Airborne: A Guided Tour of an Airborne Task Force

originally gathered by the commercial satellites: Perhaps as many as three brigades of Guatemalan infantry and light armored units had been moved from various army barracks to assembly points along the highways to Belize, and were now concentrated within three miles/five kilometers of the border. There was also clear evidence of stepped up coastal patrols by Guatemalan naval forces outside the Belizean Cays. The consensus reached by CIA and State Department reconnaissance experts was that a military incursion into Belize was imminent. Upon being notified of this conclusion, and taking a firsthand look at relief maps prepared from the satellite imagery, the President held an emergency meeting with his Secretaries of State and Defense, both of whom agreed that the Belizean ambassador should be called to the White House and apprised of the situation with all due haste. The British Ambassador and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were also contacted, as was the newly elected Prime Minister of Britain, Herbert Foster.

On September 5th, hours after receiving a redline call from the President concerning the Guatemalan troop buildup, Prime Minister Foster announced that he’d accepted an invitation to Washington at the end of the month, citing an economic agenda as the reason for his trip. This was, of course, a cover story to satisfy the news media. His one and only true aim was to confer with the President in person about the worrisome developments in Central America. To aid in the subterfuge, the Belizean Prime Minister Carlos Hawkins was asked to remain in his own country. The first day of Foster’s visit was September 25th. That same day, a newly processed batch of PHOTOINT and SAR images showed that the Guatemalan troops, armor, and heavy artillery had moved into positions along the Belizean border.

By September 29th, a special joint U.S./British envoy was quietly dispatched to Guatemala City with a message that neither power would tolerate an act of aggression against a peaceful neighbor. The small group of high-level diplomats sat waiting outside General Hidalgo Guzman’s executive office in the Palacio Nacional for three hours before being told that he was too busy to see them. The following day, the President and Prime Minister Foster held a White House press conference in which they made public the situation in Central America, and warned Guatemala to stand down from its offensive posture or risk serious consequences. Their words were carefully chosen to leave no doubt that their two governments meant business. Guzman’s response, issued within hours through his U.N. ambassador in New York City, was that his ground forces were on routine training maneuvers and presented no threat to Belize or any other sovereign state in the region. That same afternoon, Prime Minister Foster flew back to London for a meeting with his chief advisors. At the same time, the President asked General Richard Hancock, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to report to him ASAP with a full assessment of American military options. Whatever Guzman thought he was doing, the President, who had sprouted more than a few gray hairs during the Sudanese embassy evacuation of 2007, was positive of one thing: for the second time since he’d taken office, he had a major international crisis on his hands.

Western Highway, Southwest of Belize City, 0100 Hours, October 1st, 2009

While Guatemala was hardly a military Goliath on a global scale, it was in comparison to Belize, all things under the tropical sun being relative. Unlike most of its regional neighbors, Belize was a representative democracy that settled internal political disputes with ballots rather than bullets. The crime rate was low and civil strife was nonexistent, unless one counted the heated, and occasionally foul-mouthed debates that were televised during election years. Roughly the size of Massachusetts, with less than 250,000 citizens, Belize had never developed the national means or inclination to expand beyond its borders, and strived to cultivate friendly and open relations with surrounding nations. The closest equivalent it had to an army was the Belize Defense Force (BDF), which was really little more than a local constabulary equipped with handguns, light automatic weapons, and a modest but well- maintained fleet of military Land Rovers.

The Guatemalan invasion force, therefore, surged across the border virtually unopposed, advancing toward Belize City in a long file of infantrymen and mechanized armor — the latter consisting of two light tank companies and perhaps a hundred French VAB armored personnel carriers (APCs). Simultaneously, militia units acting under the regular army’s direction began slipping into the country at various points along the flanks of the main column, conducting a series of disruptive strikes on its power and telecommunications grid, severing phone and power lines, and knocking out electrical plants and switching stations, particularly in key population centers. Used to watching over a peaceful citizenry, grimly aware that any attempt at resisting the Guatemalan military outfits would be like trying to hold back an avalanche with nothing but their bare hands, the BDF constables confronted by the advancing column gave up with only a few scattered outbreaks of fighting.

By seven AM, a mere six hours after the incursion began, the Guatemalan army had seized control of both of the country’s major airports. By eight o‘clock Guatemalan soldiers and tanks had massed before the Government House on Regent Street. By eight-fifteen its Guatemalan emissaries had been dispatched into the building to demand a formal declaration of surrender from the Belizean leadership. At nine o’clock Prime Minister Hawkins came out onto the steps of the building to acquiesce, cursing a bloody streak as he submitted to military custody. A descendant of the British pirates that had harried the coastline in the 16th century, he had inherited their roguish nature and hated yielding to anybody. However, nobody knew that much of the bluster was a well-played act.

White House, Washington, D.C., 0800 Hours, October 12th, 2009

Although he would always deny it publicly, General Richard Hancock had taken the name of the plan from a joke he’d overheard one of his staffers telling at the watercooler outside his Pentagon office. It had involved Guatemala’s biggest fruit export, General Guzman’s pants pocket, a visiting princess, and a punch line that went something like, “I’m sorry, Hidalgo, what I’d really prefer is a royal banana!” Hence the name, Operation Royal Banana.

“In summation,” he was saying, “the plan is to devastate the enemy with superior numbers and a tightly synchronized, highly maneuverable air-ground attack, with each tactical element enhancing our collective combat power on the battlefield.”

“Call me dense, but I’d like to hear the specifics one more time,” the President said. “If you please, General Hancock.”

Hancock nodded crisply, reached for the water pitcher near his elbow, and refilled his half-drained glass. The President had been accused of being many things by his political opponents, but nobody on Capitol Hill had ever called him dense. To the contrary, he had a tremendous head for facts and details, and was energetic enough to remain whipcrack sharp after working for days with little or no sleep. Now he looked at Hancock across the briefing table, keen-eyed and fresh although the past ninety-six hours, a period in which he’d finally obtained resolutions of condemnation and ultimatum against Guatemala from the U.N. Security Council and OAS, had been one of the longest of those furiously paced, round-the-clock stretches in memory. On the other hand, the Secretary of State, who was the President’s junior by almost ten years, seemed to be having trouble keeping up. He sat on his immediate right, dark half-moons under his eyes, his hair slightly tussled, his skin the color and texture of drying pancake batter. On the Chief Executive’s left side, the Secretary of Defense seemed just a bit further from the edge of utter fatigue.

At least they’re too tired to launch into their usual point-counterpoint routine, Hancock thought. It would be a godsend if he could get through the remainder of the briefing session without hearing them snarl at each other. He sipped his water, feeling it soothe the rawness at the back of his throat. At the table this morning, in addition to the President, his bedraggled national security team, the 82nd Airborne’s commanding officer General Roger Patterson, and Hancock himself, was the British team. Made up of the British Secretary of Defence, and Brigadier General Nathan R. Tenneville and Air Vice Marshal Arthur Raddock, of the 5th Para Brigade and Royal Air Force respectively, they were here to explain the British position and plans. Each of the men had plenty of questions for Hancock, and he’d nearly talked himself hoarse answering them.

Well, here went what was left of his voice. “To ensure strategic and tactical surprise, and give us the overwhelming numerical advantage I spoke about a moment ago, all three brigades of the 82nd Airborne Division, along with the 5th Paras, will drop into Belize within two hours of each other and rapidly take control of its major airfields,” he said. “As we’ve seen on the maps, there are only two of any size and consideration, the larger of them located 10 miles/16 kilometers northwest of Belize City, the other about 1.5 miles/2.5 kilometers from the center of the city. Once the airheads are fully secured, the 501st Airborne Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Division will be delivered with transport, scout, and assault helicopters to seek out and destroy fielded Guatemalan forces in Belize. At the same time, a MEU (SOC) — I believe it’s going to be the 26th — will take island and port facilities, and hold them open for follow-on forces and supplies. Finally, to suppress further Guatemalan aggression, the aircraft of the 366th and 347th Wings will conduct a short air campaign to destroy Guatemalan command-and-control facilities, as well as leadership and fielded forces targets. The importance of coordination,