Bakara Market lay in the heart of an area Task Force Ranger called “the Black Sea,” a labyrinth of narrow alleys and walkways that was a SNA stronghold. The Olympic Hotel served as a virtual headquarters for the Habr Gidr militia, and MG William Garrison had once told his officers: “I will not send you in [the Barkara area] unless it is a lucrative target. I know if I send you guys in we’ll get in a gunfight.” When informed of the Task Force’s mission just minutes before it was launched, an astonished MG Thomas Montgomery (Deputy Commander of UNOSOM II) called Garrison. “Bill,” Montgomery said, “that’s really Indian country. That’s a bad place.” Although U.S. policy was to not even drive through Bakara Market, the chance of netting two “Tier One” targets was too good to resist.
Shortly after 3PM the CIA’s source marked the target for U.S. overhead sensors by stopping his car outside and raising the hood. The squared off, three-story building with whitewashed cinder block walls and windows with no glass that the source identified was the same house U.S. surveillance had watched Omar Salad enter earlier in the day. With their tip confirmed, Task Force Ranger went from briefing to mission launch in less than an hour. At 3:32PM, 14 helicopters from the 160th SOAR took off from Mogadishu airport. Three minutes later, a ground convoy of three five-ton trucks and nine Humvees moved out. In all, the mission on October 3 involved 160 men, 19 aircraft, and 12 vehicles.
At 3:40PM two Little Birds gave a final visual reconnaissance of the target building. They were immediately followed by four MH-6s, each carrying a four-man Delta team perched on the benches attached to each side of the helicopters. The Task Force swept in from the north, the beating blades of the rotors stirring up great clouds of orange dust. As the MH-6s settled on the street, the operators leapt from the skids and dashed into the building, while Rangers fast-roped from four Black Hawks to establish their security perimeter and blocking positions around the objective. The Delta operators, clad in black body armor, swept through the rooms, bellowing orders, and corralling the stunned Somalis together. Within 20 minutes they had secured 24 prisoners – including Salad and Awale – marching them out with their hands flex-cuffed behind their backs.
Other than a Ranger who had been critically injured due to a fall while fast-roping, the mission was going like clockwork. The raiders radioed “Laurie,” the brevity code for success, back to the JOC. At 4PM the ground convoy commanded by LTC Danny McKnight – a veteran of the Ranger’s jump into Rio Hato during the Noriega manhunt – headed toward the secured objective. As the vehicles arrived at the target building, both Delta and the Rangers pulling security on the perimeter were beginning to draw increasingly heavy fire. The passing bullets “made a loud snap, like cracking a stick of dry hickory.” The volume of fire built steadily as thousands of people grabbed weapons and poured into the streets. Garrison and the officers watching the mission from the JOC could see them racing from all directions toward the Bakara Market, as if the raiders “had poked a stick into a hornet’s nest.”
The Somalis began firing RPGs, and the Delta ground commander called the command-and-control helicopter overhead. “Hey, boss, I think we’ve got the guys you sent in for,” he told LTC Gary Harrell, the C Squadron commander. “We’re ready to get out of Dodge.”
But almost immediately another radio call grabbed the attention of those listening.
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| Danny McKnight, commander of Task Force Ranger's ground element on October 3, 1993 |
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Chief Warrant Officer (CWO) Cliff Wolcott had earned the nickname “Elvis” from his buddies in the 160th both for his unflappable cool and his uncanny impression of the “King of Rock and Roll.” On January 3, 1990, when Manuel Noriega surrendered, it was Wolcott who piloted the Black Hawk carrying the deposed strongman from the Papal Nunicature to Howard Air Force Base. On October 3, 1993, after disgorging his chalk of Rangers at 3:45PM, his Black Hawk, Super Six One, provided fire support to the Rangers on the perimeter using its sniper team to disperse the growing crowd. At 4:15PM, however, his voice broke through the radio clutter, calmly saying: “Six-One is going down.” Wolcott’s Black Hawk had been hit by a RPG-7 grenade, and dropped like a stone 300 yards east of the target building. The two crew chiefs and three Delta snipers survived, albeit badly injured, but the two pilots were killed on impact.
The Somalis had gotten Task Force Ranger’s “Elvis” before the Americans could get theirs’.
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| CWO Cliff "Elvis" Wolcott: The pilot who took Manuel Noriega into U.S. custody in 1990, but whose shoot down over Mogadishu on October 3, 1993, precipitated the "Black Hawk Down" battle |
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General Garrison had anticipated the loss of a helicopter, and with his planners had drafted three contingency plans:
· Insert 15 soldiers from a combat-search-and-rescue (CSAR) Black Hawk circling nearby;
· Alert the 10th Mountain’s Quick Reaction Force(QRF); and
· Move the main body of Task Force Ranger from the target building to the crash site to provide more firepower.
Garrison executed all three contingencies almost simultaneously.
McKnight ordered the raiders to split up, and Delta operators and two chalks of Rangers dashed to the crash site through the narrow streets and alleyways against a growing barrage of gunfire emanating from seemingly every doorway, alley, and window. They reached Super 61 at 4:28PM, just moments ahead of the onrushing mob of armed Somalis and established a perimeter round the wreckage. At the same time, the lone CSAR helicopter – “Super 68” – moved over the downed Black Hawk to insert its medics and Ranger security team. As the last two men of the CSAR team fast-roped down, Super 68 was hit by an RPG. The helicopter was badly damaged, but managed to limp back to base.
Garrison directed McKnight to move the convoy – with the prisoners and initial wave of Task Force wounded aboard the trucks – to reinforce the perimeter around Super 61. As the trucks bounded east, every building spat tracers and RPGs. McKnight’s lead Humvee – disoriented by dust, smoke, and roadblocks – quickly got last in Mogadishu’s maze of constricted, unfamiliar streets. As “scattered small arms fire . . . became a metal storm,” the convoy went in circles, twice passing near the crash site but unable to link up with the detachment defending it. Of the 65 men who started from the original objective an hour earlier, nearly half – including McKnight – were wounded. There were now more casualties in the convoy than there were at the crash site. When the procession of shot-up vehicles passed the Olympic Hotel a second time at 5:15PM, Garrison ordered McKnight to get his precious cargo of prisoners back to the headquarters at the airport. For if the SNA leaders were not evacuated, the raid would certainly be a failure. Even then, the convoy had to fight its way back to the airport, suffering still more casualties before it made it back to base.
While McKnight was enduring the abattoir, a second Black Hawk –Super 64 – took an RPG through its tail and crashed about two miles south of the target building. As there was no pre-existing plan to react to a second downed aircraft, Garrison and his staff tried several desperate courses of action, each unsuccessful. First, at about 5:03PM, an improvised QRF of 27 Rangers was dispatched from the airport to the second crash site. But this small force was quickly ambushed and pinned down at the K-4 traffic circle. A half-hour later, Charlie Company from the 10th Mountain’s QRF left the airfield, but within 10 minutes was ambushed. Fighting for their lives, 100 U.S. soldiers fired nearly 60,000 rounds of ammunition and hundreds of grenades in 30 minutes before being forced to retreat.
Another Black Hawk, Super 62, made a low pass over Super 64 and could see that pilot CWO Mike Durant, his co-pilot, and two crew chiefs had survived the crash, but were badly injured. They also saw what seemed to be thousands of armed, angry Somalis massing and moving towards the crash site. Knowing the horrific fate of those who fell into the clutches of Somali mobs, two Delta snipers on board Super 62 volunteered to try to save Super 64’s survivors. LTC Harrell rejected Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randall Shugart’s request twice, but after learning of the QRF ambushes, approved their third request for insertion.
Super 62 dropped the snipers off 100 meters from the crash site in a deserted, garbage-strewn alley. When word was passed to the operators that it was time to jump, Gordon grinned and – despite the near hopelessness of their task – gave an excited thumbs-up. As they moved towards Super 64 and saw the hundreds of Somalis surging towards the wreckage, they must have known they would not survive. Super 62 hovered above the wreckage and pointed down – using its rotors to create a wind to blast back the mob – long enough for Gordon and Shugart to reach the downed bird. An RPG slammed through 62’s cockpit, knocking the co-pilot unconscious and ripping the leg off the door gunner. Super 62’s co-pilot, CWO Michael Goffena, could not make it back to the airfield but managed a crash landing in the secure area near Mogadishu’s port.
At the crash site, the operators freed the crew from Super 64’s wreckage. For a few minutes they held their own, methodically firing round after round in aimed fire at the onrushing crowd. But with the helicopters gone and their ammunition running low, the tide of Somalis pressed closer. Durant heard Gordon cry out as he was fatally wounded on the other side of the wreckage. Shugart brought the immobilized pilot Gordon’s rifle and handed the weapon to Durant.
“Good luck,” he said, and then returned to battle the Somalis who were now within 30 feet. Shugart defended the crash site with his pistol until he too went down and Super 64 was overrun. Gordon and Shugart’s heroism bought enough time for SNA leaders to gain control of the mob before it finished off Durant. Durant was taken prisoner, while laughing Somalis desecrated the bodies of the other Americans. For their sacrifice, Gordon and Shugart were awarded the first Medals of Honor since the Vietnam War.
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| SFC Randall Shugart and MSG Gary Gordon: American Heroes |
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The roughly 90 soldiers defending Super 61 took shelter in four houses near the downed helicopter. The troops termed the three city blocks around the wreckage “The Alamo,” a fitting name given that their survival was uncertain. More armed Somalis were arriving, and ammunition was running dangerously low. AK-47 bullets flew overhead with a loud pop, punctuated by the ominous SWOOSH of RPGs exploding every five or ten minutes. Even if they had been willing to abandon the bodies trapped in the helicopter, seven of every ten soldiers had been wounded, many of whom were unable to walk, thereby making it impossible for the raiders to fight their way out on foot. Consequently, the Rangers and Delta operators hunkered down for the night.
Even though it risked making a bad situation worse, at about 7PM General Garrison ordered a helicopter to resupply the besieged troops. As soon as the Black Hawk roared in and began hovering above the crash site, Somali gunfire and RPGs erupted from every direction. Two Delta operators kicked out water, ammunition, and IV bags, as the pilots held steady until the resupply was complete. Then, shot full of holes and leaking fluid, the helicopter returned to base, unable to fly again. The Little Birds, which were capable of firing thousands of rounds per minute, made running and diving fire attacks against Somali groups throughout the night. Like Major Rusty Rowell at Ocotal 66 year earlier, the repeated sorties by the 160th’s AH-6 pilots probably saved the besieged Americans from being overrun.
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Another relief force was organized, consisting of a platoon of four Pakistani M485 tanks; two companies of 28 Malaysian Condor armored personnel carriers (APCs) and four command APCs; most of the Rangers, and all the Delta operators, SEALs, and air force combat controllers still at the airfield; Alpha and Charlie Company of 2-14th Infantry, and a platoon from Charlie Company, 1-87th Infantry. About 500 men strong, the convoy included nearly 100 vehicles and stretched almost two miles long. At 11:15PM the convoy departed from the port into the pitch black city and fought its way to the surrounded Rangers and Delta operators, who could hear the rumble of its engines and thunderclap of its guns from miles away, steadily edging closer. At 1:55AM, October 4, the relief convoy finally reached Task Force Ranger’s perimeter. The dash through the Somali gauntlet resulted in three 10th Mountain soldiers killed and more than 30 wounded.
TOMORROW: The "Mogadishu Mile" and the battle's aftermath.
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