The war saw the emergence of the U.S. Army’s newest weapon, the Black Hawk helicopter. Offering a significant upgrade over its predecessor, the Black Hawk allowed the army to transport an entire eleven-man squad right into the fighting, while also pulling out the wounded. And as it proved in Grenada, the chopper can take multi ple hits from enemy fire and keep operating. It features an armor-plated cockpit and a cabin that can withstand crashes. Because it’s so tough, pilots are not reluctant to fly it into places others would never consider. It even features twin engines in case one is knocked out. This ruggedness has turned the Black Hawk into an international star, and it is the standard helicopter for much of the world’s military.
The other attacks on the first day all shared disturbing signs of nonsuccess. The invaders had three crucial D-Day targets, excluding the newly discovered students not living at the True Blue campus. All these targets were handed to the Special Forces, the cream of the crop of the mighty technological superpower.
The first target was a radio station near the capital. A crack team of Navy SEALs successfully occupied it. But they were quickly counterattacked, by one solitary APC. The SEALs desperately needed an infusion of a massive technological advantage, but unfortunately no air support was assigned to them. The outgunned SEALs, products of some of the most arduous training in the military world, designed to hone them to the hardest edge of military steel, blew retreat and scampered back to the beach to hide. That night, under cover of darkness, the retreating SEALs redeployed farther afield by swimming out to a ship to snuggle under the safety of naval armor. The navy tossed its biggest five-inch shells at the transmitting tower but missed. It didn’t matter anyway. The Grenadans were transmitting from their old radio station closer to town.
The second target was the rescue of Sir Paul Scoon, the island’s governor general, a well-tanned and glorified ambassador who served as an official representative of the Queen of England. A different team of Navy SEALs was sent to rescue him at the Government House on the outskirts of St. George’s. Facing intense ground fire, the brand-new Black Hawk helicopters withstood a baptism of fire but could not land. On the second try they lowered twenty-five soldiers down ropes onto the roof of Government House. The SEALs also found themselves quickly outgunned by more frisky Grenadan soldiers in an APC. Fortunately the SEALs had a Spectre gun-ship on call, a massively armed cargo plane, which held the APCs at bay. The soldiers, however, could not escape like their brethren. A rescue plan was cobbled together featuring troops still bogged down at the airstrip. What was supposed to be a lightning raid turned into a long siege. At noon the SEALs were still pinned down, the governor general huddled under a table without any relief in sight.
The third target was the Richmond Hill prison, perched atop one of the innumerable hilltops on the island. A tag team of army Delta Force and Rangers was sent to capture the prison and free the political prisoners — without adequate intelligence, planning, or preparation. Once they located the target, five Black Hawk helicopters zoomed into the small mountainous valley to drop the soldiers into the prison until they realized, belatedly, that no landing areas existed. Worse, the ridge right next to the prison was actually higher, topped by Fort Frederick (where the RMC leadership was hiding in their communications-free tunnels) and dotted with anti-aircraft guns, which had clean, level shots at the helicopters.
If people didn’t take what was happening in Grenada seriously for a while, the fault probably lies in Bishop’s predecessor, Eric Gairy. During his term as head of Grenada, Gairy turned quite weird and became exceptionally enamored with UFOs. He tried to declare 1978 the year of the UFO, even though Close Encounters of the Third Kind premiered in 1977. In fact, while Gairy visited the UN in 1979 to arrange for an international panel to investigate UFOs, Bishop launched his slightly bloody coup for his mini-Marxist party. After twelve years in charge, Gairy was out of work, becoming perhaps the only person actually harmed by UFOs. In 1984 he returned to Grenada and became a perennial election loser. He died on Grenada in 1997.
The Black Hawks became sitting ducks for every gun at the fort and in the valley. The Grenadans blasted away. The fire brought down one of the choppers, while the others withstood numerous hits. One of the unfortunate pilots who crawled out of the wreckage waving his hat in surrender was gunned down by a Grenadan gunner. Later in the day the navy bombers finally plastered Fort Frederick but failed to dislodge the RMC leaders hiding in the basement tunnels. They did, however, manage to blast a mental hospital next door to the fort, killing seventeen patients and releasing many others to wander the streets.
Back at Government House, the SEALs remained trapped. As the radio communication problems reached a crescendo, a soldier reportedly made a call from the Government House to the Pentagon in order to reach the commanders on the USS
They slapped together a quick plan to rescue the rescuers at Government House. The plan featured one company of marines heading over from a north beach landing zone, while another company of marine choppers flew in, without any advance intelligence, of course. The amphibious landing was made at 7:00 that evening; the marines quickly headed out in the darkness with tanks and amphibious assault vehicles crunching down the single- lane roads toward the governor general. They left without their battalion commander, who in the haste wasn’t informed his troops had been deployed. He spent most of the night helicoptering around in a desperate bid to find his men.
The first day was almost over. Nearly all the objectives still remained unachieved. Along with rescuing all the students, saving the British governor general had been a top priority — for no other reason than he was British. Neither happened. In addition, Camp Calivigny, the main Grenadan army camp to the east of the airport, hadn’t been assaulted. The Grenadan and Cuban soldiers were still shooting back, and somewhere Coard and his Caribo- Stalinists remained unaccounted for. At the end of the day the score was Tiny Tourist Nation 1, Superpower 0.
The score was largely kept secret from the American public. For the first time in American history, journalists had been barred from an invasion. Unbeknownst to the commanders, however, seven journalists snuck into St. George’s harbor by blithely sailing in on a boat, where locals greeted them casually. Seven scruffy reporters had succeeded where the entire U.S. military had failed.
The second day of the rescue mission, October 26, dawned with the Grenadans having pretty much given up. It took a while for the Americans to realize it.
The marines finally rescued the governor general in the early morning after the noise of their vehicles frightened away the defenders. They walked into Government House and relieved the SEALs with no casualties. As originally planned by Oliver North, the governor general signed the backdated letter requesting the invasion. The Pentagon’s lawyers rested easy.
Early that morning at Fort Frederick, the leaders of the RMC figured out that the gig was up and gave the order to the PRA soldiers to melt into the populace. The leaders also slipped away, hoping to escape the islands and justice. The marines who showed up to attack the fort walked in unopposed.
South of St. George’s the Eighty-second Airborne finally started moving out from the airstrip. They attacked the remaining Cuban positions north of the airfield in the morning with some of the Cubans escaping by scurrying into the Russian embassy. Now they were in position to rescue the students at the Grand Anse campus. The soldiers, finally getting the hang of the screwy invasion, telephoned the students at the Grand Anse campus from the True Blue campus to gather intelligence on the enemy’s strength. A medical student who was a ham radio operator at Grand Anse turned out to have one of the most reliable connections to the commanders on the
The first rescue plan was to have Rangers go in and return the students to the airstrip in trucks. But Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who had been hastily attached to the invasion as army liaison, came down on the side of overkill. He wanted the Eighty-second sent in on marine helicopters. Grenadan army positions were to be bombarded beforehand for ten minutes. The students were told over the phone to hit the deck while the dormitories were softened up for the assault. Even though unopposed, the United States still managed to sustain casualties as two choppers crashed into aggressively growing palm trees. It had taken approximately thirty-three hours, but almost all of the students were finally rescued.
Camp Calivigny, home of the Grenadan army, to the east of the airport, out past True Blue campus, still loomed as a threat. It was supposed to have been attacked on the first day, but yet it still stood, untouched. Intelligence estimates surmised that 600 Cuban soldiers and maybe some Russian advisors were in the camp.
