The announcement of the diversion of the Independencebattle group to the eastern Caribbean on 21 October received positive reactions from many of the governments of the small islands nearest Grenada. The marines of the ANGLICO element identified what they thought was the enemy position and called in an A7 Corsair. Moreover, historically, the two services did not always work well together. On the nineteenth, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a warning order for possible evacuation operations to the commander of U.S. Atlantic Command (USLANTCOM), Admiral Wesley L. McDonald. The total naval and air superiority of the American forces had overwhelmed the defenders. As combat wound down, fears of U.S. planners that the Cubans or Grenadians were planning a prolonged resistance to the U.S. invasion or even a guerrilla war evaporated. On the fifteenth, General Farris disestablished his command and turned over all responsibility for military forces on the island to the Caribbean Peacekeeping Force. PDF CMH Pub 70-114-1 - United States Army Center of Military History Communications between services were also not compatible and hindered the coordination of operations. Ronald Reagan called Urgent Fury a "brilliant campaign." US Army Medal Statistics by Conflict, Operation or Incident They also changed the target listing for the special operations forces by adding (at State Department insistence) the Richmond Hill prison. [10] It was triggered by the strife within the People's Revolutionary Government, which resulted in the house arrest and execution of the previous leader and second Prime Minister of Grenada, Maurice Bishop, and the establishment of the Revolutionary Military Council, with Hudson Austin as Chairman. They found that the beach was lightly defended but unsuitable for an amphibious landing. Reactions: RL64RL, BravoZulu, berkut76 and 1 other person. He said that the runway and the numerous fuel storage tanks were unnecessary for commercial flights, and that evidence indicated that the airport was to become a Cuban-Soviet forward military airbase. The mission departed late at 05:30 on 25 October from Barbados, resulting in the Grenadian forces being already aware of the invasion and they guarded Scoon closely. The 1st Battalion was joined by the 2d Battalion (Rangers), 75th Infantry, out of Fort Lewis, Washington, late on the twenty-third. It was also possible that a battalion of the Grenadian Army and perhaps as many as three hundred to four hundred Cubans (with some Soviet advisers) were prepared to defend the barracks. As soon as a large number of U.S. ground troops seized a lodgment on the island, the Grenadian and Cuban defeat in conventional battle was assured. The American government accused Grenada of constructing facilities to aid a Soviet-Cuban military buildup in the Caribbean based on the 9,000-foot (2,700m) runway which could accommodate the largest Soviet aircraft, such as the An-12, An-22, and the An-124. At 19:00 on 25 October, 250 Marines from G Company of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment landed at Grand Mal Bay equipped with amphibious assault vehicles and four M60 Patton tanks; they relieved the Navy SEALs the following morning, allowing Governor Scoon, his wife, and nine aides to be safely evacuated at 10:00 that day. The most disturbing conclusions centered on joint doctrine. The Cubans broke contact and fled, leaving behind four dead. Urgent Fury avenged the death of Grenada's Marxist Prime Minister. Assisted by circling Air Force AC130 Spectre gunships, the Rangers hit the ground, returned fire, and set up their command post. However, they were attacked by Grenadian forces in cars and an armored personnel carrier (APC), which forced the lightly armed SEALs to cut open a fence and retreat into the ocean while receiving fire from the APC. In contrast, Ranger commanders and their staffs worked directly with the Joint Special Operations Command, a true joint headquarters, and all concerned shared a common language and common assumptions. Next to the intelligence failure, Atlantic Commands inability to coordinate planning by all the disparate ground force elements involved in the operation was the most striking flaw. General Trobaugh had planned to take the Calivigny military barracks the next day, but an order from someone on the Joint Chiefs of Staff (exactly who sent the command and under whose authority it was sent was never determined) demanded that the joint task force capture the barracks before dark on the twenty- seventh. Operation Urgent Fury: A Turning Point in U.S. Special Operations History [33] The PRA was not regarded as a serious military threat by the US, which was more concerned by the possibility that Cuba would send a large expeditionary force to intervene on behalf of its erstwhile ally. They would spearhead the attack on Grenada by a parachute assault onto the airfield at Point Salines. List of U.S. Casualties In Grenada Invasion - The Washington Post Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada provides a classic example of a product that was effective in a local target audience but had unintended blowback elsewhere. Suddenly, they came under fire. [36] Fidel Castro described the Cuban construction crews in Grenada as "workers and soldiers at the same time", claiming the dual nature of their role was consistent with Cuba's "citizen soldier" tradition. The two Ranger battalions were finally withdrawn back to the airfield beginning at 1400 and completed their departure from theisland early the next morning. At least 19 soldiers and civilians were killed on 19 October 1983, including Bishop, his partner, Jacqueline Creft, two other Cabinet ministers, and two union leaders. Word finally began to filter down to the soldiers around 2300 on 24 October, when General Trobaugh briefed his officers on the final invasion plans, that this was a real-world mission, not a drill. He recommended that the Special Situation Group, a committee of senior policy makers chaired by Vice President George H. W. Bush, assume responsibility for managing the crisis. There were no U.S. casualties. When the Rangers had moved to rescue the American medical school students at the True Blue campus, they found only about one hundred forty students. [33], The PRA did possess eight BTR-60PB armored personnel carriers and two BRDM-2 armored cars delivered as military aid from the Soviet Union in February 1981, but no tanks. As they continued on toward the Cubans construction camp, they took an additional twenty-two prisoners. Marlin R. Maynard One of the companys platoons then moved cautiously up the hill conducting recon- naissance by fire to flush out the Cubans. Task Force 160 in Operation URGENT FURY - arsof-history.org Once Frasch and Bishop became aware of one anothers activities, they coordinated their work and shared information that allowed Frasch to prepare a comprehensive analytical report on the operation. Such a changeover made sense only within the context of the initial assumptionsthat there would be little or no resistance and that all fighting would have ended by the time the 82d Airborne Division arrived. One friendly fire incident in the late afternoon of the twenty-seventh marred the otherwise uneventful movement of the 3d Battalion from the airfield. A total of 581 American students and over 100 other foreign nationals were evacuated during the course of the operation. The government of Fidel Castro in Cuba, long a supporter of Bishop, was surprised by the events on Grenada and on 20 October 1983 issued a statement condemning the killings and asking for explanations of the coup and the following bloodbath. The airborne troopers were first assigned to guard the Soviet and Cuban embassies to keep them from offering sanctuary to any of the missing Grenadian leaders. It was well he did. To many in the U.S. government, this seemed proof that the students might already be hostages. [45], The Army had reports that PRA forces were amassing at the Calivigny Barracks, only five kilometers from the Point Salines airfield. Grenadas main cash crops were mace, nutmeg, and bananas, but one of the islands main sources of revenue was the St. Georges University School of Medicine. Mass protests against the coup led to Bishop escaping detention and reasserting his authority as the head of the government. She publicly supported the action. On the morning of 1 November, the marines, responding to the chance that a few die-hards had established themselves on the nearby islands off Carriacou, stormed ashore on the main island but found only a small garrison that had already shed its uniforms and blended into the general population. Trobaugh turned to the commander of his 3d Brigade, Col. James T. Scott, to coordinate the operation, which involved both the 2d Battalion and Company C of the 1st Battalion. *The Navys ranks are a little different from the other services. These changes in timing contributed greatly to the less-than-total success the special operations forces enjoyed in achieving their first-day objectives. The U.S. intervention had its roots in a bloody power struggle within the New JEWEL movement in Grenada between Prime Minister and New JEWEL party leader Maurice Bishop and his Deputy Prime Minister and chief Marxist theoretician in the party Bernard Coard. The date of the invasion is now a national holiday in Grenada, called Thanksgiving Day, commemorating the freeing of several political prisoners who were subsequently elected to office. The compressed planning time was only part of the explanation. The rescue operation began late in the afternoon. S. Sgt. The 82d Airborne Division (Task Force 121) were designated to follow and assume the security at Point Salines once it was seized by Task Force 123. Operation Urgent FUry Killed in Action or Died of Wounds, Sgt. He wanted to be ready for a combat drop regardless of the outcome of the Ranger assault or the condition of the airstrip at Point Salines. The new U.S. administration of President Ronald Reagan viewed further encroachments into traditional U.S. spheres of influence in South and Central America and the Caribbean as constituting an increasing menace. Keith Lucas In 1983, the Cold War was rather hot: Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States and the relations between East and West deteriorated. It consisted of a small permanent military force called the Peoples Revolutionary Army of fewer than three hundred soldiers, a partly trained militia called the Peoples Revolutionary Militia of fewer than a thousand, and a small coast guard with a few converted fishing boats. The last of the 2d Battalion, 325th Infantry, reached the airstrip before dusk, and the follow-on 3d Battalion of the 32th was in place early on the twenty-sixth. On 19 October a staff officer at Atlantic Command placed a telephone call directly to XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, advising it to place its subordinate unit, the 82d Airborne Division, on alert for a possible rescue operation in Grenada. From the beginning, logistical problems started at the top of the chain of command with the insistence on extraordinary secrecy and compartmentalization of the planning process. Navy ships providing naval gunfire and Marine, Air Force, and Navy fighter-bomber support aircraft providing close air support mistakenly killed American ground forces due to differences in charts and location coordinates, data, and methods of calling for fire support. The 1st Battalion was commanded by Lt. Col. Wesley B. Taylor Jr. and the 2d by Lt. Col. Ralph L. Hagler Jr. Navy SEALs in Grenada Operation URGENT FURY Elements of Colonel Silvasys 2d Brigade closed on St. Georges, having swept the area between the capital and the airfield to flush out Grenadian or Cuban snipers. The Marine tank crews continued advancing in the face of sporadic resistance, knocking out a BRDM-2 armored car. One subsequently died of his wounds. General Trobaugh assumed responsibility for all military operations as commander, U.S. Forces-Grenada, shortly thereafter. The troops quickly assembled at Green Ramp (an area on the base where airborne soldiers habitually assembled, donned their parachutes, and prepared their gear for airborne operations) at nearby Pope Air Force Base and began readying themselves and their equipment for what some still believed was just an emergency deployment readiness exercise. The casualty toll was relatively light. The Department of Defense recognized a need for improved communications and coordination among the branches of the American military. Butcher, Quartermaster 1st Class Kevin E. Lundberg, Hull Technician 1st Class Stephen L. Morris, and Senior Chief Engineman Robert R. Schamberger. Despite fewer C130 Hercules aircraft arriving than anticipated on the twenty-fourth and constantly shifting plans for the time of H-hour, most of the men were loaded and ready for departure by 2230. [38], Bob Woodward wrote in Veil that captured "military advisors" from socialist countries, including Cuba, were actually accredited diplomats and their dependents. By the early 1980s, Soviet support of the Communist Sandinista government of Nicaragua and of the Communist insurrection in El Salvador was on the rise. List of U.S. DEFENDING GRENADA ACTION BEFORE O.A.S. They organized an air assault by the 2nd Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment preceded by a preparatory bombardment by field howitzers (which mostly missed, their shells falling into the ocean), A-7s, AC-130s, and USS Caron. The first two planes with the lead assault company had to abort their drops because of failures in their inertial navigation system and radar. The governments of some countries stated that the United States intervention was a return to the era of barbarism. The absense of these attributes on multiple levels was, as one officer observed, the crux of the problem. Sensitivity to public opinion and concerns about the impact of the operation on the strategic context combined to produce a crippling operational security policy that straitjacketed the planners. Still uncertain about orders and counterorders from Atlantic Command on whether to prepare for an airdrop or airlanding, General Trobaugh had his men rig the C141s for parachute assault while the planes were in flight. As a consequence of this legislation, the brief combat of Operation Urgent FUry exerted an influence on subsequent military operations disproportionate to its size, duration, or immediate results. There was a lack of intelligence about Grenada which exacerbated the difficulties faced by the quickly assembled invasion force. The withdrawal of the troops of the 82d Airborne Division was slow and deliberate, in marked contrast to their hurried and piecemeal arrival. (PRA), captured during the multiservice, multinational Operation URGENT FURY, are marched to a debriefing building by US servicemen . [37] The regular Cuban military personnel on the island were serving as advisers to the PRA at the time. The Invasion of Grenada, October 1983. On 29 May 2009, the Grenadian government changed the name of Point Salines International Airport to Maurice Bishop International Airport. He also asked for, and received, operational control over the Ranger battalions even though the original plan had them departing once the 82d took over the operation. [23][24] The New National Party won the elections in December 1984 and formed a government led by Prime Minister Herbert Blaize. During the course of Operation Urgent Fury, the U.S. military suffered 19 killed and 89 wounded in action. Shortly after the public welcome to the Cuban veterans of the campaign, Fidel Castro ordered that the Cuban ambassador to Grenada be stripped of his rank and imprisoned without benefit of trial for his failure to detect the impending coup against Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. [16] This act reworked the command structure of the military, making the most sweeping changes to the Department of Defense since the department was established in the National Security Act of 1947. Still lacking effective helicopter and artillery sup- port, the paratroopers depended for most of their fires on naval close air and gunfire, but insufficient direct communications with the ships caused requests for fire to be relayed back to Fort Bragg and then by satellite to the ships. It increased the power of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and advanced the concept of unified joint forces organized under one command. Army participants were either unaware of or misunderstood existing joint doctrine, while its implementation revealed deep flaws in the areas of communications, planning, and deployment. The plan continued to evolve, and the new invasion time was set for 0500 on 25 October. The result was that unexamined assumptions about logistics, communications, and even medical support permeated both joint and Army planning. Inside the warehouses were enough Soviet- and Cuban-supplied small arms and military equipment to outfit six infantry battalions, far in excess of Grenadian military needs. American forces remained in Grenada after combat operations finished in December as part of Operation Island Breeze. The Rangers evacuated the 233 American students by CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters, but the students informed them that there was a third campus with Americans at Prickly Bay. Invading Grenada: Operation Urgent Fury - Sandboxx By the end of the day on the twenty-eighth, General Trobaugh realized that a small peacekeeping force would suffice to secure the new interim government led by Sir Paul Scoon. Mark O. Yamane, MM1 Kenneth Gary Butcher MM1 Kevin P. Lundberg HT1 Stephen L. Morris ENCS Robert R. Schamberger, Maj. John P. Gigure 1st Lt. Jeffrey R. Scharver Capt. Bishop initially agreed, but later balked. He had only given up command of the 1st Battalion (Rangers) the previous May and was well known to both battalion commanders and their staffs. As conceived by the theater commander and his staff and approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the plan adopted for the operation anticipated that American forces would meet little or no opposition. Operation Urgent Fury, the 1983 invasion of Grenada Invasion of Grenada | Military Wiki | Fandom Overall, the U.S. Air Force supported Urgent Fury through a wide range of missions, including reconnaissance, close air support, troop and cargo delivery, casualty and evacuee transportation, air refueling, psychological warfare missions, and communications and air control. American forces sustained 19 killed and 116 wounded; Cuban forces sustained 25 killed, 59 wounded, and 638 combatants captured. Cuba also promised continued aid and support of the Grenadian people. General Sholtes was to command all the special operations forces as part of Task Force 123. In addition, the following ships supported naval operations: USSKidd, USSAquila, USSAubrey Fitch, USSBriscoe, USSNicholson, USSPortsmouth, USSRecovery, USSSaipan, USSSampson, USSSamuel Eliot Morison, USSJohn L. Hall, USSSilversides, USSTaurus, USNSNeosho, USSCaloosahatchee, USSRichmond K. Turner and USSEdson. The 2d Brigade continued to move slowly north and east, expand- ing the perimeter around the airfield with only minor enemy contact. [33] Cuban advisers and instructors deployed with overseas military missions were not confined to non-combat and technical support roles; if the units to which they were attached participated in an engagement, they were expected to fight alongside their foreign counterparts. The SEAL team entered the mansion without opposition, but BTR-60 armored personnel carriers counter-attacked and trapped the SEALs and governor inside. [18] Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth W. Dam said that action was necessary to "resolve" what Article 28 of the charter of the Organization of American States (O.A.S.) The first C130 touched down moments later. Other equipment and munitions were collected, inventoried, and loaded onto trucks and helicopters for movement to the harbor, where the SS Dolly Thurman, a cargo ship, awaited them. In the hangar bay, ammunition stacked to the. [30][31] Nearly simultaneously, American paratroopers arrived directly by transport aircraft from bases in the eastern United States and U.S. Marines were airlifted to the island from the USS Guam offshore. Grenada is part of the Commonwealth of Nations and the intervention was opposed by Commonwealth members including the United Kingdom, Trinidad and Tobago, and Canada. Perhaps the most serious military lapse in the early planning efforts centered on intelligence: the failure to identify more than one campus at the medical school and to discover that a large number of Americans lived off campus. They flew Sir Paul, his wife, nine civilians, and the SEALs out to the USS Guam by helicopter at 1000. The invasion resulted in the appointment of an interim government, followed by elections in 1984. Attempts to silence Radio Free Grenada by capturing the main radio transmitter were unsuccessful. This was quite different from the sphere and responsibilities of a tactical commander, whose charge involved an airhead (the initial lodgment seized by an airborne force) a few hundred meters deep around the airstrip at Grenada. The Grenadian defenders mounted only a token resistance before fleeing, and one Ranger was lightly wounded. This would be the SEALs first introduction to combat since Vietnam. Airborne troopers spent most of the day continuing the search for any fugitive Cubans and trying to locate Hudson Austin, Bernard Coard, and other members of the revolutionary govern- ment still in hiding. The battalion continued north and then east toward the highlands through rough and trackless terrain. By midday, all of the close high ground surrounding the airfield was in friendly hands. [35] G Company subsequently defeated and overwhelmed the Grenadian defenders at Fort Frederick. Reagan told her that it might happen; she did not know for sure that it was coming until three hours before. Sgt. The collapse of any substantive resistance became apparent during operations on the fourth day. The corps was also a critical element in planning and conducting air assaults. Two Marine AH1 Cobra gunships were also shot down by antiaircraft fire from nearby Fort Frederick. General Order No. General Hudson Austin and his bodyguards were captured on the twenty- ninth, leaving any potential resistance force virtually leaderless. Neither Admiral McDonald nor his staff apparently understood the critical functions of logistics, communications, and especially the complicated ballet of the airflow (the arrival, loading, and movement of Air Force transporters in conjunction with Army airborne soldiers) that the XVIII Airborne Corps performed for the 82d. Clearly, the subject offered ample room for improvement in professional military education programs and unit train- ing throughout the Army, the other services, and the joint staff. The return of Army combat units to the continental United States precipitated several debriefings. I have set it out and hope that even at this late stage you will take it into account before events are irrevocable[67][68] (the full text remains classified). We hope that you enjoy and profit from this synopsis of the short, yet significant, contingency operation conducted by the U.S. Army as part of the joint team in the early days of the all- volunteer force. The U.S. Army spent much of the decade after its retreat from Vietnam rebuilding itself into a supremely capable, all-volunteer force. Operation Urgent Fury, the 1983 invasion of Grenada, Ukraine Holds Positions in Bakhmut as Russia Claims Advances in Fiercely Contested City, Americans in Sudan Told to Shelter in Place After Diplomats Evacuated, US Special Operations Forces Evacuate American Diplomats From Sudan, The Taliban Are at My Door: The Whispered Message From a Friend in Afghanistan. By 9 November, the new camp was empty. At midnight on 24 October, soldiers of the 75 th Ranger Regiment prepared to perform an air assault landing on Point Salines International Airport, but discovered while in mid-air that the runway was blocked, so they changed tactics and performed parachute landings instead. The British government proposed the airport in 1954 when Grenada was still a British colony. WAR N/A N/A 3 3 1812 N/A N/A 0 0 MEX. US Army Medal Statistics by Conflict, Operation or Incident Since 1988 Email The American War Library| Home US Army Medal Statistics by Conflict, Operation or Incident 1700 - 1800 ERA Award MOH Cert of Mert Badge of Mili Merit Totals REV. The Rangers had to switch abruptly to a parachute landing when they learned mid-flight that the runway was obstructed. The celebration ended abruptly with snipers firing on the crowd, but rapid and accurate return fire ended the attack. Though the airfield could only handle one plane at a time, the troops would be much less scattered and less likely to suffer the normal accidents and breakages attendant to any parachute drop. Michael F. Ritz of Company B, 2d Battalion, 325th Infantry, ambushed by Cubans. The army announced a four-day total curfew during which anyone seen on the streets would be summarily executed. The main striking force was provided by eight Soviet BTR60 amphibious armored personnel carriers and two BRDM2 amphibious scout cars, all with heavy 14.5-mm. While the paratroopers pushed east and north, General Trobaugh ordered the Rangers of the 2d Battalion, 7th Infantry, to launch a helicopter assault to rescue the American medical students at Grand Anse. Just short of the village of Ruth Howard, the soldiers were surprised by a crowd of celebrating civilians who began welcoming the startled paratroopers as liberators. Furthermore, once the division reached the island, the new plan left General Trobaugh overloaded with responsibilities. It directed the Joint Chiefs to prepare a detailed operational plan for an opposed rescue of U.S. citizens and recommended that the USS Independence carrier battle group with a Marine amphibious unit be diverted to the region just in case. Ruppert was lightly defended, and the assaulters managed the OBJ (objective) successfully and with zero casualties, while several enemy leaders were captured. [3]:62 The US troops also destroyed a significant amount of Grenada's military hardware, including six BTR-60 APCs and a BRDM-2 armored car. PDF Crisis in Grenada: OperationURGENTFURY - U.S. Department of Defense Army Chief of Staff General John A. Wickham went further and directed the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command to prepare an in-depth analysis of the operation. Operation Urgent Fury and Its Critics - Army University Press Confronted with a deteriorating political situation on Grenada after the deposing and execution of the leader of the government by its own military, the perceived need to deal firmly with Soviet and Cuban influence in the Caribbean, and the potential for several hundred U.S. citizens becoming hostages, the Ronald W. Reagan administration launched an invasion of the island with only a few days for the military to plan operations. Both press and Pentagon sought to repair the damage by establishing short-notice pools of reporters for future operations, but the hostility between the two domains inherited from the Vietnam War was hardly over. He also suggested using some of the Pentagons special operations forces since hostage rescue specialists might be needed. PDF American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and - DTIC The 19 Grenadian soldiers defending the island surrendered without a fight. Forces Command, out of the planning loop. List of U.S. Navy Ships Participating A combination of artillery fire and Navy fighter-bomber sorties against the center of enemy resistance, a Cuban compound, soon silenced the enemy guns and white flags began appearing. [45], The Rangers cleared the airstrip of obstructions by 10:00 AM, and transport planes were able to land and unload additional reinforcements, including M151 Jeeps and members of the Caribbean Peace Force assigned to guard the perimeter and detainees. The U.S. government listed 19 U.S. troops killed and 115 wounded (although some analysts believed that the number would be considerably higher if all casualties among the secret, special operations forces were included). Randy E. Cline Near the Ross Point Hotel, the 2d Battalion, 32th Infantry, unexpectedly ran into the marines, already occupying the position. Patrol Insertion, Grenada, November 1983, by Marbury Brown.