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Proceedings: When the Iraqis rolled into Kuwait on 2 August 1992, where were you and how ready was the 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade to go into combat?
Rowe: I was back in Camp Pendleton [California], a week or so after having participated in a JCS-sponsored exercise in Florida, designed to check out a plan for the defense of Saudi Arabia, when the invasion took place.
The First Marine Expeditionary Force [I MEF] was in process of expanding at the time, which meant that command-and-con- trol elements of the 5th MEB were embedding themselves in the I MEF staff—which also meant that my own command element was being reduced by half. So we in the 5th MEB weren’t particularly healthy at the time. rT „ ,.
Then the deployments started. Major General [John] Hopkins took the 7th MEB out of town. Lieutenant General [Walter] Boomer, who had just taken over I MEF from Major General rphil] Monahan, had to go into around-the-clock meetings, making decisions about who would go, and when. Then General Boomer left for the theater of operations, taking most of the 1st Marine Division with him.
I looked around and saw that I was the only general officer left at Camp Pendleton. So I picked up responsibility for what was left of the rear echelon of I MEF—maintaining the logistics flow to the troops with their toes in the sand.
But at the same time, I still wore my 5th MEB hat. With the departure of I MEF, the embedding business had halted. Now
what? , . . .
We began to hear whispers. Be prepared to deploy, but just don’t ask us how, just yet. We might find enough amphibious shipping to take you over early, in that mode. Or we might fly you over as a “suitcase” MEB headquarters, possibly to function as the command element for rear-area security, freeing other elements of the 1st Marine Division to move forward into attack positions. Stand by.
By early October, we got the word that we would mount out as an amphibious force, with Rear Admiral [Steve] Clarey’s Amphibious Group Three.
Proceedings: I recall vividly that back in 1965, when the lead elements of the 1st Marine Division pulled out for Vietnam, Camp Pendleton quickly turned into a ghost town. Did this happen again? And if it did, how did you cope with it?
BGEN Peter J. Rowe, USMC
General Rowe, commanding the West Coast- based 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade in August 1990, led his air-ground taskforce on a long roller-coaster ride that included amphibious deception at sea, a landing and subsequent operations ashore in Desert Storm, and disaster relief operations in Bangladesh before they returned to Camp Pendleton months later.
Rowe: Yes, it happened again. But things weren’t quite as bad as they might have been. We had major problems in reconstituting the headquarters element, of course, but our ground combat element—the 5th Marines [the 5th Marine Regiment]—was in good shape. The command element of the 5th Marines was up and running, and the regiment s second and third battalions were combat ready, though not fully manned.
To fill out the brigade, we had the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, [MEU] which had just gone through an accelerated but extensive pre-deployment workup and were certified as special operations capable.” The unit’s battalion landing team, built around the 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, rounded out my brigade’s ground combat element, and as we embedded the MEU into the brigade, we gained a whole network of capabilities.
Proceedings: Including the helicopter squadron?
Rowe: Including the helicopter squadron. Overall, though, our air combat element was not in good shape at all, because so many aviation units had already gone forward into the theater of operations. The Commanding Officer of MAG-50 [Marine Aircraft Group-50], Colonel Randy West, did yeoman work in pulling things together. We brought in a Reserve AH-IJ Cobra squadron [HMA-773] from Atlanta and on our way through Hawaii during the transit we would get a CH-46 Sea Knight squadron [HMM-265], plus other bits and pieces here and there—eventually including AV-8B Harriers.
Proceedings: What about combat service support? Hadn’t most of that capability been stripped out of Camp Pendleton, too? Rowe: Right—there were very few assets left on the West Coast. So I built my brigade service support group around the group that had supported the Uth Marine Expeditionary Unit, and wound up with about 600 Marines in that role. Normally, there would be about 2,000. So we were very thin there, and because of that we decided early on that our logistics concept of operations would be sea-based. This was not as drastic as it might seem at first. Under Brigadier General Bill Eshelman during the Rim- Pac-90 training exercise, the 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade had served as a test bed for a sea-based logistics concept. So we had some people who understood the idea, and in this we were a little bit ahead of the power curve.
Though it appeared that sea-basing would work for us, 1 was still concerned about being thrown into a situation where we would have to set up our logistics base ashore and support the brigade for an extended period. We just didn’t have the people and the gear to do that on our own. We would need to plug into an established combat service support network, which we knew was being set up in Saudi Arabia, and made that clear to the Commandant [General A1 Gray, Commandant of the Marine Corps] when we briefed him in November, before embarkation. We had some deficiencies, in communications, for example.
Proceedings: But communications are essential to running a sea-based operation—controlling all those helicopters once they leave the ship and go feet dry across the high-water mark, for openers.
Rowe: Absolutely. And we were also lacking in long-haul communications capability—which would become a factor when we went ashore on G-Day [the first day of ground operations in Kuwait],
Proceedings: Did having the LCAC [landing craft, air cushion] make much of a difference? I would think that its high speed and 60-ton payload would bring a lot of flexibility to a sea-based operation.
Rowe: The LCACs made a terrific difference. Beginning on G-Day, we offloaded the entire brigade at A1 Mishab in something like 70 hours. We used a beach with a gradient that would accommodate LCUs [landing craft, utility] and another beach for LCACs, where the gradient didn’t matter. We were even able to off load one ship at pierside there at A1 Mishab. But the LCAC was the workhorse. We used every one of them, and they all stayed up and running, even though the sea state got a little rough after the first day. They brought in a tremendous amount of gear, when time was of greatest importance.
Proceedings: Why was that?
Rowe: General Boomer wanted the brigade in place as soon as possible after G-Day commenced, to relieve Task Force Troy along the Saudi-Kuwaiti border and then follow in trace of the 2d Marine Division, to provide security for the main supply route and to mop up pockets of resistance that had been bypassed by the assault forces. Well, to be in place on G-Day, we’d normally like to commence off loading on G-minus-5. But General [H. Norman] Schwarzkopf and others wanted to maintain a heavy amphibious threat—the 4th and 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigades combined—as long as possible. We had developed a plan where the 4th MEB could spread out a bit and maintain the threat, while we, the 5th MEB, peeled off and went south a few days early for our landing. But the stakes in keeping as many of the Iraqis as possible looking seaward were extremely high. Four Iraqi divisions were pinned down in coastal defense, and of the 1,100 artillery pieces they had in the theater, more than half were pointing toward the sea. We did not want to let them up a moment too soon.
Proceedings: The deception—or “strategic distraction,” in B.H. Liddell Hart’s grander term—worked like a charm and immobilized those four divisions without costing a single Marine’s life. What would it have been like to make an amphibious assault near Kuwait City?
Rowe: The shallow-water mine threat was a very, very, serious problem. We had to clear a fire support area for the ships providing naval gunfire support, and then clear lanes for the assault itself. We just didn’t have many people and craft to clear these mines, so the area and the lanes would have to be smaller, shorter, and narrower than customary. We were prepared to do that, but at the same time we were looking at the possibility of vertical assault by helicopter. This avoided the mine and beach-obstacle threat, but still had to confront a severe antiair threat. Who knew what kind of air-defense weapons the enemy had hidden in all those chalets and buildings along the coastline—including handheld missiles that could knock down helicopters but were virtually impossible to target? So there was no easy solution. We just kept gathering information and looking at all the options.
Proceedings: Did you have plans to get heavy minefield-breaching equipment in early, or were you planning to go at the problem differently from the Marines inland?
Rowe: We had picked up some mine-breaching equipment, added to it during the Sea Soldier landing rehearsals in Oman, and loaded it in some of our amphibious assault vehicles. In a traditional amphibious assault, of course, you come ashore with the amtracs on line, in waves. What we were discussing was bringing our vehicles ashore in single file, perhaps down two narrow approach lanes, with the lead vehicles carrying the breaching equipment. Once through the breach, we could then spread out our forces in a more classic manner and continue the attack. This plan carried a lot of risks—getting bogged down on the beach under heavy fire, for one—but it was resource-driven, in much the same way as General Boomer’s plan to conduct a one- division breach followed by a passage of lines down south. Nobody really liked that plan, but until he could gather enough assets to plan a two-division breach, there wasn’t much choice.
Proceedings: In addition to the four divisions dug in along the coastline, the Iraqis apparently were holding two armored divisions in reserve. How much time did you figure you had before you’d be faced with an armored counterattack?
Rowe: A matter of hours—maybe as few as two hours, according to our map and terrain analyses. This factor tended to lend more weight to the concept of helicopter assault, because a surface assault might have a hard time getting far enough inland to set up antitank defenses along the enemy’s likely avenues of approach, in the short time available. With helicopters, we could penetrate quicker and deeper.
It wasn’t an either-or situation. We probably would have gone with a combination of surface and helicopter assault, with the helibome forces used to draw off and stymie—if not destroy— the Iraqi operational reserve.
Proceedings: What about the chemical and biological threat?
The Marines had to prepare to fight on a chemical and biological battlefield. As they collected the gear to wear in that fight, it became clear that decontaminating casualties would be a major concern ashore—and even more so at sea.
How severe did that appear to you?
Rowe: Very severe. We had no reason to believe that the enemy would not use it, and that raised the anxiety factor. When we left the West Coast, we did not have all the necessary protective clothing and equipment, but by the time of the Sea Soldier landing exercises, we had collected everything we needed.
Proceedings: Did you have plans to move a decontamination capability ashore quickly, or—under a sea-based logistic support concept—would you have tried to send individuals and equipment back to the ships for decontamination?
Rowe: In all candor, that question caused the ships quite a bit of concern, because they would have been the primary casualty receiving stations early on, and decontaminating casualties would have been laborious and even dangerous at sea. And sending back all the Marines who were contaminated—but not necessarily casualties—might have overwhelmed them. This is where our need to plug in to an established ground logistics setup of the I Marine Expeditionary Force would have come into play.
Proceedings: What were the highlights of your time ashore? Rowe: In addition to relieving Task Force Troy, General Boomer wanted us to pay attention to the A1 Wafrah Forest, where he thought an elite Iraqi mechanized force might be hiding. One of my battalions was flown into the area to set up a blocking force and run deception operations to fool and Iraqi units in the forest into thinking that a much larger force had arrived. Our other mission was to follow the 2d Marine Division and keep open the main supply route, and this turned into essentially a non-stop motor march for the next 36 hours or so By this time the enemy prisoner-of-war situation was really mushrooming, and one of my battalions picked up the pnsoner-han-
After we had criss-crossed it twice and flown over a psychological-operations aircraft with loudspeaker appeals for surrender, all we got were a relatively few hard-core types with berets and automatic weapons with folding stocks probably a commando unit from the mechanized outfit that had been left behind to harass us.
Around the first of March, we got a directive to backload, and—after backloading was completed—prepare to break out the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit as an independent MEU (SOC), embarked in its own amphibious ready group. That was going to be interesting, because by this time the Tripoli [LPH- 10] had taken a mine hit so we also lost the New Orleans [LPH-11], which had to replace her as the mine-countermeasures flagship. Suddenly I came up missing two big decks and berthing for 1,800 Marines, among other shortfalls.
Proceedings: How did you handle that?
Rowe: Well, a lot of units were packing up and getting ready to go home then, so we looked at the brigade and identified people to send home with them—reservists and folks who had been kept with us beyond normal tour length because of stop-loss personnel measures, for example. We didn’t peel away any units just individuals.
Proceedings: Once you completed backloading and got back out to sea, you picked up new taskings—for possible operations in Ethiopia and Bangladesh—almost immediately. After spending so much time gearing up for combat missions, was it hard to shift gears?
Rowe: No, it really wasn’t. My brigade staff had been in an essentially around-the-clock planning mode from Day One, and doing a terrific job. They had worked out the details for five
different amphibious missions while we were out there, so they were used to dealing with friction and uncertainty on almost a daily basis. They had spent a lot of time on the possible evacuation from Ethiopia—even though we didn’t execute that plan—• so it wasn’t hard to transition from that into Bangladesh. Even though the special-operations-capable 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit had been broken out as a separate entity by this time, they did a lot of this planning concurrently with the brigade staff, in
U.S MARINE CORPS
Handling the enemy prisoners-of-war became a responsibility of monstrous proportions, once the Iraqis began to surrender in droves.
dling responsibility for the 2d Division. It was a monster.
General Boomer was still concerned about reports of activity in and around the A1 Wafrah Forest, so we went back in there.
case they would be directed to carry out one of these missions independently, after we left the area.
Proceedings: In their predeployment training, units train and are evaluated on their ability to execute amphibious assaults and special operations, including the evacuation of noncombatants from threatening situations. But disaster relief, with its heavy demands on your medical and transportation capabilities, is a different breed of cat, isn’t it?
Rowe: That’s right. It’s a distribution problem—getting out the food, the medicine, the supplies, and the expertise to those who need them most. It also has political implications, because you are dealing with a number of non-government relief organizations—each of which has its own turf—as well as the host- country government. In the case of the fledgling democracy of Bangladesh, we thought it was important to maintain a low profile and let the government have due credit. We were the providers; they were the implementers. To accomplish that, we kept almost all of our working parties billeted at sea, not ashore. We’d fly them in early in the morning and bring them back out to their ships late in the evening.
The major ingredient in this operation was young Marine muscle—loading and unloading gear that would be distributed by helicopter or air-cushion landing craft. All of these young stevedores were volunteers, and I rotated the duty so as many Marines as possible were able to get ashore and see first-hand what our operation was really all about.
We tried to stay out of the business of determining priorities—for example, which islands to fly to first, or whether to deliver food or life-saving equipment first to certain areas—and stuck to the business of distribution instead. Many of the transportation assets of Bangladesh had been lost or damaged in the storm and flooding, and one official told me that it would have taken them a year to do what we’d done in two weeks. I think we gave them some ideas about organizing their own distribution system after we left, too.
Proceedings: I guess this sense of accomplishing a lifesaving mission would have offset any morale problems among the Marines caused by having their return Stateside delayed. . . . Rowe: Oh, absolutely! And that didn’t take long at all. People who don’t really understand Marines are usually surprised when they see evidence of their compassionate side, but as you y know, young Marines—and these Marines in particular—can a have great compassion for the victims of war or disaster. One thing they saw when they went ashore was the tremendous re- I silience of the people of Bangladesh and the tremendous grat- n itude of the people they helped. Here were people with only
y two or three personal possessions left in their lives—and they
y Were trying to give one of them to the Marines. It was enough n to bring moisture to a lot of eyes.
The mine that knocked the Tripoli out of action also further degraded the amphibous task force because the New Orleans then became the mine-countermeasures flagship—here, in that role, carrying CH-53E Super Stallion mine-clearing helicopters and AH-1J Cobra gunships for their escorts. The time has come for the Navy to acquire a dedicated mine- countermeasures control ship.
Proceedings: As a final question, I usually ask if there’s any question I’ve failed to ask that you would like to answer. . . . Rowe: There are a couple of points I’d like to make in closing. First, the reservists were outstanding. As I recall, we had 17 different units from 15 locations. In one message, I talked about something Rudyard Kipling said about the reservist called up for the Boer War—something to the effect that he heard his country’s call, and his regiment did not have to send to find him. That’s the way our reservists were. They were tremendous.
My final point is that there needs to be wider understanding of the capabilities and requirements of amphibious forces, especially as we get more and more into joint task force setups. This gets into such things as command relationships, carving out amphibious objective areas, and even the problems in substituting Military Sealift Command ships for amphibious ships. Along that line, the Navy also should consider getting a dedicated mine-countermeasures control ship. Taking the Tripoli for that task cost me:
- Our alternate command post.
- The unit integrity of our leading air assault elements.
- Our second largest ammo carrier, with two days of the total of 15 days of ammunition we had with us.
Losing the New Orleans on top of that compounded the error.
I don't think the ripple effect of removing a ship from an amphibious task force is understood well enough, where it really counts.