into the Storm (1997)

by Tom - Nf - Commanders Clancy

  1ST INF DIVISION. Prior to this morning, elements of the 1st INF had moved forward once before. On 16 February, in order to get artillery close enough to reach Iraqi artillery in range of the breach, Tom Rhame had pushed his 1st INF, 3rd Brigade, commanded by Colonel Dave Weisman, forward to occupy the Iraqi security zone (an area in front of the Iraqi main defense that extended from the border about fifteen kilometers into Iraq). During this operation, the brigade had been in several sharp fights with Iraqi recon units and done well in their first combat. On the night of 17 February, we had had the first blue-on-blue (what some call fratricide, or so-called friendly fire) in the 1st Infantry Division, when a division Apache had fired on a 3rd Brigade Bradley and an M113, killing two of our soldiers and wounding six others. As a result, Tom Rhame, with my concurrence, had relieved the aviation battalion commander who had personally fired the fatal missile. The same day, an MLRS in the division artillery south of the border had fired by mistake into our attack positions. Though, as luck would have it, the rockets had fallen harmlessly into the sand, I was still concerned, because I wanted to build on early success. I had ordered Tom to pull the whole brigade back out of the Iraqi security zone that afternoon. That way, we reinforced our deception by signaling to the Iraqis that we were not coming at them from that direction.

  CORPS ARTILLERY. During the period just before G-Day, Iraqi artillery was our main focus, especially those capable of firing chemical munitions. Because we didn't want to give away the location of our attack, we waited until about a week before the actual assault in which our artillery, attack helicopters, and close air support would hit the Iraqi artillery that was within range of the breach. We knew the Iraqis paid a lot of attention to artillery preparations, so if we'd been pounding the area out in front of the 1st Infantry Division for a couple of weeks, they probably would have reported to the RGFC: "Hey, they've got some sizable forces out here. Looks like they're coming farther west of the Wadi."

  Later on G-Day, artillery would move into position before the 1st INF attack for two hours of preparatory fires into the breach area, in order to destroy the Iraqi artillery in range of the breach site. This prep fire had been planned by Brigadier General Creighton Abrams and Colonel Mike Dotson, the Big Red One Division artillery commander, and it would be shot by the 1st INF Division artillery, reinforced by three VII Corps artillery brigades, the 42nd, 75th, and 142nd, and the artillery of the 1st UK Division. After their firing mission, the 42nd and 75th Artillery Brigades would move through the newly opened breach and join the enveloping 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions, respectively, to reinforce the fires of their division artillery units in time for those division attacks on the RGFC.

  ENVELOPING FORCE. Here our challenge was to find sufficient room to maneuver--1st AD, with their twenty-five kilometers of front on the Iraqi border, and 3rd AD, with their fifteen kilometers next to them.

  I had given 1st Armored the extra room so that Ron Griffith could put two of his three ground-maneuver brigades side by side in a desert wedge (one brigade leading, followed by two brigades abreast). That way, he wouldn't be held up by time-consuming repositioning when we released the coiled spring. I wanted 1st Armored really fast off the mark--as though shot from a cannon toward Objective Purple, the Iraqi VII Corps logistics site at the Iraqi village of al-Busayyah, some 120 kilometers north of the border.

  Given the enemy forces and the terrain he had to get through, I had estimated Ron would reach Purple about eight hours after H-Hour. Once he had seized that objective, we would have a major maneuver force north and west of the RGFC, one that was positioned to outflank any RGFC attack that might come west or southwest of their present locations to meet our enveloping force. (Iraqi forces habitually met a penetration attack head-on, and not from the flanks, as our doctrine advises.)

  Because 1st AD had to be launched quickly, Butch Funk and his 3rd Armored Division had to start in a column of brigades that would initially extend almost 120 kilometers to the rear. Though 3rd AD was our corps reserve, they were not stationary. I wanted them moved forward across the border today, and I wanted them to get into a better offensive formation before they attacked tomorrow. Once he crossed the border and we got him more room, he could shift to whatever attack formation he thought necessary for the missions I had assigned him. It would take time, but I thought they would have time on G-Day and G+1 to get into another tactical formation before I committed them to any of the contingencies we had war-gamed.

  While preparing for this maneuver, Butch also had to contend with another contingency, one that he handled with the kind of ease I'd come to expect from him: If CENTCOM committed the 1st Cavalry Division to JFC-North, then VII Corps was responsible for providing 1st CAV with a third maneuver brigade to replace the one 1st CAV had given earlier to the U.S. Marines. If that happened, I planned to order Butch to send one of his brigades to 1st CAV. Cal Waller had gotten my recommendation on this approved by Schwarzkopf, instead of CENTCOM's first choice, which had been 2nd AD (Forward) out of 1st INF.

  The mission of our other enveloping force, the 2nd ACR, was to be out front and to provide offensive cover to cover the movement of the two armored divisions as they attacked toward Objective Collins about 150 kilometers from their line of departure. In order to get a better start on it, Don Holder had requested that his 2nd Cavalry Regiment move forty kilometers forward into Iraq to their Phase Line Busch18 (2nd ACR had named all their phase lines after beers). This would not only put him about thirty minutes ahead of the two divisions, it would clear the area and allow the divisions to move up across the Iraqi border. (We wanted to lean as far forward as possible without tipping our hand.)

  Yesterday, the regiment had moved forward about twenty kilometers beyond the border to their Phase Line Bud to clear the area south of the berm for the two follow-on divisions and to prepare for their move to Busch (they'd push their aviation forward of that). Though I had approved Don Holder's request for these moves, I had ordered him to show only aviation and artillery to any Iraqis out there, in order not to tip our hand early. The regiment had fired their first round in combat at 1330 the day before in a ten-minute artillery preparation fire. By 1400, 2nd Squadron, preceded by the 4th, or Aviation, Squadron (nicknamed "Redcatcher" after our Cold War days), had all pushed across the border without incident. At 1628, however, two soldiers had been wounded when their vehicle had run over one of our own DPICM19 munitions. The men were medevaced. At 1900, 3rd Squadron reported enemy dismounted infantry in their area, and the troops were assessed to be from the Iraqi 26th Division (thus confirming our intelligence that the 26th had a brigade in depth to refuse the west flank of the Iraqi VII Corps). Meanwhile, 4th Squadron reported that the twenty kilometers forward to Phase Line Busch were clear of enemy. By 2100, the regiment had reached Bud and had cut forty-three lanes in the double-border berm, both for their own passage and for assisting the two follow-on divisions, which would need to cut more.

  The coiling of our coiled spring was to be on the Iraqi side of the border--just cleared out by the 2nd ACR. Both 1st AD and 3rd AD would have more room on the other side of the border, and they would also have gotten through all of the friction of passing through the lanes in the berm and reassembling.

  Making it through the border berms turned out to be slow going for some of our units. The holes we had cut in the berms acted like "filters," and it took time to go through one by one, and then to get into some sort of tactical grouping. In one battalion, units got so disoriented in the dark and mixed with vehicles from other units that the commander pulled them south of the berm to reenter Iraq the next day.

  207TH MI BRIGADE. Our newly acquired Pioneer UAVs (the first UAVs used in combat by the U.S. Army) were an immediate help in targeting Iraqi artillery. By G-Day, through bomb damage assessment provided by Pioneer flights, we had detected the destruction of sixty-five Iraqi artillery pieces and FROG (Free Rockets Over Ground). The Pioneers had also flown a mission in support of General Saleh Halaby's Egypt
ian Corps on our east flank.

  I had previously cleared all of our forward movements across the Iraqi border with John Yeosock. The main attack on G-Day was in the east--the Marines and the Arab forces of JFC-East, together with a very well planned and, as it turned out, well-executed Navy and Marine amphibious deception maneuver toward the Kuwaiti coast. Since the aim of that attack was to freeze the RGFC in place and to draw their attention to Kuwait, and since General Schwarzkopf rightfully wanted a synchronized first- and second-day ground attack scheme, John had directed both us and XVIII Corps to clear any such forward movement with him. If the eastern attack was successful in its aim, the Third Army heavy forces attack on the second day could better achieve positional advantage to destroy the RGFC.

  THAT was my running estimate that morning of G-Day, and everything looked in place. After a paper cup of coffee brought over by Staff Sergeant Dave St. Pierre, my driver, I strapped on my leg, pulled the leg of my tanker's Nomex suit over it, strapped on my shoulder holster containing my 9-mm Beretta, and put on my Kevlar helmet. Today we'd get into our coiled spring. Tomorrow we'd attack.

  I walked the thirty feet through the sand in the early-morning cold and quiet darkness to get a quick breakfast before the morning update. John Landry and a few other members of the corps staff were in the small van where we took meals and sometimes had short meetings. As we ate a hot breakfast of B rations and coffee, we talked informally. At this point, most of the corps were eating two hot meals a day, breakfast and supper, with Meals Ready to Eat (MRE) during the day. That was about to change. Until the war was over, we all ate a steady diet of MREs.

  We talked about our activities for the day. Nothing unexpected had happened during the night. I would get a complete staff update shortly.

  0600 VII CORPS MAIN COMMAND POST

  After breakfast, I walked the short distance to our newly arranged CP, two Army general-purpose tents hooked together and pitched over sand, where I would get a quick morning update before moving on to the TAC CP.

  I took a fast look around. The CP was a working area, and work continued even as we had our meeting. The atmosphere was informal. We had been at this for three months now, and during that time I'd lived there, often just wandering around and chatting with people, so by this morning, I knew nearly all personnel by their first names, and the feeling was relaxed. We were like a family in many ways, and the meeting was much more like a family gathering than the stereotypical image of some Prussian war council--the supreme field marshal marching in and arranging himself grandly in the highest-backed of a line of high-back chairs. Our chairs, in fact, were mainly gray metal fold-up things, with a lot of dents and chipped paint from constant use. Since there weren't many of them, people dragged up their own or stood.

  The various corps staff seated themselves. Standing behind them were most of the rest of the tent's staff, who'd left their stations so that they could be present for the update on this first day. Also standing were the liaison officers from the various corps units, there to report any orders back to their commanders. By this time, everyone knew what to expect when I had a briefing. On this day, as usual, I was serious, but I also wanted to project the confidence I genuinely felt . . . and wanted everyone there to feel. I looked at the faces around me. What a talented team, I thought, their skills developed through years of schools and training exercises. It had taken our Army almost twenty years to get here.

  I sat in the middle chair, about ten feet in front of a 1:250 000-scale situation map with the latest enemy and friendly situation posted. To my right was my deputy, Brigadier General Gene Daniel, and to my left was Brigadier General John Landry, chief of staff. The tent was quiet in anticipation, except for the occasional radio and phone calls coming in on this first day.

  Normally, I liked to start with the G-2 for a picture of the enemy.

  So far, based on what I'd seen, we had the Iraqis where we wanted them, and we had the right moves for that day and the next. But I was searching now for any indicators that would cause me to make last-minute adjustments, as I looked ahead to the next day and the day after that. Tactics is always a series of adjustments, as you attempt to get an edge on the enemy and keep that edge.

  I still anticipated that my next big decision would come in about twenty-four hours, when I ordered the corps into a maneuver to attack and destroy the RGFC. I anticipated selecting one of the seven FRAGPLANs we had proposed--I still preferred FRAGPLAN 7, which turned VII Corps ninety degrees east, formed a three-division armored fist, then attacked into the flank and rear of the RGFC if they remained fixed or defended where they were. Over the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, I needed to maneuver the corps so that when we executed that FRAGPLAN, we would be in a continuous rolling attack and wouldn't have to stop and form the fist. The only two missing pieces from FRAGPLAN 7 were the Iraqi RGFC dispositions and the third division for my fist. If CENTCOM didn't release the 1st CAV--or if they didn't do it in time--I'd have to come up with another division from somewhere.

  Why three divisions? For two reasons: First, if the RGFC and the 10th and 12th Iraqi Armored Divisions stayed fixed, we would be attacking into five heavy divisions (with our three), with XVIII Corps to our north attacking three RGFC infantry divisions. Even if CENTAF had succeeded in reducing the Iraqi divisions by 50 percent, that would still leave a 1:1 fight (again with our three). We could defeat the Iraqis with two divisions instead of three, but at a risk of sustaining many more casualties. The second reason I wanted the three divisions was so that we could sustain our combat power for at least two or more days. I did not want our attack to run out of combat power after twenty-four hours. Our mission was to destroy the RGFC in our sector, not just defeat them.

  As for the question of which would be the third division, I had always kept open the possibility of using the 1st INF somehow in the RGFC attack after they completed the opening-up of the breach. The issue there had to be how well they came through their breach attack. If they got hurt badly in the breach, then I would leave them there. If, on the other hand, they came through all right, then I wanted to use them. In fact, I hoped to use them--possibly as reserve--even if the 1st CAV had been committed to us earlier than they in fact were.

  "OK, John, what have you got?" I asked Colonel John Davidson, the G-2.

  After John gave us a complete enemy lay-down, he concluded, "Sir, the Iraqis have not moved and show no reaction in our sector so far to Coalition attacks or to our early movements. Iraqi VII Corps remains fixed in front of us. RGFC still has capability to relocate. Looks as though they are remaining in place and will stay that way. Estimate main force Iraqi units at between 50 and 75 percent strength. Morale continues to be low in Iraqi VII Corps. RGFC will fight."

  Let me expand on this a little: First, it looked as though our 1st CAV deception into the Ruqi Pocket was working. The Iraqis weren't aware that the main attack would come from west of there. Good. Next, we had predicted that a brigade of the armored division in reserve (the 52nd) could reinforce Iraqi units defending against our breach, and that prediction still held. I had instructed fire support and G-2 to hammer it relentlessly. The Iraqis had five frontline infantry divisions in our sector. Their tactical reserve was the 52nd, positioned in the Wadi al Batin and stretching westward behind the frontline divisions. One brigade of the 52nd was positioned close to the place where the British would turn east as they left the breach. If that brigade was left alone, they could hold up the British and clog the whole breach. That is why I had ordered our fire support people to make it "go away."

  We also estimated that deeper in their strategic theater forces, the Tawalkana, Medina, and 17th Armored Divisions could reposition west to the vicinity of our Objective Collins. Collins was a corps "way point"--or the place where I had estimated I would commit the corps to one of the FRAGPLANS. It was a large circle on the map to indicate a corps concentration point, about 150 kilometers from the line of departure, and it had significance only as a point of orientat
ion. There was no attack to "seize" Collins, for example. Rather, in the absence of towns or crossroads or some other orienting feature, we had to create "features" of our own. Collins was one of these.

  And lastly, we continued to think that they would attempt to defend in depth in successive positions from the border over to Basra and use chemical weapons against us, either at the border or as we attacked the RGFC.

  John was followed by the staff weather officer, Air Force Major Jerry Thornberg, who gave a not-too-encouraging picture of the February desert weather: High winds would develop later, with blowing sands limiting visibility, plus low clouds and chance of rain. Temperatures were to climb into the low fifties during the day and go down to close to freezing that night. He predicted more of the same all week.20 I knew that would probably complicate movement and resupply, and might interfere with aviation. But I also knew there wasn't much you could do about the weather except work around or through it.

  Since my G-3, Colonel Stan Cherrie, was at this point already about fifty kilometers northwest at the TAC CP, Colonel Mike Hawk gave the G-3 portionof the briefing. I would join Stan shortly and get from him a complete report on what the friendly units were doing. Mike reported that to this point the movements of our forces were proceeding without enemy contact and without problems.

  He added that reports of progress outside the corps early in the morning of 24 February were sketchy at best. As 2nd ACR had moved forward, they had maintained contact with 3rd ACR on our VII Corps western boundary (they were XVIII Corps's easternmost unit). And since we had a liaison officer directly linked to XVIII Corps in our main CP, we had reports of early success by the 82nd, 101st, and French 6th Division operation in the west of XVIII Corps.