Day of the Rangers: The Battle of Mogadishu 25 Years On

by Leigh Neville

  An SNA militia leader later commented:

  While I was going to the battle I had a radio. I spoke to Aidid [sic] and asked them for permission to go into the war and I was given the permission, and then we started it. And when I was given the order to fight, I immediately took 30 militia into the place. I sent the car back and it brought more from other adjacent places.

  I didn’t come from the direction of Olympic Hotel, but I came from the direction of that road which is known as the 30 Road. Then we immediately called women in the neighborhood to spread sheets above us. They did so, and we started firing at the Americans. While we were engaged in the fight with those Americans who descended from the plane, we were informed that there were reinforcements coming for the Americans. Then we immediately started to erect barricades for the convoys. When those convoy arrived we started fighting them.31

  1602 HOURS: LTC MCKNIGHT REPORTS 9 X PC [PRECIOUS CARGO – PRISONERS] WITH POSSIBLE PRINCIPAL CAPTURED.

  Finally, some 27 minutes after the first assaulters leapt from their Little Birds, the codeword “Laurie” was broadcast to all stations, indicating that the prisoners were ready to be loaded onto the GRF before returning to the Task Force Ranger base. According to an account by Dan Schilling, there had been some confusion that had delayed the link-up between McKnight’s GRF and the Delta assaulters with their prisoners, with each group seemingly waiting for the other.32 Schilling dismounted to find out what the hold-up was. He was acutely aware that they were nearing the end of the 30-minute “honeymoon period” before significant Somali resistance could be expected.

  Gary Keeney recounted:

  When we went back out into the courtyard and we had all the prisoners secure, 24 total out of that house, C-Team was given the mission to secure [the] prisoners and take them back to the airfield. We’re all back out in the courtyard, there’s the metal gate that’s separating the assault force from the street. We can hear some sporadic firing going around in the city around us. What we could hear and hear over the radio was something we hadn’t seen before in any of the [previous] missions.

  Mike Moser from B-Team recalled:

  During this time I was employed with several other guys trying to load our cargo – the various detainees obtained in the target – into the back of a truck in the alley outside the courtyard. This is the interval at which I recall a growing volume of fire – most noticeable as I made forays in to the street to load the trucks. It seemed the vehicle column attracted a lot of attention.

  Paul Leonard from C-Team added: “We were taking a lot of fire already. Bullets were coming in the window. When we were going back down the stairs I said ‘This is going to be a nightmare as people are shooting at us already.’”

  1558 HOURS: RPG REPORTED HIT 5-TON – ONE WIA (GUNSHOT TO LEG) AND VEHICLE DISABLED.

  The Somalis had also begun to launch RPGs down toward the stationary GRF. Approximately five minutes after McKnight’s convoy had pulled onto Hawlwadig, an RPG struck a five-ton truck, immobilizing it and wounding Ranger Staff Sergeant Dave Wilson in both legs. Ranger Private Clay Othic returned fire at the RPG gunner with the .50 cal on his Humvee only to be hit himself moments later in his right forearm. The disabled five-ton would later be destroyed by a Delta operator with a thermite grenade to deny it, and any remaining sensitive items or ammunition, to the enemy.

  “I saw the burning five-ton truck and tires when we went out to load the bad guys onto the convoy,” recalled another operator. The tires were the Somali version of smoke signals – the smoke served as a target indicator for everyone in the capital who wanted to join the battle. They also served another purpose, as they would make it increasingly difficult for the helicopter crews and the orbiting P-3 and CIA spy aircraft to see what was happening on the ground. “The black smoke you could see for six or seven blocks. It was a signal to say ‘This is where you need to go if you want to kill Americans,’” noted Jeff Struecker.

  Gary Keeney was stewarding the prisoners to the two surviving trucks. He remembered:

  As we left that courtyard we could see that some of the Rangers were engaging and I believe this was nearly the same time as Paul H’s team (E-Team) was up on the roof and they received some friendly fire by some Rangers. We moved out of that courtyard into the street and there was firing going on out in the street. We moved out into the intersection, almost where we landed at, there’s a lot of rounds cracking in the air all around us. As we’re getting the prisoners in the five-ton truck, and of course they’re flexi-tied so they can’t get into the truck and some of them were fat and out of shape and wearing sandals, so we had to physically get these guys on the truck.

  1604 HOURS: ALL FORCES TO BEGIN COLLAPSING TO BUILDING #1 FOR LINK UP AND GROUND EXFIL OF ALL FORCES AND PC. WILL USE BUILDING #1 ROOF PZ [PICKUP ZONE] IF REQUIRED.

  Keeney continued his account:

  As we got them in, we loaded up one of the Rangers on a stretcher [and he] ended up in the truck with us. I think an RPG hit a wall and he took some fragmentation or some concrete hit his leg. I remember sitting in that truck and the convoy’s not moving. We’re completely exposed and in the street where bullets are cracking past our head – we needed to get moving.

  SEAL Howard Wasdin, who had been providing overwatch down an alleyway opposite the target building, was hit by a ricochet that struck him in the back of the left knee. Schilling, fellow SEAL Homer N, and a Delta medic dragged him to cover around the corner to the GRF’s vehicles. Ranger Staff Sergeant Bill Powell, the Forward Observer on McKnight’s vehicle, was hit moments later, again by ricochets from the same alley. Powell staggered over to the Humvee and collapsed inside, where Schilling treated his wounds.

  As the last of the prisoners were loaded on board the two remaining five-ton trucks, both marked with bright orange VS-17 panels to identify them from the air, a total of six Delta operators climbed in to guard the Somalis. Paul Leonard was one of them:

  Scott Miller told Matt [Rierson] to take C-Team and two snipers and all prisoners by convoy back to the airport. Lieutenant Colonel McKnight was in charge of the convoy. It was C-Team plus two people assigned to us from the Sniper Troop, [Sergeant First Class] Alex S and [Sergeant First Class] Joe V on that five-ton. [Delta operator] Griz Martin was with the SEAL Team guys [on the cargo Humvee].

  There were two Humvees in front of us that had a .50 cal and an Mk19, then there was us [in the truck with the prisoners]. I think Grizwold [Tim “Griz” Martin] was in there; it was a crazy-looking Humvee that was wide open and no doors [the modified cargo Humvee] and then they had two more Humvees with a .50 cal and an Mk19.

  At approximately 16:20, just as the Ground Reaction Force finally prepared to leave the objective and head back to base with the prisoners, the voice of Ranger Specialist Mike Kurth, the RTO with Tim Watson’s Chalk 3, broke through on the command net with a message that would forever alter the course of the battle: “All stations be advised – we have a bird down, we have a Black Hawk down.”33

  * * *

  * From Task Force Ranger JOC Timeline – see Appendix 3.

  CHAPTER 4

  BIG SKY, SMALL BULLET

  “61 and 62 were making left-hand turns, they were 180 degrees apart, they were orbiting the objective area, their snipers were engaging people and the doorgunners were engaging people. Cliff [Wolcott, pilot of Super 61] called after about 10 or 15 minutes and said ‘We’re taking a lot of fire down here, let’s hurry up and get these guys on the trucks.’ There’s only so long you stay over an area in daylight in an urban environment.”

  Chief Warrant Officer 3 (P) Gerry Izzo, Super 65

  1610 HOURS: SUPER 61 REPORTS RPG BURST OVER TARGET; LOCATION OF FIRES PASSED TO BARBER [AH-6]

  Super 61 had been providing fire support from the air since the start of the mission. Along with the two crew chiefs manning the miniguns, Staff Sergeants Ray Dowdy and Charlie Warren, the helicopter carried a four-man sniper element from Delta. Sergeant First Class Jim Smith was the Sniper T
eam Leader. With him were Sergeant First Class Steve D, a Special Forces Medic from the Sniper Troop, Staff Sergeant Dan Busch and Sergeant First Class Jim M.

  Most of the snipers were armed with suppressed CAR15 carbines with red dot sights. “I was using a CAR15 5.56mm carbine with an Aimpoint optic. I also had an M21 7.62mm rifle with Leupold Ultra 10 power scope. I had the M21 if I got dropped off on a rooftop to support with long-range fire. Dan [Busch] chose a SAW so we would have light machine-gun capability if we needed it,” explained Jim Smith.

  The role of the aerial sniper teams in both Super 61 and 62 was to “provide precision fire if and when needed by the ground forces. We were in a counterclockwise orbit around the target building,” explained Smith. When targeting an individual on the ground, the snipers would fire a volley of aimed shots to ensure they hit: “It was not that difficult to fire while we were in an orbit but accuracy was gained by the shooter firing a high volume of fire at the target. Several fast well-aimed shots.”

  Along with sniping and minigun fire, the Black Hawks could help disperse the mobs by another tactic, “The rotor wash was a by-product of getting the helicopter in to get good observation on the crowd and potentially provide sniper marksmanship fire. The brownout from the rotor wash would disperse the crowds – it’s very uncomfortable to stand under helicopter rotor wash if you don’t have any eye protection,” said Tom DiTomasso. The snipers also attempted to disperse the Somali mobs with non-lethal munitions, as Gerry Izzo recalled: “They were throwing flashbangs out to get people to move back.”

  One of the crew chiefs on Super 61 had spotted an RPG gunner under the helicopter but couldn’t engage the Somali as he had emptied his minigun and was reloading. Delta sniper Jim Smith recalled: “The door gunner on my side, Charlie [Warren], went dry on ammo on the minigun. I leaned my body out the open door and by holding on with one hand so I could see directly below the helo. I then shot the RPG gunner directly below the helicopter.” This scene is misrepresented in both the Black Hawk Down film and book, showing it leading directly to the later downing of Super 61. In fact, as Jim Smith confirmed, it had occurred some time before.

  The Fire Support Officer and FOs on the ground attached to the assault and Ranger chalks were requesting fire support from both the AH-6s and the sniper Black Hawks. It was whilst trying to support Chalk 1 that Super 61 was struck by an RPG, an event that would dramatically alter the course of the battle. Lieutenant Lechner wrote:

  … my position was attempting to identify a gunman who was sniping at us. I let my FO control the mission thinking he may be after the same target I was. The sniper bird [Super 61] was unable to identify the gunman but made a number of passes firing its doorguns in the general vicinity.

  After the first pass I contacted the pilot, Warrant Officer Clifton Wolcott, and added my target information. On subsequent passes the gunman was not found, so we ended the mission and directed the pilot to resume his orbit. However, about a minute later the sniper bird reappeared flying south to north in front of our position. Suddenly, the aircraft swung hard to the right and I thought for a moment that the pilot was attempting to get a better position to fire from. I soon realized something was wrong when I observed that the tail rotor had stopped spinning and the aircraft began to spin unsteadily … the aircraft had come in to take one final look [for the gunman] and had been hit by an RPG.1

  1620 HOURS: SUPER 61 SHOT DOWN BY RPG – SOMALIS APPROACHING CRASH SITE. GRG SHEET 24, 16.2/0.7, UTM NH 36142685. GROUND REACTION FORCE 1 MOVING TO SECURE CRASH SITE. SURVIVORS CLIMBING OUT OF WRECKAGE – AIRCRAFT IS NOT ON FIRE. ASSAULT FORCE PERSONNEL (APPROX. 7) SECURING THE POSITION. REPORT: AREA SECURE FOR MH-6 ELEMENT TO EFFECT EXFIL OF CASUALTIES (2 X KIA, 2 X WIA).

  It appears Super 61 may have in fact been on its way to support Lieutenant Tom DiTomasso’s Chalk 2 after being unable to identify the gunman harassing Chalk 1. DiTomasso recounted:

  Specialist Thomas, my Forward Observer, was calling Super 61 to help disperse the large crowd to our north. The Black Hawk was coming in from our northeast when a rocket-propelled grenade hit it. The aircraft spiraled down and crashed approximately four hundred meters away. Specialist Thomas, seeing the whole thing, yelled to Specialist Coleman [DiTomasso’s RTO], who, in turn, told me that a “Bird had gone down.”2

  The RPG had struck Super 61’s tail rotor assembly, shredding it and sending the helicopter into a violent spin, smoke pouring from its tail boom. Jim Smith, the Sniper Team Leader inside the rear cargo area of the Black Hawk, remembered that there was “no warning with the exception of feeling the helicopter shudder and shake and start spinning out of control.” Chief Warrant Officer Cliff “Elvis” Wolcott made one last fateful transmission as his helicopter began to spiral toward the ground: “61 going down.”

  Several of the snipers managed to spreadeagle themselves on the floor, bracing for the inevitable impact. Smith almost fell from the wildly spinning aircraft and at one point both his legs and most of his body were outside the Black Hawk as it spun toward the ground. He explained:

  Back then we didn’t use safety harnesses. We had an A7A strap (nylon cargo strap) rigged across the open door just to keep us from falling out. I was almost slung out of the helicopter while it was spinning out of control. The strap luckily caught my armpit while my body was completely outside of the bird. I then pulled myself back in and scooted behind the crew chief/doorgunner’s seat. I then reached up as high as possible on the pipe framework of the doorgunner’s seat and I made a radio call that Super 61 had been hit and was going down.

  The pilots valiantly attempted to shut the engines down to reduce the spin and slow their descent but the aircraft was at a low altitude and hit the ground hard. Matthews in the C2 helicopter recalled: “The nose went into a wall that was reinforced with another wall on the other side. The tail boom knocked down the wall behind it. The cockpit did not break through that wall because it was reinforced. So it crushed that cockpit.”3

  Boykin in the JOC “saw Cliff Wolcott’s Black Hawk, nose over and twist out of control … the helo did several complete pancake rotations, sickeningly slow. Then the Black Hawk simply slid out of the sky, snagged the roof edge of a building and keeled over into an alley.”4

  1622 HOURS: REPORT: LARGE CROWD OF SOMALIS APPROACHING CRASH SITE.

  Moments later, as the dust cloud from the crash began to settle, Matthews transmitted the fateful message from the C2 helicopter: “We got a Black Hawk going down, we got a Black Hawk going down. We got a Black Hawk crashed in the city. 61, 61 down.” Chief Warrant Officers Cliff “Elvis” Wolcott and Donovan “Bull” Briley had been killed instantly as the nose of the MH-60 impacted with the wall to the southern side of the helicopter, crushing the cockpit in around them. Miraculously, both the crew chiefs and the four snipers on board had survived the impact, although most sustained injuries from the crash.

  The helicopter was down in an alleyway running from east to west several blocks northeast of the objective with the cockpit facing toward the east and its broken tail to the west. The main rotor assembly had sheared off on impact but the helicopter was largely in one piece, a testimony to the skill of the pilots and the aircraft’s design. Super 61 ended up lying on its left hand side against a retaining wall on the southern edge of the alley, most of which had collapsed from the impact.

  At the objective, a number of operators and Rangers witnessed the RPG strike and Super 61 spinning toward the ground. One of the assaulters, who requested anonymity in his interview with the author, remembered, “It was shot overhead, we heard it, looked up and watched it crash to our north.”5 Norm Hooten on the roof of the target building recounted: “I was on the east side of the building and saw it start to spin so I didn’t see the impact of the RPG, I saw the aircraft lose control and crash. We could not see the aircraft once it crashed because of all of the rooftops. It was a little further away than we thought.”

  “We were getting ready to leave – I get the word ‘Prepare for exfil’
right when the bird got shot down,” said Tom DiTomasso at the northeast blocking position. One of the Chalk 3 Rangers with Tim Watson, Private First Class David Floyd, who only moments earlier had fired his SAW for the first time in combat, actually saw the RPG hit the helicopter. He stated, “Super 61 was flying overhead, giving covering fire. And that’s when I noticed the RPG or saw the RPG hit him in the tail boom.”

  His sergeant, Randy Ramaglia, added:

  It’s like it never came out of the turn. It just continued to go, go and go. And it was like slow motion. I just remember that bird just spinning out of control. Seeing that get shot down, it was, like, “Wait a minute.” You know, “this isn’t … it’s not supposed to work like this.” You know, “we’re Americans … we’re the ones dictating the game here.”6

  Super 64 Pilot Mike Durant remarked: “Once Super 61 went down … That was the game-changer.”

  1624 HOURS: MH-6 HAS LANDED AT CRASH SITE – SUPER 62 PROVIDING COVER – RPG GUNNER REPORTED IN TARGET AREA – BARBER [AH-6] INBOUND.

  Amongst the first to react to the crash was Karl Maier in Star 41. After they had inserted their assaulters around the objective, the MH-6s had lifted out of the battlespace and flew in formation to a holding location north of the city. Maier explained:

  The whole city is like six by 12 kilometers so it’s pretty small. On the north side of the city we had a logistics base called Sword Base and they had a bunch of SeaLand [Conex] containers stacked up. I found we could land my flight on top of the SeaLand containers and I could see out over the city. That’s where we were after we did the infil.