thedrifter
04-06-03, 12:41 PM
Electrical wire nearly doomed POW's rescue
By Peter Smolowitz and Sara Olkon, Knight Ridder
European edition, Sunday, April 6, 2003
DOHA, Qatar — When commandos stormed Saddam Hospital in the daring raid to rescue Pfc. Jessica Lynch, the wounded 19-year-old was so terrified she pulled a white sheet over her head.
"Jessica Lynch, we're U.S. soldiers. We're here to take you home," they said, according to an account given Saturday.
"I'm a U.S. soldier too," she said.
Lynch and 12 members of her 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company had been missing since March 23, when they made a wrong turn into an ambush. Shortly before her parents flew to Germany on Saturday to see her, Air Force Maj.
Gen. Gene Renuart, a spokesman for the coalition forces, gave one of the most vivid descriptions of her rescue.
Marines launched a nighttime attack early Wednesday near the Nasiriyah hospital to distract the 41 fedayeen paramilitaries based there, along with the four guards who were monitoring Lynch's room with AK-47 assault rifles.
Meanwhile, a team of Army Rangers, special forces soldiers, Navy SEALs and Marines flew in by helicopter.
One copter nearly crashed on the way in when it hit a guy wire 300 feet above the ground. Marine Capt. Will, 30, whose last name can't be used for security reasons, was commanding the CH-46, which was going 80 mph when it hit a guy wire from an antenna just after crossing the Euphrates River.
"We had just made our turn for final descent when our crew chief said `Sir, tower!' " said the captain, a pilot with Marine Aircraft Group 16, deployed from Miramar, Calif.
"We were hit violently from the right side," he said. "It rolled us immediately 25 degrees; our right wing was down. The aircraft was making some weird noises, a chugging sound. I saw rounds of tracer fire underneath the aircraft.
"Inside, the air crew and Army Rangers managed to remain calm, at least on the outside. I thought we were hit by a rocket. I thought, `This is it.' " It wasn't. The nose landing gear had caught the guy wire, but the wire snapped before the helicopter lost control. The impact broke the flap restraint and left friction burns across a strut, but the copter was able to deliver its cargo of commandos and return to secure territory.
"If the wire hadn't broke, we would have lost the helicopter," said Col. Stuart Knoll, the commanding officer of Marine Aircraft Group 16, who was flying one of the other copters in the operation. "That's how close you are in these missions between success and failure. Sixteen people would have died." Once on the ground, the commandos dodged enemy fire as they barged into the hospital, beginning the American military's first successful prisoner rescue since World War II.
Lynch — who reportedly resisted the Iraqis until running out of bullets — had fractures in her right arm, both legs, her right foot and ankle, and her lumbar spine. She also had a head laceration.
"I don't have any way to know if they were inflicted after her capture," Renuart said.
Lynch's head was bandaged and her arm was in a sling when the commandos found her. They carried her out on a stretcher and down a stairwell that had been mapped by an Iraqi lawyer who had tipped off the Marines.
The commandos carried Lynch out the front door, again avoiding gunfire as they loaded her into a Black Hawk helicopter.
"Please don't let anybody leave me," she said.
The lawyer, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Mohammed, had become outraged when he saw a black-uniformed fedayeen commander slap Lynch twice. Mohammed then walked 6 miles to the nearest Marines as U.S. jets bombed part of Nasiriyah, throwing his hands in the air while approaching so the troops wouldn't shoot.
As Lynch's rescuers carried her off, another Iraqi showed the commandos a morgue with two bodies and a grave where they found nine more. The Americans had no shovels, Renuart said, so they began digging rapidly with their hands, needing to finish before sunrise.
Renuart said nine of the bodies were identified as Americans, eight from Lynch's 507th company and one from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division.
Before boarding their plane Saturday, Lynch's parents, Gregory and Deadra Lynch of Palestine, W.Va., held a news conference. One reporter told them the other bodies had been identified.
"Our hearts are really saddened for the other troop members and their families," Gregory Lynch said, before being ushered away from the podium to regain his composure.
Sempers,
Roger
By Peter Smolowitz and Sara Olkon, Knight Ridder
European edition, Sunday, April 6, 2003
DOHA, Qatar — When commandos stormed Saddam Hospital in the daring raid to rescue Pfc. Jessica Lynch, the wounded 19-year-old was so terrified she pulled a white sheet over her head.
"Jessica Lynch, we're U.S. soldiers. We're here to take you home," they said, according to an account given Saturday.
"I'm a U.S. soldier too," she said.
Lynch and 12 members of her 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company had been missing since March 23, when they made a wrong turn into an ambush. Shortly before her parents flew to Germany on Saturday to see her, Air Force Maj.
Gen. Gene Renuart, a spokesman for the coalition forces, gave one of the most vivid descriptions of her rescue.
Marines launched a nighttime attack early Wednesday near the Nasiriyah hospital to distract the 41 fedayeen paramilitaries based there, along with the four guards who were monitoring Lynch's room with AK-47 assault rifles.
Meanwhile, a team of Army Rangers, special forces soldiers, Navy SEALs and Marines flew in by helicopter.
One copter nearly crashed on the way in when it hit a guy wire 300 feet above the ground. Marine Capt. Will, 30, whose last name can't be used for security reasons, was commanding the CH-46, which was going 80 mph when it hit a guy wire from an antenna just after crossing the Euphrates River.
"We had just made our turn for final descent when our crew chief said `Sir, tower!' " said the captain, a pilot with Marine Aircraft Group 16, deployed from Miramar, Calif.
"We were hit violently from the right side," he said. "It rolled us immediately 25 degrees; our right wing was down. The aircraft was making some weird noises, a chugging sound. I saw rounds of tracer fire underneath the aircraft.
"Inside, the air crew and Army Rangers managed to remain calm, at least on the outside. I thought we were hit by a rocket. I thought, `This is it.' " It wasn't. The nose landing gear had caught the guy wire, but the wire snapped before the helicopter lost control. The impact broke the flap restraint and left friction burns across a strut, but the copter was able to deliver its cargo of commandos and return to secure territory.
"If the wire hadn't broke, we would have lost the helicopter," said Col. Stuart Knoll, the commanding officer of Marine Aircraft Group 16, who was flying one of the other copters in the operation. "That's how close you are in these missions between success and failure. Sixteen people would have died." Once on the ground, the commandos dodged enemy fire as they barged into the hospital, beginning the American military's first successful prisoner rescue since World War II.
Lynch — who reportedly resisted the Iraqis until running out of bullets — had fractures in her right arm, both legs, her right foot and ankle, and her lumbar spine. She also had a head laceration.
"I don't have any way to know if they were inflicted after her capture," Renuart said.
Lynch's head was bandaged and her arm was in a sling when the commandos found her. They carried her out on a stretcher and down a stairwell that had been mapped by an Iraqi lawyer who had tipped off the Marines.
The commandos carried Lynch out the front door, again avoiding gunfire as they loaded her into a Black Hawk helicopter.
"Please don't let anybody leave me," she said.
The lawyer, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Mohammed, had become outraged when he saw a black-uniformed fedayeen commander slap Lynch twice. Mohammed then walked 6 miles to the nearest Marines as U.S. jets bombed part of Nasiriyah, throwing his hands in the air while approaching so the troops wouldn't shoot.
As Lynch's rescuers carried her off, another Iraqi showed the commandos a morgue with two bodies and a grave where they found nine more. The Americans had no shovels, Renuart said, so they began digging rapidly with their hands, needing to finish before sunrise.
Renuart said nine of the bodies were identified as Americans, eight from Lynch's 507th company and one from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division.
Before boarding their plane Saturday, Lynch's parents, Gregory and Deadra Lynch of Palestine, W.Va., held a news conference. One reporter told them the other bodies had been identified.
"Our hearts are really saddened for the other troop members and their families," Gregory Lynch said, before being ushered away from the podium to regain his composure.
Sempers,
Roger