Clip 022 | ANGLICO Marine Details the Battle of Khafji (Gulf War)

So you were involved in the Battle of kaf G. Is that am I saying that? Right? Is it coffee? Okay? A lot of people may not know what that is. I know people at first Anglico know what that is or a lot of Anglice people know what that is. Can you kind of explain what what that was, what that battle was, and how it kind of came to be, and then what your guys' role was in that. Yeah, So the Air War, when the Airwar commenced, we kind of changed our role a bit. So, uh we first off, let me back up and let you know that first, Anglico, there was an organization in those days called trig Right and recon Force was in there.

Anglico was in there. We had Calm just to make it a natural unit. We had Calm and Intel Battalion in there as well. So the like I told you, Third Marines Rossale Mashab was the closest marine units and that was twenty three miles away from the border. The first casualties that would occur from the Marine Corps from the Third Marines from two hundred miller two hundred millimeter Astro two rockets at that point because they they had been there just watching and not really doing much, and then we started slacking them with air and then they they started shooting at us. Right, So, yeah, the shooting war finally kicked off. Yeah, but it was it was still no one was crossing the border, nobody was doing anything like that. We were I

can probably send you a video of a good friend of mine, Randy Hale, because he was They've got a video of him, and they they show them up there shooting back and forth. And what happens is so we would start to rotate, there would there would be US SF and seals all along what looked like little alamos all along the border and basically rops. And I think that we got kind of complete and I don't mean we as an American force, because we were shooting at them a lot and they weren't really doing a whole lot back to us. So we didn't read the signs very well.

And as a matter of fact, I was supposed to rotate up but they extended LZ's team, Lieutenant Lang and l Z and a guy named John Courtney and a few others. They they they they were going to stay up there. I was supposed to do the next rotation, but they extended him a couple of days. And I actually think that's that was probably a smart thing because those guys have had already been up there like a week or something, and l Z had a mission. Uh and and and he he could probably tell you better than me, but he ran a mission on some some guys and when he dropped, he had like two or three hours of secondaries and he reported it. Uh yeah. So basically what they were starting to do was there were port and Ammo, you know, their their storrem Ammo

and was prepositioning. He said he had he had the mule night side up there, and he said he he was seeing lots of movement at night, lots of movement. There was a lot of stuff going on, and and he was reporting it. He was, I mean, other people were reporting similar, similar observations, and we dropped the ball. We we didn't realize what was about to happen to us. The night that had happened, I had come on watch and we've been hearing the whole time. You had to remember we got there in August. Uh. The other thing that had happened is when the right before the the battle kicked off, about a month early they evacuated the city. That created some other situations which I can get into in a second. But so they evacuated the city and Shrid had like,

uh some c two notes advanced, two notes of foward notes in the city itself. The night that it happened was a full moon, and we've been hearing this is what they do all the time because of the full moon in that part of the world looks like daytime when the full moons, and we were told you got to watch the full moon. That's one of the dom's favorite things to do in the Iran Iraq war was to attack at night on the full moon. And the night that it happened that and all we used we lost calm. We lost calm, and then we started getting all these weird reports. I, you know, I try to reach them. We were supposed to try and reach them, like every thirty minutes, you know, make sure they got the radio check going and stuff. And I didn't,

you know, three most of the way into my watch, I went and I woke up the team chief and I said, hey, you know, I have a heard anything from anybody in hours. I don't know what's happening here. And he got on. He ended up contacting the briget platoon and you know, hey, we we got reports that hey, they know shit are attacking. Later we would find out I did not see LZ for ten hours and the members of that team. And I will tell you that probably not since the Eastern Offensive had American units ever been overrun like that.

It had been a long time. And because there were no real forces ross Almashab was the closest place that we had third Marines, so all of the actual forces, you had a screening force up there. You had a bunch of anti tank units from the saying with tow missiles and whatnot up there, and they would do good work. Luckily. Uh. It was supposed to be a three division attack on us, but it started way out to the west with L A. R. They had blunted an attack. That's actually where the first the first rounds were fired was out to the west and they blunted the attack and then air ate them up coming out of the l Wall for Forrest was another division that was supposed to hit us. The air force picked them up and really pretty much them before they could get across the border.

It was it was, it was kind of a disjointed attack that they We got lucky too, because only one brigade out of the fifth Mech division that we would first Anglico would fight the fifth Mech three times. We fight them there coffee, we fight them at the second Belt of Obstacles, and we fight them at the airport. So it was a unit that that that and they got pretty much annihilated out trying to escape from Kwait City. But they would fight again up and against the Kurds like a year later, so they weren't totally wiped out. But they only one brigade initially kicked off the attack. And you know this is gonna sound funny, but LZ told me that he grabbed the AT four, which you need to know is the AT four was relatively new and most people didn't know how to you know, all

how to undo all the safe that were on the on the system. So he picked it up, couldn't shoot it, and uh he asked him about it. He'll say his his one act of defiance as he put an HGPD round uh in in his UH two oh three and shot it at the tank that were coming out of him. He h Tennant Lang had told the Retonaissance UNITSA hey, look there's a drop off on the other side. We don't we can't really see it. So there was a reserve you recon unit out of Alabama, and they told him, ma, can you push a guy forward with a radio so that they can notify if some things happened. They pushed a guy out there, but he didn't have a radio to notify if it was a seal team or recon team, a first angle co team going towards the thing. And LZ said he could see towards the shore that there

was a fight going on with the seals, right, and then they saw the guy from Recon running across. It was about a two hundred yard open area, and they couldn't hear what he was screaming. By the time they could hear what he was screaming, literally, an entire company of tanks were coming up over the burm, and two hundred yards isn't that far. You know, a lot of people criticized them for some of losing their crypto.

But I don't hold on, hold on, you're breaking up time. Hold on your breaking up a little bit. I don't want to lose any of this, you said. The last thing I heard was some people criticized him for losing their crypto. Yeah, and a lot of equipment. All they were because at the speed of the attack they were able to get their weapons and get the Marines out of there. They a lot of their other equipment was left in place, so much so that this is another interesting story.

We didn't it changed all the fills across the entire theater because they all they had both their HCHEF. In those days, it was a tape, so we had both ACHF and VHFs. They lost all their gear, so instantly all the crypto across the theater had to change. So so let me get make sure I got this right. You guys are everybody's in their positions, you know along the line, you know the different elements, seals and you guys and everything. And then you push out a recon guy who's supposed to have a radio, doesn't have a radio. You push him out to cover a blind spot basically, and then he sees you set a company level a company worth of tanks that come up over the hilltop and then all the guys just grab like their weapons and whatever is basically on them and and pull fall

back. Rather than I mean, obviously you don't have time to well no, they they they they, I guess tried to engage with an at four and uh and everyone was trying to engage with something. Everyone was trying to engage. It was it was it was it was the it was the call. I mean, you're you're talking about light units with small arms really with no way to fight tanks. It was a tank. There was a tank company coming at them. So you know, I think the actions of Lieutenant Lang and and and and and l Z saved the lives of the Marines that they were with. They they pulled them back. They literally were driving being shot at by by tank rounds and landing within ten to five meters of the of the of the damn hum vy. So you know what what and that

we didn't have up armored hum V in those days, so this is this is a regular you know, plastic canvas humb and these guys are are running for their lives. You know, l Z would would do some amazing things that night. You know, I I I feel very fortunate to call him my friend, uh because he's he he is very very very you know, when when when the ship hits the fan. He does what needs to happen.

So you know that night he almost got left behind that night. Uh, they they pulled back to a safe house, and you know, the iraqis kept coming and they he was ordered to go and tie and and if you see, there's a really famous video of the Battle of Coffee and you see a help fire missile going through this tower, right and you see it's one of one when you sew it, you see it before that happens.

That actually happens during the counter attack, but when it's up happening is ls is ordered to go up there and use that as an op. But they leave it. They leave it, and or no, no, no, no, I got that wrong. The captain went up and totally screwed that story up. The captain went up there to make that the op and they leave them. But Elsie realizes that the captain's been left up in the tower.

So Elsie's the one that goes back to get him. He doesn't know that everyone's left him. And by the time they're coming down again, here's a tank rolling down the street firing at them. You know, he saved the captain's life that night by going back for him. That's crazy. Man running from running from tanks on multiple occasions does not sound like a fun time.

I will tell you when I saw them for the first time, it's you know, fear is contagious. But the look that they had on their face, you could tell. First off, they hadn't had sleep in probably twenty four hours. Second off, they'd been running for their lives with no communications. We didn't know where they were, they didn't know what was going on. We eventually got communications with the Ford element there. We had like a Ford Sault element that that we pushed forward up there. That was with the shrig Ford headquarters. And uh, you know, there are a lot of individual actions on teams. You know, Captain flin Span later on, Lieutenant Colonel Clinsmith's team did some amazing work up there as well. You know,

there's a there's a there's easily a dozen guys I could name that that did amazing things and managed to We were lucky we didn't lose anybody. Yeah, we were seriously lucky because we were out matched that night. We just didn't have we just did not have the one. We didn't have the essay too. We didn't have the type of forces in place that could have actually done much. The Saudi I think they got thirteen They killed thirteen tanks that night with their toes. Wow, you know, yeah, so they they they did, they did good work. You know, there's a lot, there's a lot of things that went on that night. And the counter attack, well basically the counter attack because this was Saudi Arabia, they wanted the

Arabs to do the counter attack and push them out. So the Arabs supported by Third Marines is basically what happened Third Marines. That would be the first time I would ever be in combat, and it would it would It was a sobering moment, you know, in the fact that that you would It was the training that took over. And I don't think we slept but three hours, three to four hours over the next seventy two hours, you know, we we we would be the salt. I was in assault that ran it. So we pushed up to the cottage cafe and we had this was before like Blue Poor Track or any of that garbage. That's why Blue Corse Tracker. We had to figure out. We had like thirteen teams running in and around uh and all all I could do is get pause reps plotting on

a paper map. And and I will tell you again, I don't want to say bad things about people. Uh that's one thing I don't get into. But you know that trap to reconnaissance came up there. We're told, specifically told by our commander hey, that that's a shrig area. You guys don't go up there. You have no business being up there. They were trapped because we didn't know they were up there when we evacuated the city.

They were up there and they'd been surrounded by Iraqis. I'm sitting there in those days, that tar harnet was a tar harnet then wash. There was no what do you want to call it? There was no crypto on it was an uncovered net. So I got I hear this guy, the CEO, actually Colonel Grubb, was in our position because we're about to kick off the counter attack, and I said, hey, I think I got a reconnaissance team from third Marines in the city. And he goes, what.

So we had no clue because that was the first time we had got in contact with him. So he contacted a few folks. We we ended up putting an RFA around him, and and and then west for those that do Yeah, yeah, we we ended up. We we ended up. It was the Saying and the Kataris that would do the counter attack on that and the Anglico teams. I mean, the bulk of what happened, We're we're done done primarily by the Anglico teams to drive those forces out along with the Arab because we're as far as the fire support side of it. Yeah, Third Marines but and here's the other Third Marines would only ever go up to the fence line of this. It was it was the Anglico forces that went into the city primarily First and guys from Third. Teams from Third and First

were the guys that would go into the city. So where was this recon team? Like I think I've heard about them before, right, they were trapped on a rooftop and like Iraqis didn't know they were there, so they like survived on a rooftop for like two days or something like that. Yeah, And like I said, I'm not going to say a lot of bad stuff because after the battle, they they they they they wanted to take credit for a lot of I had to really I relayed all their missions that they went to the artillery from UH one twelve, so they actually only fired two missions because I was the one relaying for them to the artillery unit, you know. Uh. But you know, it got to the point where as more teams started flooding into the city. I had to keep telling them,

hey, you you're not You're not going to be allowed to shoot. We've got Anglico teams all over the city, and where you're trying to shoot is in close proximity to where our teams are ye and the other thing. It was kind of strange because again, you're not prepared for some of the stuff that happens. I mean, I got informed, hey, there's an arc light strike, and I had to and I don't think I got the word out to everybody. You know, three B fifty two's with a what is it, one hundred and fifty some odd mark eighty two's and he had three a flight of three. Oh Jesus just just raked the border, uh to cut off additional forces and from coming down and reinforcing the brigade that was in there.

Clip 022 | ANGLICO Marine Details the Battle of Khafji (Gulf War)

Kapitelklicken springt direkt hin

Shownotes

Transkriptvom Podcast bereitgestellt · Zeitmarken springen hin