Ambush Alley: The Most Extraordinary Battle of the Iraq War (20 page)

8

At the refueling point several kilometers south of the Euphrates Bridge, Captain Scott Dyer, the XO of Team Tank, was still trying to gravity feed fuel into each tank. It seemed to be taking forever. While they waited, they pulled off the mine plows, a British invention that kept land mines from wrecking the front of the tanks, but which also slowed them down when they tried to move at speed. Four tanks, half refueled, had already gone back to meet up with Bravo Company. Now marines from the logistics train were focused on getting the other tanks refueled and ready for action. No one at the refueling point had any idea of the fight taking place for the bridges.

For the second time that day, Major Tuggle, the battalion’s XO, came back in his track, driving at high speed, his head sticking out of the troop commander’s hatch.

“What the hell are you guys still doing here? All units are in contact. We have to deploy the reserve. We need you to get all those tanks up there.”

Dyer was astonished.
Deploy the reserve?
It was a phrase that meant a lot. Dyer knew that doctrinally the reserve is deployed at a critical juncture, at a decisive point on the battlefield, usually when the enemy has taken back some sort of control of the fight. The reserve is then deployed to break the enemy’s tempo. Dyer was worried.
Maybe this means we are
no longer in control of the clock. Maybe we are not in control of much else.

“First it was Bravo in contact, and now you are saying that everyone is in contact. What the hell is going on?”

He could tell from Tuggle’s face that this was serious.
There is a bunch
of bad crap happening somewhere.
Dyer saw that Tuggle was trying to keep it in, but he was clearly struggling with raging emotions. His face was red and agitated. He was about to boil over. Dyer now understood that he and his tankers had been left out of the decision-making process yet again.
I can’t believe that nobody has consulted us.
On the voyage over, various marines had told him that the battalion staff of 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines had a reputation for being reckless. Dyer had been told that at CAX the summer before, they had been criticized for rushing the HQ element through a breach too fast and needlessly endangering it when they could have stayed behind and commanded from a safe position with good overwatch to the rear. He had no idea whether it was true or not, and maybe it was sour grapes from other commands. But when he heard it, he had made a point of looking out for signs of carelessness.

Well, this is it. This is a prime example of hasty decision making.
He got the feeling that Tuggle knew that this wasn’t the best way of doing things but was not going to be publicly disloyal to his commander.

Which tanks can we send?
Dyer saw that 1st Platoon were still struggling to get the mine plows off their tanks. The tanks from the HQ element were still being refueled. Tuggle was desperate, but Dyer didn’t want to send all the tanks up there in such a disorganized fashion. A hasty decision might make the situation even more chaotic. He got hold of Captain Romeo Cubas, the commander of 3rd Platoon, whose tanks were partly refueled, and told him to take his unit and go and help Bravo Company.

Nearby Major Peeples was still trying to work the radio near the refueling point when he heard the roar of an M1A1 engine. He looked up to see Cubas jump suddenly into his tank and head north at full speed.
Where’s
he going?
He tried to stop him to find out what he was doing, but he’d already gone. Tuggle came up to him.

“We need all your tanks up there. Now.”

Peeples was just as confused as Dyer had been. He couldn’t understand what the panic was about. It was then that Peeples finally understood that the battalion commander must have ordered the bridge seizure already. They’d done it without tank support. They’d done it without consulting him.
They’ve gone into the city without us.
He cut off refueling the last tanks and ordered what was left of his company to head north. He was down to five tanks—his own, Dyer’s, and three from 1st Platoon. He wished he knew what was going on.

Peeples climbed in his tank,
Wild Bill,
and set off toward the city. Listening to the battalion net, he tried to work out where everyone was, but there was too much chatter and everybody was talking over everybody else. It was an incoherent mess of words.

“Where are you, Bravo Company?”

“Say again.”

“We’re taking fire from the north . . .”

“Timberwolf, this is . . .”

“Is that Alpha . . . Bravo . . . ?”

“We need those tanks.”

“Where is Bravo Company?”

“. . . fire from the northeast . . .”

“I can’t get through to the battalion . . .”

“Palehorse 1?”

“Say again.”

“We need air support at our position . . .”

I can’t make hide or hair of what is going on.
Peeples had helped plan the bridge seizure on ship. It had been meticulous and thorough. He was supposed to be at the Euphrates Bridge to offer support by fire before any of the infantry companies moved forward. Now he found himself bringing up the rear with no real understanding of where the companies were located. He guessed that Alpha must be at the Euphrates Bridge, and he’d picked up vague reports of Bravo and the forward command post being in the city, but he had no idea where Charlie Company was.

“Get the goddamn tank moving.”

Something was wrong with
Wild Bill.
His driver, Corporal Michael McVey, sounded exasperated. He was frantically turning the M1A1’s accelerator handles, nicknamed cadillacs, after the military manufacturer, Cadillac Gage. They worked just like the accelerator on a motorbike.

“I don’t know what the hell is going on. I’ve got the cadillacs pulled back as far as possible.”

“Shit.”

Of all the friggin’ times for the tank to go down.
They’d had trouble with
Wild Bill
before, but Peeples thought the mechanics had fixed it. The heat sensor was malfunctioning and put the engine into emergency mode. It would only go five miles per hour. Peeples called back to what remained of 1st Platoon and switched tanks.

“Shit. Friggin’ shit.”

He scrambled for his maps and threw them into
Desert Knight,
one of 1st Platoon’s tanks.
Shit. We’ve got to change the radio. Desert Knight
’s radio was set up on the platoon net. He needed to be on the battalion net. Crewmen scurried around the tank for some minutes trying to get it sorted out.

“Let’s go.”

With the tanks from 3rd Platoon already on their way north, Peeples now only had four tanks with him as he headed toward the Euphrates. As they reached the railroad bridge, they saw some Iraqi T-55 tanks. One of the turrets was still moving. Peeples ordered the gunner to fire a SABOT round, a forty-five-pound armor-piercing projectile with stabilizing fins and a depleted uranium rod that could pierce and melt armor.
Boom.
The T-55 exploded in a fountain of metal and flames, its turret spinning wildly off into the distance.
It’s toast.

Next to him, in
Dark Side,
Dyer ordered his gunner, Corporal Bell, to engage three more tanks that looked as though they were still operational. There was a volley of small-arms rounds coming in at them from the fields around the bridge. Dyer replied with a burst from his coax. One of 1st Platoon’s tanks was having difficulty firing its round. Dyer saw Staff Sergeant Samuel Swain dismount, run around to the front of the main gun, and shove a ramrod into the muzzle in an effort to clear the round. It wasn’t pretty, but Dyer felt that for the third time that day his company was clicking.

He expected to see the battalion’s vehicles at any moment, but the road ahead was empty. He was fuming.
They have attacked without us and nobody told us.
It was incomprehensible to him why anyone would charge into the city without tank support. And from what he could tell, they had done neither the blocking position to the south that they had discussed the night before, or the carefully choreographed movement to seize the bridges.
Where the hell are they?

Dyer saw the span of the Euphrates Bridge ahead and smoke and debris billowing up in the city on the far side.
My God. This is apocalyptic.
The sky was dark from the thick black flames still burning around the broken U.S. Army vehicles. Shards of metal were flying through the air as the ammo inside the destroyed Iraqi tanks continued to cook off. Green and red tracers crisscrossed the smoky haze that enveloped them. And all the time they were getting closer to the city.

Dyer knew that, doctrinally, urban combat was seen as an infantryman’s game. The accepted wisdom was that you don’t bring tanks and armored vehicles into a city because they are vulnerable to a top-down attack. In an open field, tanks can spot and take out an enemy at a distance. In urban terrain, with so many obstacles, it’s much harder to track soldiers and vehicles. That’s why the tanks, in the original mission, were going to support the infantry in their seizure of the bridges from south of the Euphrates Bridge. This would be an infantry fight. Now, with his waist half out of the turret, he knew they were being sucked into an urban battle. He put the binoculars up to his eyes. He was shocked by what he saw. Alpha Company appeared to be pinned down at the foot of the bridge, and the level of fire directed at them seemed overwhelming. As he drove up to and across the bridge, he saw marines hunkered down behind walls and dug into ditches. AAVs were spread out on the road in front of him.

The streets ahead were teeming with vehicles and fighters on foot, and the air was thick with smoke and flying metal.
Jesus. It’s like something out
of a Hollywood movie.

9

On the east side of Ambush Alley, the convoy of about ten Bravo Company vehicles, followed by the Humvees of what remained of the forward command staff, were still making their way northward, trying to get to the Saddam Canal Bridge through a labyrinth of roads and alleys. Each time they headed eastward to try to go around the outskirts of the city, they were blocked by irrigation canals and treacherous ground. Lieutenant Colonel Grabowski realized that they would have to give up on the idea of getting to the bridge by moving around through the east. They had come across an open area on the east side of Ambush Alley, about halfway between where the tanks were still stuck in the mud, two kilometers away to the south, and the northern bridge, two kilometers to the north. It was good for comms: There was more space and few walls or buildings to block the radio waves. Grabowski decided to pause there.
We’re gonna stop here and circle the
wagons till we find out what’s going on.
Grabowski now managed to have a clear conversation with the regimental command post south of the Euphrates, but he had not heard anything from Captain Wittnam since Wittnam had called with news that Charlie Company had arrived at the northern bridge. He had no idea that Charlie was involved in a fight for its life.

Kneeling on the dusty ground, Grabowski and his staff formed a huddle and tried to figure out, on a makeshift terrain model, how they were going to get support to Alpha and Charlie. Sosa and Grabowski knew where they had to be at the end of the day, but right now, they still had only a vague idea where each of the companies were and what was going on in their positions.

For Major Sosa, the impromptu planning meeting was frustrating. He hadn’t expected to still be trying to figure out where everyone was at this point in the mission. There was information coming in on the battalion net, but none of it was clear. The battalion mortar platoon reported what they were doing, then Alpha stepped over them before they’d given out the full information, then Main keyed in to pass something over the net. Everyone was still trying to talk at the same time. What Sosa was understanding was that there was no longer one coherent battle being fought.
This is not one fight. There are several di ferent fights going on at once.
He felt particularly resentful of the tank company. He still had no idea where all the tanks were. Major Peeples seemed to have his tanks here, there, and everywhere, and from what he could tell they didn’t seem to be under his control.

Corporal Neville Welch and his fire team were pulling security for the battalion staff around the open area. The volume of fire passing over his head had lessened considerably, but every now and again he spotted an Iraqi fighter sticking his head from around a corner and letting loose with a poorly aimed volley of fire. Welch admired their bravery if not their intelligence.
Somehow they believe that they can carry on doing
that and not get shot up.
His marines were focused on one building where there was suspicious activity. They saw a head pop out, let off a wildly aimed round, and disappear around the corner. The marines didn’t fire back, but waited for the head to pop out again. When it did, his fire team let loose. He watched as the head jerked violently back and a body hit the ground.

On the other side of the open area, groups of people emerged from houses. They just stood and watched from afar. There were women and children just standing there gawking at him. Welch was perturbed.
I wish
they’d get back inside.

Circling above Grabowski’s position, Cobra gunships were keeping any Iraqis at bay by making gun runs up and down the alleyways. Grabowski was grateful that the Marines had their own air support and that they had trained so thoroughly together during CAX in California’s Mojave Desert the previous summer. Close air support could be a risky operation because pilots were engaging hostile targets right next to friendly forces. But it could be a powerful weapon.
When close air support works, it is something
to behold.

Within the battalion command, Grabowski had use of an air officer, an experienced pilot trained in the art of directing aircraft to target designated enemy positions. The air officer could call for helicopter or fixedwing support. When the pilots were on station, the air officer would put them in contact with a forward air controller positioned with the frontline troops. Because the FAC was where the action was, he could give exact details of what the pilot was to target and how to target it without the pilot mistakenly hitting friendly forces.

The problem was that Grabowski only had two FACs to divide between the three frontline rifle companies. He’d given one to Alpha because they would be on the southern bridge, separated from the other two companies. The second FAC he’d given to Bravo because they would be the lead company. He didn’t give Charlie a FAC. According to the original mission, Charlie would be located just behind Bravo until they pushed through, at the last moment, to take the northern bridge. At that point, the Bravo FAC would also be up by the northern bridge and would be able to control CAS, or close air support, for Charlie from then on. It was not an ideal situation, but there was no reason why it shouldn’t work.

Two weeks before they had crossed into Iraq, Grabowski and his staff had been at a regimental staff meeting when they had been told that Type 3 CAS would be allowed. Rick Grabowski leaned over to a fellow commander.

“What is Type 3 CAS? I’ve never heard of that before.”

No one seemed to know. After the meeting, Grabowski asked his air officer what Type 3 CAS was.

“I’ve got to get brushed up on it, sir. I’m not too sure myself.”

“Well, get on it, because they are saying we can do it.”

Grabowski knew what Type 1 CAS was. They had all practiced it many times. The forward air controller on the ground sees the enemy and makes contact with the pilot. He then talks the pilot onto the target and explains what to hit, the direction of approach for the attack, and how to egress the area. The key to Type 1 CAS was that the FAC saw the target and the aircraft with his own eyes. It therefore gave the pilot eyes on the ground so that he wouldn’t mistakenly shoot up the wrong target. Type 2 CAS, which was less closely controlled, could be used when it was not possible for the FAC to acquire visual sighting of the aircraft because of bad weather or high altitude. It was more risky than Type 1, and Grabowski didn’t like it. But when his air officer came back and explained what Type 3 CAS was, Grabowski was appalled. Type 3 CAS allowed a FAC to give the pilot a geographical area in which to operate, even when the FAC couldn’t see the target or the aircraft. It was then up to the pilot to choose what to hit and how to hit it. It was not standard practice within the Marine Corps, although the Air Force did use it.

“We are not doing that. We have never practiced it.”

Grabowski was vaguely aware that some of his marines thought he was too retentive and controlling. But he believed that not practicing something in training leads to mistakes in a war zone. He remembered as a young captain reading about a friendly fire incident during Desert Storm when an A-10 fired on a company of light armored vehicles, destroying two of them. The A-10 Thunderbolt was used by the USAF for ground-support missions. But it was notorious for mistakenly hitting friendlies. Because they were part of the Air Force and not the Marine Air Wing, A-10s did not have a good training history in the sort of CAS practiced by the Marines.

Grabowski’s worst fear was that a pilot in the air, particularly an Air Force pilot with no history of working with the Marines, might mistake them for enemy forces.

Grabowski had it written in the operations order: “We will not authorize Type 3 CAS unless approved by the Battalion Commander.” This meant that any request for a Type 3 CAS had to go through Grabowski himself.