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Airfield. Kurth no~ set out as a single ship--along a road going
n,orth from the airfield. Soon the smoke became so dense, he was
forced to fly only a few feet off the ground in order to see,
occasionally flying UNDER power lines, until he located 1st
Battalion,  5th Marines, and then shortly1 2rd Tank Battalion and
1st Battalion,  ~th Marines. He then returned to his informal
landing zone, wheedled fuel out of some nearby Marine tanker
trucks, and then --&ed his wingman back through the obscuration
where they delivered Hellfire missiles, rockets, and 20 mm rounds
against tanks,  armored vehicles, and bunkers. - Task Force Ripper
seized its objective.

                    The Luckiest Harrier Pilot

   Captain John S.  "Vapor" Walsh, 28, is an AV-SB Harrier pilot
with Marine Attack Squadron 542. At dawn on the second day of the
ground war, he launched as Major Dan "Salt" Peters' wingman from
his base near Jubayl, Saudi Arabia on a close air support
mission. They landed for refueling and rearming at Tannajib, an
ARAMC0 airfield and then also a forward Marine airfield, about 35
miles south of the Kuwait border.

   Taking off on their second mission~t 0905, the pair of
Harriers was ordered to attack a column of T54/T55 tanks under
the control of an FA-lSD "fast FAC". The tanks were moving into
contact with the 2nd Marine Division about 10 miles south of Ali
al Salem Airfield. There were thick clouds over the target,   and
Walsh became separated from his leader during the penetration.
After breaking out underneath, he was rejoining his leader, when
he was struck with a heat seeking surface to air missile in his
right rear jet nozzle.

   "It was a big bang. All my warning lights came on, and the
airplane began burning pretty good", he recalled later.   In mcre
normal circumstances,   the proc-~dure then would have been to eject
immediately. Walsh stayed with his aircraft and headed it south
with his engine temperature going "off the peg". He would try an
emergency landing at al Jaber Airfield whch had just been
captured by Marines. As he got over the f~eld, his hydraulic
controls froze,  and the aircraft rolled over at 1,000 feet above
the ground. He ejected upside down and was relieved to find his
parachute "worked as advertised".

    He landed just to the west of the airfield in an area that
was riot yet completely secured. He then hid in an Iraqi trench,
which fortunately had just been abandoned. Shortly, a Humvee -
vehicle belonging to 1st Marine Division's Task Force Ripper,
appeared through the smoke-. This carried him to Major General
Mike Myatt's command p&st who ordered his UH-lN helicopter to
take him south. He switched to a truck at Tannajib and was back
with his squadron by nightfall.                  -

   In the meantime, his parent unit, Colonel John Bioty's Marine
Aircraft Group 13  (Forward), fell on the attacking tanks, and
helped clear the way north for the 2nd Marine Division. - Four


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