by Ed Strosser
The combination of an almost complete lack of intelligence, a dearth of accurate up-to-date maps of the island, and the scrum of interservice rivalry seemed destined to ensure communication gaps, miscues, and foul-ups. In a bureaucracy, this causes headaches. When that bureaucracy is the military, it causes deaths.
It was a rush to war, but an ambling sort of rush. Like a rusty car sitting on the lawn way too long, the engine of war had trouble turning over.
On the first night, October 23, Navy SEALs and air force CCTs planned a landing on the Point Salines runway to clear obstacles and set up navigation beacons for the incoming wave of troops. Because the invasion was so rushed, these vanguard soldiers were forced to rendezvous with the navy by (1) flying directly to Grenada from the States, (2) parachuting into the ocean, (3) in the dark, (4) somewhat close to the ships (5) from about six hundred feet up, in (6) high winds. The result was that four out of sixteen soldiers drowned, and their small boats, when they finally got aboard, were swamped on the way into the beach. The mission was canceled.
The second night, October 24, the Special Forces again failed to get the small boats ashore in rough surf. This stung the American commanders. A flotilla of a dozen ships, including an aircraft carrier and an amphibious assault ship loaded with helicopters along with the thousands of soldiers and sailors, stood waiting in the dark off Grenada, held up by the failure to land sixteen (now down to twelve) soldiers on a beach. The Grenadans were winning… and they didn’t even know they were fighting.
The result of this small failure was that the invasion would have to start during the day of the 25th, a Tuesday. And instead of landing on the massive airstrip at Point Salines, the first wave of invasion troops would have to parachute in. A daylight jump meant no cover, spoiling the element of surprise. Conversely, the only element of surprise for the Americans was how many enemies lurked below.
Fortunately for the Rangers, the Cubans defending the airstrip were more afraid of Castro than the Americans: they held their fire, just as ordered by the maximum leader. This saved the day for the Rangers, who floated down well within range of the Cuban gunners, most of whom were actually construction workers armed with AK-47s, which carried only about one hundred rounds each. Grenadan gunners manning the antiaircraft guns were held at bay by U.S. air-power. The Americans had landed.
The Rangers’ goal was to capture the airfield and secure the True Blue campus. By 7:30 a.m. the Rangers rescued the students-who-would-be-hostages from the invisible people-who-could-be-hostage-takers. The Rangers’ glee was cut short when they discovered more students living at the Grand Anse campus, between the airport and the capital. Darn! The empire for a campus directory.
The soldiers at the airstrip moved out and captured the Cuban positions around their work camp. At one point the Rangers’ advance stalled under the fire of a single recoil-less rifle. Pausing to smash the enemy with an overwhelming display of technology, they called in an air strike but were bedeviled by the miscommunication that was quickly proving to be endemic. Four Marine Cobra gunships, and small two-man helicopters raced in but could not contact the army or air force planes to confirm their targets. Two of the Cobras were finally able to contact a ground air controller but then discovered they had different maps. They finally pinpointed the enemy rifle by a ground soldier using a broad-spectrum photon beacon deflector, known as a shaving mirror in non-military parlance. Unfortunately for the invaders, the parade of ineptitude was just getting started.
In the south, two battalions of the Eighty-second Airborne, the main invasion force of about one thousand troops, finally landed in the afternoon. Meanwhile, marine amphibious units landed in the north, capturing the small, undefended airfield there. But coordination between these groups and the Rangers at Point Salines never materialized. The Rangers found themselves cut off from the commanders on the USS Guam as well as the Marine units in the north. Why? Because in the rush to deploy, they had left behind their vehicles containing long-range radios. The radio-free Rangers lingered, reduced to waiting for orders to arrive by telepathy.
Later in the afternoon, the Grenadans boldly counterattacked at the eastern end of the runway in three APCs. Without any air or artillery support, the Rangers easily beat back the attack. American commanders, still lacking firm intelligence on the size of the enemy, worried that many more attacks awaited them.
By the end of the day, when the invasion was supposed to be wrapping up, the radio-free Rangers and Eighty-second still struggled to break out from their positions around the air strip, bogged down by their commander’s lethargy. The Grand Anse campus, only a couple of miles away, still contained students-who-could-easily-be-hostages. Assessing his troops deployment before his tiny enemy, the commander of the Eighty-second came to a worried conclusion: he needed more overkill. He sent his sweat-stained word up the chain of command: “Keep sending battalions until I tell you to stop.”
BLACK HAWK HELICOPTER
The war saw the emergence of the U.S. Army’s newest weapon, the Black Hawk helicopter. Offering a significant upgrade over its predecessor, the Black Hawk allowed the army to transport an entire eleven-man squad right into the fighting, while also pulling out the wounded. And as it proved in Grenada, the chopper can take multiple hits from enemy fire and keep operating. It features an armor-plated cockpit and a cabin that can withstand crashes. Because it’s so tough, pilots are not reluctant to fly it into places others would never consider. It even features twin engines in case one is knocked out. This ruggedness has turned the Black Hawk into an international star, and it is the standard helicopter for much of the world’s military.
The other attacks on the first day all shared disturbing signs of nonsuccess. The invaders had three crucial D-Day targets, excluding the newly discovered students not living at the True Blue campus. All these targets were handed to the Special Forces, the cream of the crop of the mighty technological superpower.
The first target was a radio station near the capital. A crack team of Navy SEALs successfully occupied it. But they were quickly counterattacked, by one solitary APC. The SEALs desperately needed an infusion of a massive technological advantage, but unfortunately no air support was assigned to them. The outgunned SEALs, products of some of the most arduous training in the military world, designed to hone them to the hardest edge of military steel, blew retreat and scampered back to the beach to hide. That night, under cover of darkness, the retreating SEALs redeployed farther afield by swimming out to a ship to snuggle under the safety of naval armor. The navy tossed its biggest five-inch shells at the transmitting tower but missed. It didn’t matter anyway. The Grenadans were transmitting from their old radio station closer to town.
The second target was the rescue of Sir Paul Scoon, the island’s governor general, a well-tanned and glorified ambassador who served as an official representative of the Queen of England. A different team of Navy SEALs was sent to rescue him at the Government House on the outskirts of St. George’s. Facing intense ground fire, the brand-new Black Hawk helicopters withstood a baptism of fire but could not land. On the second try they lowered twenty-five soldiers down ropes onto the roof of Government House. The SEALs also found themselves quickly outgunned by more frisky Grenadan soldiers in an APC. Fortunately the SEALs had a Spectre gun-ship on call, a massively armed cargo plane, which held the APCs at bay. The soldiers, however, could not escape like their brethren. A rescue plan was cobbled together featuring troops still bogged down at the airstrip. What was supposed to be a lightning raid turned into a long siege. At noon the SEALs were still pinned down, the governor general huddled under a table without any relief in sight.
The third target was the Richmond Hill prison, perched atop one of the innumerable hilltops on the island. A tag team of army Delta Force and Rangers was sent to capture the prison and free the political prisoners — without adequate intelligence, planning, or preparation. Once they located the target, five Bl
ack Hawk helicopters zoomed into the small mountainous valley to drop the soldiers into the prison until they realized, belatedly, that no landing areas existed. Worse, the ridge right next to the prison was actually higher, topped by Fort Frederick (where the RMC leadership was hiding in their communications-free tunnels) and dotted with anti-aircraft guns, which had clean, level shots at the helicopters.
ERIC GAIRY
If people didn’t take what was happening in Grenada seriously for a while, the fault probably lies in Bishop’s predecessor, Eric Gairy. During his term as head of Grenada, Gairy turned quite weird and became exceptionally enamored with UFOs. He tried to declare 1978 the year of the UFO, even though Close Encounters of the Third Kind premiered in 1977. In fact, while Gairy visited the UN in 1979 to arrange for an international panel to investigate UFOs, Bishop launched his slightly bloody coup for his mini-Marxist party. After twelve years in charge, Gairy was out of work, becoming perhaps the only person actually harmed by UFOs. In 1984 he returned to Grenada and became a perennial election loser. He died on Grenada in 1997.
The Black Hawks became sitting ducks for every gun at the fort and in the valley. The Grenadans blasted away. The fire brought down one of the choppers, while the others withstood numerous hits. One of the unfortunate pilots who crawled out of the wreckage waving his hat in surrender was gunned down by a Grenadan gunner. Later in the day the navy bombers finally plastered Fort Frederick but failed to dislodge the RMC leaders hiding in the basement tunnels. They did, however, manage to blast a mental hospital next door to the fort, killing seventeen patients and releasing many others to wander the streets.
Back at Government House, the SEALs remained trapped. As the radio communication problems reached a crescendo, a soldier reportedly made a call from the Government House to the Pentagon in order to reach the commanders on the USS Guam. In any event, a distinct sense of urgency that the invasion was not up to snuff was now starting to sweep through the U.S. commanders.
They slapped together a quick plan to rescue the rescuers at Government House. The plan featured one company of marines heading over from a north beach landing zone, while another company of marine choppers flew in, without any advance intelligence, of course. The amphibious landing was made at 7:00 that evening; the marines quickly headed out in the darkness with tanks and amphibious assault vehicles crunching down the single-lane roads toward the governor general. They left without their battalion commander, who in the haste wasn’t informed his troops had been deployed. He spent most of the night helicoptering around in a desperate bid to find his men.
The first day was almost over. Nearly all the objectives still remained unachieved. Along with rescuing all the students, saving the British governor general had been a top priority — for no other reason than he was British. Neither happened. In addition, Camp Calivigny, the main Grenadan army camp to the east of the airport, hadn’t been assaulted. The Grenadan and Cuban soldiers were still shooting back, and somewhere Coard and his Caribo-Stalinists remained unaccounted for. At the end of the day the score was Tiny Tourist Nation 1, Superpower 0.
The score was largely kept secret from the American public. For the first time in American history, journalists had been barred from an invasion. Unbeknownst to the commanders, however, seven journalists snuck into St. George’s harbor by blithely sailing in on a boat, where locals greeted them casually. Seven scruffy reporters had succeeded where the entire U.S. military had failed.
The second day of the rescue mission, October 26, dawned with the Grenadans having pretty much given up. It took a while for the Americans to realize it.
The marines finally rescued the governor general in the early morning after the noise of their vehicles frightened away the defenders. They walked into Government House and relieved the SEALs with no casualties. As originally planned by Oliver North, the governor general signed the backdated letter requesting the invasion. The Pentagon’s lawyers rested easy.
Early that morning at Fort Frederick, the leaders of the RMC figured out that the gig was up and gave the order to the PRA soldiers to melt into the populace. The leaders also slipped away, hoping to escape the islands and justice. The marines who showed up to attack the fort walked in unopposed.
South of St. George’s the Eighty-second Airborne finally started moving out from the airstrip. They attacked the remaining Cuban positions north of the airfield in the morning with some of the Cubans escaping by scurrying into the Russian embassy. Now they were in position to rescue the students at the Grand Anse campus. The soldiers, finally getting the hang of the screwy invasion, telephoned the students at the Grand Anse campus from the True Blue campus to gather intelligence on the enemy’s strength. A medical student who was a ham radio operator at Grand Anse turned out to have one of the most reliable connections to the commanders on the Guam. This student turned into a nexus of communication for the invaders.
The first rescue plan was to have Rangers go in and return the students to the airstrip in trucks. But Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who had been hastily attached to the invasion as army liaison, came down on the side of overkill. He wanted the Eighty-second sent in on marine helicopters. Grenadan army positions were to be bombarded beforehand for ten minutes. The students were told over the phone to hit the deck while the dormitories were softened up for the assault. Even though unopposed, the United States still managed to sustain casualties as two choppers crashed into aggressively growing palm trees. It had taken approximately thirty-three hours, but almost all of the students were finally rescued.
Camp Calivigny, home of the Grenadan army, to the east of the airport, out past True Blue campus, still loomed as a threat. It was supposed to have been attacked on the first day, but yet it still stood, untouched. Intelligence estimates surmised that 600 Cuban soldiers and maybe some Russian advisors were in the camp. Russians! Probably with guns! It was an embarrassment to the generals in Washington. They would have to be taken out.
Situated at the tip of a narrow peninsula on the southern side of the island and perched atop a rocky plateau rising one hundred feet above the sea, Camp Calivigny was unapproachable from the water. Only one road ran into the fort from the town, making that approach unworkable. It would have to be assaulted by helicopter. The Special Forces girded themselves for a suicide mission.
The commander of the operation helicoptered over the camp before the jury-rigged attack to reconnoiter. He saw no activity but felt no reason to cancel the assault. The commander ordered up a one-hour bombardment from army and marine artillery, naval guns, air force bombers, and C-130 gunships. This crescendo of interagency cooperation, fueled by years of multibillion-dollar Pentagon budgets, would blast the obstinate Grenadans out of their little fort. Then the helicopter-borne Rangers could touch down and mop up. Only the Coast Guard was denied a role in this extravaganza.
The attack began when the 105-mm artillery shells from the army at Point Salines airport missed the mark and fell into the sea. The commander, watching from his helicopter, couldn’t adjust the fire because the artillery spotter was not sitting beside him, and the artillery gunners had left their aiming circles back in the States. Then the fight was turned over to the navy. Its guns opened up but were soon silenced by the commander who realized they might hit aircraft flying in the area. So they turned to the air force gunships and navy bombers. Finally, the buildings were blown up and the rubble bounced. The Black Hawks cruised in. One landed in a ditch, shredding a rotor blade, killing three soldiers and badly wounding four others. The Rangers stormed in. Success. But they found an empty camp. The Grenadans had been out fighting the war for the last two days. The Rangers didn’t even fire their weapons.
Day three, Operation Overkill rumbled on. A lone Grenadan sniper took a shot at some U.S. soldiers. They happened to be a CCT able to call in air strikes. Normal procedure required them to check with battalion HQ about new targets. They lacked the right radio codes to contact the HQ. But hey, they figured, why not
call in the strike anyway. Navy planes screeched through the sky and smashed their target. Whoops. It was a U.S. Army command post, and three American soldiers were injured in the strike.
Even this gaffe didn’t kill Operation Overkill. The generals in Washington realized that only half of the hoped-for 1,100 Cubans on the island had been captured. The other half must be hiding in the hills! Patrols were sent up the long, hot, winding roads into the island’s jungle interior. The American troops, overloaded with equipment, suffered badly. Dozens dropped from heat stroke as they sweated in their polyester fatigues. The Cubans proved to be phantoms.
In Fort Frederick the Americans captured Coard along with his wife and family, all of whom had been in hiding since the day after shooting Bishop. The invasion staggered to the finish line. The United States conquered Grenada. The toll was approximately sixty-seven Grenadan dead, twenty-four Cubans. American forces announced nineteen deaths, more than half from accidents, with over one hundred wounded. Special Forces casualties remain secret, except to their pride, which they suffered in public. The medical students returned to school the next semester. Some of the off-campus students had never left.
After it was all over, the Pentagon broke out the one weapon it hadn’t fired. It handed out over 30,000 shiny new medals to the victorious American soldiers.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER
When the last of the troops returned home just days before Christmas, Reagan declared the U.S. military as once again “standing tall.” Imagine his pride if the United States had defeated someone really tough, like Barbados. But the invasion did boost the public’s mood as people felt good the country had asserted itself and almost killed some Russians. This upbeat mood continued, helping to propel Reagan to a landslide victory in 1984.