Death Before Dishonour - True Stories of The Special Forces Heroes Who Fight Global Terror

by Nicholas Davies

  As a result, one whaler stayed offshore searching for the lost SEALs while the other continued towards the shore. But this second boat had to heave to and lost all power, its engine soaked by the rough seas. The mission was aborted and they tried exactly the same battle plan the following night. That also ended in failure when the two boats were again subjected to a heavy battering which drenched the SEALs. It was decided the invasion of Grenada would continue but with no forces being put on the southern part of the island.

  There was another objective, also given top priority by the US administration – the safety of the Governor-General, Sir Paul Scoon, the British government’s representative, who was still living in Government House. A SEAL team of twenty-two men was flown in seven Black Hawks straight to Government House and, despite anti-aircraft fire from nearby Fort Rupert, within minutes some men had fast-roped on to the roof of the building while the rest had landed in the grounds, taking the Grenadian defenders totally by surprise. The SEALs in Government House took up defensive positions and shepherded Sir Paul and his staff into the ground-floor dining room.

  But the PRAF soldiers on guard duty that night were alert to the situation. They immediately called up their defence forces and two Soviet-built BTR-60 APCs with multiple medium machine guns trundled into the grounds and opened fire on the SEALs as they were organising their battle plan. It had been intended that the SEALs would evacuate everyone from Government House, put them into helicopters and fly them to safety. Now everything had to change, for these Soviet APCs were causing mayhem among the SEAL team, who were equipped with no more than rifles, sub-machine guns and pistols.

  The SEALs had no protective armour, no defence and pathetic weapons. There had been no suggestion in any pre-attack briefing of the possible presence of these powerful Soviet APCs, and this annoyed the SEALs officers on the ground. Once again the bravest of US Special Forces had been let down by appalling lack of professionalism by the CIA and US military intelligence. The SEALs in the grounds, most hiding behind trees, kept up a steady fire, but their rounds were making little or no impact on the APCs and they were running out of ammunition.

  But one of the US helicopters made contact with US Air Command controllers, detailing the gravity of the situation on the ground and calling urgently for helicopter gunships to be sent immediately to save the lives of the SEAL team pinned down on the ground and with no chance of escape. The two APCs kept reloading and raking the ground with withering automatic fire. Every time any of the SEALs tried to make a dash to a different area in a bid to outflank and get behind the APCs, the machine guns would open fire, often hitting the courageous soldier. Those SEALs in Government House kept up continuous fire on the APCs and prevented any enemy ground forces entering the compound.

  An hour later a Spectre finally arrived above Government House, but this was only just sufficient to carry out the job. The helicopter gunship stood off and blasted the two APCs with everything, raining missiles and bullets down on them until they were destroyed. Even so, they had managed to continue firing for a further twenty minutes. But there was still danger for the SEALs in the compound. Nine of them were lying on the ground seriously wounded and in urgent need of medical care.

  Another Spectre was called in and this succeeded in driving most of the enemy forces away from the immediate vicinity of the compound. The SEALs managed to retrieve their wounded comrades and move them to the safety of Government House. For the rest of that day and night SEALs on guard duty managed to keep any enemy forces at bay until the following morning, when US Marines arrived.

  And that was not the end of the matter. The PRAF proved a tough nut to crack despite the US forces’ massively superior firepower. Pockets of resistance sprang up all over the island and it was not until a week later that the American forces could announce that the island had been completely overrun and hostilities were at an end. In the final tally some one hundred Grenadian and Cuban soldiers were killed and over three hundred had been wounded. US casualties totalled eighteen dead and fifty-seven wounded. This victory had been no easy pushover.

  But the invasion of Grenada was hailed as a success and the United States military would claim that it had proved it could organise a rapid response force in an emergency and succeed. More importantly, the US administration had shown the United States could look after affairs in its own backyard of Central America and the Caribbean. Some weeks after the invasion it decided to take no further chances with any other possible Marxist-led uprising in Central America or the Caribbean islands and one hundred Special Forces teams, each consisting of eight Green Berets, were deployed in Honduras, Costa Rica and Guatemala, as well as the islands of Grenada, St Kitts, St Lucia, Barbuda and Nevis, to train the local police and defence forces in counter-terrorist warfare.

  During the past twenty years a number of top-secret missions have been carried out by US Special Forces, some of which have never before been disclosed or admitted by the US government.

  One of these raids into foreign lands was ordered by President Reagan, on the advice of the CIA, after the United States decided to take drastic action against certain countries, such as Libya, which it was convinced were encouraging, supporting and financing terrorist action against the world’s democracies. The Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, had been using his wealth from oil exports to train Palestinian and other Arab fighters in camps in Libya, providing a safe haven for them to live in and encouraging terrorism across Europe – all in the name of Islam.

  Gaddafi believed he was untouchable, constantly moving his headquarters to different parts of Libya in order to keep one step ahead of western Special Forces, such as the SAS and the SEALs, who he was convinced were determined to assassinate him. He wasn’t far wrong. Indeed President Reagan launched a famous bombing mission against Gaddafi in the 1980s, destroying his famed tented headquarters in the desert, a place where he believed he was safe from attack. An unspecified number of Libyans were killed and wounded in the heavy raid, carried out by US warplanes, but Gaddafi managed to escape. The intelligence provided as to his whereabouts that night had been pinpoint accurate, but luck was with him and the bombs, for although they hit their target, they didn’t manage to kill the man who was creating terror and murder in many European countries.

  The United States was keen to show Gaddafi that if it really wanted to assassinate him it was perfectly capable of doing so. It wanted to warn him, to fire a shot across his bows, in the hope that he would end his support for Islamic terrorists. After the raid on his desert headquarters the Americans had also warned him that, if he did not end his support for terrorism, bombing raids might continue from time to time.

  In June 1984 units of the French Foreign Legion had secretly taken a sweep through southern Libya from Chad, a friendly neighbour opposed to Gaddafi’s support for international revolutionary terrorist groups, after being informed by the United States that the Libyans had set up a training camp for Palestinian and European terrorist groups. United States spy satellites had discovered the new camp from photographs of Libya taken from space. Foreign Legion troops spent some weeks under cover in Libya and finally reported back that they had found the new camp – in the middle of the desert. Their recce showed that Libyans were training several hundred young terrorists, not only from Middle Eastern countries but also from Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Northern Ireland. The Foreign Legion returned with detailed information about the camp and vital film footage. The film, which had been obtained at great risk, showed not only the layout of the camp but also the training, the weapons, the instructors and some of the young men undergoing training.

  The United States needed no further proof but it was decided that Special Forces should be employed to carry out a secret and devastating raid against the training camp rather than undertake a far more public bombing raid. This would be an attack tailor-made for a Special Forces unit working in secret.

  In July, after weeks of detailed planning and training, a Delta Force unit of s
ome sixty troops was flown to northern Chad in a USAF transport plane. They spent one week acclimatising to the scorching weather conditions in the African country, where temperatures by day were usually around one hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. This raid would give Delta Force an opportunity to live up to its famed initial ‘D’ for destruction.

  Three Black Hawks, which had been transported to Chad in US C-141 transport planes, took off from the base camp in the early hours of the morning and flew low over the desert, arriving at the Libyan camp when the place was sleeping. As they approached the gates the attack helicopters flew at some twenty feet off the ground and sprayed the guardroom with a heavy machine gun, ripping the wooden building to pieces and killing those on duty. Two other Black Hawks arrived at the other side of the camp and some sixty Delta troops leapt from them and raced to their targets.

  All those men taking part knew the layout of the camp by heart because a model had been constructed back in the United States to assist in the planning of the raid down to the smallest detail. It proved brilliantly successful.

  One team ran pell-mell for the radio communications centre to ensure that no one would be able to send out a distress call saying the camp was under attack. When the six Delta men burst into the room, shooting out the door locks, the place was empty. They opened up with their sub-machine guns, destroying all the communications in the room. Another Delta team ran to the headquarters block, which was also empty. First, they ransacked drawers and cupboards, taking away with them any files that seemed, from quick scrutiny, as if they might contain valuable information. Then they threw grenades into the empty rooms, torching the place. The fires spread rapidly through the block until the entire building was in flames.

  By now camp staff and the trainee terrorists were awake and grabbing for their weapons. But they were too late. Five Delta teams had run towards the dormitory blocks and covered all the entrances, while others had gone down the sides of the single-storey dormitory buildings, hurling grenades through every window. When anyone emerged they were met by a hail of automatic fire and killed instantly. The Delta boys were in no mood to deal lightly with these potential killers. Their orders were to wipe out everyone at the camp and ask no questions.

  Only when the dormitory blocks were well alight and the flames were destroying the buildings did the Delta teams pull back, sure that no one inside was alive.

  But the Delta teams hadn’t yet finished the job. They had brought with them powerful demolition explosives, which they proceeded to place in the armoury and the magazine block. The buildings went up with tremendous explosions that blew them to pieces. But the Delta men didn’t bother to stop and check what was left. The time had come to get the hell out of the camp and out of Libya. It was undoubtedly a first-class raid by Delta Force, well planned, well executed and totally successful.

  The world was to know nothing of this operation. President Reagan said nothing, nor did the US Army, Navy or Air Force. And Colonel Gaddafi said nothing either. Of course, he was seriously embarrassed by the raid, which showed that his military could not even defend their own camps against a quick-fire raid by American forces.

  It seemed that the United States Special Forces had come of

  CHAPTER 9

  SCUD BUSTERS

  THE GULF WAR – code-named Operation Desert Storm – began on August 2 1990, when Saddam Hussein’s forces invaded the oil-rich sheikhdom of Kuwait in the Persian Gulf without warning. Within hours the Iraqis had overrun the minuscule Kuwaiti defence force and taken Kuwait City. This occupation would become a perfect arena for Special Forces operations.

  It soon became obvious that Saddam Hussein had no intention of pulling back his forces and indeed he set about pouring armour, aircraft, troops and infrastructure into the place quickly as possible. The United Nations Security Council ordered him to leave but he took not the slightest notice.

  Fearful that Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait could lead to his exercising a much tighter grip on the world’s oil markets, the United States took the decision that the western nations must work together and kick him and his forces out of Kuwait – at whatever cost. Under the auspices of the UN, the United States, backed by the armed forces of Britain, France, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, took on the job of expelling the Iraqi forces. The principal reason for this unusual alliance was to show the world that, following the implosion of the Soviet Union and its European satellite nations, there was to be a new world order, with the United States leading the way.

  Saddam Hussein had poured one hundred thousand troops into Kuwait and some of those – particularly his elite Republican Guard – were believed to be a well-trained, well-disciplined, hard-fighting force which had performed with great credit during the Iran–Iraq war of the 1980s. The United Nations force, under US General Norman Schwarzkopf, believed that it would take weeks, possibly months, to drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait.

  Schwarzkopf’s army contained a surprisingly large element of Special Forces, including Britain’s SAS and the SBS, and the United States Green Berets and Navy SEALs, as well as a number of Special Operations Forces, including the 1st and 2nd US Marine Divisions and the 101st Air Assault Division, this last unit being better known as the Screaming Eagles.

  Schwarzkopf placed all the Special Forces contingents under one command – SOCCENT (Special Operations Command, Central Command), commanded by US Colonel Jesse Johnson. This Command was subdivided into three Commands – the Army Operations Task Force, the Navy Special Warfare Task Force and the Air Force Special Operations Command. These had some seven thousand troops under their command, including 150 SAS and SBS men, the 55th US Special Forces Group, SEAL teams 1 and 2, a detachment from the French Foreign Legion and some Special Forces units from Arab nations, including Kuwait.

  From the outset Schwarzkopf and his senior commanders knew that Iraq possessed a number of Scud missiles capable of carrying a variety of warheads, including explosive, biological, chemical and nuclear devices. The Coalition forces were led to understand that Saddam Hussein did not have a nuclear capability, but the CIA were seriously concerned that he did possess both chemical and biological warheads. It was also accepted that Saddam Hussein would probably use these gruesome weapons if he felt it necessary. And it was the urgency of tracking down and destroying the Scuds that necessitated the use of such large numbers of Special Forces in Desert Storm.

  It was further understood that Israel would be the likely target of such an attack, but this did help the Allies, and particularly the Special Forces, because they could concentrate on those areas of north-western Iraq from which the Scuds would have to be fired to reach a target in Israel.

  The bad news was that these Scuds could be fired either from set positions, hidden in bunkers, or from the back of huge transporters which had been seen and identified by US satellite photography. These pictures had been taken during exercises in the desert by Iraqi Scud platoons. The photographs revealed that the transporters could only travel at slow speeds, but after reaching their destination the Scud platoons needed only an hour to prepare to fire their missiles. If Special Forces on the ground could identify the exact place where the Scud transporter had stopped to make ready to fire a missile, there would be enough time for US warplanes to scramble and strike at the missiles before they could be launched. However, the intelligence would need to be pinpoint accurate, and to be able to send back such precise grid references the Special Forces would have to take extraordinary risks.

  On the first night of the war – Thursday, January 17 1991 – Saddam Hussein revealed his hand when eight Scuds carrying explosive warheads landed in Israel – two in Haifa and four in Tel Aviv. As well as also killing some one hundred innocent men, women and children and causing considerable damage this spread great consternation among the frightened population. Saddam Hussein’s plan was to entice the Israelis into reacting against Iraq, which, he believed, would spark an Arab–Israeli conflict. He was convinced that, if Israel attack
ed Iraq, countries such as Jordan would take Iraq’s side and countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia would be forced by public opinion on the Arab street to pull out of the UN Coalition.

  This put Schwarzkopf under enormous pressure to take out the Scuds as speedily as possible for fear that Israel might decide to go it alone and send its war planes to bomb Baghdad. Indeed in some Coalition quarters it was feared that, if Iraq used chemical or biological Scud weapons, there was every chance that Israel would launch a nuclear attack on the Iraqi capital.

  Therefore, when the Special Forces units were briefed by their commanders, they were left in little doubt that their missions were of the utmost importance.

  The first Special Forces action of the war was Special Boat Service raid on January 23 1991, when two Chinook helicopters took twenty-four SBS Royal Marine Commandos to a grid reference near Highway 8, where the main Iraqi communications link between Baghdad and Kuwait was known to run. The Chinooks landed in the dark some two hundred yards from each other in case one accidentally ran into an Iraqi ground force. If such a force had closed on one Chinook there would still be the twelve SBS men in the other chopper to act as back-up. But they met no opposition.

  The SBS came equipped with picks, shovels and cutting equipment. Some dug along the line they had been given, while the others spread out to keep watch. That night the SBS displayed textbook expertise. Wearing desert camouflage, their faces blackened, their bodies all but invisible as they lay along the highway route, the lookouts remained motionless as the others dug for and then severed the all-important line that would cut off Saddam Hussein from his front-line commanders in Kuwait. The mission went perfectly and within two hours all the SBS men withdraw to their Chinooks, taking with them a six-foot length of communication cable, which they later presented to General Schwarzkopf ‘with the compliments of the Royal Marines’.