Special Operations.Com
Spirit 03 and the
Battle for Khafji
January 29-31, 1991
Opening Moves
The crew of the Air Force E-8 Joint
STARS planned to spend most of the night of Jan. 29,
1991, searching for Scud sites in western Iraq and
monitoring territory in front of the US Army VII Corps.
Operation Desert Storm had been under way for 12 days,
and the Joint STARS crew members were accustomed to
dividing time along a wide arc, ranging from Iraqi
forces massed on the KuwaitSaudi border area near
the coast to suspected Scud sites far to the northwest.
A few hours into their mission, at
9:30 p.m. local time, the Joint STARS fanned its sensors
over the southern part of Kuwait. Activity deep behind
the lines had been building for a few days. Tonight,
the moving target indicators showed clear signs of
an attack in the making. Forces from Iraq's 5th Mechanized
Division and 3d Armored Division were moving south
to cross the border near a deserted Saudi town named
Khafji. Iraq was trying to start a ground war of its
own.
What the Joint STARS crew saw that
night was, in fact, the beginning of Iraq's only organized
offensive during the Persian Gulf War. The main phase
of the Battle of Khafji lasted less than 48 hours,
but it marked a turning point in the debate over the
ability of airpower to dominate enemy maneuver forces.
At Khafji, Joint airpower demonstrated something new:
a heretofore unknown ability to stop moving enemy
armored forces at night, on short notice, and without
a synchronized ground counterattack. The contribution
of Spirit 03 and her sister AC-130 gunships in this
regard cannot be overstated, and has contributed to
a wholly new understanding of the role of close air
support in defense of ground forces.
After evacuating his front-line aircraft,
Saddam must have realized that he had misjudged the
effectiveness and persistence of the coalition air
attacks. With no end to the air war in sight, the
chance to use Iraqi military forces in Kuwait was
slipping away. In his effort to seize the initiative,
Saddam had one more option: a mechanized offensive
across the Saudi border to engage coalition ground
forces immediately.
Four days earlier, on Jan. 25, Saddam
convened senior military leaders and began planning
to attack. As forces from Iraq's III Corps began preparations,
Joint STARS sensors detected and recorded the increased
activity. Earthmoving equipment dug berms and reinforced
artillery positions on Jan. 26 and 27. Armored vehicles
from the 3d Armored Division moved into position on
Jan. 28.
Iraqi Deception
A few hours after darkness fell on
Jan. 29, A column of several dozen Iraqi tanks approached
the abandoned Saudi town of Khafji. With all turrets
pointed to the rear in the international military
sign of surrender, the small number of Saudi forces
defending the town permitted the enemy force to draw
close, in anticipation of their surrender. As the
tanks approached, however, the Iraqis turned their
turrets toward the defenders and opened fire. This
surprise attack proved to be the spearhead of an invasion
of Khafji and in a short time the Iraqis drove out
the joint force defending the town, occupied it, and
began the formation of a defensive posture in anticipation
of a counterattack. This force was estimated at approximately
40 tanks and 500 ground troops. During this time,
in addition to casualties inflicted on the retrating
forces, two soldiers from a U.S. transportation battalion
- one a female - were reported missing and believed
captured and two six-man Marine recon teams were stranded
behind enemy lines. These Marines took up covert positons
on rooftops, and would continue to relay back vital
information on Iraqi troop movements throughout the
battle. At the time, however, the Marines were stranded,
surrounded, and in imminent danger.
Realizing the scope of the situation,
the coalition next had to determine the intent of
the Iraqi probes, contain the offensive forces, and
regain control over Khafji. For the USled coalition
ground forces, the Iraqi attack came at an awkward
moment. The Army component was in the midst of its
three-week redeployment from the coastal area to attack
positions more than 200 miles west. Any disruption
to the 24-hour-a-day caravan might upset the timetable
for the upcoming attack. Containing the offensive
and pushing the Iraqis out of Saudi territory was
vital.
As the battle began, theater commander
Army Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf told reporters, "The
mere fact that they launched these attacks indicates
they still have a lot of fight left in them."
Joint STARS reports of Iraqi movement
on the border and behind the lines flowed into the
Tactical Air Control Center that night at about 10
p.m. local time. Brig. Gen. Buster Glosson received
the first Joint STARS reports and conferred with Horner.
The JFACC ordered the single Joint STARS aircraft
flying that night to swing back to the KTO and concentrate
its arc of coverage over the border area near Khafji.
Later that night--at 2 a.m. on Jan. 30--the Joint
STARS sensors began to detect more movement as the
5th Mechanized entered Khafji and elements of the
3d Armored advanced through the adjacent Al Wafra
forest. To the west, the Iraqi 1st Mechanized Division
probed across the border.
Unbeknownst to Saddam, Schwarzkopf
had decided not to play into his hands by launching
a ground counterattack. "Schwarzkopf told us
he didn't want to put any other forces over there,"
recalled retired USAF Maj. Gen. Thomas R. Olsen, who
at the time was serving as CENTAF deputy commander.
Schwarzkopf instructed his commanders to use airpower
as the key element, along with Marine, Saudi, and
other coalition ground forces, to stop the attack.
To increase the margin of safety, the Marines embarked
on a phased redeployment in their sector to put a
buffer of about 20 kilometers of territory between
coalition forces and the Iraqis. As long as airpower
could reach deep to stop the offensive, the coalition
ground forces in the area would not have to be reinforced,
and Schwarzkopf would not have to reposition the redeploying
Army forces.
Striking Back
At the Air Operations Center, the
first task was to direct sorties already scheduled
on the night's Air Tasking Order to strike moving
Iraqi forces picked up by the Joint STARS sweep. Air
attacks were funneled into the KTO from different
altitudes and directions using a grid of designated
"kill boxes" as a control measure. Each
box measured 30 kilometers by 30 kilometers and was
subdivided into four quadrants. Planners pushed a
four-ship flight through each kill box every seven
to eight minutes in daytime and every 15 minutes at
night. In the designated area of the box, a flight
lead was free to attack any targets he could identify.
Within the CINC's guidance to the
air component, air interdiction operated independently.
Hundreds of air attacks on Iraqi forces in Kuwait
were already scheduled and under way. For example,
more than 100 Air Force A-10 sorties were concentrated
on the Republican Guards Tawakalna Division far to
the northwest of Khafji. Many of the other sorties
listed on the Air Tasking Order were already assigned
to areas where the three divisions were gathered for
the offensive. With airpower already flowing through
the kill boxes, air controllers quickly diverted sorties
to the Marine forward air controllers or sent them
ahead to interdict the Iraqi forces attempting to
reach coalition lines.
Pilots found the Iraqi armored vehicles
were easier to identify and target once they were
on the move. Near Al Wafra, an A-10 pilot described
the sight of a column of vehicles as "like something
from A-10 school." A-6s joined in, using Rockeye
air-to-ground weapons. A-10 pilot Capt. Rob Givens
later recalled with some amazement: "I, myself--one
captain in one airplane--was engaging up to a battalion
size of armor on the ground" and "keeping
these guys pinned for a little bit." AFSOC AC-130
gunships waiting on alert were scrambled after a hasty
briefing. As lead elements of the 5th Mechanized with
some support from the 3d Armored reached Khafji, one
Air Force gunship caught the column and stopped many
of them from entering the town.
Anti-aircraft fire and occasional
missile launches were reported by the aircrews. However,
the rapid attacks to squelch the initiative of the
maneuver force also hit the Iraqis before they could
bring up and assemble most of their heavier air defense
guns and shoulder-fired SAMs, an important edge for
the coalition that contributed to increased aircraft
survivability and effectiveness.
By the morning of Jan. 30, a few
hundred Iraqi troops were occupying the town of Khafji.
Air attacks on the columns had been so effective that
the objective of the Iraqi attack remained unclear
to the coalition. "So few Iraqis made it across
the border," Horner later recalled, "that
it appeared to be some sort of minor action."
For the coalition, recapturing Khafji
itself and stopping any Iraqi attempts to reinforce
the town were the top priorities. Marines moved into
place south of Al Wafra to hold the sector. Fixed-wing
aircraft, attack helicopters, and artillery pieces
joined the close-in battle around Khafji. Cobra helicopters
with TOW antitank missiles cycled throughout the day
to attack targets like Iraqi armored personnel carriers
at close range inside the town of Khafji. Throughout
the day, fixed-wing sorties scheduled on the ATO checked
in with the Marine forward air controllers to seek
out targets. An OV-10 spotted an Iraqi tank column
moving south toward the town and passed the location
to several airborne Marine F/A-18s. Pilots later told
forward air controller Maj. Jim Braden, USMC, that
as soon as the first Iraqi vehicles got hit, they
all stopped moving and became much fatter targets
for the aircrews. Toward evening, Saudi and Qatari
forces assigned to the area began the first of two
attacks to retake the town.
Spirit 03
Three gunships were airborne that
morning over the Marines, and the first two had destroyed
numerous armored personnel carriers. Air attacks destroyed
some vehicles, damaged several more, and forced crews
to abandon others. The net effect was to strip the
enemy of its ability to achieve the surprise, momentum,
massed effects, and dominance that are the hallmarks
of successful maneuver.
At 0600 hours on the morning of January
31, "Spirit 03" was the last of three AC-130
Spectre gunships on station to provide close air support
for the embattled Marines on the ground. Spirit 03
was due to end its patrol when it received a call
from the Marines - they needed an enemy missile battery
destroyed. Despite the risk of anti-aircrarft artillery
fire, and the greater danger of the morning sun casting
light on the circling gunship, the crew of "Spirit
03" chose to remain and destroy the position
requested.
Soon after eliminating the target
designated by the Marines, a lone Iraqi hoisted an
SA-7 "Grail" manportable surface-to-air
missile to his shoulder. In the dawn of the early
morning light, the form of the large AC-130 slowly
became visible in the skies over Khafji. The decision
to remain behind to support the Marines cost the pilots
and crew of Spirit 03 their best defensive weapon
- darkness. The Iraqi pointed the weapon at the aircraft,
and fired. The missile found its target and at 0635
hours the aircraft sent out a "mayday" distress
call and then crashed into the waters of the Persian
Gulf. All 14 crewmembers were killed.
Conclusion
With the offensive now about 24 hours
old, and Saudi and Qatari forces pressing in on Khafji,
bringing up reinforcements was the only chance for
Iraq to recover the initiative or to try again to
draw the coalition into a ground battle. The coalition
forces engaged in and around Khafji did not know that
Iraq was about to move fresh elements of the 3d Armored
Division and 5th Mechanized Division under cover of
darkness to reinforce Khafji and engage coalition
forces.
The Joint STARS aircraft, scanning
deep into the enemy's territory for moving targets,
detected columns moving along the coastal road toward
Khafji and at other points just inside Kuwait. Air
controllers directed airborne assets to nip at the
Iraqi attempts to recommence operations. One stunning
example of this came at about 2 a.m. local time on
Feb. 1; Joint STARS recorded an air attack in progress
on a column of vehicles. In the first minutes of the
attack, the lead Iraqi vehicles swerved off the road
and into the desert. Multiple Joint STARS tracks of
the primary and secondary Iraqi lines of communication
across Kuwait confirmed that air attacks had disrupted
vehicle traffic throughout the area. Instead of advancing
toward the coalition forces, Iraq's forces were being
stopped, rerouted, delayed, and destroyed. Iraq's
forces were unable to continue with organized maneuver.
By the late morning of Jan. 31, the entire offensive
had unraveled.
A few days following the downing
of Spirit 03, Air Force Special Operations Command
personnel delivered their response to the Iraqis in
the form of a BLU-82 "Daisy
Cutter".
Note: Portions of the above excerpted from "The
Epic Little Battle of Khafji" By Rebecca Grant
and the US Special Operations Command's 10th Anniversary
Publication.
Web Sites
Arabian
Gulf ceremony honors fallen gunship crew
- Air Force news
Flying
Dreams - Article by Kristen
Hermes
President
Bush's Remarks on Signing
the Veterans' Compensation Amendments of 1991 and
the Agent Orange Act of 1991 February 6, 1991 - mention
of Khafji
Lessons
learned in the savage 1972
Eastertide Offensive paid off at the Battle of Khafji.
By Al Santoli
General
Schwartzkopf's comments
on the Battle for Khafji
Dedicated in Respectful
Memory to the Pilots and Crew of Spirit 03
Major Paul J. Weaver
- Pilot
Captain Clifford Bland,
Jr. - Co-Pilot
Captain Dixon L. Walters
- Electronic Warfare Officer
Captain Arthur Galvan
- Fire Control Officer
Captain William D.
Grimm - Navigator
Senior Master Sergeant
Paul G. Buege - Sensor Operator
Senior Master Sergeant
James B. May II, Gunner
Technical Sergeant
Robert K. Hodges - Gunner
Technical Sergeant
John L. Oelschlager - Gunner
Staff Sergeant Timothy
R. Harrison - Gunner
Staff Sergeant John
P. Blessinger - Sensor Operator
Staff Sergeant Mark
J. Schmauss - Illuminator Operator
Staff Sergeant Damon
J. Kanuha - Flight Engineer
Sergeant Barry M.
Clark - Gunner
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