Units and personnel of the U.S. Coast Guard and its predecessor services have served with distinction in every major American conflict since the founding of the United States, and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) proved no exception to this rule. As with many past combat operations, Coast Guard units in OIF exceeded all expectations in many roles representing some of the service's core missions over its long history, such as escort duty, port security, force protection, coastal security, aids to navigation, and maritime interdiction operations. From the outset, the Coast Guard's training and experience in various maritime operations played an important role in Coalition combat operations.
More than 15 years after sending its assets and personnel into Middle East combat operations in support of Desert Shield and Desert Storm, the Coast Guard would do so once again in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. By the time formal combat operations commenced on 20 March 2003, Coast Guard Atlantic Area Command had deployed to the northern Persian Gulf the 110-foot patrol boats Adak (WPB-1333), Aquidneck (WPB-1309), Baranof (WPB-1318), and Wrangell (WPB-1332). The Coast Guard's Pacific Area Command sent the high-endurance cutter Boutwell (WHEC-719), the 225-foot seagoing buoy tender Walnut (WLB-205), and Port Security Units (PSUs) 311 and 313. In addition, the service's Bahrain support base, Patrol Forces Southwest Asia, supported the Navy's two patrol craft USS Chinook (PC-9) and USS Firebolt (PC-10) and their respective Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment (LEDET) teams.
During the evening of 19 March, Coalition forces initiated combat operations with air attacks against selected targets of military significance in Baghdad. Coalition naval units began initial combat operations the next morning. In addition, Coalition forces had to secure the Iraqi gas and oil platforms of the Khor al-Amaya and Mina al Bakr oil terminals.
Opening Moves
The mission to capture the platforms had been planned well in advance. On the evening of 20 March, SEAL forces deployed from small boats and, supported by Polish Special Forces personnel, stormed the terminals. During the operation, the Coast Guard WPBs Adak and Baranof maintained security around the terminals to prevent reinforcement or escape by Iraqi forces. After the SEALs captured the terminals and cleared them of Iraqis and explosives, Coast Guard personnel from PSUs 311 and 313 arrived to secure the facilities at Khor al-Amaya and Mina al Bakr, respectively.
Members of PSU 313 kept busy that evening. They served as terminal security and stood watch over the 41 Iraqi prisoners held on board the terminal while Naval Intelligence personnel interrogated them. During the questioning, it was learned that the Iraqi military had taken over the terminals ten days before hostilities began and had ordered the facilities destroyed with explosives if Coalition forces approached them. Before hostilities began, the Iraqi soldiers on the terminals had decided not to destroy the platforms and stacked the explosives in a location easily identified by Coalition forces. The Iraqis at the Mina al Bakr terminal proved so eager to surrender that they decided to approach by small boat if Coalition units failed to appear early in the shooting war.
Immediately after the capture of the oil terminals, naval forces initiated the amphibious assault of the Al Faw Peninsula, the location of a large number of Iraqi oil facilities. American special forces units captured key targets while various attack aircraft, AC-130 gunships, and Coalition artillery softened Iraqi defenses. In the early morning of 21 March, British Royal Marines, supported by U.S. Navy and Royal Navy hovercraft, commenced the landings on Al Faw. These landings would represent the largest amphibious operation of any kind carried out since the Korean War.
As the amphibious units crossed the Khawr Abd Allah waterway, the Adak and Chinook served as guard ships on the left flank, preventing Iraqi vessels from interfering with the landing operations. During that time, WPB crews felt buffeting from the explosions of hundreds of bombs and shells lobbed on shore. By 0600 that day, Australian and British frigates initiated naval gunfire support operations for the landings in what became known as "Five-Inch Friday," after the size of the guns being fired. The Adak and Chinook screened the warships to ensure that no unauthorized vessels approached while the naval vessels poured nearly 200 rounds of 4.5- and 5-inch shells into the Iraqi defenses.
Throughout the second day of operations, the Adak's crew was in the thick of the fight. An Iraqi PB-90 had been patrolling on the waterway and positioned herself where she could threaten low-flying Coalition helicopters and, at the same time, provide early-warning reports to land-based Iraqi forces on the Al Faw Peninsula. To aid in the situation, an AC-130 gunship returning from the front engaged the PB-90 and destroyed her. A Coalition helicopter spotted three surviving crew members floating down the waterway and notified the Adak of their location. The cutter recovered the hypothermic Iraqis at 0830. Coalition personnel identified the men as warrant officers from Iraq's Republican Guard and the first maritime prisoners of war captured during OIF. The WPB transferred her prisoners to an Australian naval vessel for processing. Intelligence later indicated that the destroyed PB-90 had threatened Coast Guard WPBs prior to hostilities.
Fatal Surprise
Search and rescue has historically been one of the primary missions of the Coast Guard, and this held true in OIF. During the evening of 21 March, members of the Aquidneck's crew had been watching as Coalition warships launched Tomahawk land-attack missiles toward Baghdad. The next morning, a lookout on the cutter spotted a British Royal Navy Sea King helicopter approach while another Sea King vectored in from the opposite direction. To the crew's amazement, the helicopters collided in mid-air and exploded on impact. The Aquidneck reacted immediately and was the first to arrive at the collision site. As aviation fuel burned on the water surrounding the wreckage, the cutter launched her small boat and began search operations. Other Coalition vessels arrived to assist, including the Walnut; however, all seven helicopter crew members, including a U.S. Navy officer, Lieutenant Thomas Mullen Adams, died in the crash.
As the Aquidneck and Walnut assisted with the downed British helicopters, the Adak and Chinook received orders to patrol upriver on the Khawr Abd Allah waterway. During the amphibious landings, the WPB and PC had surprised and stopped two south-bound Iraqi tugboats, including one towing a barge, and ordered them to anchor. At first, the vessels did not raise suspicions, for they had ordinarily serviced tankers and smaller watercraft that plied local waters; however, the patrol vessels guarded the tugs over the course of amphibious operations. Later, a special boarding team of Australian and American explosives experts searched the tugs and barge and found dozens of contact and acoustic mines on board the vessels. The boarding team detained the tug crews as prisoners of war, and the Adak transported them back to a Coalition naval vessel. The captain of one of the mine-laying vessels admitted that the sight of the white patrol boats had prevented him from deploying his deadly cargo. The 70 mines could have done untold damage to Coalition naval vessels operating in the northern Persian Gulf had they been released.
After Coalition forces wrapped up the initial phases of naval combat operations, strategists focused on opening the waterway to traffic. Wrecks from the Iran-Iraq War and Operation Desert Storm still littered the waterway and its shores, but mines proved an even greater concern. Some mines remained fixed on the waterway's bottom from Desert Storm, and it appeared that the mine-laying tugs had released between five and ten mines before the Adak and Chinook captured them.
Opening the Waterway
Crews on the patrol vessels experienced a number of sleepless days during hostilities, but there was no time for rest as mine-clearing operations commenced soon after the shooting war. These operations began on 22 March with Navy Sea Dragon minecountermeasure helicopters towing minesweeping sleds along the waterway. Next, the patrol boats Wrangell and Adak, along with the PCs Chinook and Firebolt, escorted U.S. Navy minesweepers and mine-hunting ships and British mine countermeasures vessels up the waterway. The process proved very slow as the minesweepers proceeded up the 40-mile channel to Umm Qasr at about three knots. The patrol vessels stood off 1,000 yards from the minesweepers, but they often had to station themselves upriver, and on several occasions minesweepers located mines in waters navigated earlier by the cutters and patrol craft. The crew of the Adak heard their cutter contact a mine, but it did not detonate and crew members from another patrol boat saw the mine surface briefly in the Adak's wake. The Navy also found several mines in the waters of Umm Qasr with specially-trained dolphins for mine detection.
As efforts to clear the mines and obstacles along the waterway continued, Coalition forces secured Iraqi ports to allow shipment of humanitarian aid. By 23 March, units of the U.S. Marine Corps and British forces had secured the port facilities at Umm Qasr. Naval Coastal Warfare Group 1 re-assigned elements of PSU 311 from its original mission to guard the Kuwaiti Naval Base and provide port security at Umm Qasr. Meanwhile, personnel from both PSU 311 and PSU 313 back-filled port-security needs of the commercial port at Ash Shuaybah, Kuwait. PSU 311 personnel not already deployed to the oil terminals and Ash Shuaybah prepared for departure from the Kuwaiti Naval Base.
On Land As Well
PSU 311 led the way for Coast Guard land-based personnel into Iraqi territory. On 24 March, it departed for Umm Qasr towing four 25-foot port-security boats. The PSU's convoy proceeded north up the main highway past Kuwait City, Kuwaiti tanks, and fortified positions before reaching the United Nations-administered demilitarized zone. The convoy passed through the final border fence and headed through the city toward the port where unit members readied the boats for launch, unloaded their vehicles, and prepared for operations. While the port area had been secured earlier by Coalition forces, snipers occasionally harassed military operations, and late in the day a rocket-propelled grenade landed near the PSU compound. By the end of that first day, the unit's staff realized that they had become the first Coast Guard personnel to establish a base of operations on Iraqi soil. PSU 311 and the Naval Coastal Warfare Group units remained in Umm Qasr until late May, when Spanish units took control of port security.
It took about a week to complete mine-clearing operations and with Umm Qasr under Coalition control, cargo vessels could begin steaming into the port facilities. Coalition forces elected to send the first shipload of humanitarian aid into Umm Qasr on board the shallow-draft Royal Fleet Auxiliary Sir Galahad. Severe storms initially delayed passage of the aid shipment, but by 28 March weather conditions cleared for Sir Galahad's trip up the Khawr Abd Allah waterway. With a mine-clearing vessel to guide her and the USS Firebolt providing security, the British vessel began her passage up the waterway to Umm Qasr. The Wrangell met the small fleet while on a routine patrol and turned around to take the lead position and guide the way.
Securing the Khawr Abd Allah waterway for regular commercial traffic required not only minesweeping operations, but clearing of other obstacles as well. With wrecks and hulks of destroyed ships dotting the shoreline, patrol boat boarding parties and LEDET teams on board the PCs cleared potential threats. A boarding team from the Aquidneck discovered military supplies within the hulk of a tanker, including Iraqi military uniforms, money, weapons, fresh food, and photographs of Coalition naval vessels. On 7 April, members of LEDET 205 deployed from the Chinook and located and secured a large weapons cache in a coastal cave that included grenades, rocket launchers, missiles, gas masks, small arms, and ammunition. The detachment also found and secured a suicide boat similar to the one used in the 12 October 2000 terrorist attack against the USS Cole (DDG-67). The Iraqi boat carried more explosives than the Cole boat and created a crater 20-feet deep when detonated. The WPBs also served as escorts in April, when the Navy salvage vessels Catawba (T-ATF-168) and Grapple (ARS-53) removed further wrecks and obstructions.
Once Navy and Coast Guard forces cleared the Khawr Abd Allah waterway of all hazards and the port of Umm Qasr resumed a semblance of normal operations, shipping activities could return to a more normal routine. Military vessels carrying humanitarian aid regularly steamed up the waterway, and insurance rates dropped for commercial vessels intending to navigate it. Having met the basic conditions necessary for commercial vessel traffic, the first commercially transported humanitarian aid made its way on 11 April. With the Wrangell and Firebolt as escorts, the M/V Manar cruised up the waterway with 700 tons of Red Crescent Society supplied aid of food, water, first aid supplies, and transport vehicles.
Recharting the Course
Securing and stabilizing the waterway also allowed the Coast Guard to provide much-needed assistance in aids-to-navigation support. The 225-foot buoy tender Walnut had been deployed to the Gulf to defend against environmental warfare in the form of oil spills; however, the tender's primary capability allowed the Coast Guard to restore the decrepit buoy system marking the waterway's channel. Early in April, her crew began surveying the dilapidated buoys beginning with an aerial assessment with the high-endurance cutter Boutwell's HH-65. On 3 April, personnel from the Walnut boarded the Baranof to survey the navigation aids from the water. The Walnut's crew had previously heard rumors of a warehouse in Umm Qasr being full of new buoys. During the Baranof trip, the Walnut survey party confirmed the rumor by stopping at Umm Qasr and locating the cache. By mid-April, the Walnut had received orders from U.S. Central Command to rebuild the channel marking system, and the tender loaded supplies in Bahrain for repairing and replacing buoys. On 18 April, she got under way from Bahrain to begin aids-to-navigation operations along the waterway.
The current flowing down the waterway could reach a speed of around four knots or nearly five miles per hour. With the Arabian summer approaching, physical work in the April climate already proved a very hot business, and raising old buoys on deck brought with it the stench of accumulated marine growth and the thousands of flies it attracted. There also existed the threat of booby-traps or mines tangled in the buoy's anchor chains. And although the waterway had been secured, the threat level remained high, so the ship's weapons were loaded and ready during the work. The crew pulled the old buoys and replaced them with new ones equipped with lights, batteries, and solar panels. By 5 May, the tender placed her last buoy having replaced the old markers with brand-new, freshly painted ones that defined the channel day or night.
Naval combat operations concluded by the end of March, and organized resistance ceased in Baghdad by 9 April, followed in mid-month by a cessation of resistance in most other Iraqi cities. On 1 May, President George W. Bush announced the end of combat operations in Iraq. Once the shooting war came to a close, everyday operations settled into a routine in the northern Persian Gulf. With the relative calm came increased activity by local fishermen and their dhows, but smuggling activities resumed, so members of the fallen Iraqi regime could still attempt an escape by small boat or dhow. The patrol boats and Navy PCs averaged as many as ten boardings per day during this period as daytime temperatures approached 120 degrees with heat indexes nearing 150 degrees.
During OIF, Coast Guard vessels and land-based personnel brought many vital capabilities to the theater of operations, including in-shore patrol, port-security, and maritime-interdiction operations. The PSUs performed their port-security duties efficiently, despite the fact that their units were split up between three separate port facilities and two oil terminals. The 110-foot WPBs operated for many hours without maintenance in waters too shallow for any major Navy assets and served as the Fleet's workhorses in boarding, escort, and force-protection duties. The Bahrain-based Patrol Forces Southwest Asia performed its support mission effectively even though the Coast Guard had never before established such a support detachment. The Walnut proved indispensable for aids-to-navigation work on the waterway as well as search-and-rescue and maritime-interdiction operations. The Boutwell provided much-needed logistical support and maritime-interdiction operations assistance with her boarding teams.
At the height of combat operations, 1,250 Coast Guard personnel served in OIF, and 500 of those service members were activated Coast Guard Reservists. Coast Guard cutters operated in a variety of roles not conducive to naval warships. and the characteristic white hulls of Coast Guard vessels provided a less antagonizing presence in a highly volatile region. In all of its operations, the Coast Guard conducted its missions with its usual efficiency and effectiveness.