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were 51 total Iraqi prisoners taken: 22 from the ship and 29 lrom the island.
We destroyed two mines during the immediate course ot the action. We saw four and because of maneuvering and chasing around trying to avoid air contacts, we lost two of them. They weren’t in our way, so we didn't bother to go back and look lor them. One of them might have been the one we actually destroyed today. . . .
That was the end of the excitement. We started wrapping it up, withdrawing the Navy SEALS, and all the prisoners of war were brought to Curts. At 1917, the last Americans left the island.
. . . Around 2000, we recovered Lone Wolf, maneuvered back out to sea, got the oil field between me and Kuwait, and settled down. Then I started writing all the reports, which took until 0300 the next morning. So, it was kind of an exciting day from about noon until 0300 the next day. The majority of us were going pretty hot and heavy. . . .
The crew did just a fantastic job. I can’t say enough. The average age is somewhere around 20 or 21. Everybody knew
CDR Glenn Montgomery, USN
Editor’s Note: The following are excerpts from a briefing conducted on 28 January 1991 by the commanding officer of the guided-missile frigate USS Curts (FFG-38). Her crew was responsible in part for retaking the Kuwaiti island of Kura in the Persian Gulf, “the first piece of Iraqi-captured Kuwait taken back,’’ and boarding an Iraqi minelayer and capturing her crew 'hat same day.
Shortly after noon, I was directed to take Curts close to the urea, use our helicopters, and attempt to rescue any prisoners o War that we could for potential debriefing ashore. We closed in at 20 knots. We doubled up our mine watchers. ... The best way to find a floating mine is to have a guy up in the bull nose looking down on it. ... We were at general quarters, with all weapon l^systems manned. . . . As we closed the area we had Lone Wolf
photos by greg e. mathieson
Up doing surveillance, and we launched Army helicopter gun- ships for support. .
The first gut-wrenching experience came about 20 minutes after we went to general quarters. We got the first report of aircraft inbound . . . three Iraqi aircraft over the land mass, headed in our direction. We brought missiles on the rail, . . • and sped up and started maneuvering radically to avoid them. . . • Alter about 12 minutes of terror, the contact faded over the land mass.
I didn’t know what he did, but honest-to-goodness, at that point 1 didn’t really care what he did, as long as he didn’t keep coming
>n at me. ... T,
At 1252, the activity on the island actually began. . . . tne island is about 14 nautical miles from the Kuwait land mass. We considered it to be an Iraqi intelligence post. . . They had night-vision goggles; they had radios; they had the ability to look overhead and see aircraft that were going in for strikes . We captured a variety of Iraqi weapons, including shoulder-tired surface-to-surface missiles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 26 AK-47 machine guns, a couple of heavy machine guns, and a
variety of other small arms. ...
The minelayer that we actually boarded had been strafed by A-6 aircraft from the Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71). These people were hurting and thinking about abandoning ship when we showed up. We tried to help them expedite their decision. There
Proceedings / April 1991 their jobs and did them superbly, from launching boats, launching chaff, and bringing weapon systems to bear, to firing the guns. The flight deck crew probably landed more helicopters in a shorter period of time than they’ve ever done. We pumped off over 15% of our aviation fuel capacity in that first eight-hour period. . . . And so, we had a surface environment. We had helicopter air contacts, we had mines in the water, plus we had the possibility of heavy machine gun fire. ... it was kind ol exciting. ... The flag of free Kuwait flies again over a piece of Kuwaiti territory.