XVIII Corps, VII Corps, Egyptian Corps — still ruled. From all I gathered from the call to John, there was no unusual sense of urgency other than that, for some reason or other, the CINC wanted us to go a bit early. He still wanted us in a coordinated deliberate attack, and all the other pieces of the mission remained unchanged.
I turned to Stan. 'Get the order out,' I told him. 'We attack according to the same plan, but at 1500 today. Artillery prep starts at 1430 for thirty minutes. I want to cheat with the 2nd ACR and start them at 1430.'
'WILCO.'
The order went out.
ACTIONS
Then the weather turned bad. While VII Corps units attacked, there were high winds and rain, which severely reduced visibility in some places to less than 100 meters. Though all this probably helped conceal our attack, and so worked to our benefit, the effect for me personally was to trap me for most of the afternoon at the TAC, where I listened to the radio transmissions of the battle reports. Here is what was happening.
At 1430, an almost 6,000-round prep was fired for thirty minutes. This was fired by the division artillery of the 1st INF, the 42nd Artillery Brigade, 75th Artillery Brigade, 142nd Artillery Brigade, and the Regimental Artillery of the British: a total of over 260 cannons and 60 MLRS; 414 MLRS rockets were fired, and cannon accounted for the rest. It was an awesome display of firepower, and of coordination and soldier-NCO skill in getting it together in such compressed time. From a standing no-notice start at 0930, they had put it all together in five hours. Creighton Abrams, Colonels Mike Dotson, Morrie Boyd, Gunner Laws, 142nd commander Colonel Charles Linch, and Brigadier (UK) Ian Drurie were masterful in their teamwork and leadership.
Following the prep fires, the 1st INF attacked, with Colonel Bert Maggart's 1st Brigade on the left and Colonel Tony Moreno's 2nd Brigade on the right. Colonel Dave Weisman's 3rd Brigade was in reserve, to be committed when the division expanded the breach head to three-brigade width beyond Phase Line Colorado to New Jersey, at a distance of about forty kilometers.
The Iraqi defense was laid out like this: First there were wire obstacles, then mines (the wires and mines extended back about five or ten kilometers). Then came bunkers and trenches, extending another ten kilometers. This far west, there were no fire trenches, though they did have them in front of the 1st CAV and perhaps thirty kilometers west of the Wadi al Batin.
Tension was high as the two brigades attacked. Their mission was to clear the breach zone of not only direct fire that could be placed on the units following them, but also of Iraqi artillery observers who could send indirect fire from Iraqi artillery units. (I didn't want
The breach was to be made slowly, steadily, and deliberately. The 1st INF lead tanks were equipped with mine plows that had been fitted in front of each track to plow up mines and push them to the side. Behind the plows came tanks equipped with heavy rollers in front of each track to set off any mines missed by the plows. To be sure lanes were cleared, a tank with a full track-width blade followed the rollers to scrape the entire width of the lane. This ensured positive clearance for the many fuel trucks that would soon use the lanes.
Crews in the lead mine-plow tanks were the tip of the attacking VII Corps spear. In those vehicles tensions were way up. They were out front and ready.
While mine-clearing tanks did their work, the rest of 1st Brigade and 2nd Brigade kept up relentless suppressive fires on Iraqi positions, forcing the defending Iraqis either to die in their bunkers or to surrender. And 1st INF artillery continued to fire on Iraqi positions just in front of advancing tanks and Bradleys, as well as deeper, to silence the remaining Iraqi artillery. Apache helicopters joined the fight by firing deep over the top of the attacking brigades to destroy Iraqi tanks. It was a masterful coordinated combined-arms fight by those lead brigades and the division to get all the combat power of the division into operation.
The Iraqis never had a chance. The Iraqi 26th Division had been defending with two brigades forward, the 110th and 434th, each on a fifteen-kilometer front. They were surprised and stunned by the speed and violence of the 1st INF attack, and rapidly cracked. Though there was return fire, mostly small arms and some heavier weapons that were quickly silenced, the Iraqis could not effectively coordinate their defense; pre G-Day artillery raids had knocked out much of their telephone wire and they feared getting on radios, in the belief that U.S. forces would use the transmissions as a source to target. Their third brigade was to the north, refusing the western flank, and could not assist.
The Iraqi trenches were anywhere from two to six feet deep, and the bunkers had two feet or more of sandbag cover overhead. The Iraqis would come out of the deeper bunkers to man the trenches, and interspersed among their positions were heavier vehicles such as tanks and BMPs. Mortars and artillery fired sporadically. One of the units to receive mortar fire was Company C, 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor, and it quickly became involved in a typical situation. U.S. engineers and mortars fired smoke in an attempt to blind the Iraqi defense, and some of the smoke blew back on the attacking units, making progress difficult, although more of the smoke fell in front of the Iraqis and was helpful. Meanwhile, the mine plows tried to keep at a speed of five mph or less, and on line to clear the mines evenly in the twenty-four lanes, while other units fired over them to suppress Iraqi defenders.
Rather than send our own troops into the bunker systems when we got there, we had decided to put tanks with bulldozer blades on each side of the fortifications and run them alongside the trenches, burying whatever was in there under a wall of sand. The Iraqis were given the opportunity to surrender, and some of them did; others were buried. It was their choice. It made no sense for our troops to get tangled in the Iraqi trenches and bunkers.
The battle was sharp and violent, with a high sustained tempo of fire and movement from our side. This was just as Tom Rhame and the Big Red One wanted it to be.
Once on the Iraqi side, the fighting was sporadic. Faced with this overwhelming force, many Iraqis surrendered, yet some fought back the best they could. They returned fire. Some of them died in their bunkers. But it was no use.
At about 1630, the weather cleared enough to permit flight, and I went forward to see Tom Rhame at his TAC CP, which was still in Saudi Arabia at that point. When I met him, Tom was ecstatic over the success of his division and the courage of his troops. I told Tom I was proud of them and what they had done so far. I was also relieved that we had seen no chemical attacks. We were all so highly sensitized to the possibility that I listened for any indications, and I almost could not believe that the Iraqis had not used them yet.
After I left Tom, I flew into Iraq to link up with Colonel Don Holder and the 2nd ACR Command Group. By now it was about 1715. We flew over attacking 1st INF units, stretching back as far as I could see. Some were moving forward through newly cleared lanes; others were waiting to pass through. When we reached the border, we headed northwest over the 3rd AD, which was now crossing the border and making its way through the berm (we could also see part of the 1st AD). The vehicle movement visible to me was slow, and many vehicles were stopped — but that was not that unusual in a large unit movement and attack. After we passed over the 3rd AD, we flew over nothing but empty desert until we reached the 2nd ACR.
From 1015, when I'd last talked to Don, the regiment had seen some action against the deep brigade of the Iraqi 26th Division, about twenty kilometers from the line of departure. The Iraqi division commander had had to fight the Big Red One and the 2nd ACR simultaneously from two directions, with few workable communications. The 2nd ACR was continuing to attack while I visited with Don.
The 2nd ACR had captured some officers, he reported, engaged enemy armored vehicles with their aviation and close air support, and their helos had taken some fire. From 1430 until later that evening (a report I got after returning to the TAC), Troop L on the regiment's eastern flank had fought nine engagements over a space of twenty kilometers against T-55s, BMPs, infantry, and bunkers. They had destroyed one T-55, a BMP, and a PT 76 (a Soviet-built light amphibious tank), and taken approximately 300 prisoners. They had also refueled twice and gotten
