Oral history by Marines who fought to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's invading forces. America's Battalion tells the experiences of one unit, the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, during Operation ...Desert Storm—the first Gulf War. Building from interviews with the members of the batallion, Otto Lehrack examines the nature of warfare in the Persian Gulf. The terrain of the Arabian Peninsula and the disposition of the enemy dictated conventional warfare requiring battalion and regimental assaults coordinated at the division level, so interviewees are primarily the officers and senior non-commissioned officers concerned. The 3rd of the 3rd, also known as America's Battalion, had just returned from deployment in the summer of 1990 when they were required to immediately re-deploy to a strange land to face a battle-hardened enemy after Iraq invaded Kuwait. Theirs was only the second Marine battalion to arrive in Saudi Arabia. They participated in the first allied ground operation of the war, played a key role in the battle for the city of Khafji, and were the first to infiltrate the Iraqi wire and minefield barrier in order to provide flank security for the beginning of the allied offensive. Facing an enemy that had used some of the most fearsome weapons of mass destruction—chemical and biological agents—against its former opponents and against its own people, the Marines had been prepared for the worst. Lehrack has documented this unit's remarkable performance through the accounts of those who participated in the historic events in the Persian Gulf and returned home to tell of them.
Part I of "Operation Starlite" saw Marines storm across the beach of southern I Corps south of Chu Lai and make inland helicopter assaults attempting to smash the 1st Viet Cong Regiment, blow, the ...battle turns into duels and shoot-outs in the farming fields under an unrelenting August 1965 sun. First Sergeant Art Petty stood among the fire to guide him in, and then he and three other Marines carried Webb's body to the helicopter. IstSgt Dorsett. the infantryman-turned-door-gunner, knew what to do. Because of their relative positions, he was in perfect enfilade alignment.
MajGen Walt, a highly decorated officer from World War II and the Korean War, acted quickly. ...Battalion, 4th Marines would land by helicopters at Landing Zones Red, White and Blue well inland from ...the beach. ...the enemy decided that the Marines would have to come at them overland, in which case they would have plenty of time to consider their options and either fight or withdraw into the western mountains as the situation dictated.
The Corsair was a marvelous aircraft, and the Marines would fly it during WW II and the Korean War. The rookie Capt Swett ignored the storm of antiaircraft fire that erupted from Tulagi, threw ...himself into the fight without hesitation and went through a series of violent combat engagements that happened so fast he hardly realized what he was do- ing. According to Segal, they were "just another day at the office."
... the Panama Canal opened in 1914, and the number of American warships that passed near the island nation increased dramatically. Hanneken armed them with carbines from his own armory. Because ...there were no funds available for such an enterprise, he paid the men and fed them out of his own pocket.
In August of that year, allied intelligence discovered that the 1st Viet Cong Regiment, a unit made up of main-force combat veterans, had moved from its sanctuary in the western mountains to a new ...position on the Van Tuong peninsula, a few miles south of the Marine base at Chu Lai. Perhaps the most fitting tribute to his valor is the name of one of the stations of "The Crucible" at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C. The station where recruits simulate the recovery of a wounded Marine is called "The Noonan Station."
Alarmed by increased enemy infiltration into South Vietnam's I Corps in the fall of 1967, General William C. Westmoreland, commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam, ordered a major U.S. Army campaign ...in the Que Son Valley. (Antenna Valley allegedly gained the nickname because so many radiomen were killed or wounded in action in this small valley.) In the preceding six months, Marines fought a series of bloody battles driving the 2d North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Division out of the Que Son Valley and denying them access to the rich autumn rice harvest and the manpower of the populous valley. ... allied intelligence and the Army's operation in the Que Son Valley indicated that the enemy were fleeing again, this time to Antenna Val ley, just to the west and connected to the Que Son basin by a dirt and gravel track that wound through mountainous terrain.
At 1630, intense machine-gun fire hit the 1st Pit on the left, killing the platoon leader and immediately killing or wounding about half the platoon. During the day and into the night of 6 Sept., ...2dLt Dennie D. Peterson, an artillery forward observer (FO), moved from position to position, always seeking a better vantage point to rain artillery down on the aggressive enemy. In an attempt to staunch the enemy attack, Sgt Rodney Davis, the 2d Pit's right guide, was directing the fire of several members of the platoon who were located in a shallow trench.
The Marines responded by increasing the number of smallunit actions near polling places and monitoring expected routes of advance from the mountain range to the west. The wounded company executive ...officer, First Lieutenant William P. Vacca, took charge and called in air strikes as close as 50 meters to his company's lines and immediately asked his battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Peter L. "Highpockets" Hilgartner, to send help. Moving cross-country, the "Bravo" Co leathernecks arrived near Dong Son at 0820, but engaged another enemy company-size force before they could relieve "Delta" Co. Capt Reese ordered a tear-gas drop on the enemy, and UH-I Hueys of Marine Observation Squadron (VMO) 2 rolled in to break the NVA attack.
