by Tom Clancy
Once the assault troops were in position, and the families warned to take cover, the battalion commander was ready to launch his operation. He decided to hold off on building-clearing operations, however, until he’d tried PSYOPs. From time to time, he fired the howitzer on vacant buildings—to make sure the PDF knew he was there and meant business—while his broadcast teams sent out a surrender message. At first light, building-clearing operations would police up anyone left.
It didn’t take much persuasion. Moments after the howitzer started firing, PDF were bolting out of their buildings and down to the water, throwing in their weapons. A total of 140 PDF surrendered or were captured. Moments after that, the night was quiet—except for the broadcasts and the occasional firing of the howitzer.
The next day, clearing proceeded, punctuated by sporadic sniping. That ended at 3:00 P.M., when Marc Cisneros talked the last sixteen holdouts in the gymnasium into surrendering. Fort Amador was secure.
During interrogations, it was learned that most PDF officers had abandoned their troops even before H-hour and left them to defend themselves. On the whole, PDF officers were a bad lot. Most were on the take and skimming the pay from their soldiers.
Meanwhile, the company securing the Balboa Yacht Club launched its operation. In attempting to escape, many PDF troops had disguised themselves as waiters, but their combat boots gave them away, and forty-seven prisoners were captured.
No one who knew anything at all about Manuel Noriega had serious questions about his character. He was a seriously evil human bcing-right up there with Saddam I Iussein in the bad guy department. Blessedly, accidents of birth had placed him in a small, weak country, which limited his evildoing opportunities. That said, no American involved in Operation JUST CAUSE had any idea how bad Noriega really was until searches of his residences and offices began to reveal the depths of his degradation.
At Fort Amador, Noriega maintained a set of offices, which U.S. forces searched at about noon. Marc Cisneros was there to make sure this was done properly. Carl Stiner describes some of the “delights it contained:
“In Noriega’s desk, in the top right-hand drawer, they found some of the rawest, most hideously disgusting pornographic videos you can imagine. In the left-hand drawer were photo portfolios of PDF atrocities against political prisoners—pictures of tortures, castrations, beatings, flayings, executions, mass rapes, and much worse. On a wall was a life-size silhouette target—President Bush and Marc Cisneros with bullet holes through their heads.
“We found similar materials at the offices of many high-ranking Noriega henchmen.”
TASK FORCE WHITE
Task Force White, commanded by Navy SEAL Captain “John,” consisting primarily of Navy SEAL Special Boat units, was also carrying out its three major H-hour missions, to: take out of action Noriega’s personal yacht and the PDF patrol boats in Balboa Harbor, at the Pacific Ocean entrance to the Canal; block the runway at Paitilla Airport in downtown Panama City; and isolate PDF forces at Flamenco Island, a mile or so out in the Bay of Panama.
Two hours before H-hour, a pair of dive teams in combat rubber raiding craft left Rodman Naval Station for Pier 18 in Balboa Harbor, where Noriega’s yacht was docked. A fire support team, armed with .50-caliber machine guns and a 40mm grenade launcher, came along in another boat, just in case they ran into trouble. The boats moved slowly and quietly, without a wake, until they reached the drop-off point about 150 meters from the yacht. The divers entered the water carrying two twenty-pound charges in haversacks, then swam at a depth of twenty feet, following a compass heading. The two teams of four divers arrived beneath the yacht thirty minutes before H-hour, placed their charges on the two main propeller shafts, and connected them with det cord. They set the timers to explode at 0045—H-hour.
Just as they finished, the yacht’s engine started; the divers raced away and hid behind the pilings at Pier 17. Moments later, their charges went off, and they had to hang on for dear life during the buffeting that followed. As soon as things got calm, they swam underwater back across the Canal to the rendezvous point. The yacht was out of action.
AT H-hour, three platoons of SEALs-ninety-three men-were landing at the southern end of Paitilla Airfield in combat rubber raiding craft. Moving slowly and deliberately, covering each other as they went, two platoons headed north on the western side of the field; the third and a mortar section moved on the eastern side.
As they approached the hangar where Noriega’s jet was parked, the lead team, on the western side, came under intense fire from the hangars, killing one SEAL and wounding others. Worse, they were in the open and exposed, and their supporting AC-130 gunship could not fire without endangering the wounded. The second platoon on the western side was ordered in as reinforcement. When it arrived, the PDF opened up again; the SEALs’ M-16s had little effect against the PDF, who were firing from concrete block buildings.
The battle lasted for another thirty minutes, but by using 66mm LAWs and 40mm grenade launchers, the SEALs finally prevailed, and disabled Noriega’s jet. In the process, three SEALs had died and several others had been severely wounded.
THE third Task Force White mission was to isolate Flamenco Island, the home of the USEAT, Noriega’s elite special operations force. The best way to keep the USEAT out of the fight was to block the causeway from Panama City to the island, which was done by special boat patrols.
The SEALs and special boat units accomplished other important maritime work as well, not only in the Canal but also in the anchorages in the Caribbean and Pacific where ships were waiting to transit. Several of these vessels were boarded in stirring fashion, as the SEALs chased down the Noriega infrastructure and Dignity Battalions.
On one raid, Captain “Rick’s” special-mission SEALs were in hot pursuit of some Dignity Battalion thugs attempting to board a ship at anchor at the Colon dock. Supporting the SEALs were fast-attack vessels, and one of them caught the Dignity Battalion guys climbing the captain’s ladder and calmly shot the ladder off its stanchion supports with highly accurate 40mm grenade fire. The thugs landed in the water and were quickly policed up by the SEALs.
TASK FORCE BLACK
Task Force Black was commanded by special forces Colonel Jake Jacobelly, an old hand in Latin America and Panama.
Major Higgins, a tall, thin West Pointer, who spoke fluent Spanish, with twenty-four special forces officers and NCOs, had the mission to secure the Pacora River bridge and block Battalion 2000.
As his troops were loading onto three Blackhawks at Albrook Air Base, intelligence came in that a convoy had left Fort Cimarron, headed for Torrijos-Tocumen. The team quickly finished loading and raced for the bridge. Fifteen minutes later, they could see the PDF convoy’s headlights as the pilots swung around and landed about a hundred meters from the southwest end of the bridge. The team dismounted, climbed the bank up to the road, and ran as hard as they could to secure the bridge before the convoy began crossing.
When they reached it, the lead vehicle was no more than a hundred meters away. While the team rushed to establish security positions on each side of the road, an officer and two NCOs fired a 66mm light antitank weapon, a more powerful AT-4, and a squad automatic weapon at the lead vehicle, stopping it in its tracks.
Meanwhile, the Air Force combat controller called in the AC-130 gunship on station in their area, and it was overhead within minutes. The pilot had an easy time identifying the convoy, since it never occurred to them to turn their lights off; but even without lights, infrared equipment made the vehicles and personnel visible. Before engaging, the pilot warned Higgins that his troops guarding the southwest side of the bridge were in his marginal safety limits: Would he accept friendly casualties? Higgins told him to go ahead, and the AC-130 started blasting away. As it fired, it illuminated the area with its infrared searchlight, so the SF personnel could see with their night-vision gear.
The PDF soldiers scrambled out of the trucks and took up firing positions in a treeline.
In the meantime, the PDF, wearing gas masks and using riot-control gas, charged the bridge, but the fire from Higgins’s men broke the charge, and a number of PDF jumped over the side in desperation.
By dawn, the fighting had subsided, and Higgins’s little force were undisputed masters of the bridge—with no casualties. Meanwhile, a quick-reaction force (QRF) from Task Force Black arrived by helicopter and landed on the other side of the bridge to make a sweep of the destroyed convoy; the team that had been fighting all night remained in position as security.
On the bridge, they found eight dead and several others wounded, who were treated by Special Forces medics at the scene; they found and captured several other PDF hiding in a house off the road; and the few who escaped later ran into the Rangers and the 82nd Airborne Division at the airport.
During interrogations, it was learned that the convoy had been transporting more than fifty soldiers from Battalion 2000’s heavy weapons company, led by the company executive officer, and armed with 81 mm mortars, 90mm recoilless weapons, and 30-caliber machine guns. According to the executive officer, they were on their way to Panama City to put down “some sort of civil disturbance.”
Later that morning, a two-and-a-half-ton truck flying a white flag arrived from Fort Cimarron to claim their dead.
At 3:45 P.M., a scout platoon from the 82nd Airborne Division on the way to Fort Cimarron linked up with Higgins and his men.
At 5:30 P.M., Higgins and his twenty-four Green Berets and twenty POWs were extracted by helicopter back to Albrook Air Force Base. Mission accomplished.
JAKE Jacobelly’s Special Forces teams from Task Force Black conducted three other essential H-hour missions or follow-on activities:
Tinajitas Recon for the 82nd Airborne: At 7:00 P.M. the previous evening, a four-man reconnaissance team had started cross-country on foot to place eyes on the Tinajitas Cuartel (Barracks), the 1st Infantry company, and the nest of sixteen mortars near Tinajitas. The team was in position by 1:00 A.M., and reported their findings to General Kinser at the 82nd command post for relay to Jim Johnson as he approached his airdrop. They passed reports on the mortars directly to Stiner’s headquarters.
Cimarron Cuartel: At 9:00 P.M. the previous evening, another four-man reconnaissance team had been inserted by Blackhawk five kilometers outside the Cimarron Cuartel to report on Battalion 2000. This team reported the convoy movement toward the Pacora River bridge.
Cerro Azul TV 11 Antennae: The jamming and override broadcast beginning at 12:45 A.M. had successfully overridden all but one TV station—TV Station II, Noriega’s primary media outlet. When attempts to jam it proved unsuccessful, an eighteen-man SF team was deployed just after H-hour to disable it temporarily.
The obvious way to disable a TV station is to knock down the antenna tower, but Stiner’s people only wanted the station off the air for days, not months. For that reason, the team fast-roped from helicopters onto the station compound and removed a critical electronics module.
TASK FORCE ATLANTIC
Task Force Atlantic, on the Caribbean side of the Canal, was commanded by Colonel Keith Kellogg, and consisted of two infantry battalions, a two-hundred-man aviation section with Huey helos and Cobra gunships, a Vulcan air defense weapons section, an MP company, and an engineer company. One of the battalions—the 3rd Battalion, 504th Infantry—was actually from the 82nd Airborne Division. It had arrived on December 10 to attend the Jungle Operations Training Center as part of a normal training rotation, which it was scheduled to complete before Christmas. The battalion was not aware that its graduation exercise would involve combat.
Task Force Atlantic had several complex missions, to: isolate and clear Colon; neutralize the PDF 8th Infantry Company, stationed at Fort Espinar in Colon; neutralize the PDF 1st Marine Battalion at the Coco Solo Naval Station, cast of Colon; disable the multiengine aircraft on France Field, just south of Coco Solo; capture the PDF patrol boats at the ports; protect the Madden Dam; seize the electrical distribution center at Cerro Tigrc; secure the vital Gatun Locks; and free political prisoners, including Americans, now held in El Renacer prison, midway across the isthmus.
None of these was easy. Fort Espinar and Coco Solo were both joint-use facilities, with U.S. military dependents living next to PDF soldiers. Coco Solo had once housed the School of the Americas and was a particularly complex target, because the Cristobal High School and the Coco Solo Hospital were also located there. The PDF force at Coco Solo, the Panamanian Naval Infantry Battalion, was noted for arrogance.
At H-hour, loudspeakers from C Company, 4th Battalion, 17th Infantry broadcast surrender messages to the PDF Naval Infantry Battalion at Coco Solo; the offer was refused, and the PDF countered with a heavy volume of fire from their barracks area. Their defiance did not last long. After they were given the chance to observe the total destruction of their headquarters buildings by the Vulcan weapons systems and realized their barracks was next, the white flag began waving.
After this demonstration of U.S. firepower, clearing Colon turned out to be far easier than expected. Instead of stiff resistance, the 3rd Brigade entered the city of 60,000 on December 22 with the majority of its two battalions and was met by thousands of cheering Panamanians. Four hundred PDF soldiers, mainly from the 8th Infantry Company, surrendered during the clearing operation.
THE Renacer prison, located on a peninsula in the Canal, consisted of an outer layer of buildings, guard towers, and Cyclone fences; and an inner layer—the actual prison—consisting of two large concrete block buildings within an inner fence. This was guarded by twenty to twenty-five troops from Battalion 2000, intermixed with the prisoners and living in the same buildings—which made the prisoner rescue even more difficult.
The rescue mission was assigned to C Company of the 82nd’s 3rd Battalion, 504th Infantry: An amphibious force of two rifle platoons would come down the Canal in a pair of Army landing craft—a two-hour ride from Fort Sherman, near Colon—and neutralize the prison’s outer ring of defense and provide fire support for the platoon that was to be landed inside the prison compound. Cobra helicopters would take out the guard towers, while another rifle platoon in Huey helicopters landed inside the prison compound.
Although the plan worked perfectly, it was not easy. The defenders put up a strong fight, using CS (tear) gas as well as light weapons, but by 6:00 A.M., the prison was in U.S. hands, and the prisoners—two American journalists, five political prisoners from the March ’88 coup attempt, and fifty-seven actual criminals—were unharmed.
Task Force Atlantic now controlled all its assigned objectives. Elements of the Task Force handled their other assignments as planned.
TASK FORCE SEMPER FI
Task Force Semper Fi, under Colonel Charles E. Richardson, had a very broad mission, all in the areas just west of the Canal, to: secure and protect Howard Air Force Base, the U.S. Navy ammunition depot, Rodman Naval Station, and the Arraijan tank farm; secure and defend the Bridge of the Americas; block PDF reinforcements from the southwest, and neutralize the PDF and Dignity Battalions in zone; capture the PDF stations at Vera Cruz and Arraijan; and neutralize the headquarters of the 10th Military Zone in La Chorrera, fifteen miles west of Panama City. The task force accomplished all its missions.
TORRIJOS-TOCUMEN AIRPORT
On the military—Torrijos—side of the airfield were stationed approximately two hundred soldiers of the PDF 2nd Rifle Company, armed with three .50-caliber machine guns and a ZPU-4 antiaircraft gun, 150 men of the Panamanian Air Force, and thirty airport security guards.
Lieutenant Colonel Robert Wagner and the 1st Battalion, 75th Rangers, had the mission to neutralize these forces and secure the Ceremi PDF military recreation center at the La Siesta Military Resort hotel, a quarter mile away. Meanwhile, C Company of the 3rd Ranger Battalion would secure the civilian terminal. Because the 82nd Airborne
Division brigade was jumping forty-five minutes behind them, and Battalion 2000 was only forty-live minutes up the road (if they could successfully cross the Pacora River bridge), the Rangers had a very brief time window. They had to work fast.
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.