4A - Morning Neyvs • Saturday, December 13, 1997 * * *
A defining battle
Chapter 16: Furious attack on second convoy
Editors note. Tfw n/uujei o/ dead
Americans bemg dragged through the
streets of Mogadishu, Somalia, shocked
most U.S. homes. Mark Bowden of the
Philadelphia Inquirer has written a
detailed account of the battle that killed
Christmas Gift List
the soldiers. The Savannah Morning
News will continue to present the story
over the next month.
Parker Ltd.
By Mark Bowdtfi
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
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As soon as S{aff Sgt Jeff Struecker
drove, his Humvee out of the
American beachfront compound,
gunfire erupted all around. He
weren't more than 80 yards out the
back gate.
"Action left!" Sgt Raleigh Cash
screamed from the passenger seat of
Stnieckert Humvee at the head of a
small convoy.*
Struecker's turret gunner swung
around to face five Somalis with
weapons. Cash heard the explosion
of gunfire and the zing and pop of
rounds passing close. He had been
taught that if
you heard that
crack, it meant
the bullet had
passed within
three feet of Blackhawk
your head. A
zing,
which
"*
sounded
to
him like the noise made when you hit
a guy wire with a stick,' meant the
bullet had missed you by a far margin.
The shots were answered by a
roaring fusillade from the men in the
convoy.
This column — four Humvees and
three five-ton flatbed trucks — had
been hastily assembled to rescue the
crew of pilot Mike Durants downed*
Blackhawk. A larger convoy already
in Mogadishu also had been ordered
to rescue Durant along with pilot
Cliff Wolcott and his crashed
Blackhawk crew. But the original
convoy had finally given up and
started back to base after wandering
through the city under heavy fire,
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absorbing terrible casualties.
The Durant crash site was less
than two miles from the base, but
Struecker realized already that he
would have to fight street by street to
get there. They were driving out into
hell.
The brunt of the shooting was
aimed at Struecker's lead vehicle. A
rocket-propelled grenade scraped
across the top of his Humvee and
exploded against a concrete wall.
The concussion lifted the wide-bodied vehicle up on two wheels.
Clearly these Somalis didn't know
how to stage a proper ambush,
Struecker thought The correct way
was to let the lead vehicle pass and
suck iu the whole column, then open
Ore. The unarmored flatbed trucks
in the middle, loaded with cooks and
clerks and other volunteers, made
vulnerable targets. But even with
undisciplined enemy gunfire, going
forward would invite slaughter.
RMd block
Struecker told his driver to throw
the Humvee in reverse. Everybody
behind him was just going to have to
figure it out They rammed the
Humvee behind them, and then thai
driver rammed the truck behind
him. Eventually they all got the message.
Struecker got on the radio to the
officer directing him from a helicopter circling high above:
"You need to find a different
route!"
The answer came back
"Go back where you came from
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It seemed to take forever for. the
five-tons to turn around on the narrow street. As they struggled to
reverse direction again, most of the*
Rangers were out on the street providing security in all directions. The
trucks weren't delicate about turn-'
ing around. They rammed into walls
and ground gears.
Cash, kneeling in the street white
providing cover, took a whack to his*
chest that almost knocked him over;
He knew he'd been shot, and he ran
his hand inside his shirt, looking for
blood. There was none. The buffet
had skimmed off the front of Ids'chest plate, tearing the straps of htt'
load-bearing,harness so that it way'
now hanging by threads.
" '"
Ffc. Peter Squeglia, the company
armorer who had donned fighting'
gear and volunteered for the convoy,
sat with his M-16 pointed out the passenger side window of a truck, suddenly wondering what he was doing
there. Only a year earlier, he had
been bar-hopping with his buddies
in Newport, Long Island, trying to
pick up girls.
A bullet clipped off the sidemh"
ror on the driver's side. Squeglia
pointed his rifle across the cab, right
in front of the driver, and squeezed
off several rounds.
When they were at last turned
around, the convoy sped out a road
that skirted the city to the southwek
driving through an occasional hail of'
AK-47 fire. At one rise they could
actually see Duranfs crash site, fit
was less than a quarter of a mfl*
away, down in a little valley, inside a
squalid rag hut village. There was no
way to get closer. They kept driving
on their roundabout course until
they came to the K-4 traffic cpcte;
one of the major traffic intersection^
in southern Mogadishu.
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"The only other route is, to go all
the way around the city and come in
through the back side."
"Fine. We'll take it"
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Struecker got the whole column
back up to the gate, and this time h*
steered out the opposite way. He
drove straight into a roadblock, a.big
one. The Somalis had thrown up dirt,
junk, chunks of concrete and wire.
The convoy knew Duranft Super
64 was somewhere directly ahead.
Where he lay beside his helicopter,
Durant had heard the sound of the
.50-caliber on Struecker's Humvee
and figured the rescue column was
coming In. This was minutes before
Duranft site was overrun and he was-'
taken captive.
But the convoy couldn't advance. '
Beyond the roadblock was a concrete wall surrounding the vast ghet-"
to of huts and walking paths into
which Durant had crashed, the
Humvees could roll right over the
roadblock but Struecker knew the
five-ton trucks wouldn't make it And
even if they did, there wasnt going to
be any way through the concrete'
wall.
"You'll have to find us another
route," Struecker radioed to his
guide high above.
"There aint another route."
''Well, you need to find one. Figure
out a way to get there," Struecker
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