY in honor of the “Screaming Eagle’s” spearhead operations nearly a half century earlier behind the beaches in France.

At 0215, the two teams of TASK FORCE NORMANDY crossed the border into Iraq in separate locations. Their objectives were two Early Warning RADAR facilities in Western Iraq. The Apaches of the 1st Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment approached their objectives at high speed, acquired their targets at the maximum range of their night vision sensors, locked on with their lasers, dropped down to only a few feet above the ground, and advanced on the objectives ‘low and slow’. All the lights in both facilities were on, suggesting that the Apaches’ approach had not been detected. When the Apaches came within range they ripple-launched their Hellfire missiles.

At exactly 0238, the first missile struck its target “like a thunderbolt from the skies.” Several missiles knocked out the facilities’ electric power generators. The Apaches (firing twenty-seven Hellfire missiles) destroyed radar antennas, operations centers, generators, and barracks. All of the missiles hit their targets. When the Apaches ran out of Hellfire missiles, they raked the area with rockets and thousands of rounds of 30-mm cannon fire. Both facilities were disabled within thirty seconds and completely destroyed in less than four minutes! Eight U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles streaked into Iraq behind TASK FORCE NORMANDY and destroyed the local air defense command and control center. These three attacks created a twenty-mile wide blackened radar corridor for our attack planes to enter Iraq.

Within minutes, F-117 s from the 415th Tactical Fighter Squadron bombed a radar control center one hundred sixty miles southwest of Baghdad, a radar facility in western Iraq, and an air defense site outside Baghdad extending the corridor farther into Iraq. Swarms of waiting attack aircraft then swept north through the corridor and fanned out toward their targets. EF-111 Ravens, EA-6B Prowlers, and EC-130 Compass Call Aircraft led the charge through the night sky. These electronic marvels of the night bombarded Iraq’s surveillance and communications equipment with billions of electrons. The Compass Call aircraft attacked the communications airwaves, disrupting military radio traffic. The Ravens and Prowlers targeted surveillance and air defense radars. F-14 Tomcats and F-15C Eagles raced into Iraq to their assigned Combat Air Patrol (CAP) areas. Their mission was to fly cover for the allied planes and engage any approaching Iraqi aircraft.

Air Force Captain Steve Tate approached Baghdad in his F-15C, along with his four wingmen just before 0300. Their assigned CAP area was over Baghdad and extending sixty miles to the east of the city. Captain Tate had a bird’s eye view for the opening moments of the war. “Baghdad was a really pretty city that night. As we started flying over the populous areas…F-117 s started dropping their bombs and then we started getting concussions all over the entire country. You could see it. At that point then, the sky started lighting up with AAA (Anti-Aircraft Artillery)…It looked like little sparkles going off all over…I figured we had some kind of cosmic weapon system out there just sprinkling all over the city…Then I started looking a little closer and I said, man-that’s triple-A that they’re shooting.” Shortly after 0300, Captain Tate was alerted to the approach of an Iraqi fighter, by an AWACS controller. He maneuvered his plane into attack position. At 0315 he shot down an Iraqi F1 Mirage with a single radar-guided Sparrow missile. This was the first air-to-air kill of the war and one of nine Iraqi aircraft to be shot down on the first night.

Read the entire story of Operation Desert Storm in Richard S. Lowry’s first published book – The Gulf War Chronicles.