At precisely 0100 hours — even as the Brazilian airliner was unloading at the main terminal — an AC-130 gunship engaged the 2nd Infantry Company's machine-gun and antiaircraft positions, and an AH-6 gunship began firing at the company compound's guard shack and another guard shack in front of the civilian terminal, eliminating the PDF guards.
Five minutes earlier, five C-141s from the States had heavy-dropped twelve jeeps, twelve motorcycles, and two HMMWVs on the Tocumen drop zone. Three minutes after the AC-130 began firing, seven more C- 141s dropped Wagner and his battalion, followed immediately by C Company of the 3rd Ranger Battalion, dropping from four C-130s. More than seven hundred Rangers had landed in minutes, 150 of them on the tarmac by the main terminal. Many passengers from the Brazilian jet were welcomed to Panama by their 'privileged' view of parachutes falling all around their airplane.
The Ranger battalion assembled, moved on foot out to their objectives, and quickly overwhelmed the resistance offered by the 2nd Infantry Company. The psychological impact of the AC-130 was too much for the PDF defenders; most tried to escape, including forty helicopter pilots in a barracks at Torrijos. When they looked out their windows and saw parachuting Rangers, they took off to the hills. They surrendered five days later, on Christmas Day.
C Company's plan was to move three platoons into the terminal from different directions, then each platoon would cover one of the floors; their frequent rehearsals had not, however, prepared them for an airliner unloading 376 passengers. That meant their immediate priority was the passengers' safety.
The Rangers entering the building found most of the passengers in the terminal waiting area — and no PDF. The building was dark. Power was knocked out by a grenade thrown into the terminal's generator by the Rangers. The Rangers continued clearing operations wearing night-vision goggles.
Most of the doors on the first floor were locked, and the Ranger squad moved on until they found a steel door that opened. The lead clement stepped inside, somebody fired a shot, and a woman started screaming in English, 'Don't shoot!'
The Rangers pulled back to take stock. There were obviously hostages and PDF inside, but it was hard to tell how many.
A Ranger sergeant wearing night-vision goggles slipped back inside and saw what looked to be four hostages — two American women and a Panamanian woman and her baby — and maybe a dozen PDF soldiers.
The sergeant came out to report, just as the company commander was arriving, prepared to talk sense to the PDF, but when that didn't work, he made an ultimatum, 'Come out or you'll all be killed,' at which point the PDF put down their weapons and came out. None of the hostages was hurt.
As the 3rd Platoon approached the terminal, PDF fired at them through a plateglass window. The platoon raced into the building and isolated the PDF in a men's room. The squad leader moved inside to take a look, but PDF hiding in the stalls shot him three times. His troops dragged him out and tossed in two hand grenades, but the PDF were protected by the metal stall doors. The Rangers then made a concerted assault. As they entered the room, a PDF shot one of them three times in the head (his Kevlar helmet saved him); the Rangers then killed two PDF; another PDF soldier jumped out of a stall and tried to snatch a Ranger weapon; another Ranger shot him in the head and killed him; another PDF jumped out and grabbed a Ranger around the neck; they slammed each other up against the wall and fought hand to hand. The Ranger kicked the PDF through a window, and he landed one floor down in front of a Ranger private who had just taken up a firing position with an M-60 machine gun. Caught by surprise, he cut the PDF soldier in half as he tried to pull a pistol.
Two and a half hours after the jump, Torrijos Tocumen airport was secured.
Inside the terminal, the Rangers separated detainees — civilian passengers from the Brazilian airliner — from the prisoners, and flex-cuffed (using flexible plastic handcuffs) the prisoners. The detainces were asked to wait in the terminal until order was restored. When some of the children became hungry a few hours later, the Rangers arranged a meal with the restaurant manager and paid for it themselves.
At 2:08 A.M., the first 82nd Airborne troopers began dropping on their drop zones — twenty-three minutes late because of the ice storm at Fort Bragg. The rest of the drop was also delayed by the storm, but the entire 82nd was finally on the ground by 5:15 A.M.
By 10:00 A.M., the 82nd had assumed responsibility for the security of the airfield.
Later, it was learned from one of Noriega's bodyguards that a Ranger roadblock near Torrijos-Tocumen had narrowly missed capturing the dictator — and saving the United States a lot of trouble. Here is how it happened:
The day before, after Noriega's entourage from Colon had split and a decoy had gone on to the Comandancia, Noriega had been taken to the rest camp at Ceremi for a date with a prostitute. By the time he got there, he was reportedly in less than total control, having consumed about two fifths of scotch by then.
The first inklings that his country was being invaded came when he heard the AC-130 and attack helicopters firing on Torrijos-Tocumen, soon followed by the roar of transports dropping Rangers.
Moments after the firing started, Noriega ran out of the hotel, wearing nothing but his red bikini underwear, and jumped into the back of his car. 'The Americans are after me!' he cried. 'Let's get out of here.'
Down the road, they ran into the Ranger roadblock.
'My God,' he screamed, 'they know where I am! They dropped these guys right on top of me!'
When a car ahead of them hit the roadblock and began drawing fire from the Rangers, Noriega's car made a quick 180-degree turnaround and took a back road into Panama City. Afterward, Noriega was so 'shook,' it took a day to get him calmed down.
At one time that first night, the JSOTF had 171 aircraft in the skies over Panama City. No one had a midair collision, and no one ran out of fuel. The AC-130 gunships kept twenty-four-hour coverage for ninety-six straight hours, using their sensors, weapons, and searchlights to intimidate the PDF and support the SF, Rangers, SEALs, and the conventional forces.
USAF special operations forces in Panama — the 1st Special Operations Wing (SOW) — were commanded by Colonel (later Major General) George Gray and composed of MH-53J Pave Low helos, AC-130 gunships, MH- 60G Blackhawks with refuel probes, MC-13 °Combat Talon aircraft for air-drop and penetration of heavily defended airspace, and EC-130 aircraft used for PSYOPs, radio, and TV.
RIO HATO
While the 1st Ranger Battalion was parachuting down on Torrijos-Tocumen, the other two battalions of the 75th Regiment were making a parachute assault at Rio Hato, west of Panama City.
They had launched seven hours earlier from Fort Benning, Georgia, in seventeen C-130s of the 317th airlift wing, stationed at Pope Air Force Base. Each of the first fifteen aircraft was crammed with sixty-five Rangers (C- 130s normally carried fifty-two fully loaded troops), jammed tighter than rush-hour subways. Forget about moving. Forget about walking down the aisle to a 'toilet.' Five-gallon cans were passed around under people's legs. Because there wasn't room to rig, everyone had donned their equipment before boarding. Each Ranger carried on his lap a sixty-to-one-hundred-pound rucksack loaded with ammunition and supplies — including at least one 66mm light antitank weapon (LAW). As it turned out, the LAWs came in very handy.
At H-hour, F-117 stealth bombers dropped two 2,000-pound bombs, with time-delay fuses, 150 meters from the 6th and 7th Company barracks. For the next three minutes, Apache helicopters, AH-6 helicopter gunships, and an AC-130 gunship fired on antiaircraft weapons positions around the airfield.
At H+3 minutes, the lead C-130 crossed the drop zone at 500 feet, trailed immediately by the C-130s dropping the Rangers, followed shortly by two C-130s dropping four jeeps and four motorcycles.
As the Rangers started their descent, they could see green machine gun tracers crossing the drop zone — or worse, whizzing up toward them. Thirteen of the fifteen C-130s received multiple hits. And a few Rangers were also hit as they descended. The bombs and the preparatory fire had had an effect — two hundred cadets were later
