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

by Leigh Neville

  Karl Maier did what he could to help the Barber crews, as did the other 160th SOAR air and ground crews. Maier explained:

  I would meet them at the FARP [forward armament and refueling point] and either hold the flight controls so they could go and pee or I brought them coffee and food – whatever I could do to help them because they flew for about 18 hours straight. They went through thousands of rounds of ammunition and hundreds of rockets.

  Randy Jones, the flight lead for the guns [AH-6s], came in and he said, “Hey, could you get something to wipe the windshield off?” I’m wiping it and looking at it and its dark so I don’t really know what I’m messing with and then I saw blood and hair and half of a jaw, someone’s jaw on the windshield. Probably from a rocket.

  Thankfully the Somalis had no night-vision equipment and whilst they could hear the AH-6s approaching, the first they would see of them was as the miniguns or rocket pods opened fire. The crews flew almost completely blacked out with night-vision goggles. Night-vision devices would have been beneficial for the Task Force Ranger personnel on the ground too, particularly for the Ranger M60 and SAW gunners who were providing the bulk of the suppressive fire.

  Kurt Smith recalled that “many TF members began leaving gear behind because the precedent set for six missions dictated that certain pieces of equipment would not be required. It was a gradual process, but, by the time the seventh mission started, some of the gear being left behind included ballistic ‘chicken’ plates, survival radios, ‘excess’ water, and night observation devices.”8 Tom DiTomasso added: “I left my night-vision goggles on my bunk. Every mission in the Army I did after that, I always brought my night-vision goggles with me!” Hooten and his operators also left them behind: “No, I did not [take them on the mission], none of my team did. We recovered some later from the pilots.”

  John Belman believes, however, that whilst they would have been an advantage, the Rangers were surviving without the technological aids. He explained:

  The impact of that from a Ranger perspective is somewhat overstated. For the crew-served weapons [M60s] and the SAWs they had night-vision scopes [available] – I’m not sure who brought their night-vision scopes or not – but those would have been important to have. Delta had dual reticle [goggles] but we have PVS-7s which were monocles with no depth perception – in terms of using it with an IR [infrared] laser to shoot, they were next to useless. They just weren’t very effective. The NVGs the Delta guys had [however] were great.

  RPGs continued to strike the building housing the northern CCP closest to the crash, slowly demolishing the flimsy structure. At one point, the Somalis deployed a crew-served heavy machine gun, possibly a 12.7mm “Dushka,” the Soviet equivalent of the vaunted US .50cal Browning. Tracer rounds from this machine gun tore through the northern CCP until the gun was silenced by a well-aimed 2.75-inch rocket fired from an AH-6 vectored in by Bray.

  The 12.7mm was likely mounted on a tripod rather than on the back of a technical, as Belman explained:

  I know we took some heavy-weapons fire but I don’t recall seeing technicals, not like in the movie where they’re waiting around the corner with a .50 cal.! Technicals, at least around the crash site, would have had a pretty difficult time. They would have had to drive right up on us. It’s a bad place to be [with AH-6s in the air] to be a technical.

  The CSAR team eventually used a C4 breaching charge in an attempt to blow a hole through into an adjacent building. They planned to move the casualties further into the building to protect them from the murderous fire on the street. Their first charge instead opened a man-sized hole out onto an exposed external courtyard. A second charge was more successful and the wounded were moved through, giving them a brief respite from the continual RPG fire. DiTomasso recounted:

  We pulled all the casualties in, put them in the center of the building, and defended that building. We split the defense with a Delta Captain [Bill C] – he took the northern side, I took the southern side. He had all of the CSAR guys with the special equipment so he continued to work on Cliff [Wolcott] at the helicopter. My job was to run the casualty collection point and secure the perimeter.

  Belman added:

  Once it got dark I was inside with our casualties pulling security. It seemed like there was less fire but that might’ve been because I was inside. Direct fire effectiveness was less, simply because the Somalis didn’t know where we were at that point. At that point you’ve got people who weren’t necessarily in the initial fight, grabbing the RPG off the mantelpiece and running to go and have some fun!

  It was early on October 4th. I remember thinking prior to that, “Okay, how long are we going to sit here before we have to run out? We need to be preparing to carry guys because we need to get out before it gets light.” If we’re going to run out without vehicles we won’t be able to do that in daylight. Doing the mental math, how many wounded, our ammunition, what if the ground convoy couldn’t get to us … I accepted the possibility, if not the likelihood, that we were not going to get out.

  1900 HOURS: PLAN APPROVED FOR QRF TO MOVE TO CRASH SITE W/2 X MALAYSIAN MECH COMPANIES & 1 X PAKISTANI ARMOR [PLATOON].

  Some three kilometers away in the JOC, a rescue plan was being hatched. Garrison, working with Boykin, Montgomery, and the 10th Mountain leadership, had sketched out a rough plan – the QRF would form the backbone of the rescue package. They would be supported by the Malaysian APCs and Pakistani tanks who would break through roadblocks and lead in the rescue force. The Italians had also offered the use of their armor but their base was at least two hours away in the northeast of the city and speed was of the essence.

  The Italians would, however, move their forces into the city early that morning, pre-positioning themselves for another rescue attempt should the QRF become pinned down and unable to complete the link-up and extraction of Task Force Ranger. The Indian United Nations contingent also agreed to help and stood up their forces, including a number of Soviet-manufactured T72 main battle tanks. Montgomery told them, “I will only use your force if I have Americans in extremis.”

  “There were only eight tanks in Mogadishu … they were old American tanks that had been given to the Pakistanis, and of those only four were operational, and they were at the airport, which is where the Ranger headquarters was. And so I called the Pakistani Commander and told him that I might need those tanks, and he said okay,” recalled Major General Montgomery.9

  The M48s were outdated Cold War-era US models but still packed a significant punch with their 105mm main guns. They were also heavily armored and could shrug off all but the most unlucky RPG strike. The real threat to the M48s was understandably landmines, a point made clear by the Pakistani tank commanders who later forced the Americans to manually search roadblocks for mines before they drove through them.

  Colonel Lawrence Casper commanding the 10th Mountain QRF had immediately dispatched both the remaining A and B Companies from 2-14th of the 10th Mountain to the airfield in anticipation of another movement into the city to relieve the embattled Rangers. Both companies now formed up with their C-Company comrades at the airfield and awaited the order to move. At 20:52, the combined 2-14th and Task Force Ranger convoy, along with four attached Pakistani M48A5 tanks and a Pakistani mechanized infantry platoon in M113 armored personnel carriers, drove out of the airfield gates and headed toward the United Nations facility at the New Port to link up with the Malaysians who had volunteered their vehicles to assist in the rescue mission.

  They arrived at the New Port at 21:30 to organize and integrate some 32 Malaysian Condor armored personnel carriers into the convoy and head for the Super 61 crash site as soon as possible. The Condors, painted in glaring United Nations peacekeeper white, were a German-made four-wheel light APC mounting a turret equipped with twin MAG58 general-purpose machine guns. A number were alternately equipped with 20mm cannon. Although lightly armored, and thus vulnerable to RPGs, the vehicle could carry up to a dozen soldiers, making it ideal to ferry out Task
Force Ranger. The Pakistani M113s were tracked and thus better at clearing obstacles than the wheeled Condors but also suffered from relatively light armor.

  2228 HOURS: MG MONTGOMERY REQUESTS QRF CONVOY ROUTE FOR POSSIBLE “IMPROVEMENT” PLANNING PRIOR TO DEPARTING. NO ESTIMATE ON WHEN CONVOY WILL PROCEED TO CRASH SITES FOR TF RANGER RELIEF.

  Organizing the Pakistani and Malaysian forces was problematic for both sides. Most of the Pakistani and Malay officers spoke at least some English and agreement was reached to dismount the Malaysian infantry in their APCs to make room for the Task Force Ranger personnel they would eventually be transporting back out of the city. The crews of the Condors spoke virtually no English and had to stay with the vehicles as they were the only ones trained to operate the APCs.

  Originally the plan called for a movement back through Habr Gidr territory and onto the main paved road, National, but this was changed when the Pakistanis offered a safer route up a road called Via Jen Daaud that skirted the Habr Gidr zone. The Pakistani route would allow the convoy to access National from the southeast, turning west onto National and heading for Hawlwadig. One company would dismount around the Olympic Hotel and link up with the defenders of the Super 61 crash site. A second company, accompanied by a number of Delta operators, would head to the Super 64 crash to ascertain the situation and extract any survivors who might be in hiding nearby.

  Jeff Struecker, returning into the city for the third and final time in his bullet-ridden Humvee, recalled:

  We went to the Port to link up with this multinational task force. It was little more direct from there. The Pakistanis showed up with tanks, the Malaysians had 30 or 40 armored personnel carriers, 10th Mountain in the middle and us, a handful of Rangers on Humvees, in the middle of the 10th Mountain. All of us rolled out together, heavy armor first, light armor second, and then light-skinned Humvees third. When we get there I think the plan was to send the armored personnel carriers to the crash site but they didn’t know exactly where they were going … so we ended up sending Humvees from 10th Mountain or guys on foot to the crash sites.

  Colonel David ensured that each of his elements was as well briefed as possible on the intended route and ensured that all of his men carried as much ammunition as possible, with most taking double the typical combat issue. Struecker and his men also took what they thought was abundant ammunition. He recalled: “We all went out there with NVGs [night-vision goggles], we had enough water, I had what I thought was enough ammunition but it became pretty clear that [we] had to conserve ammo. Fire single shot and only when you see a target because we’ll run out of ammo.”

  Navy SEAL Captain Eric Olson, in command of the SEAL sniper element attached to Task Force Ranger, and two of his SEALs went out with the seven Task Force Ranger Humvees attached to the convoy. Olson took the trail vehicle to ensure none of the convoy got separated or left behind in the confusion of the rolling enemy contacts. Delta Colonel Lee Van Arsdale, in charge of the Task Force Ranger component, was in one of the lead vehicles. “He was the JSOC Operations Officer over in the TOC. When he heard everything that was going on, he cobbled together this reaction force – elements of 10th Mountain, Malays, and Pakistani tanks. So he left his position with JSOC and took charge of that extraction force,” explained Hooten.

  The final force included most of the 2-14th spread out between their own trucks and Humvees and the Malaysian Condors, their antitank platoon and their scout platoon, a Military Police element, an additional antitank platoon from C-Company of 1-87th Infantry, all in Humvees and some 40 mixed Ranger, Delta, and SEAL personnel from Task Force Ranger including Matt Rierson from C-Team. The Task Force Ranger elements were temporarily placed under the operational control of Colonel David and the QRF. B-Company of 2-14th was assigned as the standby reaction force with a plan developed to insert them by helicopter at an off-set landing zone should they be required.

  Liaison officers were attached to the command vehicles of the Pakistani and Malaysian contingents with an American officer riding in the lead M48. Air support would be provided by the AH-1 Cobras and OH-58Ds of the 2-25th Aviation Regiment until the convoy reached National where the role would be passed to the AH-6 Barber callsigns of Task Force Ranger. The OH-58Ds would also be able to “sparkle” the route for the convoy using infrared lasers only visible through night-vision devices.

  2323 HOURS: QRF DEPARTING NEW PORT.

  Struecker recounted: “Malaysians, Pakistanis, some elements from the 10th Mountain and me and my men in those same two Humvees. We all ride out there about 11 o’clock at night and spend until 9 o’clock the next morning out there.” The 93-vehicle convoy made it to the vicinity of National largely unscathed and in good time, a scant 30 minutes after rolling out from the airfield.

  Until that point, they had only received intermittent small-arms fire. As they approached the turn onto National, however, the multinational structure of the rescue force broke down. The Pakistani tank commanders decided that they would no longer lead the convoy. They were fearful of using their white-light headlights to drive as they had no night-vision devices and were concerned the headlights would likely draw Somali RPG fire.

  After fruitless negotiation with the American liaison officer, the Pakistani armor pulled off the road and the Condors took the lead. The tanks would, however, stay and secure the far western end of National, and the planned egress route, once the convoy linked up with the crash sites. Now in the lead was A-Company in the Condors. Captain Charles Ferry, the company’s executive officer, wrote that: “1st Platoon had the mortar and fire support squad, a medic, and three APCs; 2nd Platoon had the engineer squad, a medic and three APCs; 3rd Platoon had a medic and two APCs.”

  As they turned onto National, they were taken under heavy enemy fire. The two lead Condors made a wrong turn to the south, inadvertently heading toward the Super 64 crash site. The American infantry they carried from 2nd Platoon of A-Company under Lieutenant Mark Hollis, a recent Ranger School graduate, and an attached Engineer squad, could see nothing but knew the vehicles were accelerating away. Hollis later recounted in an article for Infantry magazine:

  We started going over curbs and obstacles in the road … Unknown to me, at the same time the first vehicle, which held the 1st Squad leader, and my vehicle, the second, began pulling away from the rest of the column. This effectively separated me and my two lead squads from the rest of the company … At this time, I was totally disoriented and had not realized we were on our own.

  The two APCs continued west on National Street, then turned south toward Crash Site 2 and continued past it. I believe they were trying to return to the New Port facility. The vehicles were about one kilometer beyond Crash Site 2 when they entered a Somali ambush. RPG fire struck the lead vehicle head-on, mortally wounding the Malaysian driver. My vehicle was struck a moment later in the engine compartment … the blast felt like someone had lifted the vehicle up ...10

  Both Condors were immobilized by the RPGs with the Malaysian driver, Private Mat Aznan, later dying of his wounds after being rescued from the wreck by a 10th Mountain soldier. The vehicles would later be “denied to the enemy” by attached Cobra attack helicopters.

  Both American squads dismounted and engaged their attackers whilst the Malays stayed in the vehicles. Hollis’s men resourcefully used a demolitions charge to enter a nearby compound which they then strongpointed. Hollis remarked that the charge was perhaps a little too large for the task: “It not only made a hole in the wall but knocked down the wall and a small building on the other side. The squad leader reported that part of the wall on his side had come down on his soldiers as well.”11 Hollis himself was hit in the face by a piece of flying concrete that dented his night-vision device.

  On National Street, the battle was now in full swing. The M48s were engaged, with an estimated 7 to 10 RPGs fired at the lead tank. It responded with main-gun fire. The Mk19s on the 10th Mountain Humvees hammered targets on the south side of National as they approached the Olympic Hote
l. “We were now by the main intersection of National Street and the street the Olympic Hotel was on [Hawlwadig]. The company was stretched out about three city blocks on both sides, with the APCs in the middle,” recalled Ferry.12

  Norm Hooten remembered hearing the firing from the convoy and being immediately concerned about fratricide: “The first sign of that convoy coming in was the main gun on a tank going off. I remember calling on the radio and saying ‘Be careful with those things’ – I was afraid they were going to shoot us – that was my concern.” Belman at the crash site CCP also recalled the tremendous amount of fire as the convoy snaked its way toward them: “The volume of fire when the UN convoy started coming our way – it was just enormous both from the convoy itself and people shooting at it.”

  Mike Moser at the southern CCP agreed: “The approach of the convoy through the city toward us was easy to monitor, partly through radio but also via the sounds of meandering firefight – incoming and suppressive outgoing – that bounced around the room, growing louder and louder.”

  Ferry and his men managed to get the APCs moving again and made the turn right onto Hawlwadig, heading north, only to be stopped again by a tremendous amount of fire from the vicinity of the Olympic Hotel. The 10th Mountain soldiers could see the still burning wreck of the Task Force Ranger five-ton truck that had been destroyed outside the objective hours earlier.

  Ferry recounted: “Both 1st and 2nd Platoons were taking and returning a large amount of small-arms fire from the Olympic Hotel and nearby buildings and alleys. One APC was up next to the lead platoon.”13 Private First Class James Martin, an assistant M60 gunner, and the M60 gunner himself, Specialist Boynton, were deployed to suppress fire from the Olympic as others cleared a roadblock to allow the APCs to move up.