Document Page: First | Prev | Next | All | Image | This Release | Search

         the battery was attached to 1st Marine Division's 1st Battalion,
         11th Marines while on the ~narch north. As they approached the
         southwest edge of the Burqan Ojifields, they began taking
         incoming fire, so Brier placed some of his artillery Marines into
         a skirmish line while the rest of his inen set up the battery.
         Suddenly, they spotted a Multiple Rocket Launcher System through
         the smoke which the enemy was preparing to fire. Although the
         M198 howitzer is normally used to engage targets at long range,
         the quick witted gun commander, Sergean~t T. S    , trained his
         M198 directly at the MRLS which was only a scant 800 ~eters away
         and fired it, scoring a direct hit. Shortly afterwards, the
         Battery scored another direct fire hit on a nearby 152 mm gun of
         a nearby Iraqi artillery battalion.

                         The Most Successful Tank Company?

             "B" Company of the 4th Tank Battalion,. is a reserve unit from
         Yakima, Washington. They were activated in early December, but
         left their aging M60 tanks at home. Enroute to Saudi Arabia, they
         paused for 23 days at Twentynine Palms, California to train on
         the newer MlAl tank. At Jubayl, they received 13 new MlAls which
         they took into battle with the 2nd Marine Division. The company
         was stopped near the division boundary line about five miles
         north of the al Jaber airfield shortly before dawn at 0555 on the
         second day. The tankers were now surprised to hear, then see in
         their night vision devices, a for~ation of T72s - Iraq's most
         formidable tanks - coming through a position of what turned out
         to be another formation of T55 tanks that were dug into
         revetments. Although the company commander realized the tanks
         were actually in the 1st Marine Division's area of
         responsibility, he engaged them immediately. In an action that
         lasted only a few minutes, the company destroyed or stopped 34 of
         35 enerny tanks. In a total of four engagements, "B1, company
         accounted for 59 tanks including 30 T72s. Qne tank fired seven
         "first rounds" and got five hits.

                    Cobras and the Smoke: How Low Did They Go?

            Early on the morning of the 26th (G+2), 1st Marine Division's
         Task Force Ripper was preparing to push north to the key
         abjective of Kuwait International Airport from its position near
         the southwest edge of the Burqan Cilfield. Unhappily, the wind
         was from the southeast, which pushed a dense cloud of black smoke
         from the burning oilfield across the avenues of approach. Indeed,
 *       it was so dark that the sun was completely obscured~and `lights
 *       were required to see. Areas obscured by this phenomenon were
 *       nicknamed the "Land of Darkness".

            By all normal criteria, operations by close-in fire support
         AH-lW helicopters should have been impossible, but the commanding
         officer of Marine tight Helicopter Attack Squadron 369,
         Lieutenant Colonel Mike Kurth, decided to check for himself.
         Taking off from Landing Zone "Lonesome Dove" about 25 ~niles
 *       inside of Saudi Arabia early that morning, he set four of his
         Cobras down on the desert near the recently captured al Jaber


                                    2

Document Page: First | Prev | Next | All | Image | This Release | Search