At the 9 February briefing in Riyadh, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney had asked, 'How will it all end?' Now — at least in our sector of attack — I could see an emerging opportunity to answer the Secretary's question. We now had a final plan to close off the RGFC and destroy them.
Here is what we figured at that point: The 1st CAV, our northern envelopment arm, would attack east and just to the north of the 1st AD toward Objective Raleigh, which was where we thought the Hammurabi Division was located. The British, our southern envelopment arm, would attack northeast from their current location near their Objective Waterloo to Objective Denver. The two arms would link up behind the surrounded Iraqi forces near or just to the north of the town of Safwan, which was itself just north of the Iraq-Kuwait border on Highway 8. In between these two divisions would be the pressure force — the 1st AD, 3rd AD, and 1st INF. They would all attack due east toward Objective Denver. Finally, I would have the 2nd ACR in reserve, possibly to attack south of the 1st INF and toward Denver, inside the British. Though the concept seemed to make sense on the surface, I knew the real challenge would be getting the 1st CAV fitted in north of the 1st AD.
At around 2000, Stan Cherrie communicated our concept to the main CP for some further planning, while we set about to examine quickly its overall feasibility. Though Third Army was already well aware of what we had planned by that time, John Landry sent the double-envelopment scheme of maneuver to Third Army as part of the midnight VII Corps official situation report. Thus the CENTCOM staff had that report to include in General Schwarzkopf's 27 February morning update, but whether the update included mention of the double envelopment — or if in fact he ever learned of it — I do not know.
At a little past midnight, the Third Army liaison, Colonel Dick Rock, reported to Third Army that we were planning a double envelopment. And at his 0615 report on 27 February, he added details on the identification of units and location of objectives.
REPORTS
By 2100 the main attack was well under way.
When the 2nd ACR attacked through the RGFC security zone into a brigade of the Tawalkana, the orientation of the Iraqi units was either west toward us, or else south and southeast, as though they still expected the attack to come north up Wadi al Batin. North of the 2nd ACR, the 3rd AD had also begun to hit more and more Iraqi units, and by late afternoon had hit what appeared to be another brigade of the Tawalkana. To their north, lead elements of the 1st AD had also hit Iraqi armored and mechanized units. Although we were still getting prisoners, most Iraqi units were in defensive positions and fighting back. So far it appeared that both the direction and power of our attack had them surprised. We had the Tawalkana Division fixed, and possibly the Medina, as well as elements of other Iraqi divisions that had been incorporated into their building defense. I wanted to keep it that way by continuing the attack all night and all the next day… and for as long as necessary to accomplish our mission. And I wanted to press the attack both close and deep in order to keep the Iraqis from getting set, and permitting them to better coordinate their artillery fires or to emplace minefields.
While all this was happening, the British had been highly successful. While protecting our advancing corps right flank, they had defeated the 52nd Iraqi Division and overrun the HQ of most of the defending Iraqi frontline infantry divisions.
Thus, by late afternoon of 26 February, we had three divisions and a cavalry regiment in direct contact with the enemy. North to south: 1st AD, 3rd AD, 2nd ACR, and 1 UK. The 1st INF Division had been moving since 0430, and would pass forward through the 2nd ACR later that evening to give us four divisions on line in a night attack.
By this time, with so many units engaged in combat, there were more events to report in the battle than time to report them. The best we could do for our higher HQ was to summarize our plans and the enemy actions. It was just not possible to attempt the sort of specific detailed reporting of the battle at the corps level that one would normally get at a lower echelon, such as a battalion or a brigade.
The reporting did have to get done, though, and there we were, beset with problems, none of them having to do with talent or motivation.
The biggest problem, ironically, was our success on the battlefield. At every level, commanders and soldiers were more focused on fighting their units than on reporting, and so the latter suffered. That's normal in heavy fighting, of course — it was the same in Vietnam — and in fact, the heavier the fight and the faster the pace, the greater the lag time, but still it was a problem.
Another one was the constant movement of the command posts. Reports are assembled in the CPs and passed on, and maps kept current — yet everyone's command posts kept moving. They'd be set up for a short time, then they'd be gone again.
To control the 1st AD movement and early contacts, Ron Griffith had set up what was essentially a rolling TAC CP — a group of vehicles directly behind the attacking brigades, and which almost constantly moved along with them (and thus equipped only with line-of-sight communications). Butch Funk did the same thing. Both Griffith and Funk moved about the battlefield either in ground vehicles or helicopters. Beginning with the night attack on the twenty-sixth Tom Rhame commanded his division in a tank near the front. Don Holder also was up front with a small command group of vehicles as his 2nd ACR TAC and TOC moved during the day. Though the main CP of the Big Red One began moving north through the breach, the division not only ran away from them, the main never again set up and functioned through the rest of the war. Their reports went to their TAC CP, which had only line- of-sight comms. Meanwhile, most of my commanders directed the fight by radio when they could, but very often, because there was so much coordination involved, they were out of their CPs and up front, commander to commander.
In short, with all of this moving about, the staff officers and NCOs charged with writing things down and reporting to higher HQ could catch only bits and fragments… and then only when they themselves were not moving. When the CPs displaced, the staffs missed the part of the fight that went on while they were in transit. If the fight develops fast, the staffs can miss a lot in a short time.
Even today, battle logs are handwritten accounts of unit activities taken down from what the transcriber hears on the radio. These transcribers are normally accurate, but you can't report what you don't hear. In addition, if a radio operator uses a headset, then the transcriber cannot eavesdrop on what the operator's hearing, and so pick up potentially useful information. Finally, there are no electronic recording devices in CPs; and the review and supervision of the transcriber is sometimes haphazard. In other words, it is not a good system and we should get it fixed — but it was the one we were using in Desert Storm.
By the evening of 26 February, my VII Corps main CP in Saudi Arabia was both far out of line-of-sight FM radio range (and thus unable to hear the reports of the fight over the corps FM command net) and far from the sounds and sights we were seeing and hearing ourselves. It was not their fault. I told the CP to stay there, because it was our nerve center, and to break it down, move it more than 100 kilometers, and set it up again would have taken longer than the whole four days of the war.
However, their immobility, combined with our mobility, didn't help the accuracy or timeliness of their reports on the current friendly situation.
The VII Corps SITREP that went to Third Army as of midnight 26 February from my main CP illustrates it:
'2nd ACR attacked in zone to fix elements of the Tawalkana Division. Regiment attacked covering forces of an armored BDE and destroyed enemy T-72s and BMPs vicinity PT4797.' Phase Line Smash: 'One tank and nine MTLBs were destroyed; 1,300 EPWs were captured. During attacks on 26 Feb, 2nd ACR fought one brigade of the Tawalkana Division and elements of two bde's of the 12 AD, the 46th and 50th Bde's.'
Now, considering the circumstances, that is not a bad report, but it is far from complete and scarcely conveys the intensity of the fighting by the 2nd ACR during the Battle of 73 Easting.
In the same SITREP, the 1st AD was reported to have attacked one battalion of the Tawalkana and destroyed more than 30 tanks and 10 to 15 other vehicles, while the 3rd AD was reported to have run into stiff resistance along the 71 north/south grid line, destroyed numerous armored vehicles with direct and indirect fires, and captured 130 EPWs.
In fact, that day the 1st AD destroyed 112 tanks, 82 APCs, 2 artillery pieces, 94 trucks, 2 ADA systems, and
