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

by Leigh Neville

  Whatever the case, as Durant’s Super 64 orbited above the crash site it was struck by an RPG as they passed the Olympic Hotel. “I was flying the helicopter and it felt like a speed bump, like when you’re going too fast in a parking lot. It hit the tail, just below the tail rotor, and it blew the gearbox apart. The tail rotor didn’t leave the aircraft immediately, but it decided to go pretty quickly, and when it did … we started to spin violently,” recalled Durant. “I heard a rapidly accelerating whine, an unearthly, building scream, and then the tail rotor assembly completely disintegrated into vapor with an earsplitting bang.” Durant continued:6

  We were in a flat spin and the only way to stop it is to shut the engines off. And when you do that you’re not much better off. You have more control but you no longer have engine power, so we hit the ground in a partially powered spin, a spinning flat condition, and the only reason any of us survived is we landed on the wheels.7

  From the Task Force Ranger radio logs, the pilot of Super 62, Chief Warrant Officer Class 3 Mike Goffena, asked Durant; “64, are you ok?” after he was hit by the RPG. He was answered by a quick “Roger” from Durant. Moments later, as the tail rotor fell apart and the aircraft began its terrifying spin, the pilot declared “Going in hard, going down. Ray! 64 is going down. 64 is down.” The aircraft spun an estimated 15 to 20 times from an initial height of some 70 feet in the air. Super 64, nicknamed “Venom” by one of its crew chiefs, Tommy Field, had crashed some 800 meters southwest of the Super 61 crash site.

  Durant had managed to keep Super 64 upright as it crashed into a shanty village on the ground and the stricken helicopter landed on its belly, largely intact. Although a relatively open area that had once been a city park, the helicopter faced simple tin and wood structures on three sides and a tin fence ran along behind the crash site. The aircraft hadn’t caught alight and to those watching in the JOC, there was a good chance of survivors.

  Colonel Matthews ordered the surviving sniper Black Hawk, Super 62, to make a low pass over the crash site, looking for signs of life. They saw Durant struggling to free himself from the cockpit. They also saw movement from Chief Warrant Officer Ray Frank, Durant’s co-pilot, and some indication that perhaps one or both of the crew chiefs in the rear of the Black Hawk had survived the impact. Captain Jim Yacone, Goffena’s co-pilot in Super 62, reported the sightings to Matthews in the C2 helicopter.

  Upon learning of the survivors, the three-man Delta sniper team on board Super 62 immediately volunteered to be dropped near the crash site to establish security until a ground force could fight their way to the location. Their request was denied as Matthews and Harrell examined their options. CSAR had already been deployed and with the extra Ranger platoon removed from the force package, there was no immediate reaction force that could be ferried into the site to secure it.

  Matthews instructed Super 62 to provide covering fire from the air whilst he vectored in AH-6 support. Super 62’s snipers and doorgunners began engaging targets to stem the flow of Somali militiamen and armed civilians moving toward the crash site. Goffena, who would tragically pass away in 1998 in an aircraft accident shortly after retiring from the Army, would bring the Black Hawk in low to disperse the mobs with his rotorwash, exposing the ever-present RPG gunners to the Delta snipers and doorgunners. The pilots even dropped flashbang grenades into the crowds in an attempt to dissuade them from nearing the crash site.

  Tom DiTomasso commented:

  Originally we had two Black Hawks circling the objective providing overwatch, Super 61 and Super 62, with Army snipers on board. So when Super 64 went down they moved Super 62 over to the 64 crash site to give General Garrison some security of the second crash site. General Garrison and the guys in the JOC could see what was happening there and they could see guys crawling out of the helicopter so they knew that there were crew members still alive. They could also see crowds starting to form around the second crash site.

  Colonel Matthews dispatched two of the Barber callsigns to join Super 62 in protecting the crash site until a recovery mission could be mounted. The first to arrive was Barber 51, the flight lead piloted by Randy Jones and Hal Ward. They were met by three RPGs launched at their Little Bird. Despite the RPG fire, Barber 51 managed to get close enough to the crash site to see Ray Franks still alive in the wreckage and to throw down an infrared strobe to mark the location of the helicopter.

  Barber 51 attempted to keep back the mobs with repeated minigun gunruns whilst the command team in the C2 Black Hawk weighed their few options. Garrison, Boykin, Matthews, and Harrell had a difficult decision to make. Karl Maier commented: “Task Force Ranger had only 450 people in it, including all of the support guys, so when we’re out on the assault, we’ve got everybody with us. We didn’t have a dedicated QRF or anything like that.”

  Tom DiTomasso explained:

  We’d already employed our CSAR asset. The vehicles – the Humvees and the five-ton trucks – that came forward to the first objective area … some of the Humvees went back with Blackburn, the rest had loaded up the prisoners and they were already heading north to try to get to the first crash site but they were getting ambushed so bad and they were so shot up they were losing men, prisoners and vehicles … General Garrison had nothing else to respond with, except the snipers on Super 62.

  Major Ron Cugno, commander of the MH-6 flight in Star 44, even made a request to Matthews for his Little Birds to insert their co-pilots to defend the crash site until friendly ground elements could fight their way through. That would give at least another four guns on the ground, all armed with SAWs. As courageous as the request was, Matthews, understandably concerned that another helicopter might be downed during the insertion, denied repeated requests from Cugno to put his pilots in.

  Whilst awaiting a decision from their commanders, Super 62 continued to provide vital fire around the Super 64 crash site, holding the swarming Somalis at bay. The Delta snipers engaged armed militiamen whilst the miniguns kept back the crowds. All the while, the helicopter continued to attract substantial small-arms and RPG fire. Both pilots could hear the rounds striking the aircraft and could only hope that a vital component wasn’t hit.

  1655 HOURS: UNABLE TO LEAVE CRASH SITE #1 – CANNOT RECOVER 1 X KIA IN AIRCRAFT.

  There were no easy answers. The Ranger chalks and Delta assaulters from the objective were still fighting their way up to the first crash site and had sustained significant casualties, including the death of Fillmore and the gravely wounded Smith along with a large number of lesser wounded. CSAR and Chalk 2 had their hands full simply securing the first crash site.

  DiTomasso recounted:

  I was under the first Black Hawk trying to defend it when I heard on the radio that another Black Hawk had been shot down. Initially we thought, “Okay we’re going to go secure it,” but we still had [the body of ] Cliff Wolcott trapped in the helicopter. We didn’t have enough men to secure the crash site and then pick up our casualties and move. We had three men on litters that would take six men to carry in combat any distance at all. All but two guys from Chalk 2 were wounded – you had guys shot in the arm, shot in the leg, but still fighting. I watched one Sergeant Major from the SMU [special mission unit] that was on a litter on his back, still shooting his pistol at enemy that would try to climb in through the window where we had the casualties at.

  Meanwhile, McKnight’s ground convoy had run into ambush after ambush and was struggling to reach the first crash site. Struecker’s three-Humvee convoy had made it back to the airfield and was now heading back out in a reinforced convoy of Humvees in an attempt to reach the second crash site. It too was running into continual ambushes and its progress was slowed by roadblocks. From the air, Super 62’s pilots could see they would never make it in time.

  The snipers in Super 62 were again asking to be inserted near the Super 64 crash site. They could see the growing crowds and knew that the helicopter would be overrun within minutes. Yacone, receiving updates on the situation on the gr
ound and at the first crash site, conveyed the likelihood that it would be some time before the Delta snipers would be relieved by a ground convoy. He discussed options for them to withdraw to an identified landing zone with any wounded they could recover where they could be picked up by Super 62. There simply wasn’t room for the helicopter to land directly at the Durant crash site and they had already jettisoned their fast ropes during the initial insertion at the target building.

  Boykin recalled: “I said, ‘stay above them, use your sniper rifles and just take out anyone you can, fire on anybody who tries to get near that crash.’” One of the snipers, Master Sergeant Gary Gordon, called back and explained that there were simply too many enemy converging on Super 64 and that the crash site would soon be overrun by hostiles: “Sir, put us in.” Again Boykin and Garrison refused. Boykin explained that he told them to “use the doorguns on the helicopter if you have to, knock ‘em down but don’t let ‘em get near that crash.”8

  Tom DiTomasso takes up the story:

  The other sniper Black Hawk, Super 62, calls up on the radio and requests permission to put their three Delta snipers into the crash site to defend it because they can see the crowds starting to build there. General Garrison told me this years later; three times they called, three times permission was denied to put Super 62 in. The last time they call, Master Sergeant Gary Gordon, the Delta team leader, got on the radio and called General Garrison and said “Sir, you’ve got to put us in.”

  General Garrison said “Gary, do you know what you’re asking for?” And Gary Gordon said “Yes sir, we are their only hope.” I submit that this example by Master Sergeant Gordon and Sergeant First Class Shughart is the ultimate leadership lesson. They lived the creed ... “I will never leave a fallen comrade.” So Super 62 flies over to Mike Durant’s area. They can’t use their fast ropes because they’ve already used them on the target. So they had to find a place where they could hover where the snipers could jump off and run over to the crash site.

  As they’re making their way over to the crash site, they [Super 62] get hit by machine-gun fire and one of the crew chiefs in the back of the Black Hawk gets shot in the hand, so the youngest sniper Brad H steps up to man the machine gun, that’s why only Shughart and Gordon jumped off the bird.

  Crew chief Sergeant Paul Shannon had been struck in the hand by a burst of ground fire. At the same time, his minigun suffered a stoppage. The second crew chief, Sergeant Mason Hall, moved across and took over the minigun, clearing the stoppage and getting the weapon back into action. Brad H, the third Delta sniper, took over Hall’s minigun on the right hand side of the Black Hawk.

  If anyone could pull off such a rescue against all odds, it was the two Delta snipers. Master Sergeant Gary Ivan Gordon, nicknamed “Lobo,” was the Sniper Team Leader. A former member of the 10th Special Forces Group before passing Selection and the Operator Training Course, he had joined Delta in 1986. Gordon was a combat veteran of Panama including the Acid Gambit rescue and had deployed to Saudi Arabia on standby to conduct special operations should Saddam Hussein break the ceasefire agreement negotiated to end Operation Desert Storm.

  Despite his profession, one that he undoubtedly excelled at, Gordon was a study in contrasts. He wrote poetry to his wife whilst on deployments, built furniture, and was a budding author of fiction for children. Alongside Gordon was Sergeant First Class Randall D. Shughart, a former Ranger from the 2nd Battalion. Shughart was raised on a dairy farm but from a young age knew the military was his calling. He joined the Rangers straight from high school. He passed OTC and had also joined Delta in 1986 as an Assistant Team Sergeant. Both were very experienced and respected operators in C-Squadron’s 3 or Sniper Troop.

  The pilots of Super 62 spotted the only clear landing zone amid a sea of decrepit buildings and debris and flared over it to blow away some of the rubbish littering the ground. They hovered briefly to allow the two snipers to jump the five feet from the aircraft. Shughart became entangled in his safety harness as he exited the Black Hawk and had to be cut free by a crew chief. Gordon leapt out but fell hard as he landed. They both righted themselves and looked to the Black Hawk pilot for an indication of the direction they should head.

  DiTomasso explained:

  Jim Yacone was one of the pilots on Super 62 and he says that when Shughart and Gordon got off, the only thing Jim could do was point in the direction of the crash site and say, “It’s that way.” Remember back then we didn’t have GPS, guys didn’t have GPS on their wrists, we didn’t have airborne ISR [Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance] helping these guys navigate.

  One of the crew chiefs then threw a smoke grenade to mark the direction of the crash site. Boykin recalled, “They kicked down a small wall and fought their way in to the crash.”

  Whilst they hovered, Yacone undid his seatbelt and grabbed his MP5 submachine gun to accompany the two Delta snipers “as he had a better idea of where they were. The pilot in command [Goffena] reached over and grabbed him by the arm and said, ‘No, I need you up here to help me fly the aircraft, you don’t need to be jumping into this hornet’s nest – you’re not an infantryman. You’re not going to be as much help as you think you will,’” recalled Gerry Izzo. Yacone stayed in the aircraft. “They find this area 300 meters away from Durant’s helicopter and Shughart and Gordon jump off that bird with an M4 [CAR15], a modified M14, and two .45-caliber pistols,” continued DiTomasso.

  1701 HOURS: SUPER 62 TAKING REGULAR/CLOSE RPG FIRE; MOST FROM WEST SIDE OF 2ND CRASH SITE.

  Super 62 lifted out and moved into an orbit overhead of the crash site, attracting numerous RPGs which trailed through the air around the helicopter. Delta sniper Brad H and one of Super 62’s crew chiefs continued to engage the gunmen from the air with the miniguns, trying to buy Shughart and Gordon some vital time whilst the two operators moved toward the crash site, engaging approaching Somalis with single shots or fast double-taps.

  The AH-6s were making gunruns to slow down the crowds racing toward Super 64 whilst Goffena dropped flashbang grenades from his cockpit to try and disperse the mobs. The co-pilots in the Little Birds were even using their personal M16s to try and pick off militiamen. Shughart and Gordon continued to “… make their way 300 meters through the village, through the neighborhood, and find the helicopter. They navigated through that shanty village and found the Black Hawk. They pull everyone out of the Black Hawk, they put them under cover to include Durant and they defend that helicopter,” said DiTomasso.

  “That’s one of those that makes you ask, ‘Where do we find men like that?’” Colonel Gary Harrell later remarked. “It wasn’t like they just decided they’d hop off the helicopter and thought that somebody would come to their rescue. We had two helicopters down. We had the capacity to get one. We didn’t have the capacity to get two. They knew what was going on.”9

  Ten minutes after Super 64 crashed, the Delta operators had arrived at the site. Shughart carried a 7.62mm M14 battle rifle, Gordon a camouflage-painted and sound-suppressed CAR15 carbine. In common with all of the snipers deployed on Super 61 and 62, neither man wore a helmet. The snipers went to the aid of Durant first. Durant told the author that he had no warning that the Delta snipers had arrived: “I did not hear Super 62. They literally appeared at my side.” They quickly ascertained the extent of Durant’s injuries. He told them, “I thought my leg was broken and I thought there was something seriously wrong with my back, but I had no idea what,” and they carefully extracted him from the aircraft.

  The snipers then placed Durant on the ground in some concealment, ensured his MP5K submachine gun was loaded and ready to fire, gave him a spare 30-round magazine and then returned to Super 64 to extract the other casualties. First they brought out the grievously injured crew chief Bill Cleveland and then went back for Ray Frank and the other crew chief Tommy Field, attempting to establish some form of casualty collection point. Durant believes today that his crew chiefs were alive when Super 64 crashed but may well have die
d soon after. He saw his co-pilot Ray Frank get himself up and out of his seat in the cockpit and sit in the open door of the Black Hawk just before the snipers arrived.

  Barber 52 was now overhead and caught a glimpse of the scene below: Ray Frank had been extricated from the wreckage and was sitting behind the aircraft near a tree, Bill Cleveland was being examined by one of the snipers, the other operator was covering the left hand side where another crew member lay on the ground.

  With enemy fire increasing minute by minute, Shughart and Gordon tried to locate a closer landing zone as they would have both been acutely aware that they would face extreme difficulty moving two seriously wounded and two critical casualties any distance back to the landing zone previously agreed with Yacone. Durant remembered: “I could tell they were trying to figure out how to get out of there. Because they basically had four litter patients.”10

  The pilots of Star 41 who had earlier extracted Delta snipers Busch and Smith from the Super 61 crash site had heard the call and they were going to attempt another rescue. After dropping off their casualties, Star 41 flew back to the Task Force Ranger hangar to refuel and link up with the rest of the Star flight. As they were refueling, Maier heard “that Mike got shot down on the radio. So I took off and I called Matthews and said, ‘Hey I’m heading over there’. We landed at the same spot the Black Hawk dropped off the two operators. The Black Hawk [Super 62] had already taken off.” Maier continued:

  It was really the only area [to land]. It looked like there used to be a pretty good-sized building but this was like what was left of the foundations. Everything else around there was a bunch of shanties. So I decided to stay on the ground there rather than risk flying around because at this point any aircraft that was circling around was a) getting shot at and b) was a beacon for everybody to move toward. So that’s why we decided to stay on the ground and hopefully hear from Shughart and Gordon.