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Grenada, one of the smallest independent nations in the WesternHemisphere and one of the southernmost Caribbean islands in theWindward chain, has an area of only 133 square miles. The populationis 110,000. But size is not necessarily the determining factorwhen governments consider strategic military locations. The Cubangovernment knew the value of Grenada's location when it decidedto utilize the former British colony as a holding place for armsand military equipment, complete with a major airport. EasternCaribbean nations fully understood the implication of the communistthreat and called upon the United States for help. The responsewas Urgent Fury, a multinational, multiservice effort.
Not until about 40 hours before H-hour were commanding officersof the US Navy ships told what the mission in Grenada would be--toevacuate U.S. citizens, neutralize any resistance, stabilize thesituation and maintain the peace. That didn't leave much timeto get the ships ready.
On board USSGuam(LPH-9), flag ship of Amphibious SquadronFour, Aviation Ordnanceman Third Class George Boucher Jr. stagedammunition for vertical replenishment to the other four shipsof the Marine amphibious group--USSBarnstable County(LST-1197),USSManitowoc(LST-1180), USSFort Snelling(LSD-30)and USSTrenton(LPD-14). He wondered why Marine CH-46pilots were flying in unfavorable winds on that dark night ofOct. 24; the helicopters had trouble lifting the pallets as theships rushed through the water.
Down in the flag spaces, the operational commander, Vice AdmiralJoseph Metcalf III, and his staff studied the plan for OperationUrgent Fury.
In the hangar bay, ammunition stacked to the overhead and machineguns laid in rows were ready to be in stalled in choppers. Forcesof the 2d Battalion, 8th Marines, packed their field gear andcleaned weapons.
Stateside, Army Rangers and 82nd Airborne Division paratroopersassembled and prepared for departure to Grenada.
Out of sight in the darkness, the USSIndependence(CV-62)task group, including USSRichmond K. Turner(CO-20), USSCoontz(DDG-40), USSCaron(DD-970), USSMoosbrugger(DD-980), USSClifton Sprague(FFG-16) and USSSuribachi(AE-21), steamed into position off the coast of Grenada.
Toward midnight, Hull Technician Second Class Timothy Stevensdescended one ofGuam'sfireroom ladders to weld a leakingeconomizer on a boiler. He didn't mind that reveille would soundin a little more than two hours; he was going to be up anyway.
At the 2 a.m. reveille, Mess Management Specialist Seaman StephenGreen started serving breakfast to the first few officers whotrickled into the wardroom, His counterparts on the mess decksfed Marines and ship's crew. No one expected the lines would remainopen for the rest of the day--and for the next five days.
The first heliborne landing force launched before dawn fromGuam'sflight deck. Marines of Echo Company huddled in the helos,wondering what kind of resistance they would encounter. Many hadbeen in the Corps for less than a year.
When the helicopters touched down at Pearls Airport at 5a.m.on 25 Oct.,the PRA--People's Revolutionary Army--greetedthe Marines with bursts from small arms and machine guns. In pairs,the Marines scrambled out of the helos and immediately dug in,waiting for the choppers to leave.
Three Soviet-made 12.7mm guns on a nearby hill fired at helicoptersbringing in the second assault--Marines of Fox Company--to thetown of Grenville, just south of Pearls, at 6 a.m.Sea- Cobra[two-bladed, single turbine engine] attack helicopters werecalled in to silence the guns and Fox Company landed amid lightmortar fire.
Echo and Fox companies moved slowly and cautiously after theirlandings; after a couple of hours, most of the resistance at Pearlsand Grenville was beaten down.
"Commanders were directed to ensure minimum casualties toboth friendly and Grenadian people," said Commodore RobertS. "Rupe" Owens, Commander in Chief Atlantic, deputychief of staff for operations. "We didn't want to go downthere and tear the island apart. We had to move slowly, makingsure we had good defensive positions, and not exposing ourselves."
Army Rangers, arriving at the airfield at Point Salines at dawnthe same day in [four-engine turboprop] C-130 [Hercules] aircraft,met much stiffer resistance than the Marines were encounteringat Pearls. To avoid the anti-aircraft fire, the Rangers jumpedfrom a very low altitude--500 feet. Machine-gun fire blasted ataircraft and Rangers on the ground. But US Air Force [four-engineturboprop] AC-130 [Spectre] gunships silenced the hostile firewith devastatingly accurate blasts.
"The Cubans and PRA were very well placed," said CaptainThomas Scott, CinCLant [Commander-in-Chief Atlantic] assistantchief of staff for current operations. "They had occupiedthe high ground and strategically placed their anti-aircraft positionsaround the airfield before the initial assault by U.S. and Caribbeanforces. They were probably where we'd have been if we'd been onthe resisting side."
The airfield at Point Salines was blocked, a clear sign an assaultwas expected.
"There were reports in the press on Saturday (Oct. 22) thatthe Organization of Eastern Caribbean States had met," Scottsaid. "Right after that meeting, someone passed the wordto Grenada that the United States and a Caribbean peacekeepingforce would invade, probably within 24 or 48 hours. In fact, wordwas put out on Grenada radio that the invasion would occur onSunday."
On Sunday, however, the United States was still discussing therisks of the operation and trying to ascertain how much resistancethe Caribbean peace keeping force would meet.
"Three or four dozen Cuban Army regulars were in Grenada,"said Captain Thomas A. Brooks, CinCLant assistant chief of stafffor intelligence. "They were not organized into a regularmilitary unit, but were primarily advisers and instructors tothe Grenadian military.
"In addition to those people, there were a handful of paramilitaryCubans--such as police and secret service types.
"There were also about 600 Cuban construction workers. Contraryto what people might have read, we knew the construction workerswere all militarily trained, that they were armed and that theypracticed with their weapons. We anticipated that if the PRA electedto oppose the intervention of American and Caribbean peacekeepingforces, the Cubans might fight against us, too."
Brooks added that the Cuban construction workers were lightlyarmed with personal weapons.
"They were not very effective," he said. "Withina couple of hours most of them had thrown down their arms andsurrendered."
Even before securing Point Salines airfield on the first day,Rangers had moved to evacuate American students at the True Bluecampus of St. George's Medical Center. The campus, located atone end of the 10,000-foot runway the Cubans had been building,was reached easily and the students were rescued. A second campusat Grand Anse was farther away, and retreating Cubans and PRAunits blocked the Rangers from the students.
By afternoon the Point Salines air field was secured from allbut sporadic mortar and small arms fire, and Rangers were movingagainst PRA positions near St. George's, the capital. Other Rangersremoved obstacles on the Point Salines runway, and elements ofthe 82nd Airborne Division flew in to add more people and heavierweapons to the assault.
Meanwhile, Fox and Echo companies merged north of St. George'sand secured a flat, stadium-like area called the Queen's Racecourse,which the Marines dubbed "LZ Racetrack" (LZ standingfor landing zone). The battalion landing team commander set upheadquarters there.
"We did a lot of humping today," said Marine CaptainMike Dick, Fox Company commander, after the first day of the operation.He looked over his men and added in a low tone, "It's quitea bit different from Camp Lejeune. We're doing this for real andfor keeps.
"The performance of these young Marines has gone one stepbeyond professionalism. That's a factor of their training andmaturity."
During the evening, Marines of Golf Company, from the tank landingshipsManitowocandBarnstable County,landed atGrand Mal beach, just north of St. George's, with 13 amphibiousvehicles and five tanks.
Throughout the first night, a constant stream of logistics aircraftlanded and took off from the partially completed runway at PointSalines. Gunfire roared from ships and aircraft. "Kamikaze"flies, mites and gnats with "teeth like the great white shark"added to everyone's discomfort.
The night was as hot as the day had been. The Caribbean air wasthick with salt and humidity. Dawn greeted the is land with aburning, bright sun.
At first light on the second day, Marine armor supporting theRangers and 82nd Airborne began final assaults on Cuban and PRApositions around St. George's. With close air support from Navyattack aircraft fromIndependence,Golf Company capturedthe governor's residence at 7:12 a.m., freeing several civiliansand Sir Paul Scoon, governor-general of Grenada and representativeof Queen Elizabeth.
At Point Salines airfield, soldiers with faces painted green peeredout of foxholes. Jeeps crisscrossed the runway breakneck speeds.The noise was unceasing: the steady whine of [four- engine longrange transport] C-141s [Starlifter], the constant thumping ofhelicopters, the scream of a Navy A-6Intruder [two-seatsubsonic, carrier-based attack aircraft] ,sharp staccatobursts of strafing fire, and the low hum of a circling AC-130gunship. Occasional bomb bursts and mortar fire echoed in thedistance. The popping small arms fire came from just over thehills to the north and west.
But the loudest sounds of all were the cheers of rescued medicalstudents. Casually dressed, they carried only what they had grabbedat a moment's notice. Looking more like tourists than refugees,they cheerfully boarded C-141 aircraft ready to fly to the UnitedStates.
In the meantime, students at the Grand Anse campus were stilltrapped inside a wall of PRA soldiers and Cubans.
"Marine helicopters and Rangers were combined to outflankthe line of resistance," said Scott. "We did a verticalassault--or vertical rescue--and inserted Rangers behind the line.The students were taken out by helicopter while the resistingforces were beaten down."
Late in the second afternoon the Marines captured Fort Frederick,where they found the PRA's command and control system plus a roomfull of automatic weapons.
"We stomped the heart of the resistance here," saidMarine Colonel James P. Faulkner, the Marine amphibious unit commander."Thereafter, resistance was disorganized."
On the morning of the third day of operations, Rangers and Marines,with close air support from the carrierIndependence,attackedheavily fortified positions at Fort Adolphus, Fort Matthew andRichmond Hill prison above St. George's. U.S. aircraft flyingin the vicinity during the first two days had met a torrent ofanti-aircraft fire; three helicopters had been shot down.
One of the heavily defended positions in the area later turnedout to be a hospital.
"That was a physically co-located defensive position forthe PRA," Scott said. "It was advertised by flag andby gunfire to be an enemy position." At about noon, GolfCompany secured Fort Matthew, and about a half hour later theytook Richmond Hill prison.
When Fox Company marched into Fort Rupert on the second day, theyfound so many communist weapons that a squad was left behind toguard them.
Echo Company marched north of Pearls Airport and seized Soviet-madeAK-47s [7.62 mm Kalashnikov assault rifles] and rocket launchers,along with three 12.7mm guns. While moving inland, Marines clashedwith an enemy patrol.
"The Marines banged up that squad to a point that they headedthe other way," Faulkner said.
Meanwhile, the 82nd Airborne, with close air and naval gunfiresupport, moved against the Calivigny military barracks east ofPoint Salines. The assault completed the last major objectivefor the peacekeeping forces. After wards, the Rangers were airliftedout of Grenada.
The next day--Oct. 28--the 82nd Airborne and Marines linked forcesat Ross Beach. They secured St. George's and began mopping upthe last few pockets of resistance scattered around the island.
In St. George's the peacekeeping forces encountered the biggestsurprise of the operation: the civilian population.
"We expected that the people would at least passively acceptthe situation," Scott said. "After all, they had beenunder a 24-hour shoot-on-sight curfew for several days beforewe got there."
But the reception the Grenadians gave the peacekeeping force wasanything but passive.
"The thing that is most indelibly in scribed in my mind,"said Brooks, 'in regard to Grenada, was how incredibly happy theywere to see us." Brooks, on the fourth day of the operation,flew into Grenada with Admiral Wesley L. McDonald, Commander inChief of the U.S. Atlantic Command, who had over all command ofUrgent Fury.
"The people came up to Admiral McDonald--and they had noway of knowing who he was--shook his hand and said, 'Thank youand God bless you.' We encountered this all through St. George's,"Brooks said. 'People were leaning Out of windows and saying 'Godbless America.'
"As we were passing a street corner, three ladies were dressedup in their Sunday best. One of them held up her index fingerand said, 'Reagan number one.' Then the ladies had a brief confaband I guess it must have been ladies day, because then one ofthe others said, 'Eugenia Charles (prime minister of Dominica)number one; Reagan number two!"' Brooks said, laughing.
"Uniformly and universally, they were very, very happy tosee us there," he said. "I thought it must have beenlike it was a generation earlier, when Europe was liberated duringWorld War II. We hadn't anticipated anything like that."
The Grenadians showed their appreciation with more than words.They gave away fresh fruit, ice water and cases of soft drinks.At Pearls Airport, they cooked rice, meat and fruit for the Marines.The gratitude of the people was a great reward for the membersof the peacekeeping force. It made the hard ships endured worthwhileand made the troops feel they had done something very noble, thatthey were very much needed and appreciated.
"Morale is sky high," Faulkner said proudly. "Onereason is how well we were received by the Grenadians. We werenot treated as conquerors, but as friends of the people."
In fact, according to a survey done by an independent Caribbeanfirm, 87 per cent of the Grenadians believed the interventionby the Caribbean peacekeeping force was a "good thing."Only three percent didn't believe the intervention was justified.
That positive reaction came despite a heavy anti-American campaignby the New Jewel Movement.
"The Grenadians had obviously been fed a lot of anti-Americandoctrine," Brooks said. "We saw a lot of that down there.But it didn't take, which must have frustrated the Marxist leadership."
Fortunately, the Grenadians were so glad to see the Caribbeanpeacekeeping force that they turned in suspected PRA soldiers,and helped lead their rescuers to hidden arms caches. The PRAsoldiers were questioned and, unless they were part of the upperechelon of the Grenadian military establishment, were released.
The remaining Cubans who had not been captured fled to the Cubanor Soviet embassies and were later flown to Cuba.
By Nov. 2, all military objectives had been secured. Next day,hostilities were declared to be at an end. Grenadians went aboutputting their country back in order--schools and businesses reopenedfor the first time in two weeks or more.
Urgent Fury was a success, but not without the inevitable tragediesof battle. People did get hurt and die. In the full light of morningon the first day of the operation, helicopters transported woundedtoGuam.As the helos landed, teams of hospital corpsmenrushed to help carry stretchers. A triage area was set up in thehangar bay. The ship's doctor, Lt. Dan Walsh, flight surgeonsand corpsmen prepared patients for surgery.
As the first casualties were taken to sick bay, an Army [twin-engine]UH-60Blackhawk[helicopter] gunship approachedGuam.The pilot had been shot through the left leg and was bleedingprofusely. Anti-aircraft fire had damaged the engine controls.The co-pilot fought the helicopter to the flight deck, but couldn'tshut the engines down.
Chief Aviation Boatswain's Mate (Hydraulics) Walter Anderson reactedinstantly. On his command, a water hose was rushed to the helicopterwhere a stream of water was directed into the engine's intakes.The rotor blades stopped and two aircrewmen aboard theBlackhawkscrambled out, beaming with relief. Hospital corpsmen helpedthe wounded pilot onto a stretcher.
By noon it was obvious to the sailors onGuamthat theArmy, landing at Point Salines, had encountered the heaviest resistance.All the medevacs up to that point had been Army soldiers.
At the end of the operation, 18 American men had died and 116were wound ed.Guamhad treated 77 wounded, and many othershad been sent to Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, Puerto Rico.
Other statistics illustrating the intensity of Urgent Fury wererecorded onGuam'sflight deck: 1,214 launchings and landings;103,422 gallons of aircraft fuel consumed; 186,968 pounds of cargo lifted; and 13,775 pounds of mail delivered.
Urgent Fury had lived up to its name. But it was only the firststage of what was to become a long deployment. The Marines returnedto their ships and Phibron Four and theIndependencetaskgroup set course for Beirut, Lebanon.
On Jan. 24, 1984, Admiral McDonald summed up the success of OperationUrgent Fury in an address before the House Armed Services Committee.
"In summary, history should reflect that the operation wasa complete success," he stated. "All phases of the assigned mission were accomplished. U.S. citizens were protectedand evacuated. The opposing forces were neutralized. The situationstabilized with no additional Cuban intervention. U.S. studentshave returned to resume their studies at the medical school andtourism is steadily increasing. And, most importantly, a lawful,democratic government has been restored."
4 February 2000
