Block by

Block:

The Challenges of Urban Operations

William G. Robertson

General Editor

Lawrence A. Yates

Managing Editor

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

Block by

Block:

The Challenges of Urban Operations

William G. Robertson

General Editor

Lawrence A. Yates

Managing Editor

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

CGSC Press publications cover a variety of military history topics.

The views expressed in this CGSC Press publication are those of the

authors and not necessarily those of the Department of the Army or the

Department of Defense.

Afull list of Combat Studies Institute/CGSC Press publications, many

of them available for downloading, can be found at <http:www.cgsc.army.

mil/csi>.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Block by Block / William. G. Robertson, general editor.

p. cm.

1. Urban warfare. 2. Warfare, unconventional. I. Robertson, William G.

U167.5.S7B56 2003

355.4’26dc21
Contents

Preface.................................................................................................v

Foreword...........................................................................................vii

Attacking the Heart and Guts: Urban Operations Through

the Ages...............................................................................................1

Lieutenant Colonel Lou DiMarco, U.S. Army

The Battle of Stalingrad ....................................................................29

S. J. Lewis

“Knock ’em All Down”: The Reduction of Aachen,

October 1944....................................................................................63

Christopher R. Gabel

The Battle of Manila .........................................................................91

Thomas M. Huber

The Battle for Hue, 1968.................................................................123

James H. Willbanks

The 31 December 1994-8 February 1995 Battle for Grozny ..........161

Timothy L. Thomas

The Siege of Beirut .........................................................................205

George W. Gawrych

The Siege of Sarajevo, 1992-1995 ..................................................235

Curtis S. King

The Takedown of Kabul: An Effective Coup de Main ...................291

Lester W. Grau

Operation JUST CAUSE in Panama City, December 1989 ...........325

Lawrence A. Yates

Todo o Nada: Montoneros Versus the Army: Urban Terrorism in

Argentina.........................................................................................373

Lieutenant Colonel Alan C. Lowe, U.S. Army

Humanitarian Operations in an Urban Environment: Hurricane

Andrew, August-October 1992 .......................................................407

Jerold E. Brown

Urban Warfare: Its History and Its Future ......................................439

Roger J. Spiller

About the Contributors....................................................................451

Appendix A. The Future .................................................................455

iii

Preface

It is axiomatic in the military community that operations in an urban environment should be avoided if at all possible, given the costs

they exact in time, personnel, casualties, and materiel. Yet, throughout history, cities have continuously been at the center of a variety of

military undertakings: sieges, street fighting, coups de main, peacekeeping and peace enforcement, stability operations and support operations, and disaster and humanitarian relief. Moreover, this trend

continues through the recent past and up to the present as headlines

concerning Beirut, Sarajevo, Mogadishu, Grozny, Kabul, and Baghdad indicate.

Given my choice in such matters, I would echo the words of an old

song sung by Johnny Cash, among others. The chanted chorus implores,

“Don’t take your guns to town, son. Leave your guns at home, Bill.”

Unfortunately, soldiers are not always given that option as a valid course

of action. Recognizing that armies cannot always bypass cities, the U.S.

military since the mid-1990s has experienced a resurgence of interest in

urban operations. As one indication of this renewed attention, the

Commander, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC),

tasked the Combat Studies Institute (CSI), Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to

research and write several in-depth case studies that would provide historical

perspectives on the subject. The case studies were to be used for professional

development and coursework in all TRADOC schools.

To determine the exact scope of this assignment and the kinds of

operations that should be included, I, as CSI’s director, met with Dr.

Roger J. Spiller, the George C. Marshall Professor of Military History

at USACGSC; Dr. William G. Robertson, the U.S. Army Combined

Arms Center historian; and Dr. Lawrence A. Yates, CSI’s research

coordinator. During the meeting, the group reached consensus on the

case studies to be examined and determined that the authors of each

would come from officer and civilian scholars at Fort Leavenworth. I

placed Dr. Robertson in charge of the project as its general editor, with

Dr. Yates working closely as managing editor.

The resulting anthology begins with a general overview of urban

operations from ancient times to the midpoint of the twentieth century.

It then details ten specific case studies of U.S., German, and Japanese

operations in cities during World War II and ends with more recent

Russian attempts to subdue Chechen fighters in Grozny and the Serbian

siege of Sarajevo. Operations range across the spectrum from combat to

v
humanitarian and disaster relief. Each chapter contains a narrative

account of a designated operation, identifying and analyzing the

lessons that remain relevant today. Before inclusion in this CGSC Press

publication, the final draft of each chapter appeared on CSI’s website at

<http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/CSI/research/MOUT/urbanoperationsintro.asp>. The chapters will remain on CSI’s publications

website for those who cannot readily access the printed book.

In his foreword, retired General Donn A. Starry, U.S. Army, reflects

on the relevance of urban operations today. Dr. Spiller ably reinforces

this position in an in-depth conclusion that pulls together the themes of

the various chapters while introducing additional issues. It is hoped that

today’s military professional, as well as interested parties within the

general public, will find these studies stimulating and informative.

For a more conceptual look at cities and how they affect and are

affected by military operations, see Dr. Spiller’s Sharp Corners, which

CSI published in 2001 and can also be found on the CSI publications

website.

LAWYN C. EDWARDS

Colonel, Aviation

Director, Combat Studies Institute

vi
Foreword

History instructs that for a variety of reasons, cities have always been

targets for attack by adversaries. From the earliest of times, attackers

came bearing weapons ranging from knives, arrows, and spears, while

in modern times, they have brought weaponry the Industrial Revolution

made available: cannon, rocket artillery, and ultimately bombs and

rockets delivered from aerial platforms and even thermonuclear

warheads, not to mention the potential for chemical and biological

payloads. In turn, cities have responded to most of these threats. Early

on, for example, they thickened city walls and erected other barriers to

entry. But attackers seeking to subdue the cities simply countered with

new and better weapons. So the game of measures and countermeasures—the adult, and much more deadly, version of the familiar

children’s game of rock, scissors, paper—has continued apace for

centuries.

A post-1945 visitor to the Allied zones of occupation in Western

Europe who had not been on the scene to view firsthand the events of

the long war just ended would have immediately noticed several

striking features of the landscape. Above all, many, if not most, of the

large cities lay in ruin. By one count there were seventy-two such

places, virtually all famous, old, large, important. Those cities not

destroyed were severely damaged. The Allies had pounded them with

strategic and tactical aerial bombing, reduced them to rubble by

artillery and sometimes by ground action, consumed them with fire

(Hamburg and Dresden), or finally, moving to the Pacific theater in the

case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, atomized them.

Several of these western cities had been bombed flat on the premise

that if the city were “rubbled,” the resultant demoralization of the

working population would adversely affect factory output in that city.

Virtually nowhere, however, did such attacks have the predicted

effects. The true cost in aircrews and aircraft lost to demonstrate that

this operational concept was a seriously flawed hypothesis from the

outset was high indeed. Operationally, many cities became targets for

destruction purely for political reasons. Remember Berlin. As Antony

Beevor dramatically recounts in The Fall of Berlin 1945, Joseph Stalin

had to have the city for revenge, and for revenge, his armies pillaged,

plundered, and raped their way through Berlin’s alleys, streets, and

undergrounds. Winston Churchill saw Berlin as a political target,

necessary for postwar diplomatic clout. General Dwight D. Eisenhower

demurred on military grounds because he believed taking Berlin was no

vii
longer considered an important objective and thought instead that

defeating German armies in the field was the primary goal. Because

Churchill linked military concerns to a larger political framework, it is

likely that Carl von Clausewitz would have sided with Churchill’s

position. Because Eisenhower’s position focused more on strictly

military considerations and less on political factors, Henri de Jomini

probably would have agreed with Eisenhower. It is doubtful a civilized

person would have sided with Stalin.

Our postwar visitor, in looking around, would see other cities, some

quite large, that had seen little if any obvious combat damage. Further,

while some smaller towns and villages showed evidence of combat,

many, if not most, appeared relatively untouched. But even in urban

areas where the visitor encountered extensive damage, it would soon

become apparent that many essential functions of the city were still

operating, albeit with difficulty. Water and electricity were available;

food could be had; populations had gone underground, surviving and

living in cellars; and people got to the work place or what was left of it.

Not to oversimplify the trauma but simply to state facts, things went on

somehow. Postwar Mannheim, for example, leveled in a strategic/

operational bombing campaign predicted to demoralize the population

and deprive the industrial base of workers, featured a postwar

population of cellar dwellers who, while uncomfortable, were living,

eating, sleeping, and still working.

Returning to Western Europe ten years later, the visitor would be

struck by the extent to which these cities had recovered from their war

damage. Marshall Plan dollars and an inherently industrious population

had worked wonders. Twenty years later, evidence of war damage was

largely limited to remains of buildings left standing as monuments in

remembrance of the war: the tower of Berlin’s ancient Kaiser Wilhelm

Kirche along the Kurfurstendam, for example. New, vibrant cities had

emerged from the ruins of the old, a process not entirely unlike that

found throughout ancient history when a new city was simply placed on

top of another that had been destroyed. The visitor would have

observed that cities are not inanimate assemblages of buildings and

facilities, but instead, they are more like living things, conceived and

born by some means for some reason. They grow and they mature.

Some thrive; some become ill and recover. Some die and are forgotten,

and some are destroyed and rebuilt. Not only are cities themselves

living systems but also they are composed of supporting interstitial

systems: water, food, power, communications, transportation, manufacturing, economic, commercial, entertainment, and many others.

viii
Interestingly, those infrastructure systems have seldom been the

primary targets of military attack. It is difficult to find a historical

example of an attack on a city planned as an operation against a living

system, an attack against interstitial and interrelated systems in the

organic infrastructure. In looking for insight into such an approach, Dr.

James Grier Miller’s theory of living systems is indispensable. Its

hypothesis is that cells, organisms, organs, animals, humans, organizations—indeed cities—all display common functional characteristics.

Understanding the framework of functional systems then provides a

parametric baseline for tactical operations against villages and towns

and for operational- or strategic-level attacks against large cities. This

is in contrast to the little, mock villages created at many U.S. military

installations as training sites for urban operations. These are in no way

adequate for teaching military operators and planners about attacking

large, “living” cities. Nor are they adequate for developing alternatives

to bypassing or mounting a conventional military operation against an

urban area.

Considering alternatives, operationally as well as tactically, there

are families of nonlethal weapons that, when properly employed, can

obviate the need for attack using “hard,” or kinetic, means. Experiments with enhanced flux nuclear, enhanced blast, and thermobaric

devices are currently under way. “Soft” power, as opposed to “hard”

power, both discussed by Joseph S. Nye, Jr. in The Paradox of

American Power, suggests useful nonkinetic alternate strategies.2 This

concept is not especially new as demonstrated by Julius Caesar’s The

Civil War, an account of the great commander’s campaigns in Spain

during the Roman Civil War.3 In it, he demonstrates dramatically how it

is possible to prevail over determined enemies without laying waste to

their cities.

In situations where attacking forces cannot avoid kinetic means, the

lessons of the past should not be applied to the future without modification. For example, there is some evidence that transitioning from tactical to operational to strategic levels of war, especially in urban conflict,

is confused by transit zones that are more fractal than linear. Operational boundaries may appear quite linear, especially intellectually; so,

indeed, might strategic divisions. At the tactical level, however, Benoit

Mandelbrot’s fractal calculus is far more illuminating a tool than is the

essentially linear calculus traditional to virtually all battle (tactical)

games and simulations. All is well in one city block, but all hell rages

two blocks over. The first floor is cleared here, but why are the miserable illegitimates dropping cocktails on us from two floors above and

ix
firing rocket-propelled grenades at us from the cellars below? If the village is afire above ground and the people are gone, why are we taking

fire from out of the ground? “By golly, we just may have to destroy this

town to save it!” in the words of one Vietnam-era warrior.

In short, there is a need for the U.S. military to explore new ways of

conceptualizing urban operations. But that exploration must be

grounded, in part, in the empirical data contained in the historical

record. Our judgments about the future must be informed by our

experiences of the past. And that is what the variety of historical case

studies in this book offer: a solid factual and analytical basis on which

to conceptualize future urban operations. These studies should not wed

today’s analysts to traditional ideas and concepts but should serve

rather as a “reality check” when those analysts discuss new approaches

to the age-old problem of conducting operations on urban terrain and

attempt to answer such questions as: How might we expect to have to

fight future battles, if any, in cities? Against whom and under what

conditions might we expect to fight? What capabilities are resident in

the forces and equipment of the threat(s) we might expect to encounter?

What does technology offer in terms of countering a threat or providing

a margin of capability over an anticipated threat?

Having answered all those interrogatives crisply and with precision,

some additional thoughts might be: What capabilities are required in

terms of combat equipment—weapons, vehicles, aircraft, and functional systems? What force structures and organizations might be best

suited to the operational environment we anticipate? How should soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen be trained to fight in city environments? What tactics, techniques, and procedures are essential

knowledge at tactical and operational levels of war? How are units to be

trained for the new environment? How are noncommissioned officers

to be educated and trained to perform their essential duties at small-unit

levels? How do we educate and train officers who are to lead the forces

to plan and train for operations at tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war?

With these questions in mind, the following collection of works will

assist military professionals and thoughtful scholars alike in better

understanding the complexities of urban combat, an area whose

importance grows more urgent for study with each passing day.

General Donn A. Starry

U.S. Army, Retired

x
Notes

1. James Grier Miller, Living Systems (Boulder, CO: University Press

of Colorado, May 1995) and Miller, Measurement and Interpretation in Accounting: A Living Systems Theory Approach (Westport CT: Quorum Books,

25 October 1989).

2. The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone (NY: Oxford University Press, 2002).

3. Julius Caesar, The Civil War (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976).

xi

Attacking the Heart and Guts:

Urban Operations Through the Ages

Lieutenant Colonel Lou DiMarco, U.S. Army

Cities predate the modern nation-state by several millennia and have

long been the focus of culture, politics, economics, religion, and all

other aspects of endeavor that represent civilization. Because of their

importance, cities have been the dominant focus of military operations

for most of human history, and a fundamental purpose of armies has

been defending or attacking cities. Attacking defended cities has been

one of the most difficult and potentially costly military operations. This

was reflected in the ancient Chinese text, The Art of War, which

recognized the challenges of seizing cities and admonished its readers

that the lowest realization of warfare was to attack a fortified city.1 This

maxim has been passed to many modern armies that continue to want to

avoid large-scale urban operations. Unfortunately, although strategists

have advised against it and armies and generals have preferred not to,

the nature of war has required armies to attack and defend cities, and

victory has required that they do it well.

The importance of capturing cities has always been evident. In

China, it became the dominant requirement of warfare around the

second century A.D. (approximately six hundred years after Sun Tzu).2

In Europe, cities became a primary focus of warfare in the Middle Ages.

Almost from their conception, cities raised walls for their own defense,

and the walled city remained a significant challenge to armies into the

twentieth century. Walls also provided a police and customs barrier,

regulating who entered the city and permitting the taxation of goods

passing through the gates.3 The inhabitants of cities realized that

through fortifications and a modest number of soldiers they could

protect themselves from hostile armies at an economic cost. For most of

history, the walled city had the advantage over attacking armies.

Gunpowder changed this situation drastically. In the fifteenth century,

artillery was developed that was capable of moving with armies and

breaching the walls of fortified cities.4 City dwellers responded with

more sophisticated fortifications that included lower, thicker walls and

defensive cannon. This initiated a period of increasingly sophisticated

siege and fortress warfare that extended into the opening years of the

twentieth century. The objective of fortress warfare was control not

only of the city and surrounding territory but also of its citizens and its

1
political, cultural, and economic assets. In this respect, siege warfare is

the direct predecessor of modern urban warfare, distinguishable

primarily in its tactical and technological methods. The objectives of

siege warfare, many of its principles, and even many of its tactical

considerations remain valid today.

The thought, resources, and effort exerted to defend and capture

cities throughout history reflect their importance. That importance is

also demonstrated in the manner in which the changing military

challenges posed by cities has caused adjustments in the operational art

and tactics of urban warfare. A study of warfighting and cities reveals

several themes that have characterized urban warfare throughout the

ages. This chapter will address some of these themes that warrant

consideration in the context of modern urban operations.

Cities have been pivotal within larger operations in two ways. First,

they have been important as the object of battle. A study of battles

reveals that in many of the most important battles in history, urban areas

were central to why the battle was fought, although not always central

to how it was fought. Often a battle was fought for control of the city but

not fought at the city itself due to terrain, tactics, technology, or other

considerations. The Napoleonic battle of Borodino is a case in point.

The goal of Napoleon’s 1812 campaign was the defeat of Russia. The

French army’s objective was Moscow. To defend Moscow and defeat

the French, the Russians under General Prince Mikhail Kutuzov met

the French army near the village of Borodino on 7 September 1812, 75

miles west of Moscow. The Russians picked the most advantageous

ground for the defense of Moscow, and given their estimate of the

situation, the relative size of both armies, and contemporary tactics and

technology, they chose a location that was not the city itself. The French

victory at Borodino came at great cost but forced a Russian retreat and

the evacuation of Moscow. As a result of this victory, Napoleon entered

the city unopposed a week after the battle, on 14 September 1812.5 This

example demonstrates that although the tactical battle may not be

fought within the confines of the urban area, the urban area may remain

central to the purpose, scope, and execution of the battle and the larger

operation.

Another way that cities have influenced major operations is as the

geographic location of battle. This is the classic urban battle in and

around a city, with forces directly engaged on the urban terrain for

domination of the urban area. In this battle, the defender has the

advantage of using the complex terrain of the city and its fortifications

to provide cover and concealment for his forces. As for the attacker, one

2
option is to assault the city directly from the march. In medieval and

early modern times, however, attacking armies did not typically have

sufficient mobility to achieve the surprise necessary to make such a

tactic reasonable. Most often, the attacker chose to conduct a siege, an

option that allowed him to take his time, make extensive preparations,

and culminate his operations with a decisive assault on the city. This

deliberate operation is the focus of most discussions of premodern

urban combat, and within this battle lay most of the major challenges of

urban operations.

An examination of urban operations occurring before World War II

reveals a number of consistent themes. Subsequent chapters will

demonstrate that many of these themes and principles continued to be

validated during World War II and after. One of the most important of

these themes concerns the reasons armies are compelled to engage in

urban combat. Another recurring theme is the significant resources

required to conduct urban operations successfully. Additionally,

history demonstrates that specialized equipment, personnel, training,

and tactics are needed to succeed in urban operations. The unique

effects of the complex urban terrain and the presence of the civil

population are also issues that continually reoccur in urban battle.

These themes of purpose, resources, specialization, and terrain and

population factors, although certainly important in all types of

operations, are unusually significant in urban operations and have been

throughout the history of warfare.

A classic operational question that challenged and teased army

commanders was which circumstances properly compelled or

warranted the conduct of urban operations. Commanders understood

the difficulties and challenges posed by an attack on a city. On the other

hand, they also understood the compelling reasons for taking cities.

Writing over two millennia ago, Sun Tzu addressed this pivotal

decision directly by explaining why a city was not an inviting target:

As for fortified cities that are not assaulted: We estimate that our

strength is sufficient to seize it. If we seize it, it will not be of any

advantage to the fore; if we gain it we will not be able to protect it at the

rear. If our strength equals theirs, the city certainly will not be taken. If,

when we gain the advantages of a forward (position) the city will then

surrender by itself, while if we do not gain such advantages (the city)

will not cause harm to the rear—in such cases, even though the city

can be assaulted, do not assault it.6

3
Unfortunately, cities often had to be captured. Sixteenth-century

French commander Marshal de Tavannes commented that “great

empires and powers must be attacked in their hearts and guts.”7 The

heart and guts of most nations was their capital and other important

cities. Cities were often the center of leadership, economics, and

culture, and thus could represent a strategic center of gravity.

Additionally, they often were the location of an essential operational

consideration such as geographic position, the enemy force, or an

important logistics base. Finally, from a defensive point of view, cities

offered important asymmetric advantages in terms of cover and

concealment that could offset the advantages of attacking forces.

One of the most important reasons for attacking a city was to capture

the enemy’s political, economic, or cultural center, thereby destroying

his morale, his ability to sustain a war, and his capability to govern. In

other words, the city was attacked because it was the enemy’s center of

gravity. This resulted in numerous battles for capital cities such as

Rome and Paris. In ancient times, the Persian Empire’s efforts to

subdue the independent Greek city-states centered on the most

important city-state and its capital, Athens. The Persians mounted three

separate unsuccessful campaigns between the years 492 and 479 B.C.

aimed at capturing the Greek cultural and economic center.8 The

Greeks succeeded in defending Athens in a series of brilliant battles

fought not in the city but on its land and sea approaches. The victory

gained in these battles was central to the Greeks’ successful resistance

to a Persian invasion. In 1453, the successful siege and capture of the

Byzantine capital of Constantinople by Islamic forces not only spelled

the end of the Byzantine Empire but also ended forever Christian efforts

to dominate the Middle East. Thus, the successful attack or defense of a

key city could decide the outcome of the campaign, the war, or the fate

of an empire.

Attacking the urban political center of an opponent was often

decisive but not always. The capture of Mexico City by U.S. forces in

1847 did not compel the surrender of Mexico. Napoleon’s successful

capture of Moscow in 1812 did not compel the capitulation of Russia,

as described by historian David Chandler:

Every day that passed was allowing the advantage of the strategic

situation to move more decidedly in the Tsar’s favor. Kutusov

appreciated this and did all in his power to protract Napoleon’s stay in

Moscow, deliberately playing on his opponent’s desire for

peace....Not only was time playing into the hands of the Russians by

4
bringing “General Winter” ever closer, but it was also permitting the

size of their forces to be rapidly augmented.9

Napoleon’s focus on capturing the enemy capital and not on destroying

the enemy’s field army contributed directly to the failure of his Russian

campaign and his disastrous retreat. Attacking an urban area as a means

to defeat a nation required careful evaluation of the military situation,

geopolitical factors, culture, and economics before executing operations. An incomplete understanding of the role and importance of the

urban area to the opponent could lead to an extensive expenditure of

time and resources with little operational or strategic gain.

An equally compelling reason to attack urban areas was military operational necessity. Commanders sometimes attacked an urban area to

destroy an enemy force located there or because of the strategic location

of the urban area. Often the urban area contained a capability that was

necessary for future operations. When defending, a commander often

located his forces in an urban area because of his inferior capability and

the increase in combat power provided by the inherent defensive qualities of the urban terrain. These reasons compelled commanders to engage in urban operations to affect the military situation directly.

Strategic geographic position was an important reason for deciding

to attack or defend a city. Wellington’s bloody siege of Badajoz in 1812

was necessary to secure the primary invasion route into Spain.10

Grant’s decision in the American Civil War to capture Vicksburg was

primarily motivated by that city’s strategic location on the Mississippi

River. When Vicksburg surrendered on 4 July 1863, the Union gained

unchallenged control of the river and divided the Confederacy geographically. This success greatly inhibited support and communications between the eastern and western Confederate states and was a

devastating blow to the South’s morale and prestige.11

Often urban operations were required to acquire a capability for

future operations. This capability may have been the need for an

advance base, logistics facilities, or a harbor. In June and July of 1758

during the Seven Years’ War, a 14,000-man English army under

General Jeffery Amherst captured the French fortress city of

Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island.12 This city was important as a North

Atlantic base for the fleet and facilitated the blockade of French

Canada. The loss of the city enabled British land and sea operations and

greatly inhibited the operations of the French fleet in North America.

When defending, an army that was outnumbered often took

advantage of the inherent defensive qualities of urban areas to

5
compensate for its lack of numbers and to offset other advantages of an

enemy. In 1683, an outnumbered Christian force of approximately

20,000 under the command of the Holy Roman Empire took shelter in

and defended Vienna rather than meet the Ottoman army of 75,000 in

open battle. The fortifications of the city permitted the outnumbered

and less mobile European army to avoid defeat for two months until a

relief force of 20,000 arrived to lift the siege and drive off the Turks.13

As the examples of Mexico City and Moscow indicate, urban

operations did not always result in the desired outcome, even when

tactical success was achieved and the city occupied. And, as the Turks

found out at Vienna, offensive operations against cities often were not

successful despite a significant commitment of resources. Thus, it

behooved a commander to consider carefully whether urban operations

were absolutely essential to the major operation or campaign he was

conducting.

Occasionally, the commander could discover viable alternatives to

the conduct of a deliberate urban operation. Oftentimes, the mere threat

to a capital or key city was enough to compel its surrender. In the

Franco-Prussian War, the French surrendered after the Prussians had

laid siege to Paris but before an actual assault was mounted. Other

times, the attacker could attempt a demonstration or ruse, or conduct a

turning movement to entice the garrison of a city to fight in the open. A

final technique that armies attempted whenever possible was to use

surprise to capture a city before a defense could be organized.

Attacking from an unexpected direction or by an unexpected means

could achieve this.

British General James Wolfe used several techniques to achieve

success and capture the French Canadian city of Quebec without

attacking it by the most obvious means. First, he achieved surprise and

attacked from an unexpected direction by moving his army stealthily

up-river from the city, conducting a night amphibious landing, and

scaling the supposedly inaccessible Heights of Abraham. By the

morning of 13 September 1759, he had positioned his army in a double

rank on the Plains of Abraham west of the city astride Quebec’s supply

lines. The brilliant and unexpected maneuver unnerved the French

commander, Marquis de Montcalm, who decided to attack the British

in the open without waiting for reinforcements. In the ensuing battle,

British firepower routed the attacking French, destroyed French

military capability and morale, and resulted in the city’s capitulation on

18 September.14 In 1702, the Austrians also used surprise and an

unexpected approach to capture the northern Italian city of Cremona by

6
infiltrating elite troops into the defense by way of an aqueduct.15 In

1597, the Spanish captured the city of Amiens in northern France using

a ruse. A small group of Spaniards disguised as peasants approached

the city gateway, at which point they pretended that their cart had

broken a wheel. In the confusion that followed, they rushed and

captured the gate.16 These techniques entailed risk taking and required

boldness, imagination, and unique circumstances to be successful.

Bypassing the urban area was a viable technique; however, it had

disadvantages. It required that the attacker tolerate the urban garrison in

his rear and that he maintain sufficient forces to contain the threat of

forays by the city garrison. Another effect of bypassing large important

cities was that it often extended the political viability of the opposition

and the duration of the campaign, thus jeopardizing the achievement of

quick and decisive victory. The mounted Mongol armies that invaded

the Chin Empire in northern China in 1211 were not very adept at the

nuances of siege warfare and were forced to bypass important large,

fortified population centers. The inability of the mounted Mongols to

conduct effective sieges was a major factor in the Chin’s ability to resist

and sustain their Empire for over two decades after the initial Mongol

onslaught. Though rarely defeated in open battle, the vaunted Mongol

cavalry did not fully conquer the Chin until 1234, after being aided in

their efforts by Chinese generals and armies who provided experience

in siege warfare.17

Another aspect of urban operations that has remained relatively

consistent through the ages is the immense resources required for

success. Urban operations, particularly from the attacker’s perspective,

required investments significantly greater than combat operations in

open terrain. These investments included time, manpower, special

equipment, supplies, and the will and morale of the attacking troops.

Urban operations could take a significant amount of time to execute.

Often, the defender relied on the urban fortifications not to defeat but

merely to delay the enemy until changed circumstances created conditions for success. The attacker frequently relied on time to starve the

garrison into submission. Both sides made calculations that time would

work in their favor. Sun Tzu recognized that patience in urban warfare

was a virtue and impatience could lead to disaster: “If the general cannot overcome his impatience but instead launches an assault wherein

his men swarm over the walls like ants, he will kill one-third of his officers and troops, and the city will still not be taken.”18

During the siege of the Mediterranean port of Acre by Crusaders in

the twelfth century, the goal of the Muslim defenders was to prevent the

7
Crusaders from taking the city before the arrival of the reinforcing army

of Saladin. The Muslims did not realize that what they hoped would be a

quick relief would end up as a two-year defense. The Crusaders were

hampered by a lack of siege equipment and the fact that the town walls

had been reinforced and the town provisioned just before their arrival in

August 1189. Saladin arrived to relieve the garrison in mid-September

but was unable to break through the ring of Crusaders. Saladin then

organized his forces into defensive positions, and the Crusaders were

themselves besieged and faced with enemies on two fronts. This

circumstance marked the beginning of a series of battles and skirmishes

that lasted for twenty-three months. Finally, in July 1191, the Crusaders

were reinforced with sufficient naval components to blockade

successfully the seaward approach to the city. With the defense totally

isolated, famine and disease finally took their toll and the garrison

surrendered.19

Other external factors that may have intervened in support of a

defense over time include the loss of will of the attacking force, logistic

constraints on the attacking force, and, in many cases, the impact of

disease and illness on the attacking force. Weather was another factor

upon which defenders relied to change conditions in their favor.

Typically, the defender in a city was much more protected from the

elements than the attacker. Thus, some defenders sought to frustrate the

attack until adverse weather sapped the strength and morale of the

attacker. Before the nineteenth century, most armies considered winter

siege operations virtually impossible.

Another resource that the attacker required in urban operations was

numerical superiority. Napoleon estimated that the attacker of a

fortified city must outnumber the defender by four to one.20 At Vienna,

the Ottomans outnumbered Imperial forces at a ratio of almost four to

one. At Vicksburg, Union forces numbered approximately 80,000

while the Confederates numbered approximately 47,000.21 Here the

ratio between forces typically varied between two and three to one.

Nevertheless, sufficient Union forces were present to dissuade the

Confederates from seeking battle in the open and to prevent the

Southern forces from breaking the siege.

Numerical superiority was necessary not only for the combat power

to conduct the assault on the city, but also to ensure that the attacker

could sustain other tasks associated with the operation. At Badajoz, the

British were forced to raise their first siege attempt in 1811 because

they had insufficient troop strength to conduct the siege and meet the

threat posed by a French field army commanded by Soult.22 In this case

8
and others, attackers required sufficient force to conduct the siege while

discouraging relieving forces. Other factors, such as personnel losses to

illness and engineering manpower requirements, also had to be

calculated into the attacker’s resource requirements. Because of these

additional considerations, armies attacking cities needed greater

numerical superiority than those opposing the same enemy in open

battle.

Urban operations have traditionally required more logistic support

than conventional operations. As the length of time of the operation

stretched out, the attacker had to ensure that he had sufficient food to

last the siege. Initially consolidated into a prepared position, the

defender usually had the better supply situation to start. The medieval

military strategist de Balsac advised defenders to move all food

supplies from the surrounding country into fortified positions, thus

denying the wealth of the land to the enemy.23 An efficient logistics

system capable of feeding and supplying tens of thousands of troops far

from the home country as they attempted a siege lasting weeks or

months was a daunting task for medieval and early modern armies. The

magnitude of this task did not get appreciably smaller in more modern

times, but more professional and robust logistics systems, combined

with better planning and other capabilities such as improved

transportation, made sustained siege operations possible even in

winter.

Munitions were used in prodigious amounts in the conduct of urban

siege operations, and the supply of artillery munitions in particular was

a major concern. In the modest English siege of Louisbourg in 1758, the

final twelve-hour cannonade by the English expended over 1,000

projectiles.24 The requirements in terms of artillery support were

always very significant. In 1799, the Austrians used 138 field pieces of

various types against the city of Turin in northern Italy. In two days,

they fired 200 rounds from each cannon and 150 rounds from each

mortar. This bombardment compelled the city to surrender without an

assault.25 Beginning in late medieval times, massive artillery support

backed by abundant munitions was always vital to success, but it did

not always guarantee success. A total of 43,000 rounds of artillery

ammunition was expended by a powerful French and Spanish army in

an unsuccessful bid to capture the northern Italian fortress of Cuneo in

1744.26

A final resource that proved essential for successful urban operations

was the morale and will of soldiers and leaders. Urban operations,

whether attacking or defending, were physically exhausting and mentally

9
stressful—even more so than regular operations. This was largely a

function of the extended duration of the operation, often primitive living conditions, the challenges of overcoming man-made obstacles and

fortifications, and the intensity of combat once joined. Urban operations thus required soldiers who were mentally and physically tough,

skilled, and motivated to succeed. Frequently, highly motivated soldiers could achieve success even under adverse conditions that would

have caused less motivated armies to quit the siege. It was equally important that leaders also be mentally tough. Casualties were likely to be

high, and an operation required significant time and patience. The successful storming of the Russian city of Port Arthur in May of 1904 after

a four-month siege can largely be attributed to the morale and courage

of the Japanese infantryman. Ellis Ashmead-Bartlet, an English reporter who witnessed the siege, stated:

...the most striking fact about the siege was the sustained heroism

displayed by the Japanese soldiers—a heroism never excelled, and

seldom equaled in the history of warfare. Every nation has at some

time possessed troops capable of performing gallant actions, but I

question if any nation has ever produced men who could repeat such

feats of bravery as were witnessed before Port Arthur for a continuous

period of six months.27

Leaders of successful urban operations had to have a clear vision of

the operation and the patience to apply tactics, techniques, and

procedures systematically to achieve success. At the height of formal

siege warfare in the eighteenth century, sieges were expected to last at

least thirty days, but often, in fact, lasted much longer. The lengthy

siege of Acre discussed previously was successfully sustained and

concluded by the Crusaders largely due to the inspiring leadership of

the English King Richard, who arrived in time to bolster Christian

morale, which was eroding due to the length of the operation. Absent

his personal leadership, the battle may have ended differently.

Another important characteristic of urban warfare was the necessity

of military forces to deal with the complexities of the urban

environment. Those complexities fell into two broad categories:

physical and human. The physical complexities of the urban terrain

primarily related to the density of man-made structures. Throughout the

history of urban operations, the most challenging of the physical

structures were man-made fortresses and defensive works that, until the

twentieth century, were integral to most important urban areas. The

human aspect of urban warfare was represented by the city population.

Civilians have always been present on the urban battlefield, and both

10
defending and attacking commanders had to plan for dealing with the

urban population.

City fortresses dominated urban warfare in medieval and early

modern history. This physical challenge to the employment of military

power was primarily found in the defensive walls that surrounded the

city. Commanders needed a certain competence and expertise in

specific tactics and techniques used to defend or attack a fortified city.

The nuances of this type of warfare were such that commanders

employed a variety of experts—including artillerists, miners, and

engineers—to give advice, supervise, and conduct operations.28

The civil structures in the urban area were also important and were

often part of the reason the city was being attacked. Historically,

commanders have had to be concerned about the vulnerability of civil

structures to fire. At Louisbourg, the inability of the garrison to cope

with continuous outbreaks of fire was an important consideration in the

capitulation of the French command.29 In that battle, the British were

interested in the city’s location and its harbor and thus were less than

discriminate in attacking civil structures by bombardment.

The human dimension of urban combat was also a factor that

commanders had to address in urban operations. On the defense, the

question of taking care of the friendly or allied urban population was

extremely important. In the defended city, the urban population had to

be fed. The morale and disposition of the population could decisively

affect the defense. In Londonderry in 1689, the Protestant loyalist civil

population of 30,000 was determined to resist a Catholic Irish Jacobite

army commanded by King James, even though the city’s garrison only

numbered 7,000 to the Irish 12,000. Despite the desire of the governor

to surrender and the decimation of the population by disease and

starvation, the people refused to allow the garrison to surrender the city.

The intervention of the population permitted the city to resist for 105

days until the Royal Navy broke the siege. Over half the small garrison

perished in the defense, and it is estimated that as many as 15,000

noncombatants perished.30

Armies attacking into urban areas also had to deal with the population once they penetrated the city after a successful attack. Ancient and

relatively unsophisticated armies often dealt with the civil population

by massacre or slavery. The Mongols were often not interested in administering a captured city and frequently put a population to the

sword. Ancient historical accounts put the death toll in the Mongol sack

of the eastern Persian city Harat at between 1.7 and 2.4 million people.31

As armies and civilizations became more sophisticated, the advantages

11
of taxes, resources, and commerce inherent in the urban population became apparent. Additionally, as religious influences grew, moral considerations also influenced behavior. Mitigating damage to the urban

population was not an easy task because of the density of the population

and its proximity to the military operation. It was often made more difficult because the population was frequently openly hostile to the attacking force. The attitude of the attackers also posed problems for the

commander. The transition of the attacking army from intense offensive operations to occupation and military administration was psychologically difficult for even well-disciplined troops. The transition could

be impossible for troops who were not well trained, were motivated by a

hatred of the enemy, had sustained significant casualties, and had been

through the stress of a long and difficult siege.

The case of Magdeburg during the 30 Years War is an example of

how the stress and ferocity of urban combat could cause commanders to

lose control of their troops and perpetuate atrocities. In March 1631, a

Catholic Imperial Army under Johan Tzerclaes Count Tilly laid siege to

the Protestant city and its more than 30,000 civilian inhabitants. After

two months, Tilly’s troops were starving and a relieving Swedish army

was on the march. The Imperials made one last desperate attempt to

capture the city on 20 May. After a furious two-hour assault, Tilly’s

men took the city. Three days of pillage and slaughter followed the

battle. The city itself was burned to the ground and most of the garrison

and civil population slaughtered. Estimates of civilian casualties range

between 20,000 and 40,000.32

Even the legendary discipline of elite British Guard and Rifle

brigade regiments could break down under the strain of siege

operations culminating in a vicious assault on a fortified city. At

Badajoz, the conclusion of the successful assault on the French garrison

precipitated 72 hours of uncontrolled rape, drinking, looting, and

murder. What was very unusual about Badajoz was that most of the

atrocities were perpetuated on the Spanish civilian population who

were allied with the British. British officers who attempted to intervene

and establish control were ignored, assaulted, and even shot at by their

own troops. Ironically, the French soldiers of the garrison that

surrendered were largely protected as prisoners of the British during the

chaos.33

A hostile civilian population could continue to present a challenge

even after successful military operations to capture a city were

complete. The case of French Louisbourg is an example of one drastic

means of controlling a hostile civilian population. After the city’s

12
surrender, the French population was put on ships and deported back

across the Atlantic to France. In total, more than 8,000 men, women,

and children were removed from North America to ensure that the

British garrison was not troubled by a hostile civilian population.34

Armies often had to deal with urban populations in noncombat

situations. Armies were deployed into urban areas under conditions

other than combat to maintain order, deal with insurgencies, or support

civil authorities coping with natural disasters. Under authoritarian

regimes, the use of force or threat of force to control the civil population

was so common it was almost unworthy of historical comment. This

circumstance began to change with the Age of Enlightenment during

the eighteenth century. In more democratic countries, and as

international interest increased, the use of force against a domestic or

foreign civil population became a much more sensitive issue. Thus by

the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the successful use of

military force by modern armies in noncombat situations in cities,

though still common, required a fuller understanding of the issues,

restraint, and deft execution on the part of the military.

Even in the United States, the Army was employed regularly to deal

with disturbances and emergencies in large cities. During the American

Civil War, the Union Army—including cadets from West Point—was

used to help quell draft riots in New York City. From the end of the

Civil War to the end of the nineteenth century, the U.S. Army was

called out to deal with civil unrest over three hundred times. The largest

deployments were in 1877 when troops were dispatched to augment

police forces in Baltimore, Chicago, and St. Louis, and in 1894 when

troops from Fort Sheridan were used to restore order in Chicago.35

Armies were also used to assist in other kinds of urban emergencies.

The American Army’s role in providing emergency assistance during

the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 is particularly

notable. The earthquake and fire took over 3,000 lives and caused

extensive property damage. At one point, four square miles of the city

were on fire. Despite this chaos, disorder was not a major problem.

General Frederick Funston commanded Army troops who were

deployed within hours from the nearby Presidio. He described the

effect the troops had:

San Francisco had its class of people, no doubt, who would have taken

advantage of any opportunity to plunder the banks and rich jewelry

and other stores of the city, but the presence of the square-jawed silent

men with magazine rifles, fixed bayonets, and with belts full of

cartridges restrained them. There was no necessity for the regular

13
troops to shoot anybody and there is no well-authenticated case of a

single person having been killed by regular troops.36

A typical example of the use of military force in an urban area is the

U.S. Army’s last deployment of a large number of troops into an urban

area before World War II. On 28 July 1932, President Hoover ordered

federal troops to remove the “Bonus Marchers,” who were protesting

for the payment of World War I veterans’ bonuses, from the District of

Columbia, using force if necessary. Federal troops, consisting of about

200 mounted cavalry led by Major George S. Patton, 600 infantry and

six tanks, drove the veterans from the district and burned their shanty

village. Tear gas, bayonets, and sabers were used to move the protesters

out.37 By the next day, the mission was complete and troops returned to

their garrisons. No shots were fired and the Army’s role in the incident

largely reflected General Funston’s experience in San Francisco:

disciplined Army troops well deployed in an urban area can restore

order with a minimum or no use of force.

Fighting for cities caused armies to develop unique weapons, tactics,

and equipment to ensure success. Most of this equipment was required

by the attacking army, although some could be used in both the defense

and offense. In addition, armies also created specialist soldiers who had

unique capabilities, training, and expertise necessary for successful

urban warfare.

The invention of artillery was one of the most important weapon

advances in military history and was a direct response to urban

fortification. Artillery was initially designed specifically to deal with

the walls of medieval castles and walled cities. It was so effective that it

quickly caused the demise of the castle and resulted in drastic changes

in the design of fortified cities. Large numbers of artillery were used to

attack cities. However, artillery was not normally used against the city

itself. The primary purpose of artillery was to create a breach in the

surrounding wall. Secondarily, artillery was used to suppress enemy

fire, including enemy artillery, during the approach and the assault.

Artillery was not commonly used against the population or structures of

a city unless a commander specifically decided to compel the city’s

surrender by the tactic of bombardment.

Before the existence of artillery, defenders behind walls were

attacked using mechanical weapons. The three most famous are the

catapult, ballista, and the trebuchet. The earliest recorded use of the

catapult was in Greece in 398-97 B.C.38 This weapon did not typically

14
have the kinetic power to defeat well-constructed walls but was

somewhat effective at suppressing the enemy manning the walls.39

In addition to artillery, other specialized capabilities were developed

for the assault on cities. One of the most important munitions was the

hand grenade, which was used by both the offense and the defense.

Special “grenadier” troops were initially organized to handle this

dangerous weapon. Hand grenades became an essential element in

siege warfare, as demonstrated by the Spanish who used over 36,000

grenades against the French during the siege of the French city of

Valenciennes in 1656. Baron von Wetzel, Austrian governor of the

northern Italian city of Brescello, called them “the best means of

defense in the event of a siege.” 40 They were used by both attackers and

defenders during the close quarters fighting just before and during the

initial stages of the assault.

Another unique munition was the petard. The petard consisted of an

explosive case used to aim and blast a penetrating timber through small

fortification doors and gates.41 It was usually carried forward with the

infantry in the assault. The petard permitted infantry to breach obstacles

in closed spaces within the city and its fortifications where artillery was

not practical.

Armies also developed specialized tactics to seize cities. Before

cannon were available to breach walls, armies had to scale them. This

was known as attack by escalade, and it could be accomplished only

with great difficulty using scaling ladders or siege towers. Once

wall-breaching cannon became generally available, an escalading

attack was a tactic only used in rare situations where surprise was

possible.

Consistent and long-term suppression of enemy defensive fire was a

key factor in successful attacks on cities. Suppressive fires covered the

approach of assaulting forces, the employment of siege towers, and the

process of building trenches. Suppression was accomplished by firing

over the heads of the friendly forces approaching the city. Before

gunpowder, archers and catapults were key suppression systems. Once

cannon were invented, artillery became the key suppression system.

Another tactic important to city fighting was mining and countermining. Attackers mined at a point beginning out of enemy artillery

range and ending under the city wall. At the appropriate time,

explosives were placed in the mine, detonated, and the wall collapsed.

The assault would then follow over the breached wall. Defenders

responded to mining with countermines designed to locate the enemy

15
shaft. Countermines caused one or more of the following: the enemy

gave up the mine, the mine collapsed, or the force of the mine explosion

was dissipated.

Bombardment was another tactical option available to the attacker.

This relatively simple tactic required the attacker to surround the city

and isolate it from support. When this was accomplished, the attacker

used siege lines to bring his artillery into position, and then he

proceeded to bombard the city indiscriminately. This tactic attacked the

morale and will of the defender. It was sometimes effective when the

attacker had the time to wait for the bombardment to slowly erode the

morale of the garrison and the population. Bombardment had the

advantage of avoiding the casualties of an infantry assault, but it was

not an effective technique against a resolute enemy or when time was

short. It also was likely to destroy valuable facilities, material, and

property inside the city and cause civilian casualties.

The most important, common, complex and successful tactic was the

formal siege. The post-medieval, or modern, version of this age-old

operation began to be developed late in sixteenth-century Europe and

was codified in formal and informal customs and laws of war by the

early seventeenth century. It began with a formal demand for and

rejection of surrender. This was followed by an official opening of the

attack signified by breaking ground on the first trench or by firing the

first cannon shot. Its execution was scientific and systematic and

thoroughly documented in the writings of the professional military

engineers of the period. This tactic made extensive use of very careful

reconnaissance and planning, required a lot of time, synchronized a

variety of component phases, and made use of unique techniques and

specialists. Parallel and zigzag trenches were dug as approaches to the

city. These engineering efforts were done in full observation and under

the constant fire of the defenders. The trench systems included

protected battery positions for friendly artillery. Once friendly artillery

was in place, it attempted to blast a breach in the city wall, whereupon

infantry stormed from the advance trenches and assaulted the breach.

The infantry gained access into the city by climbing the rubble of the

collapsed wall. Typically, if the siege was not interrupted by a relieving

force, the formal siege ended with a negotiation and agreement on

terms once the defender was convinced of its success and before the

culmination of the assault on the city.42

Walls were the primary means of city protection, but cities also used

other obstacles to prevent the attacker from gaining access to the walls.

Defensive forces equipped themselves with caltrops, wire, and

16
sharpened stakes pounded into the ground as means to impede the

advance of the attacker. These were primarily effective against cavalry

and wheeled transportation. Attackers often used bundles of branches,

or fascinces, to fill ditches and cover wet ground to facilitate the

forward movement of men and equipment. Another important piece of

equipment was the gabion, a large wicker basket filled with dirt. They

were used by the thousands by both attackers and defenders to provide

cover and rapidly prepare defensive positions. Sandbags were also

invented as a tool of urban sieges and they were used in a similar

manner as gabions.43 To gain access to the walls of the city, attackers

often had to cross large ditches, which they accomplished by carrying

large bags of hay to throw into the ditches to provide soft landings for

troops jumping into them en route to the walls.

Walls are almost as old as cities themselves, and almost as old as

walls are the implements used to overcome them. Specialized

breaching equipment, such as rams, siege towers, and oversize ladders,

offered the primary means of gaining access to cities before

gunpowder. Even a small fortress wall required at least a thirty-foot

scaling ladder. Most of the basic tools of escalade were invented several

millennia before gunpowder. Early rams have been identified in ancient

Egypt around 1900 B.C., and the earliest scaling ladder also was found

in Egypt around 2400 B.C. Evidence indicates the use of siege towers at

least as early as 727 B.C.44

Siege towers were an important element of a successful siege before

the advent of artillery. These towers were elaborate affairs, and their

construction and use required careful engineering support, aid from

supporting troops, and very careful synchronization and coordination

by the attacking forces. An example of the effective use of siege towers

in the assault was the Crusaders’ capture of Jerusalem in July 1099

during the first crusade. The Crusaders arrived at the city in June and

took six weeks to gather wood and build several siege towers. These

towers were over forty feet tall, wheeled, enclosed on three sides by

hides (which were sufficient to deflect arrows), and included a built-in

bridge and catapult. The Crusaders took three days and nights to fill the

defensive ditches on the wall approaches. Finally, the tower was moved

forward and approached the wall:

Resistance was spirited, and the towers were racked by the stones, tar,

pitch, and other burning stuffs flung against them. Sacks of cotton and

hay, carpets and timber beams had been hung over the walls to absorb

the Frankish bombardment. At about midday, while Godfrey’s men

strove to drive off the Moslem on the walls, the crusaders cut down

17
two of the beams and pushed them out from the siege tower across to

the wall top where they formed a foundation for the bridge when it was

lowered. Then they set fire to the sacking. Smoke billowed up and

forced the defenders to virtually abandon a section of the wall. The

bridge came down and Godfrey and his men rushed across; ladders

were hastily erected to give extra support.45

This example of the execution of a tower assault demonstrates how

engineering efforts to move the tower were coordinated with

supporting catapult fires and how smoke was used both to conceal the

assault and to drive defenders from the assault point. The complexity

and sophistication of this operation demonstrates not only the

importance of special equipment, but also the special skills and

leadership necessary to employ the equipment properly.

As the defenses of cities became more complicated, it became

absolutely essential that armies be manned with specialists in the

methods of their defense and attack. The development of grenadiers to

handle dangerous explosives has already been mentioned, but first and

foremost among the specialists were the engineers. Engineers were not

present in medieval armies but made their appearance as sieges became

more formal and artillery and fortress design vied for superiority.

Engineers began as guilds of civilian specialists, then became

quasi-military members, but were only accepted into full status as

soldiers in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, armies, particularly in

the attack, relied on their expertise. They advised the commander on

which aspect of the fortress to attack and determined the exact breach

point. Engineers shared a very hazardous duty as they were constantly

in the fore supervising and observing the enemy. An observer of the

Seven Years’ War commented: “In a single siege an engineer officer

must risk his life more frequently, and expose himself to more danger

than do many other officers in the entire course of a long war.”46 During

the ten-week successful allied siege of French-occupied Lille during

the War of Spanish Succession in 1708, all seventy allied engineering

officers were killed.47

Engineers supervised two types of specialty troops necessary for

urban operations: sappers and miners. The engineers generally had

exclusive control of the use of miners but had to share with the artillery

the direction of sappers. Often this unclear chain of command caused

delays in the execution of siege operations. Sapping, the digging of

trenches under almost constant fire, was extremely dangerous work.

The French engineer Vauban instituted a system of cash rewards based

18
on progress and danger. With these incentives, Vauban’s sappers could

complete 480 feet of trench every twenty-four hours.48

Mining remained an essential element as long as cities were

defended by prepared positions and fortresses. Mining could take one

of two forms. A deep mine was started well outside the fortification and

mined to its foundation. At that point, barrels of explosives were

positioned against the foundation and exploded. The result, if done

properly, was the exploding of the wall and a huge crater, which

became the center of the following infantry assault. The other type of

mining was called “attaching the miner.” This technique was a direct

mine into the base of the fortress wall. The miners quickly burrowed

directly into the base of the wall as the enemy above was suppressed by

fire. The miners then branched left or right within the wall. At that

point, explosives were placed and ignited, bringing down a section of

wall.49 The infantry assault then mounted the wall over the rubble

resulting from the explosion. Mining was often used when artillery

proved ineffective.

Engineers, sappers, and miners were absolutely critical to successful

siege operations. There were never enough of them, and their absence

or lack of numbers often caused delays. The failure of Wellington’s

first siege of Badajoz in 1811 is attributed in part to a chronic shortage

of engineers.50 Mistakes by, or the absence of, engineers could cause

significant friendly casualties. Thus, the importance of cities to warfare

was recognized in the effort and cost undertaken by armies to develop

and train specialized troops to meet the particular needs of successful

operations against cities.

Beginning at the end of the seventeenth century, many cities began

to change their design, and the fortress city became less common. This

process did not occur all at once; by the beginning of the twentieth

century, the fortress city was recognized as obsolete and had essentially disappeared. This was a function of several factors. For several

hundred years after the Middle Ages, city populations were relatively

stable, but urban populations began to increase rapidly in the late

eighteenth century.51 The walled cities began to experience significant crowding and suburbs of the city began to expand beyond the city

walls, making the effectiveness of the walls questionable.52 Additionally, during the eighteenth century, cities in the interior of stable

nation-states were not deemed sufficiently threatened to maintain their

fortification. Countries such as France intentionally allowed specific

city fortifications to erode.53 Finally, by the time of the Franco-Prussian

19
war in 1870, modern rifled artillery was able to reduce most city fortifications from a range of nearly two miles.54

At the same time artillery technology was improving, advances in

small arms technology also occurred. Rifled repeating arms made small

groups of infantry much more lethal. Small arms technology radically

changed infantry tactics. In an urban area, these developments had the

effect of turning individual buildings manned by small groups of

soldiers into miniature fortresses. Groups of buildings became

mutually supporting defensive networks. These man-made defensive

networks were much less homogenous than the city wall and hence a

much more difficult artillery target. Additionally, the lethality of

infantry meant that the integrity of the urban defense was not broken by

a break of the walls. Defenders now had the capability of defending

effectively throughout the depth of the urban environment—a

technique impossible when infantry tactics relied on massed close-knit

formations to achieve effective firepower.

One of the early indicators of this phenomenon was the unexpectedly

stout defense of the small Chateau de Hougoumont during the climactic

Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The allied defense of this position demonstrated the emerging defensive potential of small groups of stone buildings resolutely defended with small arms.55By the end of the nineteenth

century, the press of urban population growth, the effectiveness of rifled artillery, and the firepower of breech-loading rifles and machine

guns led to the obsolescence of the protective city wall and to the capability to defend within individual city buildings and blocks of buildings.

The tactical challenge of the fortified building moved the urban

battle from the city wall to the city streets. Thus, the tactics of modern

urban warfare, as practiced since the beginning of World War II, differ

in many respects from ancient, medieval, and early modern urban

tactics. Yet, much about attacking and defending cities remains

consistent in principle. Two of the most important consistencies are

why armies attack cities, and the fact that the capture and defense of

cities remain decisive. Indeed, due to recent urbanization and

population trends, it may be argued that the ability to capture and

control large urban areas is more important in modern times than in any

other time in history.

Other consistencies include the large investment in resources required to properly conduct urban operations. Modern urban operations,

like their predecessors, require excessive troops, time, and supplies to

be successful. Soldiers and leaders committed to urban combat continue to require inordinately high morale, steadfast will, and patience to

20
endure the stress and grueling physical conditions of the urban environment.

Modern urban operations also require a unique understanding of the

physical and human aspects of the urban center. Commanders and their

staffs must understand the intricate infrastructure of the modern city,

just as the general commanding a besieging army had to understand the

design of a fortress city. In addition, even more so than historical

commanders whose societies were less sensitive and media aware than

modern Western culture, modern commanders must have a thorough

understanding of, and a plan to deal with, the urban population. Modern

soldiers are subject to many of the same stresses of urban combat, and

commanders must be aware of the need for firm discipline regarding

interactions with the civil population.

The tactical techniques of urban combat may have changed

significantly, but many of the principles remain constant. Modern

tactical urban combat still devolves into suppression, breaching, and

assaulting fortified positions. Ironically, many cities retain elements of

classic fortifications, and these can still affect modern military

operations. Twentieth-century urban operations in Metz, Manila, and

Hue City all faced the challenges posed by ancient fortress designs that

proved to be significant obstacles to modern weapons and tactics. In

this regard, twenty-first century armies will be well advised to

appreciate the value of direct-fire artillery against stone, concrete, and

steel structures.

Although the siege tower is long obsolete, modern forces executing

urban operations require special weapons and equipment designed to

be optimized in the urban environment. Specialized tactics and troops

also continue to have a role against enemies in the urban environment.

Modern commanders can benefit from employing specialized troops to

act as advisers and to execute specific unique missions in the urban

environment. The modern equivalent of grenadiers, sappers, and

miners may be civil affairs specialists, snipers, and special operating

forces.

Twenty-first century cities are much larger than cities were just a

hundred years ago. Cities are not as homogeneous as they once were.

Modern-day buildings within cities are generally much more resilient

than those of previous ages. In effect, rather than being a single fortified

entity, modern cities have the potential of being developed by a

defender into dozens or hundreds of individual mutually supporting

miniature fortresses. Many of the traditional techniques of fortress

assault may be adaptable to this circumstance. The escalade of the

21
twenty-first century may use helicopters instead of scaling ladders, but

the principles remain the same.

Cities of the twenty-first century are as challenging to military

operations as they have ever been, if not more so. And, as history has

demonstrated, armies will continue to have no choice but to execute

operations against and within cities. These operations will include the

full spectrum of mission types from intense offensive and defensive

combat to less lethal but equally vital stability or support operations.

Success in these operations will be, as always, a function of

understanding the principles illustrated in the past and applying that

knowledge to the conditions, technology, organization, and tactics of

the present.

22
Notes

1. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Ralph D. Sawyer, trans. (Boulder, CO:

Westview Press, 1994), 177.

2. Ibid., 55.

3. Mark Girouard, Cities and People: A Social and Architectural

History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985), 61.

4. John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Random House,

1993), 321.

5. David G. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon: The Mind and

Method of History's Greatest Soldier(New York: MacMillian Publishing Co.,

1966), 808.

6. Sun Tzu, 245.

7. Christopher Duffy, Siege Warfare: The Fortress in the Early

Modern World, 1494-1660 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), 45.

8. Elmer C. May and Gerald Stadler, Ancient and Medieval Warfare

(West Point, NY: Department of History, U.S. Military Academy, 1973),

11-17.

9. Chandler, 815.

10. Ian Fletcher, Badajoz, 1812, Wellington’s Bloodiest Siege (Oxford,

UK: Osprey Publishing Limited, 2001), 10.

11. James R. Arnold, Grant Wins the War: Decision at Vicksburg (NY:

John Wiley & Sons Inc., 1997), 298-309.

12. Fred Anderson, Crucible of War (NY: Random House, 2000),

250-54.

13. William Seymour, Great Sieges of History (London: Brassey’s,

1991), 87-100.

14. Anderson, 355-65.

15. For simplicity and clarity, the description of locations of cities in this

chapter, except when obvious, will be in modern national and geographic

terms rather than in terms of the referenced battle. For example, Cremona is

located in the modern northern Italian province of Lombardy, which at the

time of the city’s conquest by Austria in 1702 was under Spanish rule.

16. Christopher Duffy, Fire and Stone, The Science of Fortress Warfare,

1660-1860 (London: Greenhill Books, 1996), 116-17.

17. David Morgan, The Mongols (Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1986),

65-73.

18. Sun Tzu, 177.

19. Seymour, 12-27.

20. Ibid., xvii.

21. Arnold, 301-308.

22. Fletcher, 11.

23
23. Feeding Mars: Logistics in Western Warfare From the Middle Ages

to the Present, John A. Lynn, ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), 35.

24. Anderson, 254.

25. Duffy, Fire and Stone, 125.

26. Ibid., 130-31.

27. Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, Port Arthur: The Siege and Capitulation

(London, UK: William Blackwood and Sons, 1906), 478.

28. Duffy, Fire and Stone, 134-35.

29. Anderson, 253.

30. Seymour, 101-20.

31. Morgan, 74.

32. David Palmer, Albert Britt, Gerald Stadler, and Jerome O’Connell,

The Dawn of Modern Warfare (West Point, NY: Department of History, U.S.

Military Academy, 1973), 79.

33. Fletcher, 80-81.

34. Anderson, 255.

35. Russell F. Weigley, History of the United States Army (NY:

Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1967), 281.

36. Frederick Funston, “How the Army Worked to Save San Francisco,”

Cosmopolitan Magazine (July 1906) at <http://www.sfmuseum.org/1906/

cosmo.html>, 5 March 1996.

37. Robert N. Webb, The Bonus March on Washington, D.C., May-June

1932 (NY: Franklin Watts Inc., 1969), 55-60.

38. Keegan, 150.

39. E. Viollet-Le-Duc, Annals of a Fortress: Twenty-Two Centuries of

Siege Warfare (Barton-under-Needwood, UK: Wren’s Park Publishing,

2000), 130.

40. Duffy, Fire and Stone, 168.

41. Ibid., 118.

42. Duffy, Siege Warfare, 249-50.

43. Duffy, Fire and Stone, 134.

44. Keegan, 150.

45. Christopher Gravett, Medieval Siege Warfare (Oxford, UK: Osprey

Publishing, 1990), 56.

46. Jakob Mauvillion quoted in Christopher Duffy, The Military

Experience in the Age of Reason (Atheneum, NY: The MacMillan Publishing

Company, 1988), 290.

47. David Chandler, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough (NY:

Hippocrene Books Inc., 1976), 221.

48. Ibid., 255.

49. Duffy, Fire and Stone, 170-75.

50. Fletcher, 19-20.

24
51. Robert E. Dickinson, The West European City: A Geographical

Interpretation (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1951), 461-63.

52. Girouard, 212-13.

53. Dickinson, 418.

54. Ibid., 354.

55. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon, 1072.

25
Bibliography

Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War. NY: Random House, 2000. An authoritative

history of the Seven Years’ War. This work contains excellent

discussions of the strategic importance and the battles to secure

Louisbourg and Quebec.

Arnold, James R. Grant Wins the War: Decision at Vicksburg. NY: John Wiley

& Sons Inc., 1997. Arnold’s effort is an outstanding discussion of this

decisive battle with an emphasis on the tactics and technology of siege

warfare.

Ashmead-Bartlett, Ellis. Port Arthur: The Siege and Capitulation. London:

William Blackwood and Sons, 1906. Ashmead’s work is a firsthand

perspective of this important battle from the perspective of an English

journalist with the Japanese.

Chandler, David. The Campaigns of Napoleon: The Mind and Method of

History’s Greatest Soldier. NY: MacMillian Publishing Co., 1966.

This work is the definitive one-volume account of Napoleon’s

campaigns; an excellent reference to the context of major urban

operations during this period.

_______. The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough. NY: Hippocrene

Books, Inc., 1976. This effort is an excellent overview of the nature of

warfare during the early eighteenth century.

Dickinson, Robert E. The West European City: A Geographical

Interpretation. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1951. This

volume is a superb analysis of virtually all aspects of urban design and

development in Europe. This work places particular emphasis on the

development of urban city plans.

Duffy, Christopher. Siege Warfare: The Fortress in the Early Modern World,

1494-1660. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979. This work is

the most complete account of fortress warfare in the early modern

period.

_______. The Military Experience in the Age of Reason. Atheneum, NY: The

MacMillan Publishing Company, 1988. This book is an excellent

discussion of the nature of warfare in the mid- to late-eighteenth

century and the role of fortifications and engineers.

_______. Fire and Stone, The Science of Fortress Warfare, 1660-1860.

London: Greenhill Books, 1996. This work is the authoritative

follow-on to Duffy’s earlier work and completes the history of fortress

warfare.

26
Fletcher, Ian. Badajoz, 1812, Wellington’s Bloodiest Siege. Oxford, UK:

Osprey Publishing Ltd., 2001. This work is an excellent short, but

detailed, account of Wellington’s successful effort to seize the key

Spanish city of Badajoz.

Girouard, Mark. Cities and People: A Social and Architectural History. New

Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985. This volume is a profusely

illustrated history of urban development and culture that helps put

urban fortifications and warfare into the context of urban history.

Gravett, Christopher. Medieval Siege Warfare. Oxford, UK: Osprey

Publishing, 1990. This work is a concise description of medieval siege

warfare with an emphasis on siege weapons.

Keegan, John. A History of Warfare. NY: Random House, 1993. This work is

an excellent one-volume overview of the history of warfare. It is

valuable for placing urban warfare within the context of military

history and tracing its ancient origins.

Lynn, John A. Editor. Feeding Mars: Logistics in Western Warfare From the

Middle Ages to the Present. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993. This

work is an excellent discussion of the importance of urban areas to

logistics and of the impact of logistics on siege warfare.

May, Elmer C. and Gerald Stadler. Ancient and Medieval Warfare. West

Point, NY: Department of History, U.S. Military Academy, 1973. This

work is an excellent concise reference to ancient and medieval

warfare.

Morgan, David. The Mongols. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1986. This work

is an excellent history of the Mongols and includes a well-researched

description of the Mongol invasion of China and the challenge of

Chinese cities.

Palmer, David and Albert Britt, Gerald Stadler, and Jerome O’Connell. The

Dawn of Modern Warfare. West Point, NY: Department of History,

U.S. Military Academy, 1973. This work is an excellent concise

reference to early modern warfare.

Seymour, William. Great Sieges of History. London: Brassey’s, 1991. This

book is an excellent reference to some of the most important sieges in

history.

Sun Tzu. Art of War. Translated by Ralph D. Sawyer. Boulder, CO: Westview

Press, 1994. This volume is a complete accounting of the writings of

the important ancient Chinese military thinker and is valuable in

accessing the thoughts of ancient strategists regarding urban

operations.

27
Viollet-Le-Duc, E. Annals of a Fortress: Twenty-two Centuries of Siege

Warfare. Barton-under-Needwood, UK: Wren’s Park Publishing,

2000. This book is a fascinating reprint of the work of a well-regarded

nineteenth-century French military engineer. He uses the history of a

fictitious French fortress to describe and analyze the development of

fortress design and siege tactics.

Webb, Robert N. The Bonus March on Washington, D.C., May-June 1932.

NY: Franklin Watts Inc., 1969. This book is the most complete

account of the confrontation between the U.S. government and the

Bonus Marchers.

Weigley, Russell F. History of the United States Army. NY: Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1967. This book is the most authoritative one-volume

history of the U.S. Army.

28
The Battle of Stalingrad

S.J. Lewis

There is no escaping the fact that in World War II Stalingrad was a

decisive campaign from which Germany never recovered. It was one of

three “hammer blows” delivered against the Axis in November 1942.

The first two were in North Africa: the British victory at El Alamein and

the Anglo-American invasion of Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers. The

third blow was the Soviet Operation URANUS, which would lead to the

destruction of the German 6th Army. Stalingrad also represents one of

the high points in the art of campaigning, clearly a decisive battle of

annihilation with profound strategic implications. Consequently, the

campaign has been analyzed extensively at the operational level.

Despite the importance of Stalingrad at the strategic and operational

levels, it is at the tactical level that Stalingrad serves as a lens not only to

magnify patterns of past warfare but also to provide a possible glimpse

into how warfare will be fought in the future. These profound changes

are a continuation of long-term trends stemming from both the French

Revolution and the industrialization of Western society and warfare.

Conventional warfare in Stalingrad required ever-greater numbers of

troops that, in turn, produced very high casualties. The increased

number of troops required more ammunition, particularly for certain

weapon systems. The logistics systems consequently had more

supplies to deliver. There were also more casualties to be evacuated.

Air forces were especially important, not only in supporting tactical

actions but also in interdicting lines of communication (LOC). But

perhaps the most significant development at Stalingrad was the

tendency for urban operations to impinge increasingly on the

operational and strategic levels of warfare.1

The city that came to be known as Stalingrad was originally a

fortress on Russia’s southern flank, resting on the west bank of a bend

of the Volga River about 934 kilometers (km) southeast of Moscow.

Over time it grew as a trading center, despite the constant threat posed

by the Cossacks, and the Russian state formally established the city of

Tsaritsyn in 1589. It continued to grow in importance as a trading center

on the Volga so that by 1897, the city had a population of 55,914, a

harbor, several schools, and eight banks. In 1925, after the Communist

Revolution, Tsaritsyn became Stalingrad when Joseph Stalin assumed

power. In 1961, it was renamed once again to the name it still has,

Volgograd. At the start of World War II the city’s population was

29
600,000, but by July 1941, refugees had swollen that sum to about

900,000.2

The massive German invasion of the Soviet Union that began in June

1941 and accomplished tremendous territorial gains stalled in the harsh

winter of 1941-42. In December, Adolf Hitler relieved the commander

in chief of the German army and assumed those duties himself. Despite

the Wehrmacht’s failure to complete its conquest, Hitler had never

abandoned the idea of conducting an offensive into southern Russia to

seize the oil fields in the Caucasus mountains. Hitler consequently

issued Directive No. 41 on 5 April 1942. Code-named Operation

BLUE, it directed that the remaining Soviet military units west of the

Don River be eliminated and Russia’s vital economic areas be seized. It

was an overly complex operation consisting of several phases that were

based on wishful thinking, inadequate intelligence, and a presumably

passive enemy. Both the Russian and German armies, however, were

recovering from the previous year’s fighting that had inflicted huge

casualties on both sides, making any future outcome uncertain.3

Operation BLUE

Before the start of Operation BLUE, the Red Army launched a major

offensive near Kharkov on 12 May. Army Group South, commanded

by Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, countered with a double envelopment that trapped some 240,000 Soviet troops in the Izyum pocket.

Throughout summer 1942, Army Group South conducted the preselected phases of the operation, even though the Soviets on 19 June captured documents compromising the plans. Hitler became more and

more confident as the German armies advanced across the broad

steppes. Von Bock began to worry, however, noticing that Russian

units were withdrawing. The German army largely depended on railroads for supply. It could operate comfortably up to the Dnieper River.

Any advance farther into southern Russia, however, had to be improvised and would be subject to interruptions. The farther they advanced

into southern Russia, the more problematic their supply would become.

In early July, the Germans reorganized, with Field Marshal Wilhelm

List’s Army Group A fielding the 1st Panzer, 11th, and 17th armies.

Hitler replaced von Bock with Maximilian von Weichs and

redesignated Army Group South as Army Group B. It consisted of the

2d Hungarian, 4th Panzer, 2d, and 6th armies. Hitler’s interference in

army operations also increased. He issued Directive No. 45 on 23 July,

which sent Army Group A south to the Caucasus region, leaving the 6th

30
Army unsupported to advance on to Stalingrad (see Map 1). It also

allowed the Soviets to withdraw most of their troops from the Don

bend.4

With his early tactical success in the south, Hitler concluded that he

was triumphant. He dispatched the 11th Army, the only reserve in

southern Russia, north to Leningrad. As the remaining German forces

in the area began to fan out, enormous logistics problems ensued. The

steppes did not have the infrastructure to support a west European-type

army; conspicuously absent were reliable double-tracked railroads and

bridges leading to Stalingrad from the west. All the German motorized

forces periodically ran out of fuel. The chief of staff of the 4th Panzer

Army, whose divisions were to fan out into the Caucasus, described the

logistics situation as catastrophic.5

31

Map 1
Stalingrad had not originally been a major factor in German

planning, and the 4th Panzer Army could have reached it much earlier.

But Hitler became increasingly fascinated with the city with his

issuance of Directive No. 45, a decision that still mystifies historians. It

would now constitute the foundation for his conquest of the Caucasus.

The German 6th Army under General Friedrich Paulus was to seize

Stalingrad from the west. Hitler changed his mind and directed the 4th

Panzer Army to assist Paulus by advancing on Stalingrad from the

south. It moved forward against tough resistance, only reaching the

suburbs south of the city on 10 September 1942. The previous fighting

had already reduced its infantry divisions’ strength by 40 to 50 percent.6

Paulus issued his order for the attack on 19 August. The 6th Army

headquarters expected both difficult fighting in the city and Soviet

counterattacks with armor from north of the city. The XIV Panzer

Corps would conduct the main thrust toward the northern suburbs of

Stalingrad. The LI Corps would cover the Panzers’ right flank, while

the VIII Corps covered the left or northern flank. Even farther north, the

6th Army’s XXIV Panzer Corps maintained a bridgehead over the Don

River near Kalatch. The main effort north of Stalingrad planned to cut

the city’s main LOC north along the Volga, although German planners

knew this would not cut off all supplies. In the tradition of the German

General Staff, the plan had no contingent scenarios; it provided no

details on fighting in the city. Ironically, the previous year Hitler had

prohibited the German army from fighting in Leningrad and Moscow,

while German doctrinal literature tended to downplay the subject of

urban combat. Thus, the German army had little if any training or

experience in city fighting.7

On 21 August, the 6th Army seized a bridgehead over the Don River

at Wertjatschij, and two days later the XIV Panzer Corps began its

96.5-km dash eastward. Breaking through scattered opposition, the

16th Panzer Division broke into Rynok the evening of Sunday, 23

August, looking down on the broad Volga north of Stalingrad. It seized

Rynok from Red Army antiaircraft units, all-female units that had been

deploying north and east of Stalingrad during August. Throughout the

remaining hours of the day, troops of the 16th Panzer Division observed

as the Luftwaffe began bombing Stalingrad.

Luftflotte IV, tasked with supporting the advance into southern

Russia, fielded half the air assets on the Eastern Front. It, too, was

drawn to Stalingrad—its VIII Air Corps supported the army with an

average of 1,000 sorties a day. Throughout 23 August, Colonel General

Wolfram von Richthofen’s Luftflotte IV pounded the city, burning

32
down the wooden houses in the southwest corner. The large petroleum

facility burned for days. The walls of the white four- and five-story

apartment buildings remained standing, but the bombs burned the

interiors, collapsing the floors. The waterworks and communications

center were also knocked out. The aerial bombardment during the week

killed an estimated 40,000 Russians while the many Soviet antiaircraft

units only managed to bring down three aircraft, a consequence of

insufficient training and very limited ammunition. Although the

Luftwaffe created considerable destruction, Anthony Beevor observed,

“Richthofen’s massive bombing raids had not only failed to destroy the

enemy’s will, their very force of destruction had turned the city into a

perfect killing ground for the Russians to use against them.”8

Von Richthofen’s forces were able to maintain air superiority until

late October, by which time combat and mechanical failures had

considerably weakened them. Simultaneously, the Russian air force

began to receive considerably more and better aircraft, while their

antiaircraft forces continued to improve. Most authors, including

official historians, maintain that both air forces limited themselves

largely to ground support of the army, reconnaissance, and short-range

bombing. As historian R.J. Spiller observed, however, we will probably

never know the specific sortie patterns of Luftflotte IV and the Red air

force.9

The XIV Panzer Corps remained in its exposed position for several

weeks since the 6th Army’s infantry divisions were strung out for some

322 km behind it. While the German infantry divisions marched

forward, the Red Army repeatedly counterattacked the XIV Panzer

Corps. The German infantry divisions reached the heights above

Stalingrad on 10 September 1942. From there, they observed the

56-km-long complex of houses, apartment dwellings, and factories

pinned against the 1,000-meter-wide Volga by the unending brown

steppes. At many points, the city was only 2 km wide. Also visible were

several of the Volga’s islands and tributaries.

An observer with an eye for tactics would have noticed how the

steppes are cut up by innumerable steep-sloped gullies that, in Russian,

are called balka. The Tsaritsa gully was the major balka, which

separated the southern third of Stalingrad from the northern two-thirds

of the city (see Map 2). At the mouth of the balka was the old town

center where the czar’s officials and businessmen maintained their

two-story houses. South of the Tsaritsa was a residential sector. Its train

station was near the grain silos across from the large island in the Volga.

North of the Tsaritsa was the city center that had its own train station,

33
several plazas, post office, and waterworks. This area housed the local

Communist Party (CP) headquarters. To the north was the large

petroleum complex along the Volga. West of the oil complex was

Stalingrad’s dominant feature, the Mamayev Kurgan (on German

maps, Height 102), on the northern edge of the residential sector that

overlooks the Volga River. To the west of Mamayev Kurgan was the

airport. The northern sector was the industrial region. Running south to

north were the Lasur Chemical Factory (which from the air resembled

34

Map 2
half a tennis racket), the Red October Metallurgical Factory, Bread

Factory No. 2, the Red Barricade Armaments Factory, and, at the

extreme north, a tractor factory.

Despite seeing their city pulverized and the continuing combat

operations, 300,000 to 350,000 civilians were still in Stalingrad. Most

of them lived in holes, cellars, and homemade bunkers. Since even the

German army was incapable of its own logistics support, many

civilians faced eventual starvation. Most of those remaining were

women, children, and old men. German authorities knew the civilians

required evacuation but were unable to carry out the movement. By

mid-October, some 25,000 had fled the rubble, walking toward

Kalatch. Some of the outskirts of the city still stood, mostly grimy

houses occupied by workers. Other than several major streets, most of

the roads were unpaved. Russian artillery units that deployed en masse

east of the river could hit streets running east and west. Streets running

north and south were under Russian small-arms fire.10

Besides the enormous military problem of taking Stalingrad, Paulus

also had to safeguard his northern flank along the Don River. He never

solved this task because the Soviets held a number of bridgeheads from

which they launched numerous offensives. Three Soviet armies

launched the first offensive on 24 August. Although they suffered great

casualties, they succeeded in slowing down the German divisions’

arrival in Stalingrad.11

Three weeks into the German summer offensive, Stalin remained

convinced that the main attack would be against Moscow. He

responded clumsily in fits and starts, first splitting Stalingrad between

two Front headquarters. In mid-July, however, he corrected this error

and created the Stalingrad Front under General A.I. Yeremenko,

consisting of the 28th, 51st, 57th, 62d, and 64th armies. The Russians

also deployed the North Caucasus, South, Southwest, and Bryansk

Fronts in southern Russia. Most men of military age in Stalingrad had

already been drafted, but local CP officials mobilized an additional

200,000 men and women to serve in “Worker’s Columns” while

unneeded workers were placed in militia battalions. Stalin ordered that

Stalingrad would not be given up and dispatched the dreaded secret

police (NKVD) to enforce discipline. The latter soon controlled all the

boats on the Volga and allowed no one out of the city. On 2 August,

Luftwaffe General von Richthofen noted that Stalingrad seemed to act

like a magnet, drawing Russian forces from all directions.

The last major headquarters left in Stalingrad was General Vasili I.

Chuikov’s 62d Army. While the German 6th Army methodically

35
attacked Stalingrad, Chuikov ferried over the Volga the equivalent of

nine rifle divisions and two tank brigades. As the struggle wore on and

he gained greater strength, he increasingly resorted to aggressive

counterattacks with anywhere from 200 to 800 men, sometimes with

tank support. This hyperactive form of defense forced the Germans to

shift repeatedly from offense to defense and made the battle of attrition

ever more costly.12

Stalin’s advisers tried unsuccessfully to stop him from launching

several major counteroffensives from bridgeheads north of Stalingrad.

Three reserve armies filled with untrained conscripts began an attack

on 5 September but were checked with substantial losses. The Soviet

Union had already suffered millions of losses, including most of its

prewar military. The Germans also occupied most of its industrial and

manpower centers.13 Despite this, the Soviets still possessed numerical

superiority in men and weapon systems. A German intelligence report

of 20 September 1942 estimated the Soviets had 4.2 million soldiers, 3

million of those deployed at the Front. Factories continued to produce

enormous numbers of tanks and airplanes, and a new military elite had

begun to emerge from the earlier disasters of the war: hard men who

understood the Germans’ weaknesses and were not afraid of the

Germans or of taking casualties. Related to this development was the

reemergence of the Soviet General Staff, which had arduously

compiled lessons learned from which their recipe for victory evolved.

An action symptomatic of this emergence of a new Soviet military elite

occurred on 9 October 1942, when the Red Army gave commanders

relative autonomy, reducing the old coresponsibility of the political

commissar. In late 1942, however, the Soviet military was still

recovering from its serious wounds.14

As the 6th Army deployed and attacked Stalingrad in September, a

crisis occurred in the German High Command. Hitler had become increasingly nervous over what he perceived to be the slow advance into

the Caucasus. On 10 September, he fired Field Marshal List and personally assumed command of Army Group A. The mood was tense at Hitler’s headquarters at Vinitsa in the Ukraine, aggravated by the hot,

humid weather. Hitler had never liked the chief of the General Staff, so

General Franz Halder’s relief was perhaps unavoidable under the circumstances. Halder managed to last until 24 September, when Hitler

replaced him with a relatively junior officer, General Kurt Zeitzler.

When the latter arrived to assume his new job, he lectured the General

Staff that the only problem Germany faced was its lack of faith in the

Fuehrer. So, while the fighting for Stalingrad raged, Hitler consolidated his power at the expense of the military professional class.15

36
Soon after the arrival of his infantry divisions on 10 September,

Paulus launched a concerted attack on the city. It progressed rapidly

through the suburbs but slowed in the inner city. The Germans seized

Mamayev Kurgan on 13 September, but it changed hands repeatedly

throughout the following months. For both sides, casualties climbed

precipitously. The Soviets threw in the 13th Guard Division, which

sacrificed many of its 10,000 men in grinding down the German

advance. This was the first of four German attacks in Stalingrad. It

faltered on 19 and 20 September as a result of massive casualties and

dwindling ammunition. This pattern recurred in the three subsequent

attacks. The first, from 22 September to 6 October, reached the Volga at

the mouth of the Tsaritsa. The attack from 14 October to early

November from the north reduced the Soviet hold in Stalingrad to two

small bridgeheads. The final futile assault from 11 to 17 November was

against the two small bridgeheads.16

On 23 September, a German General Staff officer visited the 295th

and 71st Infantry Divisions in the center of the town. He noted that the

Soviet troops remained as physically close to the Germans as possible

to reduce the effectiveness of the Germans’ firepower. The Soviet

troops were ever alert and whenever they thought they spotted a

German weakness, they immediately counterattacked. They were

particularly tough now that there was little room left to retreat. The

German officer observed that after the heavy artillery bombardment,

troops quickly emerged from their cellar holes ready to fire. Despite

German countermeasures, the Soviets continued to move supplies

across the Volga at night.

The two German divisions the staff officer visited were old,

battle-tested formations that had been considerably weakened by

infantry casualties. He observed that their combat power was dropping

daily and that the average strength of an infantry company was ten to

fifteen men. Losses were particularly high for the officers and

noncommissioned officers (NCOs). Although replacements had

arrived, they were insufficient in number and lacked experience,

training, and soldierly bearing. When an officer fell, the men drifted

back to their starting point. To get them moving forward again, a

higher-ranking officer had to lead them. The soldiers particularly

depended on the division Sturmgeschutze, heavily armored tracked

vehicles whose 7.5-centimeter (cm) guns were designed to take out

point targets for the infantry. The small bands of infantry did not want to

attack without a Sturmgeschutz and viewed it as a failure in leadership if

one was not provided to them. This German officer concluded that

37
attacking through the ruins had exhausted the infantry and that they

were too tired and dulled. With so few troops, there was no rest because

every soldier had to be deployed. There were no reserves.

It was especially hard to get necessary supplies forward to the

combat infantry troops. Their diet suffered considerably. The surviving

troops expressed bitterness toward the Luftwaffe’s perceived luxury.

They had also become resentful toward the special food bonuses the

armored units received. The officers maintained that it was pointless to

offer the infantry propaganda since none of the promises could be kept.

Out in the steppes of southern Russia, all supplies had to be brought

from Germany. Besides food, the infantry’s major requirement was

8-cm mortar shells, one of the few ways to get to the enemy’s holes in

cellars and gully cliffs.17

Senior officers noted that they had gotten into a battle of attrition

with the Russians, and although their casualties were very high, those

inflicted on the Russians were much greater. As soon as the city was

captured, however, the divisions would have to be rested and

reorganized. They also stated that it was critical to secure sufficient

fodder and straw for the horses.18

In the last week of September, Paulus launched his second attack on

Stalingrad. He exchanged divisions with his northern flank and used the

new units to renew the offensive. It pushed the Soviets back into the

northern sector of Stalingrad, but casualties and ammunition

expenditures were so high that Paulus called off the offensive. The

German 6th Army did not begin its third offensive until 14 October.

Paulus sent four divisions supported by armor to assist in taking the

northern factory complexes. This created a crisis for the defenders,

when on the second day, the Germans captured the tractor factory and

reached the Volga. Despite the heavy rain, snow, and the consequential

mud, the attack made remarkable progress, capturing the ruins of

several blocks of houses, the Red October Factory, and some other

burned-out hulks. But at the end of the month, the attacks fizzled out

from the high casualties and insufficient ammunition. Chuikov’s

garrison had been reduced to two small pockets, and the block ice in the

Volga had created a logistics nightmare, but the Germans were spent.

Paulus launched the fourth and final attack on 11 November, based on

the arrival of five engineer battalions. The attack advanced very slowly

against tough resistance. It, too, expired after several days, and on the

19th, the Soviets launched the counteroffensive that would surround

and destroy the German 6th Army.19

38
As autumn wore on, Fremde Heere Ost’s prediction began to

become a reality as more and more Soviet units appeared in southern

Russia. The Germans used all-source intelligence, but much of their

success at the operational and tactical levels resulted from their ability

to intercept Soviet radio traffic. They could pick up newly deployed

units; however, the Germans did not know the scope of the deployment

or where or when the Soviets would attack. Hitler thought the attack

would be against Rostov. Fremde Heere Ost still believed the major

attack would be against Army Group Center, even though more and

more units appeared in the south. Finally, they detected a new Soviet

Southwest Front headquarters and, on 12 November, concluded that an

attack in the near future against the Romanian Third Army could cut the

railroad to Stalingrad. If that happened, it would threaten the German

forces farther east, forcing them to withdraw from Stalingrad.20

To summarize developments, Hitler had sent the strongest force

available toward an objective that would not necessarily win the war.

That force could not be logistically supported and advanced into an

ever-expanding space against an opponent that was gaining, not losing,

strength. He had sent his most powerful army into Stalingrad where it

basically destroyed its combat power in costly attacks that played into

the enemy’s hands. And finally, although intelligence indicated the

probability of a major Soviet counteroffensive, the German military

leadership resorted to conducting merely cosmetic measures.21

Stalin had dispatched two of the Stavka’s most capable

representatives, Generals A.M. Vasilevskiy and G.K. Zhukov, to

oversee operations in southern Russia. On 4 October, they conducted a

conference that began the planning process for what would be

Operation URANUS, the counteroffensive against the German 6th

Army. Lieutenant General N.F. Vatutin activated the Southwest Front

headquarters that fielded five armies along the Don northwest of

Kletskaya. The Don Front kept three armies in the central sector. The

Stalingrad Front deployed some five armies in the southern sector.

Approximately 1 million men and 900 tanks were to conduct a classic

double envelopment of the German 6th Army by breaking through the

hapless 3d and 4th Romanian armies.22

Luftflotte IV had been weakened considerably by the intensive

months of combat. By October, the Russian air force wrested air

superiority from the Germans as both more and newer equipment

arrived. In addition, as the Germans captured more and more of

Stalingrad, the Soviet air force could more easily bomb the city. The

Stavka also dispatched General A.A. Novikov to help coordinate air

39
operations for URANUS (see Map 3). He became such a valued team

member that when he stated that the air forces were not yet prepared,

Zhukov delayed the opening of the offensive.23

Timing was critical for the counteroffensive. Zhukov and

Vasilevskiy waited for the German 6th Army to expend its combat

power in Stalingrad. They also waited for the Anglo-Saxon offensives

to succeed in North Africa. By waiting until 19 November, they

allowed the ground to freeze, giving their armor greater mobility. The

Soviets’ artillery preparation was short but powerful, lasting only 90

minutes, after which the offensive launched at 0850. The Romanian

defense broke rather easily, allowing Soviet armor to begin the

exploitation about 1400. Both Romanian armies collapsed, and there

were no Axis reserves to stem the tide. The Soviet forces continued

their advance nearly unopposed and on 22 November met at Kalach,

encircling Paulus’s 6th Army. Some Soviet forces wheeled in against

Stalingrad, while others expanded the advance westward to limit any

Axis relief efforts.24

As has been oft recounted, the German military was unable to

orchestrate a breakthrough, and the Luftwaffe was never able to even

40

OPERATION URANUS

19 - 23 November 1942

Approximate front, 19 Nov

Direction of Soviet attack

0

0 50 Kilometers

50 Miles

63d 1st Guards 5th Tank

Serafimovich

21st EIGHTH

ITALIAN

ARMY

Kremenskaya

Kletskaya

Sirotinskaya

ARMY

GROUP

B

SIXTH

ARMY

Chir R

24th

66th

Volga R

STALINGRAD

64th

Golubinskiy 62d Gumrak

Karpovka

Sovetskiy

Abganerovo

FRONT

57th

XXXX

XXXX

XXXX

51st

65th

Beketovka

Kalach

STALINGRAD

OPERATION URANUS

19 - 23 November 1942

Approximate front, 19 Nov

Direction of Soviet attack

0

0 50 Kilometers

50 Miles

63d 1st Guards 5th Tank

Serafimovich

21st EIGHTH

ITALIAN

ARMY

Kremenskaya

Kletskaya

Sirotinskaya 3d

ROMANIAN

ARMY

ARMY

GROUP

B

SIXTH

ARMY

Chir R

DON

FRONT

24th

66th

Volga R

STALINGRAD

64th

Golubinskiy 62d Gumrak

Karpovka

Sovetskiy

Abganerovo

FRONT

57th

4th

PANZER

ARMY

XXXX

XXXX

XXXX

51st

65th

Beketovka

Kalach

STALINGRAD

Map 3
approach Hermann Goering’s promise to sustain the garrison. At

Hitler’s headquarters, General Walther Warlimont observed, “On 18

December the Italian Eighth Army collapsed, a decisive factor in the

fate of Stalingrad; less than a month later, on 15 January, the Hungarian

Second Army disintegrated and on the same day the German ring

around Leningrad was broken.”25 Paulus and his army were doomed.

The remnants of the 6th Army deployed into positions resembling an

egg 40 km wide and 50 km long, surrounded by the Don Front’s seven

armies. Despite the Axis and Soviet propaganda, the position could

hardly be viewed as a fortress since few if any fortifications were in the

open steppes west of Stalingrad. Only a small portion of the German

defense was in the remains of Stalingrad. Despite the profound

weakness of the 6th Army units, the Soviets achieved little success

when, in early December, the Don Front attacked the weakest sector of

the line in the west and south. As Earl Ziemke and Magda Bauer

observed, this probably occurred because the Soviet units had also been

weakened by nearly six months of unbroken combat. German signals

intelligence also contributed by intercepting Soviet radio messages and

alerting threatened sectors in time to stave off disasters. The 6th Army

could ill afford such Pyrrhic victories because its limited strength was

wasting away.

The final Soviet offensive began on 10 January after a particularly

heavy artillery barrage that cut most of the German communication

wires and cables. The ground attack opened large holes in the German

line that could not be closed. Although the Germans had an auxiliary

airbase at Gumrak, the only serviceable one was Pitomnik, through

which casualties, specialists, and vital items departed the trap in

exchange for a woefully inadequate flow of food, medicine, petroleum

products, and ammunition. Soviet units overran Pitomnik on 12

January, ending resupply in the pocket, after which the defenders’

position was hopeless. Paulus noted that artillery ammunition would

run out on 13 January. Hitler still prohibited a surrender, however, so

the slaughter continued. Final resistance ended on 2 February 1943.

The 6th Army ceased to exist.26

Tactical Considerations

Evaluating Stalingrad has proved to be difficult, both for participants

and for historians. The experience was simply too big. Many

participants had never seen a large city destroyed, so the intensity and

duration of violence were overwhelming. Soviet and German

41
propagandists assisted in making a large, confusing phenomenon even

more difficult to understand. One should not be surprised, therefore,

when subsequent accounts focus on exaggeration and the uniqueness of

the fighting. Stalingrad has had a remarkable ability to distort

perceptions for a long time. It is perhaps too easy to become fixated on

exotic ways to kill a human being, whether with knives, blunt objects,

or telescopic rifles. Outside of a few new weapon systems, the nature of

the fighting and destruction remained identical to that of Flanders and

the Somme in World War I. Veterans of those battles, however, were

rare at Stalingrad.27

At Stalingrad, military operations absorbed more and more troop units.

This probably resulted from the infinitely greater compartmentalization

that limited not only vision but also the range of direct-fire weapons. As a

result, more combatants were required to fill or watch those compartments.

For the more important compartments, heavy or specialized weapons were

required. Combat in urban areas also magnified the dimension of vertical

warfare. The massive destruction of Stalingrad limited vertical combat

considerably, although any remaining “high ground” remained critical for

observation. Some soldiers described the conflict as “the war of rats” because so much of it concentrated on controlling holes and cellars. It was no

accident that the German army sent specially trained engineer battalions to

Stalingrad. Their job was to blow up buildings with explosives. Those rapidly advancing attacks limited the amount of vertical warfare. Paulus used

this method to create “channels” throughout the city. But this required even

more combatants to guard the long flanks of the channel and to reduce

pockets of resistance that had survived the demolitions. All those additional troops required more ammunition.

The Soviets and the Germans expended an extraordinary amount of

ammunition. Between 10 January and 2 February 1943, the Don Front

fired some 24 million rifle and machine gun rounds; 911,000 artillery

shells, up to 152-millimeter; and 990,000 mortar shells.28 In September

1942, the 6th Army expended 23,035,863 rifle and machine gun

rounds, 575,828 antitank shells, 116,932 infantry cannon shells, and

752,747 mortar shells. It deployed 14,932 mines and its soldiers

expended 178,066 hand grenades.29 Partisans writing for one side or the

other use such figures to assert that the enemy was cowardly or

incompetent for such profligate expenditures.30 Despite the strain on

these mass armies and the lack of training in many units, such high

monthly ammunition expenditures for both sides would suggest that

other factors were involved.

42
Those larger numbers of troops fighting on urban terrain and firing

greater amounts of munitions produced very high casualties. There

remains a lack of clarity regarding Soviet losses, but General Chuikov

observed that the divisions had already been considerably weakened

before they reached Stalingrad. He noted that by 14 September one

armored brigade had only one tank left, and two other brigades without

any tanks had to be sent across the Volga to refit. One division had two

infantry brigades that were full, but the composite regiment of another

division only fielded 100 infantrymen. Chuikov stated that another

division had a total of 1,500 men—“the motorized infantry brigade had

666 men, including no more than 200 infantrymen; the Guards Division

of Colonel Dubyanski on the left flank had no more than 250

infantrymen.”31

Later, Chuikov went on to explain the effect of the high casualties on

his units: “It means that our soldiers (even small units) crawled out from

under German tanks, more often than not wounded, to another position,

where they were received, incorporated into another unit, provided

with equipment, usually ammunition, and then they went back into

battle.”32 Early in the battle some 10,000 men of the 13th Guards Rifle

Division crossed the Volga but without their heavy weapons. Chuikov

threw them into a counterattack against the brick mill and the main train

station. The division lost 30 percent of its men in the first 24 hours. By

the time the battle ended, only 320 of the original soldiers were left.33

Records of the 6th Army did survive and indicate that the intensity of

combat was high, both before reaching Stalingrad and later during the

city fighting. It crossed the Don River on 21 August 1942. From then

until 16 October, it recorded the following losses:

Officers NCOs and Men

Killed 239 7,456

Wounded 821 30,360

Missing 8 1,127

During this period, 6th Army recorded capturing 57,800 prisoners of

war (POWs) and capturing or destroying 1,950 tanks, 805 guns, and

1,969 aircraft. From 13 September to 16 October 1942, during which

much of the city fighting took place, it suffered the following losses:

43
Officers NCOs and Men

Killed 69 2,438

Wounded 271 10,107

Missing 3 298

Paulus’s army not only fought in the city but also held a defensive front

north of the city. On this northern front, the 6th Army captured 5,625

POWs and captured or destroyed 616 tanks and 87 guns. In the city

itself, Paulus’s army captured 17,917 POWs while capturing or

destroying 233 tanks and 302 guns.34

The 71st Infantry and 24th Panzer Divisions

As a rule, Red Army infantry divisions during the war had about

10,000 men, most of whom carried rifles. The dynamics of city fighting

wore these units down even further, according to General Chuikov.

What city fighting did to the German 71st Infantry Division on 19

September 1942 is shown in Table 1. As can be seen, the regimental

support troops suffered proportionately fewer losses than the combat

infantry.35 Table 2 shows 24th Panzer Division casualties after it had

been withdrawn from the fighting in Stalingrad.36

These statistics should be used with care because they also cover

July and August, before Stalingrad. Because the 24th was one of the

few panzer divisions in the city, the numbers could represent a

statistical aberration. Nevertheless, since it probably was the only

division whose records survived, it requires some examination. Since

artillery fire was the most destructive agent in both world wars, the

figure of roughly 50-percent casualties from artillery is probably

typical for conventional urban operations in high-intensity combat.

Probably, 11-percent casualties from infantry weapons is too low to be

typical. The question remaining is what would have been typical? Just

as surprising is the 38-percent loss to enemy air activity. Although this

seems very high, the two regiments of armored infantry, one battalion

of motorcycle troops, and the antitank battalion all averaged between

9.4-percent and 12-percent casualties from air attacks.

There is also consistency in the losses of the armor regiment and

mechanized artillery regiment. It would appear, however, that these

losses were incurred during the Battle of Stalingrad rather than before.

On 28 September, General Paulus visited the 24th Panzer Division at

44
1315, and the operations officer briefed him on the division’s considerable losses in armored infantry and tanks. These debilitating losses had

occurred in the last several days.37 If these losses are not a statistical aberration, this should serve as a warning for even a temporary loss of air

superiority. These losses also suggest the inadequacy of the Luftwaffe

and the German air defense.

Despite the presence of the 9th Luftwaffe Antiaircraft Division,

Russian air strikes inflicted considerable damage in the German rear

areas. On the same day that Paulus visited the 24th Panzer Division,

the 6th Army observed that destroying artillery ammunition depots by

day and night raids had become unacceptable. It attributed these losses

45

191st Infantry Regiment 194th Infantry Regiment 211th Infantry Regiment

1. Company 25 men 1. Company 12 men 1. Company 24 men

2. Company 17 men 2. Company 22 men 2. Company -*)

3. Company 20 men 3. Company 14 men 3. Company -*)

4. Company 32 men 4. Company 23 men 4. Company 28 men

Staff I. Battalion 7 men Staff I. Battalion 20 men Staff I. Battalion -*)

5. Company 10 men 5. Company 7 men 5. Company 27 men

6. Company 13 men 6. Company 13 men 6. Company 22 men

7. Company 12 men 7. Company 10 men 7. Company -*)

8. Company 40 men 8. Company 23 men 8. Company 43 men

Staff II. Bn 17 men Staff II. Bn 6 men Btl Staff II. 31 men

9. Company 7 men 9. Company 8 men 9. Company -*)

10. Company 13 men 10. Company 9 men 10. Company 44 men

11. Company 19 men 11. Company 13 men 11. Company -*)

12. Company 35 men 12. Company 27 men 12. Company 38 men

Staff III. Bn 7 men Staff III. Bn 20 men Staff III. Bn 17 men

13. Company 53 men 13. Comp. 50 men 13. Company 61 men

14. Company 50 men 14. Comp. 40 men 14. Company 57 men

Regt Staff Regt Staff Regt Staff

Recon Platoon Recon Platoon Recon Platoon

Signal Platoon Signal Platoon Signal Platoon

Eng Platoon 72 men Eng Platoon 94 men Eng Platoon 80 men

Bnbattalion

Engengineer

Regtregiment

Reconreconnaissance

Table 1.
to dispersing the antiaircraft artillery. It consequently ordered two battalions to return from the Don River bridgeheads.38

Just as the 24th Panzer Division’s records provide a unique

perspective of casualties at Stalingrad, its after-action report constitutes

one of the few documents that recounts actual combat experience in the

city. Documents are not immune from error, and those who create such

reports frequently have their own agendas; nevertheless, the division

after-action report provides a rare glimpse into both the strengths and

weaknesses of a division fighting in Stalingrad. Consequently, what

follows is a summary of that report. The division’s after-action report

concluded that panzer divisions were created to use their tanks

decisively, en masse in open land, not for combat in cities. City fighting

46

Troop Units Infantry Artillery/Mines Burns Aircraft Attacks

Weapons

24th Panzer Div Staff 6.3 73.8 3.0 19.9

24th Panzer Regt 10.5 63.1 3.0 23.4

24th Arm Inf Bde - 31.1 - 65.9

21st Arm Inf Regt 27.2 63.1 0.3 9.4

26th Arm Inf Regt 30.4 57.2 0.8 11.6

4th Motorcycle Bn 25.5 64.1 0.7 9.7

89th Arm Arty Regt 4.4 70.5 - 25.1

IV Bn “ “ 16.7 42.9 - 40.4

86th Arm Signal Bn 1.2 65.3 - 33.5

40th Antitank Bn 10.1 77.9 - 12.0

40th Arm Eng Bn 19.3 42.1 0.4 38.2

40th Supply Bn 14.4 21.8 - 63.8

Med Company (mot) 1/ 12.5 35.7 - 51.8

Med Company (mot) 2/ - 58.3 - 41.7

40th Bakery Company - - - 100.0

40th Butcher Company - - - 100.0

Attached Units 13.1 77.5 0.9 8.5

Distribution of 11.3 49.8 0.4 38.5

Casualties

Armarmored

Artyartillery

Bnbattalion

Divdivision

Infinfantry

Engengineer

Medmedical

Regtregiment

Table 2.
threw away armor’s advantages of maneuver and mass. Furthermore,

tanks were not designed for urban combat, and the rubble frequently

limited the effectiveness of their main guns and hull machine guns.

Those tanks remained vulnerable to Soviet tank and antitank weapons,

so they could not be deployed singly but in groups of ten.39

Similarly, the armored infantry had never fought in a large city and

had to rethink many of its methods. All German infantry loved the

Sturmgeschutz because they could take cover behind the heavily

armored vehicle as it advanced and fired. It was a serious mistake,

however, for the infantry to use tanks in the same manner as the

Sturmgeschutz because the Mark III and IV tanks were too vulnerable

to enemy fire. Instead, the report urged that the armored infantry

advance with several tanks behind them, providing fire support.

Although tanks and armored infantry had been working together in

combat since 1939, they hardly ever had seen each other on the

battlefield. Putting tanks and armored infantry in a small compartment

consequently required a different, more intimate level of cooperation.

The combined arms team in the compartment required a small number

of tanks, armored infantry, and engineers. Rubble, narrow streets, and

bomb craters restricted the number of tanks that could operate

effectively in such a compartment. The document urged all

participating commanders to examine the terrain beforehand, noting

obstacles, cover, and the enemy situation. An attack plan had to come

from this orientation, reaching an understanding of who would do what.

It maintained that the only way to obtain true cooperation was by

representing all the participating units. The tank commander had to

enter the fight knowing how limited his vision would be and how

dependent the tanks would be on the other branches.40

Mines were the greatest danger for tanks. The German after-action

report recommended that when a tank hit a mine, all tanks in the

compartment halt and engineers move forward to clear paths. Infantry

had to deploy forward to thwart Russian infantry and to protect

recovery teams, for it was critical to retrieve damaged vehicles as soon

as possible. It was also necessary to withdraw the tanks before sunset

for logistics support because the support vehicles were not armored. A

panzer division possessed less infantry and artillery than an infantry

division, which made it more difficult to replace infantry losses and

punish the enemy with artillery fire.

A large number of knocked-out tanks were strewn about Stalingrad

in pods, indicating paths that were once traversable. In late September,

the VIII Corps counted sixty-two T-34 hulks in its sector, all manufac47
tured in 1942. The XIV Panzer Corps counted forty-eight hulks of various types but could not approach most of them because of enemy fire.

The Russians had retrieved several knocked-out tanks but also found it

too dangerous to enter no man’s land. Russian POWs stated that most of

the tanks had been manufactured at Stalingrad’s tractor factory.41 The

XIV Panzer Corps reported that on 30 September it had destroyed 24

Russian and 100 non-Russian tanks. The latter consisted of eight American M3 Lee tanks, forty-seven American M3 Stuarts, and twenty-four

British Valentines. They were particularly interested in them, noting

that they had not been assembled in Russia and contained instructional

materials in English. The Russian tanks consisted of two T-34s, three

T-60s, and nineteen T-70s, which apparently came from Gorki.42

In the attack, commanders had to make thorough preparations,

particularly in synchronizing fire support. It was better for all

commanders to meet and, using an aerial photograph, quickly work out

who would do what rather than relying on detailed written orders.

Before the attack, it was counterproductive to withdraw to protect

oneself from the artillery barrage and airstrikes. The Germans

discovered that when they did that, the Russians moved forward onto

vacated ground. To gain surprise, it was better to attack early in the

morning without preparatory fires and then call in adjusted fire as

required. In urban operations, it was preferable to halt and regroup upon

attaining limited objectives because that was the best way to coordinate

the various arms and weapon systems. Informing subordinates of what

the daily objective was helped in this process. On occasion, it was

necessary to task-organize an armored assault group consisting of

tanks, half-tracks, and other units as required. Nevertheless, the

purpose of this was still to maximize the infantry combat power and

provide one unified command. One constant was the engineers’ active

participation. To exploit success, reserves had to be kept close by at the

ready and yet placed under some cover.43

Severely restricted fields of fire and limited observation made

defense in Stalingrad very difficult. It proved advisable to use a main

line of resistance and to keep reserves at the ready. Heavy mortars used

as batteries were very helpful, and the heavy and light infantry cannons

were particularly valuable in the defense. Nightly harassment fire by

artillery and heavy infantry weapons had to be coordinated in a division

fire plan. These fires had the best results between dusk and about 2230

when the enemy carried out most of its logistics activities. It was

important to continue to rapidly shift from the offense to the defense.

This meant rapidly digging in, organizing a defense in depth, creating

48
new reserves, deploying heavy weapons, planning defensive fires, and

if possible, laying mines quickly and contacting units on the flanks.44

The 24th Panzer Division reported that it was happy with the

coordination of operations with the Luftwaffe, which it viewed as vital

to its success. Stuka dive-bombers were able to drop bombs 100 meters

in front of their own lines. German soldiers reported, however, that they

really needed to know when the last bomb had been dropped. The

Luftwaffe liaison officer was in an armored vehicle close enough to see

the strikes. German efforts in 1942 to link Luftwaffe formations with

advancing armored units continued to fail. The situation was too fluid,

and too often bombs struck German positions. To the 24th Panzer

Division, it seemed much more efficient for the Luftwaffe to operate

deep against the enemy’s LOC. Finally, the ground troops wanted to be

better informed of what targets the Luftwaffe was going after so they

could deploy sufficient light and signals equipment to protect

themselves.

It would appear at first glance that fighting in Stalingrad required

revising the infantry squad into an assault squad. It required standard

light machine guns and riflemen, and also needed sharpshooters,

automatic weapons, various kinds of grenades, and explosive charges.

Those squads required support from one or more Sturmgeschutz,

several half-tracks armed with 2-cm antiaircraft or 3.7-cm antitank

guns. An engineer squad also had to be available to remove mines and

tank obstacles. In addition, the after-action report recommended that a

flamethrower squad be available. The heavy infantry weapons required

sufficient ammunition. Rifle grenades proved very helpful. To counter

enemy snipers or marksmen, the trench mirror was indispensable. And

finally, the assault squads required enough radios for efficient

communication.45

Massive destruction severely restricted movement through the city.

Avoiding streets reduced casualties. Since all resistance “nests” had to

be reduced, it was preferable to organize the advance in depth. It was

important not to become imprisoned by linear conceptions of combat

because units had to maneuver backward, forward, or sideways to

cover a flank. In Stalingrad, a good deal of effort was expended

reducing resistance “nests” (mainly cellars). Particularly dangerous

areas were street corners and flat open spaces. These areas without

cover demanded smoke screens to facilitate crossing.46

A glimpse at the German 71st Infantry Division demonstrates the

difficulties of such combat. On 24 September, it advanced against

heavy resistance toward the theater and command post buildings.

49
Soldiers had to fight through the remains of each house. POWs said that

traditional concepts such as squads and platoons had generally lost their

meaning. The Russian soldiers were led by proven officers and

commissars and were still receiving active assistance from civilians.

Neither side took many prisoners. Russian casualties were high. The

71st divisional artillery engaged Russian craft on the Volga and

managed to silence two enemy batteries, destroying a large ammunition

depot on the east bank of the river.47

The 24th Panzer Division was satisfied with its artillery regiment but

complained that it had limited supplies, particularly ammunition. In the

attack, division artillery was not that helpful. To limit friendly fire

casualties, only one gun was allowed to provide fire support for an

assault squad. At the division, the major problem was the inability to

observe. At Stalingrad, the key artillery units were observation

battalions that were army troops usually at the disposal of a corps

headquarters. They set up their specialized equipment at the few quality

observation spots. For example, on 28 September as the LI Corps

advanced against the Red October and Red Barricade factories, its

observation battalions identified twenty-two enemy batteries and

engaged fourteen with counterbattery fire.48

It was still possible to coordinate fires; however, the armored

artillery regiment’s armored observation vehicles proved ideal in

supplementing the work of the observation battalions. It was simply too

dangerous for the infantry divisions’ observation sections to attempt to

do this. Sometimes it was necessary to call in fire from the entire

regiment. This was so effective that POWs commented on the barrages.

In urban combat, the armored artillery reconnaissance assets only had

radios. They were, however, in Stalingrad long enough to supplement

their signals with wire. For instance, the light/flash unit had to be on the

tallest surviving structure in the sector. Hence, it was much more

efficient to run wire up to its “nest.”

The Red Army experience in Stalingrad proved quite similar, with

artillery observers perched in the few available aeries.49 The panzer

division did not have the means to be decisive in counterbattery fire. Its

10-cm cannon had insufficient range and never seemed to have enough

ammunition. On occasion, one or two division guns were sent to assist

the armored infantry with direct fire. This proved successful, but the

guns were particularly difficult to move in the rubble.50

The division cooperated with the Luftwaffe through radio until its

last week in the city when the regimental air support radio unit moved

forward to join the tracked observation vehicles. This cooperation sped

50
up prioritization and efficiency of air and fire support. It cut out one

level of communication within the Luftwaffe and provided many more

eyes with which to evaluate the air strikes’ effectiveness. In addition,

when a target was taken out, this method allowed aircraft to switch

rapidly to new targets.

As has already been mentioned, the 24th Panzer Division maintained

that it was wasteful to use an armored division in city fighting.

Specifically, the tank regimental headquarters had little to do because

the largest tank formation deployed was a battalion. The after-action

report stipulated that only in rare situations should elements of an

armored division be sent to assist another division. Infantry had to be

specially trained to cooperate efficiently with tanks. Deploying tanks

without infantry was only successful when the enemy was demoralized

and lacked antitank weaponry. Local limited tank thrusts were

rewarded with success. On the defense, tanks were to be kept as local

reserves and used for counterattacks. The major threats were

close-range antitank weapons and sharpshooters. The after-action

report concluded that before being returned to 4th Panzer Army, the

division lost an exceptionally large number of tanks. Many of those

losses were unnecessary, the result of having to work with infantry

units whose leaders had no idea of tanks’ strengths and weaknesses.51

Engineers were vital to the combined arms team, but the division

commander had serious decisions to make. The engineers maintained

the LOC, but when they were also needed for combat engineer

missions, the commander had to choose how to allocate them. The 24th

Panzer Division recommended deployment by company or platoon.

For urban combat they had to be fully equipped with light and heavy

infantry weapons and antitank weapons. One of the major problems for

German engineers at Stalingrad was their inability to detect rapidly and

remove Russian wooden mines.

The Germans had several types of tracked antitank guns. They were

very useful in Stalingrad where rubble and partially knocked-down

walls provided them with cover up to their hulls. Deployed hull defilade

behind infantry, they proved highly effective. Deploying them in the

front line, however, made these open-top vehicles too vulnerable to

enemy artillery, hand grenades, and sharpshooters. In the defense, they

had to be kept even farther back because of enemy observers.

Ammunition resupply was difficult for the vehicles. By 1942, it was

clear that the version with the 5-cm gun was obsolete.52

Regarding individual weapons and systems, the 5-cm antitank

vehicle gained notice not only for its insufficient firepower but also for

51
its lack of maneuverability. In autumn 1942, German army divisions

still did not have telescopic rifles. The 24th Panzer Division concluded

that there were numerous instances when marksmen with telescopic

sights could have suppressed resistance nests and prevented casualties.

The 8-cm mortar proved effective, as did the 7.5-cm infantry cannon.

The 15-cm infantry cannon, however, was too difficult to maneuver in

the rubble and proved difficult to resupply.

The report concluded with several recommendations. It urged that

the armored and armored artillery regiments receive 2-cm antiaircraft

guns. The armored infantry needed a company of tracked heavy

infantry cannons. Each panzer battalion required one or two platoons of

fully motorized engineers. It also recommended further use of Russian

volunteers in armored infantry units. Finally, armored personnel

carriers were required to evacuate the wounded completely out of the

combat area rather than just to the closest aid station.53

These immediate “fixes” indicate the lethality of Russian air

operations, insufficient armored infantry firepower in taking out point

targets, and insufficient combat infantry and engineers. Since this was

one of the most powerful, best-equipped German divisions, one

wonders about both the German and Russian infantry units that had

much less maneuverability and striking power. This helps explain the

phenomenally high casualties of the 13th Guard Rifle Division that was

deployed to Stalingrad without its heavy weapons.

Following the visit of a general staff officer to southern Russia on 28

August, the German General Staff’s senior medical officer warned

Army Group B’s doctors that in the hot summer months the soldiers

should have an improved diet. What was required was a lower fat diet.

Soldiers complained of bread that arrived with mold. Sixth Army could

do little to alleviate these problems. The plague of flies lasted until the

first freeze. The main problem was that Stalingrad was simply too

distant to logistically support. After the 6th Army was encircled, its

combat troops were supposed to receive a diet of 200 grams of bread per

day. Staff and rear area personnel were to receive only 100 grams.54

When 6th Army soldiers rapidly began to die in December without

detectable symptoms, Berlin flew a pathologist into the pocket. He

found that 6th Army soldiers had the medical problems of old men:

changes in bone marrow and internal organs and loss of fatty tissue. The

actual cause of death was shrinking of the heart. The right ventricle,

however, was enlarged. The pathologist concluded that this resulted

from exhaustion, exposure, and undernourishment. Ziemke and Bauer

suggest that this phenomenon was probably related to the unique

52
circumstances of being encircled by enemy forces.55 It remains possible

that not all this damage resulted from the period after the encirclement.

The cumulative stress and malnutrition of the previous months’ combat

may have contributed to this condition.

There is one additional factor that must be mentioned, although it is

rather nebulous and remains nearly impossible to quantify.

Nevertheless, perhaps Stalingrad’s most important revelation was how

city fighting impinged on the strategic level of warfare. Regardless of

the lack of wisdom behind advancing into southern Russia in 1942,

Stalingrad played only a peripheral role in that offensive. Throughout

the course of the campaign, however, possession of the city dominated

Hitler’s thinking. On four occasions, General Paulus reported that city

fighting was eroding his army’s combat power, but the city had already

become a matter of prestige. Hitler made one of his rare public

appearances on 30 September at the Sportpalast in Berlin. He displayed

irritation at the world press’s fixation with the Dieppe Raid while

ignoring his advance to the Caucasus and Volga. He stated twice that

Stalingrad would fall and concluded, “You can be certain no one will

get us away from there.”56 Several days later at one of his military

briefings he confessed that Stalingrad was no longer of decisive

operational importance but, rather, vital for public opinion around the

world and to bolster the morale of Germany’s allies. Somehow, a city of

relatively minor significance had become a crucial factor in national

decision making. Whether this was an isolated miscalculation of a

dictator without formal military training or a general tendency in the

course of Western warfare gives pause for serious reflection.57

We shall never know with certainty the losses caused by the

Stalingrad campaign. Approximately 250,000 Axis troops were lost,

along with 1,000 tanks and 1,800 guns. Most of the Axis troops were

German, but there were 50,000 Austrians killed along with smaller

numbers of Romanians, Croatians, and Italians. We also know that

there were approximately 50,000 Russian volunteers (Hilfswillige)

with the German 6th Army, none of whom probably survived the

struggle. Of the Axis losses, 150,000 were killed or wounded by

January 1943. No one knows the Russian losses, which are estimated at

being from four to eight times those of the Axis, and no one knows how

many of those losses were civilians.58

53
Notes

The author would like to thank the following, who greatly helped with their

time, knowledge, and consideration: Colonel L.C. Edwards, S.B. Gray, Dr.

Tim Mulligan, N.E. Sopolsky, and Dr. R.J. Spiller.

1. Roger J. Spiller, Sharp Corners: Urban Operations at Century’s

End (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 2001), 50-55; Walther

Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 1939-45, trans. by R.H. Barry (NY:

Frederick Praeger, 1966), 267-86; and Timothy W. Ryback, “Stalingrad:

Letters From the Dead,” New Yorker (1 February 1993), 58-71.

2. Spiller, 50-55; Ryback, 58-71; Records of the German Foreign

Ministry, file “Russland (Abwehr) Vertreter des Auswaertigen Amts beim

Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres,” Der Vertreter des Auswaertigen Amts bei

einem AOK, Nr. 657g. A.H.Qu. den 10. Oktober 1942, Stalingrad, signed V.

Schubert (hereafter V. Schubert, Stalingrad).

3. John Erickson, The Road to Stalingrad: Stalin’s War With Germany, Vol. I (NY: Harper & Row, 1975), 298-342; Hitler’s War Directives

1939-1945, H.R. Trevor-Roper, ed. (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1965),

116-21; Hans Doerr, Der Feldzug nach Stalingrad (Darmstadt, GE: E.S.

Mittler & Sohn, GmbH, 1955), 120-24; and Earl F. Ziemke and Magda E.

Bauer, Moscow to Stalingrad: Decision in the East (Washington, DC: Center

of Military History, 1987), 287-324.

4. Erickson, 343-93; Hitler’s War Directives, Directive No. 45, 23 July

1942, 129-31; Manfred Kehrig, Stalingrad Analyse und Dokumentation einer

Schlacht (Stuttgart, GE: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), 69-86; and

Rolf-Dieter Mueller, “Das Scheitern der wirtschaftliche ‘Blitzkriegtrategie,’”

in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol. IV, edited by the

Militaergeschichtlichen Forschungsamt (Stuttgart, GE: Deutsche

Verlags-Anstalt, 1983), 936-71. See also H. Dv. g. 90, Versorgung des

Feldheeres, OKH/GenStdH/Gen.Qu., 1938, and H. Dv. g. 11a/2 Erfahrungen

aus dem Ostfeldzug fuer Versorgungsfuehrung 1943, OKH/GenStdH/GenQu

2 Nr. I/17591/42.

5. See previous note. See also Pz AOK 4 file 28183/17 Chef-Notizen

zum KTB Nr. 5 (Teil III), entry for 8 September 1942.

6. KTB/OKH/GenStdH/Organisations Abt., 1 August-31 December

1942, Microcopy T-78/roll 417/frames 6386529-531; Spiller, 50-55; Doerr,

30-52; and Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin: The German Defeat in the East (NY:

Fromm Int’l, January 1986), 17-19.

7. AOK 6 Ia Az.Nr. 3044/42 g.K. A.H.Qu. den 19. August 1942,

Armeebefehl fuer den Angriff auf Stalingrad, reprinted in Doerr, 127-29; see

also 40-45; and Battle for Stalingrad The 1943 Soviet General Staff Study,

54
Louis Rotundo, ed. (Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s International

Defense Publishers, Inc., 1989), 26-30, 41-68. The pertinent German Army

manual for city or trench warfare was Geheim Merkblatt, Angriff gegen eine

staendige Front (StoBtrupps).

8. Spiller, 50-55; Anthony Beevor, Stalingrad (NY: Viking Press,

1998), 119; and Ziemke, 37-42.

9. Vasili I. Chuikov, The Battle of Stalingrad, trans. by Harold Silver

(NY: Ballantine Books, 1964), 50-72; Battle for Stalingrad: The 1943 Soviet

General Staff Study, 229-57; Klaus Maier, “Total Krieg und Operativer

Luftkrieg,” in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol. 2, edited by

Militaergeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Stuttgart, GE: Deutsche

Verlags-Anstalt, 1979, 43-69; Kenneth R. Whiting, “Soviet Air Power in

World War II,” Air Power and Warfare, Proceedings of the 8th Military

History Symposium, U.S. Air Force Academy, 18-20 October 1978, Alfred F.

Hurley and Robert C. Ehrhart, eds. (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force

History, 1977), 98-127; Cajus Bekker, The Luftwaffe War Diaries, trans. by F.

Ziegler (London: Macdonald, 1964); and Spiller, 50-55.

10. V. Schubert, Stalingrad; V. Schubert’s Nr. 667, Inf 2081 Mg.

A.H.Qu., dem 26. Oktober, Inh.: Stimmung der Bevoelkerung; Der Vertreter

des Auswaertigen Amts bei einem Panzer AOK. Nr. 126, OU den 13. Oktober

1942, Geheim, Betr.: Fahrt nach Stalingrad, signed Muehlen; AOK 6,

Fuehrungsabteilung KTB Bericht ueber eine Fahrt nach Stalingrad, Menzel,

Major i.G. V.O./OKH b. AOK 6 of 25.9.42; and Spiller, 50-60.

11. Ziemke, 37-41.

12. The NKVD eventually relented and allowed some women and

children across the Volga. See Chuikov, 50-168; Beevor, 92-144; and Ziemke,

37-43.

13. Doerr, 55-61, and Ziemke, 41-42.

14. Erickson, 343-93, and Ziemke, 23-36.

15. One of his senior advisers attempted to defend List, which precipitated one of Hitler’s most violent outbursts against the officer corps. The dictator announced that he would no longer eat his meals with the officers and

directed that stenographers be brought in from Berlin to take down all conversations. Warlimont, 241-60, and Beevor, 123. Warlimont maintained that

Halder’s departure was precipitated by the latter’s argument with Hitler on 24

August. See also Kurt Zeitzer, “Stalingrad,” The Fatal Decisions: Six Decisive

Battles of the Second World War From the Viewpoint of the Vanquished, William Richardon and Seymour Freidin, eds., trans. by Constantine Fitzgibbon,

(London: Michael Joseph, 1956), 115-65. The new chief of the General Staff

somehow forgot to mention his opening speech but did note that the atmosphere

was clouded by mistrust and suspicion.

16. Chuikov, 86-116; Beevor, 129-45.

55
17. On 18 September, the 6th Army reported there were severe shortages

of 10-cm cannon, 8-cm mortar, 5-cm, and 7.5-cm (antitank) shells. AOK 6 Abt

Ia, Tagesmeldung, A.H.Qu. den 18.9.42 in folder AOK 6 Fuehrungsabteilung

Anlagenband zum KTB Nr. 13, Russland. General Chuikov claims that he

ordered his troops to maintain such close physical proximity, which is

probably true. Where the idea originated remains open to question, Chuikov,

80.

18. Records of the German 6th Army, V.O./OKH.b. AOK 6, A.J.Wue.,

25.9.42, Bericht ueber eine Fahrt nach Stalingrad, signed Menzel.

19. Chuikov, 116-94; Ziemke, 44-46; and Ziemke and Bauer, 382-470.

20. Ziemke, 48-49. Fremde Heere Ost was the German Army

intelligence organization that monitored the Soviet Union.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid., 50-52.

23. Whiting; Maier; and Bekker, 278-94.

24. Ziemke, 52-55.

25. Warlimont, 285; and Ziemke, 55-65.

26. Stalingrad Memories and Reassessments, Joachim Wieder and

Heinrich Graf von Einsiedel, eds., trans. by Helmut Bogler (London: Arms &

Armour Press, 1998), 67.

27. Records of the German Foreign Office, Der Vertreter des Auswaertigen

Amts beim Pz.-AOK 4 (number four crossed out), A.H.Qu., den 6. Oktober 1942,

Betr.: Stimmung der russischen Truppe unter der psychologischen Wirkung des

Stalin-Befehls, in folder Russland (Abwehr).

28. Ziemke, 79-80.

29. KTB A.O.K. 6 Ia, 17. Oktober 1942, file 30155/33, reproduced on

microcopy T-312, roll 1458, frames 961-63.

30. See, for example, Chuikov, 39-41 and 80-93; and Beevor, 127-29,

141-57.

31. Chuikov, 92-93, and Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the

Twentieth Century, Colonel General G.F. Krivosheev, ed. (London: Greenhill

Books, 1997), 123-25.

32. Chuikov, 107.

33. Ibid., 131-36; and Zhukov, 373.

34. KTB A.O.K. 6 Ia, 17. Oktober 1942, file 30155/33, reproduced on

microcopy T-312, roll 1458, frames 961-63.

35. V.O./OKH b. AOK 6, Bericht ueber eine Fahrt nach Stalingrad, A.H.

Wu. 25.9.42 signed Menzel. Excluded from these totals are support troops,

lightly wounded soldiers, and soldiers on leave or on detail.

36. Records of the 24th Panzer Division, Anlage 5 z. 24.Pz.-Div. Ia/Op.

Nr. 365/42 geh. of 10.11.42, Taetigkeitsbericht der Sanitaets-Dienst vom

28.6. bis 31.10.1942.

56
37. AOK 6 KTB, Frontfahrt des Oberbefehlshabers am 28.9.1942 in

folder Ia/Ic Anlagenband z KTB 13, Russland.

38. Ibid.

39. Records of the 24th Panzer Division, Anlage 2 zu 24. Pz.-Div.Ia Nr.

347/42 geh. V.5.11.1942, Richtlinien fuer Zusammenarbeit zwischen Panzer

und Grenadieren.

40. Richtlinien fuer Zusammenarbeit zwischen Panzer und Grenadieren.

41. AOK 6 KTB, V.O./OKH bei AOK 6, A.H.Qu. den 27.9.42 an

OKH/Op.Abt. Bezug: Fernspruch vom 19.9.betr. abgeschossene, fabrikneue

Feindpanzer in folder Ia/Ia Anlagenband z KTB Nr.13, Russland.

42. AOK 6 KTB, XIV. Pz.K. 1.10.42 Oblt. Schaefer-Hansen, 22.45(Uhr)

in folder Ia/Ic Anlagenband z KTB Nr. 13, Russland; and Richtlinien fuer

Zusammenarbeit zwischen Panzer und Grenadieren.

43. Richtlinien fuer Zusammenarbeit zwischen Panzer und Grenadieren.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. Ibid.

47. AOK 6 Ia Lagenmeldung, 24.9.42 (LI Corps) in folder Ia/Ic/AO

Anlagenband z KTB Nr. 13, Russland.

48. When Zhukov briefed Stalin on 12 September on the specific

difficulties of fighting in Stalingrad, he mentioned that the Germans held

several key elevations. This allowed them to mass and shift artillery fire. See

Zhukov, 380-82. AOK 6 Ia Zwischenmeldung Datum 28.9.42, LI.A.K. meldet

16.45 Uhr in folder Ia/Ic Anlagenband z. KTB Nr. 13, Russland.

49. See Beevor, 148-49.

50. See also AOK 6 Abt Ia, Tagesmeldung A.H.Qu. den 18.9.42 and AOK

6 Ia Zwischenmeldung, A.H.Qu den 20.9.42 both in folder Ia/Ic Anlagenband

z KTB Nr. 13, Russland. Richtlinien fuer Zusammenarbeit zwischen Panzer

und Grenadieren.

51. Ibid. On 4 October, the 24th Panzer Division was able to deploy

thirty-eight tanks: two command tanks, nine short-barreled Mark IIIs,

seventeen long-barreled Mark IIIs, and five short-barreled and five

long-barreled Mark IV tanks. See AOK 6 Ia Morgenmeldung Datum 4.10.42,

4.50 Uhr in folder Ia/Ic Anlagenband z KTB Nr. 13, Russland.

52. Richtlinien fuer Zusammenarbeit zwischen Panzer und Grenadieren.

53. Ibid.

54. AOK 6 KTB, Der Heeresintendant im OKH GenSt.dH./GenQu. Az

809 z(I.3) Nr. I/35/800/42 H.Qu.OKH den 23.8.1942 An Armeeintendant 6 in

folder Ia/Ic/AO Anlagenband z KTB Nr. 13, Russland; and Stalingrad

Memories and Reassessments, 51.

55. Ziemke, 69.

57
56. Ian Kershaw, Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis (NY: W.W. Norton & Co.,

November 2000), 534-57;“Der Fuehrer sprach zum deutschen Volk,” Ost

Front, 1 October 1942, Folge 413 (Ausgabe A) in AOK 6 KTB, folder Ia/Ic

Anlagenband z KTB 13, Russland; and Ziemke, 44.

57. Stalingrad Memories and Reassessments, 22; and Hitler’s

Lagebesprechungen, Helmut Heiber, ed. (Stuttgart, GE: Deutsche VerlagAnstalt 1962).

58. The Red Army captured some 91,000 Axis troops at Stalingrad. Of

that total, fewer than 6,000 ever returned home. Soviet Casualties and Combat

Losses, 124; Beevor, 439-40; and Ryback.

58
Bibliography

Unpublished Sources

Documents

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Records of the German Foreign Office

Records of the German Army

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Macdonald, 1964.

Beevor, Anthony. Stalingrad. NY: Viking Press, 1998. A popular account by a

journalist.

Chuikov, Vasili I. The Battle of Stalingrad. Trans. by Harold Silver. NY:

Ballantine Books, 1964. The invaluable memoirs of the Red Army

commander in Stalingrad.

Doerr, Hans. Der Feldzug nach Stalingrad. Darmstadt: E.S. Mittler & Sohn,

1955. An account of the German advance to Stalingrad by a General

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Erickson, John. The Road to Stalingrad: Stalin’s War Against Germany. Vol.

I. NY: Harper & Row, 1975. An indispensable source.

_______. The Soviet High Command 1918-1941. London: Macmillan, 1962.

An invaluable book on the subject.

Funke, Manfred. Editor. Hitler, Deutschland und die Maechte. Duesseldorf:

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Kehrig, Manfred. Stalingrad Analyse und Dokumentation einer Schlacht.

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Kershaw, Ian. Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis. NY: W.W. Norton & Company,

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Krivosheev, G.F. editor. Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the

Twentieth Century. (London: Greenhill Books, 1997.

59
Lewis, S.J. Forgotten Legions: German Army Infantry Policy, 1918-1941.

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Mueller-Hillebrand, Burkhardt. Das Heer, 1933-1945. Three volumes.

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Schmundt, Rudolf. Taetigkeitsbericht des Chef des Heerespersonalamts General der Infanterie Rudolf Schmundt 1.10.1942-29.10.1944. Edited by

Dermot Bradley and Richard Schulze-Kossens. Osnabrueck: Biblio

Verlag, 1994.

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Sidgwick and Jackson, 1965.

Voronov, N.N. Na sluzhbe voennoi. Moscow: Voevizdat, 1963. A troubled

manuscript by yet another Stavka representative to the Stalingrad area.

Voronov was an artillery officer.

Warlimont, Walther. Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 1939-45. Trans. by R.H.

Barry. NY: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966.

Wieder, Joachim and Heinrich Graf von. Einsiedel. Stalingrad: Memories and

Reassessments. Trans. by Helmut Bogler. London: Arms & Armour

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60
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memoir from the Soviet side. It provides a unique glimpse into senior

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61

“Knock ’em All Down”: The Reduction

of Aachen, October 1944

Christopher R. Gabel

The city of Aachen is located in western Germany, just a few miles

from the borders of Belgium and the Netherlands. It lies astride one of

the two historic axes of advance between France and Germany. In

World War II, it was the first major German city to come under direct

attack by Allied ground forces. Aachen was not, however, a significant

factor in Allied plans for the defeat of Nazi Germany. It was only by

chance that American ground troops found themselves involved in

urban operations in this ancient city.

The campaign that led to the assault on Aachen began on 6 June 1944

with Operation OVERLORD, the Allied invasion of Normandy. The

mission of the multinational force under General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s command was to “undertake operations aimed at the heart of

Germany and the destruction of her armed forces.”1

Initial progress toward this goal was slow, owing to frantic German

efforts to contain, if not eliminate, the Allied foothold in France. After a

prolonged battle of attrition in Normandy, on 25 July the Allies

launched Operation COBRA, a deliberate assault designed to break out

of the lodgment area. The Germans, who committed everything to a

cordon defense, lacked the means of preventing the breakout from

becoming a pursuit. During the month of August, the forces under

Eisenhower’s command liberated most of northwestern France,

Belgium, and Luxembourg. Eisenhower’s plan for this phase of the

campaign envisaged a twin thrust, with the British 21st Army Group on

the left, and the American 12th Army Group on the right. The American

army group, commanded by Lieutenant General Omar Bradley,

planned to cross from France into Germany by way of the “Metz

Corridor,” in the province of Lorraine. The British army group, under

Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, constituted the main effort.

Plans drawn up before the invasion called for this force to advance from

Liege to Cologne by way of the “Aachen Corridor.” It would then cross

the Rhine River and assault the vital Ruhr industrial region, the capture

of which would effectively destroy Germany’s ability to continue the

war. The Aachen axis not only constituted the most direct route

between Normandy and the Ruhr, but also carried the benefits of

proximity to air bases in England and to ports along the English

63
Channel. Had the Allies adhered to this plan, Aachen would have lain in

the path of British, not American, troops.

The circumstances of war often play havoc with plans, and the Allied

campaign against Germany was no exception. The rapidity of the

Allied pursuit across France prevented the creation of a systematic

logistics support base, thus making it essential that the Allies capture

quickly the channel ports along the coast of France and Belgium.

Another unforeseen demand was the urgent requirement to capture

bases along the same coast from which the Germans were launching

unmanned flying bombs, known to the Allies as the V-1, against

England. Accordingly, once Allied forces crossed the Seine River,

Eisenhower shifted 12th Army Group’s zone of advance northward,

along the channel coast. To maintain contact between the British and

American forces, Eisenhower split the 12th Army Group so that the

First U.S. Army passed north of the Ardennes, where it covered the

right flank of the British. Third Army proceeded alone into Lorraine.

This decision placed Aachen in the zone of Lieutenant General

Courtney H. Hodges’ First Army (see Map 1).

64

Normandy to the Border

Ruhr

NETH

BEL

FRANCE

GER

Mons

Aachen

Paris

Metz

Normandy

12th Army Group

Third Army

Rhine R.

Seine R.

21st Army Group

First Army

0 100

Miles

Map 1
One further development during the pursuit dictated which

American elements would find themselves fighting in Aachen. First

Army advanced northeastward from the Seine with three corps—XIX

Corps on the left, V Corps in the center, and VII Corps on the right. The

VII Corps, commanded by Major General J. Lawton Collins, was in

advance of the two corps to its left. As the pursuit unfolded, a large body

of German troops accumulated in front of XIX and V Corps. These

troops were remnants of the German Seventh and Fifteenth Armies that

were streaming toward Germany in disarray. On 1 September, Hodges

ordered Collins to wheel his corps ninety degrees to the left in an

attempt to trap the German elements being bulldozed along by his other

corps. Accordingly, VII Corps drove north to the vicinity of Mons,

Belgium, and on 3 September set up blocking positions to intercept the

fleeing enemy. Over the course of the next several days, elements of

twenty German divisions ran unaware into the trap. The “Mons Pocket”

netted a total of approximately 25,000 German prisoners.2 In executing

its pivot to the north, VII Corps pinched out V Corps to its left, and thus

became the center corps in First Army’s line. When the eastward

advance resumed, VII Corps found itself on the road to Aachen.

Collins’ VII Corps crossed the border into Germany on 12 September. Aachen, which lay just ten miles away, was virtually undefended.

However, the city was not even an objective at this time. Assuming that

the German army was beaten and that the pursuit across France and Belgium would continue into Germany, First Army expected to drive past

Aachen and proceed to the Rhine, forty miles beyond. Indeed, pursuit

was about all that First Army was capable of at this juncture. It entered

Germany 233 days ahead of the planned schedule for logistics support.3

Equipment and supplies were nearing exhaustion. In VII Corps, the 3d

Armored Division was down to one-third of its normal allotment of approximately 230 medium tanks.4 Supplies for the Army had to be

hauled by truck from Normandy, a procedure that had largely ceased to

be cost effective. (The trucks hauling supplies for 12th Army Group

consumed as much gasoline as either one of the two field armies.)

Within First Army, XIX Corps ran out of gas on 9 September and fell

behind in the advance to the border. On the day that VII Corps crossed

into Germany, First Army had to rely upon captured rations to feed the

troops. With priority placed upon the delivery of gasoline needed to

continue the pursuit, First Army would find it necessary to ration ammunition until mid-October. The logistics crisis moderated somewhat

on 18 September when rail service was advanced to Liege, Belgium,

but it would be months before the supply situation was fully resolved.5

65
Moreover, First Army was badly overextended. It reached the

German border on a front of eighty miles, of which the VII Corps front

was twenty miles. Doctrine for that era prescribed a front of five to ten

miles for a force the size of VII Corps.6 First Army had no reserves.

Such extended frontages had been advantageous during the pursuit, but

the Allies were about to learn that the pursuit was over. The

ever-dangerous German army was in the process of reconstituting after

its defeat in France. Determined to defend their homeland, the Germans

would enjoy the advantage of a fortified line, the Westwall, known to

the Allies as the Siegfried Line.

The Westwall was a band of some 3,000 mutually supporting

pillboxes, bunkers, and observation posts covering the entire western

border of Germany.7 Construction had begun on the Westwall in 1936,

when German forces occupied the Rhineland in defiance of the

Versailles Treaty that had ended World War I. The building effort

commenced in earnest in 1938 during the “Munich Crisis.” Since the

German conquest of France in 1940, the wall had lain unoccupied and

was in rather dilapidated condition. Still, the Westwall would prove to

be a significant combat multiplier for the defenders.

The Germans never supposed that the Westwall could stop an

invader cold. Its purpose was to slow down an attacker until mobile

counterattack forces could arrive. In a sense, this is what Adolf Hitler

intended in 1944. He ordered that the Allies be held at the Westwall

until forces could be amassed for a major counteroffensive through the

Ardennes. This counteroffensive, known to Americans as the Battle of

the Bulge, eventually took place in December.

Aachen was, for all practical purposes, a part of the Westwall. The

city nestled within two belts of bunkers and obstacles, one to the west of

the city and the other to the east. The Aachen sector was, in fact, one of

the most heavily fortified portions of the Westwall. Aachen itself,

however, was unfortified. It had little to commend it as a battleground

from either the German or the American perspective. As a defensive

position, Aachen was flawed by the fact that it lay in a depression with

higher ground on all sides. From the American point of view, Aachen

offered little as an objective. The existing road net made it perfectly

feasible to bypass the urban area altogether. Although Aachen was

home to some industry and coal mining, it was not vital to the German

war effort. Moreover, heavy Allied air raids had already damaged or

destroyed half of its buildings. Its prewar population of 165,000 had

dropped to fewer than 20,000 by September 1944. A mandatory

evacuation of civilians, ordered by Hitler himself, removed most of the

66
remainder. In light of what eventually occurred, it seems ironic that on

the day VII Corps entered Germany, the Americans intended to bypass

Aachen, and the German commander within Aachen intended,

apparently, to yield the city without a fight.8

Adolf Hitler had other ideas. He had no intention of yielding a

German city to the enemy, particularly a city with Aachen’s symbolic

significance. Aachen’s history extended back to Roman times, when it

was known as “Aquisgranum.” The Roman name derived from the hot

mineral springs located there, which the Romans converted into baths.

The supposed medicinal qualities of Aachen’s baths continued to

attract visitors into the twentieth century. More to the point, Aachen

was the capital city of Charlemagne’s European empire in the early

Middle Ages and was the coronation site for the Holy Roman Empire

from 813 to 1531. Hitler, who styled his regime the Third Reich (or

empire), considered the Holy Roman Empire founded by Charlemagne

to be the First Reich. It would not do to lose Charlemagne’s city to an

invader.

As a battleground, the city of Aachen in 1944 contained three

different types of urban terrain (see Map 2). The core of the city was a

relic of the Middle Ages, with crooked streets and close-packed

buildings. Masonry construction predominated here. To the north, on

higher ground, were the mineral springs and the resort hotels built

around them. Here the streets were wider and straighter, and much of

the area consisted of wooded parks around the resorts. Surrounding

both the downtown and resort areas was an industrial belt consisting of

factories, coal mines, and residential areas. The American soldiers who

eventually found themselves fighting in Aachen would at least have the

benefit of excellent maps (obtained in France) and, thanks to Allied air

superiority, access to aerial photographs.9 Although a complex

battlefield, Aachen would not be a mysterious one.

The battle of Aachen began on 12 September with neither side

intending to fight for the city itself. On that date, VII Corps began a

penetration of the Westwall south of the city in hopes that it would

quickly break through into the Cologne plain beyond. By 15 September

elements of the 1st Infantry Division and 3d Armored Division had

achieved penetrations, but progress was slow and casualties heavy (see

Map 3). Even when manned by second-rate troops, the fortifications of

the Westwall represented a formidable obstacle. Bad weather further

hampered the American drive. Rain-soaked ground limited off-road

mobility, and cloudy skies afforded the Germans an opportunity to

reinforce the Aachen sector without interference from Allied air power.

67
American intelligence officers noted the arrival of the first German

reinforcements on 14 September.10 By 17 September, the Germans had

strength enough to begin mounting counterattacks.

With progress effectively stalled by German resistance, bad

weather, and logistics scarcity, the American high command recognized that the pursuit was over. On 22 September, First Army went on

the defensive. By 24 September, the Rhine had ceased to be an immediate objective. Instead, First Army decided it would be necessary to reduce Aachen, which by now constituted a dangerous salient on the left

flank of VII Corps’ penetration of the Westwall.

When First Army resumed offensive operations a week later, the

first order of business was to encircle Aachen. On 2 October, XIX

Corps launched a deliberate assault against the Westwall north of the

city. Twenty-six artillery battalions and 432 tactical aircraft bombarded

German positions, following which the 30th Infantry Division attacked

eastward, forcing a crossing of the Wurm River and entering the

Westwall. Neither the air nor the artillery preparations had much impact

upon the Westwall fortifications, so the infantry, organized into small

68

VII Corps Penetrates Westwall

Aachen

1st

Infantry

Division

3d

Armored

Division

Westwall

Westwall

Miles

0 5

Map 2
teams, proceeded to reduce the pillboxes one by one with grenades,

pole charges, and flamethrowers. The 2d Armored Division began

crossing into the slowly expanding bridgehead on 3 October. By 6

October, the 30th Infantry Division had penetrated the Westwall and

turned south, with the 2d Armored Division facing east to protect the

infantry’s left flank. The German reaction to this incursion was

vigorous but uncoordinated. Violent, piecemeal counterattacks began

on 4 October. Among the German troops committed to stopping the

30th Infantry Division was a depleted grenadier regiment withdrawn

from the garrison in Aachen (see Map 4).11

On 7 October, First Army ordered the 1st Infantry Division to attack

north toward the 30th, forming the southern jaw of the encirclement.

The 18th Infantry Regiment, which drew the assignment, attacked

laterally along the Westwall through suburban and industrial terrain.

The regiment formed special pillbox assault teams built around

flamethrowers, Bangalore torpedoes, and demolition charges.

Reinforcing the regiment were a battery of self-propelled 155mm guns,

a company of self-propelled tank destroyers, and a company of M4

69

Encirclement

Aachen

30th Infantry Division

1st

Infantry

Division

0 5

Miles

Map 3
“Sherman” tanks. An air liaison officer accompanied each battalion.

Eleven artillery battalions and a company of 4.2-inch mortars provided

supporting fires. The 18th Infantry’s mission was to advance 2.5 miles,

capturing three hills that lay consecutively along its route. The first of

these, Verlautenheide, fell to the Americans in a predawn attack on 8

October that followed closely upon a heavy artillery bombardment. On

the afternoon of the same day, the 18th Infantry took the second

elevation, called Crucifix Hill, once again by hitting the German

defenders just as the artillery prep lifted. For its attack on the third and

final hill, the 18th Infantry changed its tactics. On the night of 9

October, two companies infiltrated among the German pillboxes and

occupied the crest of Ravel’s Hill without firing a shot. After clearing

the bypassed enemy positions, the 18th dug in and awaited the advance

of the 30th Infantry Division from the north.12

With the Americans perched precariously on Ravel’s Hill, the gap

between 1st Infantry Division in the south and 30th Infantry Division in

the north was just over a mile wide. However, German reinforcements

continued to arrive. General Friedrich J. Koechling’s LXXXI Corps,

70

Map 4
defending the Aachen sector, began to receive elements of the I SS

Panzer Corps consisting of the depleted 3d Panzer Grenadier and 116th

Panzer Divisions. Koechling’s mission was to eliminate the American

penetrations of the Westwall. However, the pressure of events forced

him to commit the arriving elements piecemeal rather than massing

them for a general counteroffensive. Consequently, both the 30th and

1st Infantry Divisions were able to hold their ground in the face of

repeated counterattacks and artillery bombardments, but only with

massive artillery and air support. It would take the 30th Infantry

Division another week to close the gap.

At this juncture, First Army decided to proceed with the reduction of

Aachen itself, even though the encirclement was incomplete. First

Army arrived at this decision not so much from a desire to own Aachen,

but from a need to shorten the American lines and free up the forces

containing Aachen so they could be used to counter the German forces

arriving from the east. In essence, the reduction of Aachen was a

secondary effort. First Army’s main effort was the encirclement battle

east of the city. This being the case, the only forces immediately

available for the capture of Aachen were two battalions of the 1st

Infantry Division.

Fortunately for the Americans, the defense of downtown Aachen

was also a secondary priority for the Germans, who were more concerned with eliminating the penetrations of the Westwall north and

south of town. The garrison of Aachen proper consisted primarily of the

246th Volksgrenadier Division, minus four of its seven infantry battalions. Volksgrenadier divisions, which first appeared in the German order of battle in the autumn of 1944, were hastily constituted formations

composed largely of survivors from other divisions wrecked in battle.

These divisions lacked a full complement of artillery, but were abundantly provided with automatic weapons as compensation. The commander of the 246th Volksgrenadier was Colonel Gerhard Wilck. Also

under Wilck’s command were elements of two “fortress battalions”

(static-defense forces composed of second-rate troops), some Luftwaffe

(air force) ground troops, and 125 city policemen. To support his infantry, Wilck had five Panzer IV medium tanks armed with high-velocity

75mm guns, and 32 artillery pieces ranging in caliber from 75mm to

150mm.13 Perhaps the most dangerous weapons in Wilck’s arsenal

were panzerfausts, hand-held recoilless antitank weapons that delivered a hollow-charge warhead capable of penetrating eight inches of armor. The main drawback of the panzerfaust was its short range—30 to

71
80 meters—but in the close confines of urban fighting it could be

deadly.14

Wilck assumed command in Aachen on 12 October, one day before

the American assault on the city began. He established his headquarters

in the luxurious Hotel Quellenhof, located in the resort district on the

north side of town. Wilck’s position was not an enviable one. Hitler

himself had ordered a “last stand” in Aachen, and Wilck was aware that

soldiers who failed to do their duty could expect their families to face

retribution from the German secret police. Yet, his force numbered

only some 5,000 troops of uneven quality, exclusive of reinforcements

that would become available during the fight.15

Although he did not know it, Wilck’s force outnumbered by a ratio of

three or four to one the Americans who would launch the attack on

Aachen. Moreover, the two battalions of the 1st Infantry Division given

the task of reducing Aachen had no experience in urban operations. At

best, they had received word-of-mouth accounts of urban fighting

conducted by other units, and that news was far from reassuring.

Published doctrine would have been little help to the Americans.16

The closest that the relevant field manuals came to urban operations

doctrine was a few pages on fighting in towns and villages. There were

no references to major cities. Moreover, those manuals made it clear

that reducing a town by “frontal attack” was the least preferable means

of coping with such objectives. They recommended enveloping the

town or avoiding it altogether.

On the other hand, published doctrine presented a fairly accurate

picture of the type of defense one could expect to encounter in a builtup

area. The manuals predicted that the enemy would defend in depth

throughout the town, and that buildings and especially cellars would be

fortified into strongpoints capable of all-round defense. Perhaps the

most helpful piece of advice found in the manuals was to warn that

streets would be swept by fire, and that the best way for infantry to

advance would be to pass from building to building by piercing holes in

the walls.

As for the actual tactics to be employed, the manuals advocated

methodical, firepower-intensive procedures. Operations would of

necessity be decentralized, due to the lack of observation. Units should

advance in a series of bounds, reducing strongpoints one by one with

artillery bombardments followed closely by infantry assaults. Frequent

halts along phase lines (main streets) would be necessary to restore

contact among adjacent units. As for tanks, doctrine suggested rather

72
unhelpfully that “opportunities will present themselves frequently

where the support of tanks in such situations becomes desirable.”17

One might argue that the Army’s published doctrine was sound in

general principle, but clearly the American troops assaulting Aachen

would have to work out the details for themselves. One factor working

in the Americans’ favor was that the force given the mission was among

the most experienced units in the U.S. Army. The 1st Infantry

Division’s 26th Infantry Regiment, commanded by Colonel John F.R.

Seitz, had been in action since the invasion of North Africa in

November 1942. Two of the regiment’s three battalions were available

for the reduction of Aachen—the 2d, commanded by Lieutenant

Colonel Derrill M. Daniel, and the 3d, under Lieutenant Colonel John

T. Corley. Expecting that the German defenses in Aachen would be

oriented to the south, where American forces had been in position for a

month, the commander of the 1st Infantry Division, Major General

Clarence R. Huebner, directed the two assault battalions to swing

around to the east and attack the city along an east-west axis. The

1106th Engineer Combat Group, consisting of two battalions, received

the mission of holding the perimeter on the southern side of Aachen

while the attack crossed its front.

Colonel Seitz assigned to the 2/26 the mission of clearing the heart of

downtown Aachen. On its right, the 3/26 was designated the main

effort, its objectives being the hills on the north side of the city,

Salvatorberg and Lousberg. Both battalions received orders to remove

all civilians encountered. The Americans intended that no Germans,

civilian or military, would remain unaccounted for behind U.S. forces

as they advanced through the city.

From 8 to 12 October, the two assault battalions worked their way up

to jump-off positions east and southeast of Aachen, taking the

opportunity to practice tactics and techniques of urban fighting as they

advanced. By nightfall of 12 October, the 2/26 on the left had drawn up

to the foot of the railroad embankment of the Aachen-Cologne railway.

To its right, the 3/26 occupied its line of departure in the industrial area

just east of Aachen proper (see Map 5).

Meanwhile, on 10 October Major General Huebner delivered an

ultimatum to the garrison of Aachen giving the Germans twenty-four

hours to surrender. When the ultimatum expired unanswered on 11

October, the Americans began a two-day preparatory bombardment of

the city. Twelve battalions of VII Corps and 1st Infantry Division

artillery poured 4,800 rounds into the city on 11 October, to which four

air groups of the IX Tactical Air Command, totaling some 300

73
fighter-bombers, added 62 tons of bombs. Another 5,000 shells and 99

tons of bombs hammered the city on 12 October.18 It is not likely that

this display of firepower had much impact on the German defenders,

who had long since established themselves in basements, bunkers, air

raid shelters, and other protected positions.

The 1106th Engineer Group, overlooking Aachen from its positions

on the high ground south of the city, made its own unique contribution

to the preparatory fires. The engineers loaded streetcars with captured

explosives, to which they attached time fuses, and then set them rolling

downhill into the city center. The 1106 dispatched three of these

weapons, which the engineers dubbed “V-13s.” The first V-13

exploded prematurely, and the second derailed on the wreckage of the

first. After a patrol succeeded in clearing the tracks, the third V-13

rolled into the heart of Aachen and exploded, without discernible

impact on the German defenses.19

In analyzing the reduction of Aachen itself, it is important to

recognize that the two American battalions involved faced different

74

13-15 October

0

Miles

1/2

Wilck’s New HQ

Hotel Quellenhof

2/26

3/26

St.

Elizabeth’s

Farwick

Park

1106 Engineer Group

Hindenburg Strasse

Railroad

Juelicher Strasse

Map 5
challenges and fought different battles. For analytical purposes, it is

best to treat the two battalions separately.

The 2/26, given the mission of clearing the densest part of the old

city, conducted a methodical, specialized urban operation. Fortunately,

Lieutenant Colonel Daniel, the battalion commander, wrote a detailed

account after the war of the methods employed.20 His preparations

began with a reconfiguration of his battalion that integrated the combat

arms at the small-unit level. Each rifle company became a task force. In

addition to the company’s three organic rifle platoons and weapons

platoon (light machine guns and 60mm mortars), Daniel added three

tanks or tank destroyers, which the company then assigned down to the

rifle platoons. The tanks, M4 Shermans, weighed approximately 35

tons and mounted general purpose 75mm main guns capable of firing

armor-piercing, high-explosive, and white phosphorus rounds. The

tank destroyers were M10s, based upon the M4 tank, that mounted

high-velocity 75mm guns highly valued for their ability to penetrate

walls and fortifications. It should be noted that the M4 and M10, both of

which were about twenty feet long and nine feet wide, were small

enough to maneuver even in the close confines of an urban

environment.21 Daniel further augmented each of the rifle companies

with two 57mm antitank guns, drawn from the regimental antitank

company, two bazooka teams, one flamethrower, and two heavy

machine guns (water-cooled .30 caliber weapons capable of sustained

fire).22

Each of the 2/26’s companies was assigned a zone of advance, within

which each platoon, with its accompanying tank or tank destroyer, was

assigned a specific street to clear. Using the detailed maps at his

disposal, Daniel set up a “measles system” in which all intersections

and prominent buildings were numbered to speed up communication

and ensure coordination among the battalion’s elements. Daniel further

ordered that constant, positive liaison be maintained between adjacent

units at all times. As units advanced, Daniel mandated stops at

designated checkpoints for the reestablishment of contact along the

line. Offensive operations halted at nightfall along designated phase

lines (major streets) to avoid the confusion and loss of observation

inherent in night combat.23

Logistics posed a special set of problems for the 2/26. Anticipating

high expenditures of ammunition, Daniel improvised a mobile battalion ammunition dump that could keep pace with the advancing companies.24 To facilitate medical evacuation in the rubble-filled streets,

Daniel obtained some M29 cargo carriers, known as “Weasels.”25

75
These versatile little vehicles were fully tracked and measured only

10.5 feet long and 5.5 feet wide but could carry a payload of 1,200

pounds.26

On 13 October the reduction of Aachen began, with the two

battalions moving out in simultaneous but separate attacks. The first

obstacle that confronted the 2/26 was a railroad embankment, fifteen to

thirty feet high, that ran from southwest to northeast along the battalion

front. Three artillery battalions delivered a 23-minute preparatory fire

on the far side of the embankment, followed by a “grenade barrage,” in

which every man of the two lead companies tossed grenades over the

obstacle.27 At 0930 the troops clambered over the embankment, only to

find that the area behind was undefended. The embankment remained,

however, a formidable obstacle to the tanks and other vehicles. Two

tanks, though, succeeded in traversing the embankment when it was

discovered that vehicles could drive straight through a railroad station

built into the embankment, once a few walls had been knocked down.28

After clearing the embankment, the two assault companies pivoted left

so that they faced west. The 2/26’s third company filled in behind,

ready to take its place in the line.

On 14 October, the 2/26 began its methodical advance through

Aachen, though with one eye over its shoulder. Due to the intensity of

German counterattacks against the forces still attempting to complete

the encirclement, the 26th was warned to be ready to suspend its

advance and go over to the defense. Despite this distraction, Daniel put

all three of his companies on line and moved into the city.

With a front of some 2,000 yards (two to four times the frontage

prescribed by doctrine) and no reserve, the 2/26 relied upon patience,

thoroughness, and firepower to maintain its advance. The battalion’s

catchphrase for this operation was “Knock ’em all down.” There was no

attempt to avoid collateral damage; in fact, the troops displayed a

degree of enthusiasm in wrecking a German city. More pragmatically,

Daniel reasoned that German soldiers could not be expected to fight

effectively with buildings falling down around their ears.29 Stated

generally, Daniel’s procedure was to use all available firepower to pin

down the defenders and chase them into cellars, where the infantry

closed with and eliminated them with bayonet and grenade.

“Knock ’em all down” started with artillery fire. Heavy artillery

struck German lines of communication to isolate the battle area.

Medium artillery and mortars fired across the front itself. Artillerymen

used delayed fuses to ensure that rounds penetrated buildings before

exploding. Division and corps artillery was arrayed south of the city,

76
which allowed artillery to fire parallel to the front of troops fighting in

the city. With the danger of short rounds falling on American troops

thus minimized, artillerymen were able to adjust fires within yards of

the infantry lines. However, since the encirclement battle still raged, the

forces fighting in Aachen could not count upon artillery support all the

time.30

Tanks and tank destroyers assigned to the platoons were, on the other

hand, an ever-present source of mobile firepower. The American

troops, acutely aware of the dangers posed by German panzerfausts in

close-quarters fighting, developed combined arms tactics in which

infantry protected the armor from panzerfausts while the armor

engaged strongpoints that impeded the infantry. Platoons generally

kept their armor one street back from the street being cleared. The tank

or tank destroyer would nose cautiously around the corner and pour fire

into a specific building. Then, the infantry would assault the building,

whereupon the armor would shift fire to the next in line. Once the block

had been systematically cleared, all available weapons would fire into

every possible panzerfaust firing position while the armor dashed

forward into the street just cleared.31

As for the infantry, the rifle platoons stayed out of the streets as much

as possible. Heavy machine guns maintained steady fire up the streets

along the axis of advance, thus impeding German lateral movements,

while the American infantry moved from building to building by

blowing holes through adjoining walls with bazookas and demolition

charges. The preferred mode of clearing a building was to fight from the

top down, with grenades being the weapon of choice.32

The 2/26 eliminated every German position as it was encountered,

intentionally bypassing none. Every sewer manhole was blocked off to

prevent the reoccupation of positions behind American lines. In accordance with orders from higher headquarters, all civilians encountered

were evacuated from the city.

As fighting progressed on 14 October, the 2/26 received augmentation from VII Corps in the form of a self-propelled 155mm gun. (The

3/26 was likewise reinforced on this date.) This weapon fired a

95-pound armor-piercing projectile at a muzzle velocity of 2,800 feet

per second—sufficient kinetic energy to penetrate an entire block of

buildings. Daniel was strictly enjoined to take good care of this asset.33

At day’s end, the 2/26 reached its designated phase line, but a gap

remained between its right flank and the left of the 3/26 to the north.

Daniel blamed the 3/26 for anchoring its left on the wrong landmark.

77
Fortunately, the Germans did not exploit this gap, though the 2/26 did

lose one of its 57mm antitank guns to fire from this open flank.

The 2/26 continued its methodical advance on 15 October. It

achieved a linkup with the 3/26, thus securing its right flank. Company

G, on the left wing, encountered a massive three-story fortified

structure that proved to be a gigantic above-ground air raid shelter. One

burst of fire from the company’s flamethrower induced the surrender of

200 soldiers and 1,000 civilians sheltering behind the structure’s

fifteen-foot walls.34

At dusk, the Germans launched a counterattack in company strength,

with tank support, along Hindenburg Strasse. It took the 2/26 two hours

to contain the attack and restore the line. This action cost the Americans

one tank destroyer, one antitank gun, and a heavy machine gun. The

Germans lost one tank and about a platoon’s worth of infantry.35 This

would prove to be the largest single action that the 2/26 would fight

during the reduction of the city.

On the next morning, 16 October, the 1st and 30th Infantry Divisions

finally linked up east of Aachen, thus completing the encirclement of

the city. The Germans responded with heavy counterattacks, prompting

the 1st Infantry Division to suspend offensive operations within the city

as a precautionary measure. The 2/26 took advantage of the pause to

secure its position. On the battalion’s left flank, the 1106th Engineer

Group pivoted its right wing forward from its position south of the city

to conform to the 2/26. The battalion also decided to take measures

against a supposed pillbox spotted at the far end of Hindenburg Strasse.

Daniel brought up his attached 155mm self-propelled gun for the

purpose. To protect it, he ordered tank destroyers to fire into the

intervening cross streets. To protect the tank destroyers, infantry

secured the buildings within panzerfaust range of the armor. Once in

place, the 155 utterly demolished the “pillbox,” which later proved to

be a camouflaged tank.36

The 2/26 continued its methodical advance on 17 and 18 October

(see Map 6). The 1106th Engineer Group continued to displace forward

to cover the battalion’s flank. As it advanced, the 2/26’s front widened.

The 1st Infantry Division attached Company C (1/26 Infantry) to

Daniel’s command, where it assumed responsibility for a zone on the

right flank.37

During this period, the 2/26 found itself taking fire from the rear,

despite all its precautions to assure that no Germans were bypassed.

After a careful search, the Americans discovered that the fire was

78
coming from a church steeple that had been reinforced with concrete,

making it a fortified observation post. This position proved to be

impervious to both small arms and 75mm tank destroyer fire,

whereupon Daniel again called upon his 155mm artillery piece. One

shot from the 155 brought the entire structure crashing to the ground.38

This use of a 155mm gun as an anti-sniper weapon is perhaps the

epitome of “Knock ’em all down.”

The 2/26’s front continued to widen as it entered the western portion

of the city on 19 October. Another battalion, the 2/110 (28th Infantry

Division), was made available “for defensive missions only.”39 This

force, which had been battered in earlier fighting, occupied a gap that

emerged between the 2/26 and the 1106th Engineers. That same day,

operating in conjunction with the 3/26 to its right, elements of the 2/26

occupied the lower slopes of Salvatorberg.

On 20 October, the battalion’s right wing became embroiled in a

difficult battle for the Technical School. (Unknown to the Americans,

the German headquarters in Aachen was just a few blocks away in the

3/26 zone.) Conversely, resistance faded on the left as the battalion

neared the western edge of the city. The Technical School fell on 21

October, yielding several hundred prisoners. This was the last

organized resistance encountered by the 2/26. The battalion crossed a

railway embankment at the western edge of the city with a repeat of the

grenade barrage with which it had entered Aachen. It was securing the

ground beyond when word arrived that the German commander,

Colonel Wilck, had surrendered to the 3/26.40

Whereas the actions of the 2/26 in Aachen were largely in the nature

of a clearing operation against poorly organized defenders, the 3/26

experienced something more like a pitched battle. Its battlefield

environment was also different. Unlike the dense urban terrain that

confronted the 2/26, the 3/26 first encountered an industrial area, and

then advanced through the parks and resorts that covered the hills on the

north side of town. Control of those hills, which overlooked the city

center, was key to the possession of Aachen, a fact that both sides

recognized. Colonel Wilck placed the best of his defenders in the path

of the 3/26.

The 3/26 launched its attack on 13 October through factories and

apartment houses on the northeast side of Aachen (see Map 5).

Although its front was considerably narrower than that of the 2/26, the

3/26 advanced with both flanks open. After progressing steadily along

Juelicher Strasse for several hours, the battalion was halted by 20mm

cannon fire that drove the infantry out of the street, exposing two tanks

79
to panzerfaust fire. One tank was destroyed, and the other damaged and

abandoned by its crew. Some infantrymen later succeeded in retrieving

the damaged tank.41

On 14 October, the 3/26 concentrated two of its three companies in

the reduction of a German strongpoint in St. Elizabeth’s Church. By the

end of the day, elements of the battalion advanced to the edge of

Farwick Park, only a few blocks from Wilck’s headquarters in the Hotel

Quellenhof. In response, Wilck moved his headquarters to an air raid

bunker 1,200 yards west of the hotel. That evening, Wilck received the

only reinforcements that would come his way during the battle. SS

Battalion Rink, a task force of infantry and eight assault guns, reached

Wilck’s position after fighting its way past the U.S. 30th Infantry

Division. Although this force was rather badly depleted, as an SS unit it

was manned with the best, most fanatical personnel that Germany had

to offer. Wilck assigned this battalion the task of stopping the 3/26.42

The next day started out well for the 3/26. The battalion achieved a

linkup with the 2/26 on its left, securing one flank. The attack against

Farwick Park made steady progress, with the help of some 4.2-inch

mortars provided by division headquarters. Advancing across

once-luxurious lawns and gardens, the 3/26 reached the vicinity of the

Hotel Quellenhof, Wilck’s old headquarters, when SS Battalion Rink

counterattacked in force. The counterattack drove the Americans back

out of Farwick Park in disarray. Not until 1700 did the 3/26 stop the

German attack and stabilize its lines.43

Following this setback, the 3/26 went on the defensive for two days.

The American forces outside the city completed their encirclement on

16 October, in the face of heavy German counterattacks. The 3/26 used

the pause to lick its wounds and await reinforcements from VII Corps.

On the German side, Wilck knew that the 4,392 effectives at his

disposal on 16 October were not likely to be reinforced.44

The 3/26 resumed offensive operations on 18 October (see Map 6). A

patrol sent out beyond the right flank made contact with the 30th

Infantry Division, thus affording a degree of security in that direction.45

The battalion renewed its attack on Farwick Park, regained the ground

lost on 15 October, and assaulted the Hotel Quellenhof. After bitter

fighting through the once-luxurious rooms of the hotel, the Americans

forced their opponents into the basement and subdued them with

grenades and machine gun fire poured point-blank through the

windows. The 3/26 controlled Farwick Park by day’s end.46 The ground

gained on 18 October placed the 3/26 in position to attack Salvatorberg

and Lousberg, the key terrain in the battle for Aachen. What is more, the

80
battle for Hotel Quellenhof seems to have broken the back of SS

Battalion Rink and, thus, of the German defense in general.

For the final assault, VII Corps reinforced the 3/26 with Task Force

Hogan, consisting of one armored infantry battalion and one tank battalion (minus a medium tank company) from the 3d Armored

Division.47 The attack, coordinated by 1st Infantry Division headquarters, jumped off at 0730 on 19 October. Task Force Hogan, advancing on the right, passed behind Lousberg and attacked from the

northwest while the 3/26 attacked from the east. Both advances progressed steadily against weakening resistance. The 3/26 seized

Salvatorberg and moved onto the slopes of Lousberg proper. Task

Force Hogan’s advance cut the last possible escape routes for the Germans in Aachen and, at 1202, established contact with the 3/26 on

Lousberg.48

With defeat staring him in the face, Wilck sent out an order to his

command calling for a fight to the last man and bullet. How many

German troops received this directive is not known, but resistance

clearly was crumbling. On 20 October, as Task Force Hogan and the

81

18-21 October

0

Miles

1/2

Wilck’s

HQ Hotel Quellenhof

2/26

3/26

Technical School

2/110

Co C, 1/26

Farwick

Park

Farwick Salvatorberg

Salvatorberg

Lousberg

1106 Engineer Group

TF Hogan

Railroad

Map 6
3/26 cleared the last German troops from Lousberg, the issue was no

longer in doubt.

The end came on 21 October, when elements of the 3/26 closed in on

an air raid bunker south of Lousberg, unaware that it was Wilck’s

headquarters. Lieutenant Colonel Corley, the battalion commander,

dispatched his attached 155mm self-propelled gun to reduce the

position. Before the gun could open fire, Wilck sent out a white flag in

the hands of some American prisoners who were being held in the

bunker. He broadcast a last radio message proclaiming his loyalty to

Hitler and to Germany and then turned himself over to the 3/26. The

surrender of the Aachen garrison took effect at 1205.49

With the German communications system broken down, Wilck had

no means of communicating the surrender to most of his troops. The

Americans found it necessary to drive one of Wilck’s staff officers

around town in an armored car to collect the German troops still holding

out.50 The two battalions of the 26th Infantry, the 1106th Engineers, and

Task Force Hogan accounted for 1,600 German prisoners after Wilck’s

surrender, bringing the total haul of prisoners collected during the

reduction to 3,473.51

At 1615, the 26th Infantry reported, “Mission out here complete as of

now and are through with TF ‘Hogan.’”52 The regiment patrolled

Aachen for two more days, then was relieved by a field artillery battalion. Aachen was secured but, for the 26th Infantry, the war was far from

over. The next day it took up a position in the front lines facing east into

Germany.

The military garrison of Aachen was not the only group of Germans

with whom the victors had to contend. Some 7,000 civilians still

inhabited the city when the reduction began, and all of these had to be

evacuated and processed. Two agencies were responsible for handling

the civilians. The Counter Intelligence Corps screened the evacuees,

looking for any spies, would-be saboteurs, and high-ranking officials.

Suspected spies were to be turned over to the First Army Military

Commission for trial. German military deserters were sent to the

Provost Marshal for processing as prisoners of war. The task of the

Counter Intelligence Corps was greatly simplified by the Nazi regime’s

obsession with documentation—every German carried identity papers.

After the screening process, military government personnel registered

the evacuees and provided them with food and shelter.53

Of the 7,000 civilians in Aachen, approximately 6,000 were

removed in the course of the fighting. At first, the evacuees were simply

82
taken to an open field for screening by the Counter Intelligence Corps

before being removed to displaced persons camps behind Allied lines.

As the reduction of Aachen picked up pace and the number of evacuees

swelled, military government took over some German army barracks at

Brand, four miles from Aachen. Here the evacuees could be kept under

shelter (and behind fences) while the screening and registration took

place.54

Overall, the Americans responsible for handling the civilian

evacuees from Aachen found them to be passive, and even cooperative.

The hard-core Nazis had left town during the evacuation that preceded

the battle. Those who remained seemed to be quite content to let the

U.S. Army take care of them. After a decade of increasingly brutal Nazi

rule, not to mention the horrors that war had brought upon them, the

evacuees from Aachen found American military rule to be relatively

benign. The happiest group of evacuees was undoubtedly the Polish

and Russian forced laborers liberated by the Americans.55

Within captured Aachen itself, teams from the Counter Intelligence

Corps searched specific buildings for military information, but found

little. Other teams secured communications centers and collected all radio transmitters to prevent any stay-behind spies from communicating

with the outside. One report stated specifically that “no pigeons were

found.” This was in response to rumors that German spies behind

Allied lines were using homing pigeons to communicate with their

homeland. Counter Intelligence personnel in Aachen also screened

some 1,000 civilians who had avoided evacuation during the battle.56

It would appear that the Germans made no preparations for subversion against occupying forces in anticipation of the American capture

of Aachen. The Counter Intelligence Corps reported that there were no

confirmed cases of sabotage, no booby traps, and no resistance cells to

be found within the city.57 For all its prowess at the tactical and operational levels of war, Nazi Germany proved to be singularly inept at covert operations such as espionage, counterespionage, and subversion.

At no point in the Allied conquest of Germany did a coherent popular

resistance movement menace the occupying forces, Adolf Hitler’s rhetoric notwithstanding.

Urban operations may well represent the coming face of battle in an

increasingly urbanized world. Today there is a tendency to regard urban

operations as a distinct, rather esoteric form of warfare demanding

specialized military capabilities. As the foregoing account should make

clear, the reduction of Aachen posed challenges that invoked a certain

degree of innovation and adaptation. Most notable were the creation of

83
small, combined arms teams and the measures undertaken to cope with

civilians. What should not be overlooked, however, is the degree to

which the battle of Aachen resembled conventional combat, even

though it was fought in urban terrain.

First, it should be noted that Aachen was a linear battle, most

particularly in the sector of the 2/26. The battalion took great pains to

assure that all Germans were either in front of its line or on their way to

detention centers. It was remarkably successful in keeping the battle

linear. Even in the zone of the 3/26, where the situation was more fluid,

linearity prevailed.

Second, the tactics employed within Aachen embodied the standard

fire-and-maneuver concepts that were common to open-field battle of

the day. The tactical intent, which the Americans routinely accomplished, was to pound the enemy into helplessness with firepower, so

that when the infantry attacked, it encountered an enemy who was

ready to surrender. Much the same could be said for Army combined

arms doctrine in general, as practiced in World War II.

Third, it should be noted that both the attackers and defenders in

Aachen were conventional, “heavy” forces. The American forces were

able to shift from conventional to urban operations in a matter of days.

They possessed no equipment specially designed for urban operations,

nor did they have much in the way of formal doctrine to guide their

efforts. Although none of the American units involved had ever

reduced a city before, they did possess experience in fighting among the

close confines of the Normandy hedgerows. Not surprisingly, the task

organization and tactics employed in Aachen somewhat resemble those

used with success in Normandy.

The battle for Aachen challenges conventional wisdom in another

respect. Urban operations are commonly regarded as bloody, timeconsuming operations in which the defender can exact many times his

own number in enemy casualties. In Aachen, however, the defenders

outnumbered the attackers, and yet managed to hold out for only nine

days because of the American offensive methods and the incoherent nature of the German defense. The two battalions of the 26th Infantry

(plus attachments) that bore the brunt of the fighting in Aachen lost 75

killed, 414 wounded, and 9 missing in securing a city defended by over

5,000 enemy troops.58 For the U.S. Army, the true bloodbath of the

1944 campaign was not an urban operation, but rather the battle of the

Huertgen Forest.

84
The Germans, on the other hand, lost virtually all of the troops committed to Aachen. Over half of the total surrendered, despite Hitler’s admonition that they were to fight to the last man. A small number

probably succeeded in exfiltrating, but the rest were killed or wounded.

The German cause did not gain much from the sacrifice of these troops.

In two respects, however, the battle for Aachen bears out conventional wisdom. First, although Aachen itself was unfortified, war made

it a fortress. Stone walls erected for any purpose can be a significant

combat multiplier for a defender. Moreover, when the Americans reduced the city to rubble with artillery and air bombardment, they rendered buildings unfit for civilian use but did not destroy them as

fighting positions. Urban rubble is as much of a problem for an attacker

as intact buildings would be.

Second, Aachen showed that civilians add an inescapable dimension

to urban operations. Despite two mandatory evacuations (one by the

German government before the battle, and one by the Americans during

it), an estimated 1,000 civilians were still in the city when Wilck

surrendered the German garrison. Although this number represents

only a small fraction of the city’s prewar population, it was large

enough to require the attention of the victors. Future planners can never

assume away the presence of civilians during urban operations.

In the context of the U.S. Army’s 1944 campaign in Europe, urban

operations were not a major problem. Partly by chance and partly by

planning, Americans avoided combat in truly large cities such as Paris

and Berlin. When they did have to fight in builtup areas, U.S. troops

adapted and pushed on. Given the intensity of the war, “Knock ’em all

down” served admirably as a technique. The reduction of Aachen, a

sideshow for the U.S. First Army as it drove into Germany, was just

another day’s work for an experienced, competent military force.

85
Notes

1. Gordon A. Harrison, Cross Channel Attack, U.S. Army in World

War II (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1950), 457.

2. Elbridge Colby, The First Army in Europe, 91st Congress, 1st

Session, Senate Document No. 91-25 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government

Printing Office [GPO], 1969), 92-95.

3. Charles B. MacDonald, The Siegfried Line Campaign, U.S. Army

in World War II (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History,

1963), 4.

4. Ibid., 68.

5. Colby, 97-108.

6. Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations

(Washington, DC: GPO, 1944), 11. This manual calls for a battalion in a “main

attack” to occupy a frontage of 500 to 1,000 yards. Extrapolating this figure

yields a frontage of approximately 5 to 10 miles for a corps.

7. See MacDonald, 30-35 for information on the Westwall and its

component fortifications.

8. Ibid., 71.

9. Ibid., 26-27.

10. H.R. Knickerbocker et al., Danger Forward: The Story of the First

Division in World War II (Washington, DC: Society of the First Division,

1947), 256.

11. MacDonald, 261-73.

12. Ibid., 285-88.

13. MacDonald, 81. See also 1st U.S. Infantry Division, “Report of

Breaching the Siegfried Line and the Capture of Aachen, 7 November 1944,”

Combined Arms Research Library (CARL) manuscript collection, Fort

Leavenworth, KS (hereafter referred to as CARL).

14. Alex Buchner, The German Infantry Handbook, 1939-1945 (West

Chester, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1991), 149-51. The panzerfaust was

comparable in performance and employment to the rocket-propelled grenade

of modern times.

15. MacDonald, 307-308.

16. In addition to FM 100-5 (1944), the following FMs were consulted:

FM 100-5, Tentative Field Service Regulations, Operations (Washington,

DC: GPO, 1939) 218-22; FM 7-5, Infantry Field Manual: Organization and

Tactics of Infantry, The Rifle Battalion (Washington, DC: GPO, 1940), 99.

17. FM 100-5 (1944), 248.

18. Colby, 107, and MacDonald, 309-310.

19. Ibid., 310n.

86
20. Derrill M. Daniel, “The Capture of Aachen,” CARL manuscript

collection.

21. The American Arsenal (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 1996), 29,

51.

22. Daniel, 7-9, and MacDonald, 310.

23. Daniel, 6, and MacDonald, 310-11.

24. Daniel, 5-6.

25. MacDonald, 311.

26. The American Arsenal, 72-73.

27. 1st Infantry Division, “G-3 Report of Operations, 1 October to 31

October 1944,” 5 November 1944, CARL manuscript collection.

28. Daniel, 8-10.

29. Ibid., 5.

30. Daniel, 11, and MacDonald, 310.

31. Daniel, 6-7, and MacDonald, 310.

32. Daniel, 11, and MacDonald, 310-11.

33. The American Arsenal, 159.

34. Daniel, 12-13.

35. Ibid., 13.

36. Ibid., 14-15.

37. Ibid., 15.

38. Ibid., 15-16.

39. 1st Infantry Division, “G-3 Report,” 114 and 118-19, and 1st Infantry

Division, “Report of Breaching the Siegfried Line,” 11.

40. Daniel, 16.

41. MacDonald, 311-12.

42. Ibid., 312.

43. Ibid., 312-13.

44. Ibid., 313-14.

45. 1st Infantry Division, “G-3 Report,” 117.

46. MacDonald, 315.

47. 1st Infantry Division, “G-3 Report,” 118-19.

48. Ibid., and 1st Infantry Division, “Report of Breaching the Siegfried

Line,” 11.

49. MacDonald, 316.

50. 1st Infantry Division, “G-3 Report,” 124.

51. MacDonald, 316-17, and 1st Infantry Division, “G-3 Report,” 124.

52. 1st Infantry Division, “G-3 Report,” 124.

53. 1st CIC Detachment, “CIC Operations in Aachen and Vicinity

September, October, and November,” 1.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid., 3-4.

87
56. Ibid., 2-3.

57. Ibid., 2.

58. MacDonald, 318.

88
Annotated Bibliography

The basic source for study of the Aachen battle is The Siegfried Line

Campaign by Charles B. MacDonald (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of

Military History, 1963). This work is a volume in the Army’s official history

series, United States Army in World War II. MacDonald, a combat veteran of

the war, encompasses Aachen, the Huertgen Forest, and Operation MARKET

GARDEN in this thoroughly researched, well-written book. He devotes ten

pages to the urban operation within the city of Aachen itself.

Of particular value is an unpublished manuscript titled “The Capture of

Aachen, A Lecture Presented by Lieutenant Colonel Derrill M. Daniel.” This

19-page typescript document contains details on task organization, control

measures, and tactics employed by the 2/26 Infantry in Aachen. A copy is

available in the Combined Arms Research Library (CARL), Fort

Leavenworth, Kansas. Other documents available from this library include reports of the 1st Infantry Division G3 section, a 1st Infantry Division after-action report, and a compilation of documents from the Counter

Intelligence Corps. CARL also possesses a valuable collection of field manuals from the World War II period.

Three readily available secondary works are of interest to the student of the

Aachen operation. Danger Forward: The Story of the First Division in World

War II (Washington, DC: Society of the First Division, 1947) includes ten

pages on the operations in and around Aachen. Charles Whiting has produced a

mass-market account titledBloody Aachen (NY: Military Heritage Press, 1988

[1976]). This book relies in part on MacDonald’s official volume, cited above.

Irving Werstein’s The Battle of Aachen (NY: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1962) is an

anecdotal account upon which serious researchers will not wish to rely.

Among the most useful reference works is George Forty’s U.S. Army Handbook 1939-1945 (NY: Scribner, 1980). This handy volume contains a wealth

of information on Army organization, weapons, and equipment. The German

Infantry Handbook, 1939-1945 (West Chester, PA: Schiffer, 1991) by Alex

Buchner, provides comparable information on German forces. The American

Arsenal (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 1996), a reprint of an official Ordnance Department publication, provides authoritative information on American weapons and equipment.

Two government publications offer information on Army doctrine in

World War II. Seek, Strike, and Destroy: U.S. Army Tank Destroyer Doctrine

in World War II (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General

Staff College [USACGSC], 1985) by Christopher R. Gabel discusses the

integration of tank destroyers into small-unit combined arms teams. Michael

D. Doubler’s monograph, Busting the Bocage: American Combined Arms

Operations in France, 6 June-31 July 1944 (Fort Leavenworth, KS:

USACGSC), explores the organizational and tactical innovations used in

89
Normandy, which bore some resemblance to those employed in later urban

operations.

90
The Battle of Manila

Thomas M. Huber

The Battle of Manila, 3 February 1945 to 3 March 1945, was the only

struggle by the United States to capture a defended major city in the

Pacific War. Manila was one of few major battles waged by the United

States on urban terrain in World War II. It is arguably one of the most

recent major urban battles conducted by U.S. forces. The case of

Manila offers many lessons large and small that may be instructive for

planning future urban operations. Basically, Manila was an instance of

modern combined arms warfare practiced in restrictive urban terrain in

the presence of large numbers of civilian inhabitants. Manila provides

many lessons relevant both to the combined arms aspect of the struggle

and to the civilian affairs aspect of the struggle.

The road to Manila was a long one. After the Japanese navy’s attack

on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States mobilized for an

extended struggle. U.S. forces in the Philippines had resisted Japanese

invasion doggedly but unsuccessfully from December 1941 to May

1942. Late in 1942, however, U.S. forces under General Douglas

MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Area theater command fought their

way back through the Solomons and New Guinea. Beginning in

November 1943, forces under Admiral Chester Nimitz’s Pacific Ocean

Areas theater command seized Tarawa, the Marshalls, and the

Marianas. By October 1944, MacArthur was prepared once again to

contest the Philippines and landed major forces at Leyte Gulf. Leyte

was secured after hard fighting so that by January 1945, MacArthur was

ready to land forces on the shores of Luzon (the main island in the

northern Philippines) and drive toward the Philippine capital city itself,

Manila.

The city of Manila in 1945 was one of urban contrasts. In some

highly traditional sections, the teeming population still lived in

nipa-thatched huts. In other sections, citizens lived in modern airconditioned apartments. The city covered an area of approximately

14.5 square miles, extending 5.5 miles north to south and 4 miles east

to west, from the eastern edge of Manila Bay. The metropolitan population in 1944 was 1,100,000.1

Manila was bisected by the Pasig River, which flowed roughly east

to west, and was interlaced with many smaller streams called

“esteros.” Six bridges spanned the Pasig in January 1945, all of which

91
the Japanese severed during the battle for the capital. North of the

Pasig, along the bay, was the North Port area, and north of that was the

Tondo district, a populous working class residential district. Just inland

from the port area was a business district that housed retail stores, manufacturing plants, movie houses, and restaurants. East of that lay older

middle- and upper-class residential areas.

South of the Pasig along the bay were more modern port facilities,

and just inland from that was Intramuros, the old Spanish walled city.

Intramuros was an arrowhead-bastioned sixteenth-century fort with

walls 40 feet thick at the base. The north wall faced the Pasig, and the

other walls were fronted by park land formed by filling in the fortress’s

moat. East and south of Intramuros were major government buildings,

hospitals, and schools. These were constructed of reinforced concrete

and many were built to be earthquake proof. Large apartment buildings

also of reinforced concrete could be found in this area. Eastward from

the civic buildings and parks surrounding Intramuros were prosperous

modern residential districts, more recently built than the prosperous

eastward suburbs north of the Pasig. In February 1945, American

forces found themselves fighting their way through all these areas and

conducting their final siege operations against the old walled city of

Intramuros.

By the time U.S. forces reached Manila on 3 February 1945, much of

the city was already fortified by the Japanese defenders, especially

south of the Pasig. The overall commander of the Japanese army forces

in the Philippines was General Tomoyuki Yamashita. Yamashita’s

command was subdivided into several “groups,” with the Shimbu

Group under Lieutenant General Shizuo Yokoyama responsible for

Manila. Yamashita wished to pull all his forces into a mountainous

stronghold in northern Luzon, so he ordered Yokoyama to conduct an

orderly evacuation from Manila and not defend it. This order included

Japanese naval forces in the Manila area, which were under

Yokoyama’s command. However, Vice Admiral Denshichi Okochi,

commander of the Southwestern Area Fleet based in the Philippines,

who reported to Combined Fleet, not to Yamashita’s 14th Area Army,

had ordered naval personnel to defend naval facilities in Manila regardless of Yamashita’s withdrawal strategy. So as Americans approached

Manila in January 1945, Japanese army troops moved out of the city

while Japanese naval troops moved in. Okochi organized the Manila

Naval Defense Force (MNDF) and placed in command Rear Admiral

Sanji Iwabuchi, already the commander of the 31st Naval Special Base

Force in the Manila area. Okochi himself relocated to Baguio,

92
Yamashita’s headquarters, early in January, but ordered Iwabuchi to

hold Manila and Nichols Field south of the city as long as possible, and

then to destroy all Japanese naval facilities and supplies in the Manila

Area.2

What this meant was that Iwabuchi in Manila was ordered by

General Yamashita, his legal superior, to withdraw, but ordered by

Vice Admiral Okochi, his superior by way of loyalty and training, to

stand firm. It eventually became clear that Iwabuchi intended to resist

Japanese army expectations, and instead to fulfill his naval missions at

all costs. Yamashita and Yokoyama evidently wished throughout that

Iwabuchi would leave Manila and not fight there. Yokoyama’s and

Iwabuchi’s staffs held a series of probably tense conferences from 8 to

13 January, in which the latter made clear that they intended to defend

Japanese naval facilities in Manila. Yokoyama felt he had little choice

but to accept this; however, at the end of January, he issued still

somewhat equivocal orders to Iwabuchi that authorized defense of the

city. Yokoyama, in accord with standard Japanese practice, placed

Japanese army forces still in Manila under Iwabuchi’s command. These

army elements were gathered under Colonel Katsuzo Noguchi as the

Noguchi Detachment and would later be given responsibility to defend

north of the Pasig.3

Nonetheless, even as late as mid-February, when U.S. forces had

already invested Manila, Yokoyama was still trying to get Iwabuchi to

leave the city. On 13 February, Yokoyama ordered Iwabuchi to move to

Fort McKinley (southeast of Manila) and then to break out of the

American ring as Shimbu Group forces broke in with coordinated

attacks on 17-18 February. Iwabuchi did not move to Fort McKinley at

this time, however, and instead radioed to the Shimbu Group that

leaving the city was now impossible. Still, the several thousand

Japanese troops already in Fort McKinley did managed to evacuate

eastward to join the Shimbu Group in the mountains during the Shimbu

Group’s otherwise largely ineffectual attacks toward Manila on 17-18

February.4

To Yokoyama at Shimbu Group headquarters, Iwabuchi radioed his

response to the order to evacuate to Fort McKinley: “In view of the

general situation, I consider it very important to hold the strategic

positions within the city.... Escape is believed impossible. Will you

please understand this situation?” Meanwhile to Okochi, commander

of Southwest Area Fleet, he radioed, “I am overwhelmed with shame

for the many casualties among my subordinates and for being unable to

discharge my duty because of my incompetence.... Now, with what

93
strength remains, we will daringly engage the enemy. ‘Banzai to the

Emperor!’ We are determined to fight to the last man.” Iwabuchi

reported legally to one commander, but morally to another.5

The gap in understanding between the Japanese army and navy at

Manila may strike some readers as unusual. The basis for this gap lay

not only in the particular circumstances at Manila, but also in the

traditions of the respective services. The prewar Japanese army and

navy were well known for their insularity. Each strove to operate

independently of the other as much as possible. They were engaged in

bitter budgetary struggles at each other’s expense and tended not to

share intelligence. The Japanese army operated its own maritime

shipping system—to include its own cargo submarines at the end of the

war—so as not to depend on the navy. The prewar Japanese army and

navy constituted a good case study of the high cost of failing to achieve

effective interservice cooperation.

The Japanese navy fought in Manila without the help of the Japanese

army and in defiance of the Japanese army joint commander’s direct

orders to evacuate. Fighting alone had enormous consequences. The

MNDF would operate with no armor, little artillery, and with what was

probably a limited supply of close-combat weapons. Moreover, the

MNDF had no prior organization or training for urban warfare.

Iwabuchi’s force consisted of the 31st Naval Special Base Force as its

core, to which were added ship and aviation crews stationed in the

Manila area, Korean and Formosan construction troops, and some

civilian employees of the naval base.6 The MNDF were naval staff of

every description. Few had had training for ground warfare of any kind,

let alone urban warfare. One of the lessons of Manila was that it is

possible to defend a city for a time without prior doctrine, organization,

training, or equipment for urban warfare.

The MNDF defended Manila using found equipment. Their most

abundant weapon was the 20mm machine cannon, intended primarily

for aviation and anti-aviation use. They deployed 990 of these guns,

evidently dismantled from naval aircraft. They used 600 machine guns

of 7.7mm and other calibers, and sixty 120mm dual-purpose naval

guns. They had a few field pieces, including ten 100mm and 105mm

guns and howitzers. The MNDF appear not to have had flamethrowers

or submachine guns. Apparently not all had rifles, and some of those

who did carried a variety of American weapons captured in 1942. Some

defenders carried spears made of bayonets fixed to poles. Grenades

seem to have been generally available, though MNDF defenders

sometimes used Molotov cocktails, suggesting local shortages.

94
Artillery shells and depth charges buried fuse up became mines. In

some cases, they dropped aerial bombs from upper floors of buildings.7

All of the Japanese naval defenders’ equipment was improvised.

They had almost no equipment for ground warfare already supplied to

them or routinely included in their organizational requirements. They

were aided first by the proximity of naval and air bases and second, by

the city itself, which served as a kind of great warehouse for much of

what they needed: American rifles stored in the city since 1942, barbed

wire, gasoline, and the like. Cities by their nature provide not only

restrictive terrain for the defense, but also abundant materiel for the

defense.

Iwabuchi’s command evidently consisted of about 17,000 troops.

Some 4,500 of these were deployed north of the Pasig in the Noguchi

Detachment. Iwabuchi directly commanded about 5,000 troops south

of the Pasig. In that Iwabuchi had expected major U.S. attacks to come

from the south, approximately 5,000 more were stationed south of the

city in defense of Fort McKinley and Nichols Field. A few thousand

more Japanese naval troops were deployed in partially sunken ships in

the bay or east of the city toward the Shimbu Group.8

Deployment and creation of fighting positions was all done hastily,

because it had only been in December 1944 that the Japanese navy

decided to defend Manila in the wake of the Japanese army’s

departure.9 This meant not only that the Japanese defenders had no

training, doctrine or equipment of siege warfare, but also that they had

little time to fortify their positions. Consequently, they could fortify

existing structures but not dig deeply into the earth, which would have

allowed them to shelter more of their force from American firepower.

Nonetheless, when U.S. forces encountered Japanese lines north of the

Pasig on 3 February 1945, their impression was that they faced a

well-prepared and formidable adversary.

In January 1945, U.S. commanders were also engaged in an animated debate over whether and when to capture Manila. MacArthur,

commander of the Southwest Pacific Area, believed it was essential to

seize the city as soon as possible. Manila provided port and aviation facilities needed for the coming invasion of Japan, and also had major political significance as the Philippine capital. Nonetheless, Lieutenant

General Walter Krueger, commander of the U.S. 6th Army, apparently

believed that Manila was not a genuine center of gravity and planned to

bypass it. Krueger, whose force landed on the beaches of Lingayen Gulf

on 27 January 1945, also favored delaying any attack on Manila until he

could build up his assets and consolidate his position on the Lingayen

95
coast. He was concerned, with some justification, that if he immediately advanced 100 miles to Manila, his lines of communication would

be exposed to counterattacks from Yamashita’s Kembu and Shobu

Groups.10 MacArthur, however, favored entering Manila as soon as

possible. He hoped that the Japanese would abandon the city and declare it open, as he himself had done in 1942. In fact, Yamashita’s 14th

Area Army’s policy was to do exactly this; at the end of January, MacArthur’s intelligence told him, accurately, that the Japanese army was

evacuating Manila.11

The principal U.S. units involved in the Battle of Manila, the 37th

Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division, had not fought in cities

before, but they apparently had to some extent been trained for city

fighting and followed established doctrine for urban warfare (see the

figure). Their methods differed from doctrine on only two points: air

strikes were not allowed within the city, and artillery fires in the early

phases of the battle were prohibited except against observed pinpoint

targets known to be enemy positions. Both the 37th Infantry Division

96

SWPA

Gen. Douglas MacArthur

6th Army

Gen. Walter Krueger

14th Corps

Lt. Gen. Oscar W. Griswold

37th Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. Robert S. Beightler

1st Cavalry Division

Maj. Gen. Verne D. Mudge

129th

Inf Regt

145th

Inf Regt

148th

Inf Regt

5th

Cav Regt

7th

Cav Regt

8th

Cav Regt
and the 1st Cavalry Division had had abundant recent experience in

jungle warfare and were trained, organized, and equipped for fighting

in restrictive terrain. While jungle fighting and urban fighting differ in

many respects, tactically both fights have an important similarity in that

both take place in restrictive terrain. Although by happenstance more

than planning, these units were fairly well prepared for the kind of

tactical fighting they would face in Manila.12

MacArthur set the Manila operation in motion personally on the

night of 31 January by visiting 1st Cavalry Division headquarters, then

still in the vicinity of the Lingayen beachhead. The division set out for

Manila at one minute after midnight on 1 February, without 24-hour

reconnaissance or flank protection. It employed “flying columns,”

battalion-size forces entirely on wheels to expedite the advance,

covered the 100 miles to Manila in 66 hours, and entered the outskirts of

the city on 3 February. MacArthur visited the other major unit that

would assault Manila, the 37th Infantry Division, on 1 February and set

it in motion toward the city. It reached the Manila area on 4 February.13

MacArthur ordered the 1st Cavalry to seize three objectives: Santo

Tomás University, where U.S. and Allied internees were held by the

Japanese; Malacanan Palace, the presidential residence; and the

Legislative Building. The division’s flying columns moved easily to

capture the first two of these, but heavy Japanese resistance kept it from

reaching the Legislative Building that lay south of the Pasig River.14

On 3 February, the 8th Cavalry Regiment entered and liberated

Santo Tomás at 2330. The guards, mostly Formosans, offered little

resistance. Some 3,500 jubilant internees were freed, but 275

Americans were still held hostage in the education building by 63

Japanese troops. On 5 February, these 63 were escorted through

American lines in exchange for release of the hostages. Suddenly, the

1st Cavalry Division was responsible for feeding and otherwise

accommodating the 3,500 freed internees. This task was complicated

by the fact that Japanese forces had cut the division’s lines of

communication by blowing up the Novaliches bridge. By 5 February,

the 1st Cavalry was very low on food for both itself and the internees.

The division was surrounded, as historians of the plodding 37th

Infantry Division point out. The 37th Infantry Division had to “rescue”

the 1st Cavalry Division on 5 February by breaking through Japanese

positions and reestablishing 1st Cavalry’s supply. A convoy with food

and ammunition reached the division on the evening of 5 February. The

division’s lines of communication continued to be insecure, however.

Japanese forces killed twelve 1st Cavalry drivers during these weeks.15

97
Administering a city requires not only looking out for the needs of

the individual inhabitants, but also safeguarding city functions such as

water and power. Lieutenant General Krueger was therefore eager to

preserve the water and power supplies of Manila as U.S. forces entered

the city. Manila’s steam power generating plant was on Provisor Island,

on the south side of the Pasig, and elements of the 37th Infantry

Division would not reach it until 9 February. Manila’s water system lay

northeast of the city, and securing and protecting it was one of the first

missions assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division. The main features of the

system were the Novaliches Dam, the Balara Water Filters, the San

Juan Reservoir, and the pipelines that carried water among these and to

Manila. From 5 to 8 February, the 7th Cavalry Regiment captured all of

these facilities intact, despite some being wired for demolitions. They

spent the rest of the battle for the city guarding these installations.16

The 37th Infantry Division moved into Manila shortly after the 1st

Cavalry Division, on an axis of advance just west of 1st Cavalry

Division’s. On 4 February, the 37th Infantry Division moved through

the working class Tondo residential district adjacent to the bay and, on

its left flank, reached the Old Bilibid Prison where it discovered 1,330

U.S. and Allied prisoners of war and civilian internees left under their

own recognizance by retreating Japanese. The division left them there

for the time being because the area outside was not yet secure. On 5

February, however, fires in the city threatened Bilibid, so the 37th

Infantry Division had to evacuate the 1,330 internees hastily and care

for them elsewhere. All available troops and transportation assets were

devoted to this emergency move, which was complicated by the fact

that many internees were unable to walk. Divisional troops were

heavily engaged in this work, and the internees were moved to the

Ang-Tibay Shoe Factory north of the city—the 37th Infantry

Division’s command post. The division provided cots and food for the

internees and dug latrines. The next day, the fires subsided and the

internees were moved back to Bilibid, where their needs could finally

be provided for more thoroughly.17

In the vicinity of Bilibid Prison and southward toward the Pasig, the

37th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division began encountering major Japanese resistance (see Map 1). As the 1st Cavalry Division

moved southward on the multilane Quezon Boulevard, it encountered a

defended barricade just south of Bilibid Prison. The Japanese had

driven steel rails into the roadbed, wired a line of trucks together, laid

mines in front, and covered the whole roadblock with fire from four machine gun positions. The barricade of trucks was unusual in Manila, but

98
99

I I

I I

I I 2 5

2 8

2 148

I I

Elms 7

I

I I

5

I

I I

8 (_)

I

I I

12

I

I I

4

I I

Elms 3

511

III

night, 6-7 Feb

III

188 (+)

129 8-12 FEB

I I I 148

I I I

I I

3 PROV

I I

Rmnts 2 PROV I I

HQ

I I

5

I I

1

I I

2

2

1

3

4

5

(PIPE LINE)

GRACE

PARK

(MANILA

CITY LIMITS)

( PIPE LI N E)

XX

Balera Water Filters

LAGUNA

DE BAY

M A N I L A R R

Paranaque

FORT

McKINLEY

NICHOLS

FIELD

P a r a n a q u e

7 - 1 2 F E B

5 - 1 2 F E B

11 - 12 FEB

11 ABN

1 CAV X X

Makati

SANTA ANA

DIST

Philippine Racing Club

10 FEB

11-12 FEB

Pasig R10 FEB

9 FEB

9 FEB

8-12 FEB

PACO

DIST

PANDACAN

DIST

San Juan

Reservoir

(from Manila)

NEW

MANILA 8 FEB

37 1 CAV

TONDO

DIST

NORTH

PORT

AREA

4 FEB

Far

East

Univ

37 1CAV

X X(AS OF 7 FEB)

MANILA

MANILA

BAY

QUEZON BLVD

San Juan R TO NOVALICHES

7 - 8 FEB

(AS OF 1 0 FE B)

Old Bilibid

Prison

BINONDO

DIST

Santo Tomas

University

Tagi g

3-4 FEB

JPSE

JPSE

JPSE

THE CAPTURE OF MANILA: THE ENCIRCLEMENT

3-12 February 1945

U.S. AXIS OF ADVANCE, DATES INDICATED

U.S. FRONT LINE, EVENING 7 FEB

U.S. FRONT LINE, EVENING 12 FEB

JAPANESE DEFENSE AREAS, 12 FEB

JAPANESE NAVAL DEFENSE UNIT

MALACANAN PALACE

PROVISOR ISLAND

MALACANAN GARDENS

PACO SCHOOL

PACO RR STATION

1

2

3

4

5

2 KILOMETERS

2 MILES

0

0

1

1

JPSE

Map 1
the minefield covered by obstacles and machine guns would be a common feature of the Japanese defenses both north of the Pasig and elsewhere.18

The 148th Infantry Regiment had to cross the Estero de la Reina

bridge to approach the Pasig but was stymied by mines and five

500-pound bombs on the bridge, by blazing fires in buildings to its right

and front, by exploding demolitions and gasoline drums, and by machine gun fires trained on intersections and streets. Most of the American units approaching the Pasig probably faced similar challenges.

Another feature of the early fighting north of the Pasig was that the Japanese Noguchi Detachment on 5 February set fire to major buildings

near the river in order to halt the U.S. advance; the Japanese also exploded demolitions in major buildings and in military facilities. Until

these fires could be brought under control on 6 February, U.S. personnel were forced back from the river, and the U.S. advance was delayed.

The 37th Infantry Division also on 5 February faced interactions with

civilians that it would see more of, such as when “. . . swarms of the native population... crowded the streets cheering the American troops,

forcing gifts upon them, and... engaged in unrestrained looting.” Both

the jubilation and the looting obstructed military operations, and the

37th Infantry Division would see more of both.19

By 7 February, U.S. forces were in control of Manila north of the

Pasig. Surviving Noguchi Detachment troops had withdrawn south

across the river and destroyed all of the bridges. On 5 February,

Lieutenant General Oscar W. Griswold, commander of 14th Corps,

extended the 37th Infantry Division’s area of control eastward into

what had been the 1st Cavalry Division’s zone and also gave 1st

Cavalry responsibility farther to the east. This change made possible

the next phase of operations in which the 37th Infantry Division would

fight its way across the Pasig in the downtown area while the 1st

Cavalry Division swept wide around the city, east, south and west again

to the bay, thus isolating the Japanese defenders from any source of

resupply or relief.20

Many cities contain harbors or lie on rivers so that urban warfare

frequently requires some amphibious warfare assets. On 7 February,

the 37th Infantry Division began the difficult work of crossing the

Pasig. The 148th Infantry Regiment crossed first at 1515. Troops had

the benefit of an amphibious tractor battalion and thirty engineer

assault boats. They were covered by artillery fire and smoke and

departed from four different concealed launch points. The first wave

crossed without incident, but the second was raked by machine gun and

100
automatic cannon fire from Japanese positions lying to the west on the

south bank of the Pasig. These fires shattered some of the plywood

boats and oars. Troops paddled on as best they could with oar handles

and rifle butts. The landing area was the Malacanan Gardens, the only

point on the south bank without a seawall that would obstruct

amphibious tractors and disembarkment. Troops found few Japanese in

the disembarkment area and established a bridgehead with little

difficulty. On 8 February, the 37th Infantry Division built a pontoon

bridge across the Pasig to support the bridgehead. The bridge had two

tracks, one for personnel and one for vehicles. No sooner was the bridge

built, however, than hundreds of Philippine civilians began pouring

across it from south to north, trying to escape the fighting.21

The 37th Infantry Division completed its crossing of the Pasig on 8

February and began deploying south and west out of its bridgehead.22

The hardest fighting the 37th Infantry Division would face in Manila

was in this district south of the river, between the crossing of the Pasig

on 7 February and the assault on Intramuros on 23 February. Japanese

defenders had established a series of strongpoints in major buildings in

this area and contested them fiercely. On 8 February, the 129th Infantry

Regiment moved westward along the Pasig shore and on 9 February

crossed the Estero de Tonque by boat to assault Provisor Island where

Manila’s steam electrical generation plant was located. The Japanese

defenders placed sandbagged machine gun emplacements in buildings

and at entrances and were able to blanket the whole island with machine

gun positions to the west, southwest, and south. The 129th Infantry

Regiment approached the island in engineer assault boats, then

conducted a cat and mouse struggle with Japanese for control of the

buildings, fighting with machine guns and rifles among the structures

and heavy machinery. The 129th was able to secure the island on 10

February, but lost twenty-five troops killed in the process. The vital

electrical generation equipment, which Krueger in 6th Army’s plans

had hoped to capture intact, was hopelessly damaged by both Japanese

defenders and American fires.23

While the 129th Infantry Regiment swept west out of the Malacanan

bridgehead in a close arc, the 148th Infantry Regiment swept southeast

in a broad arc, then back westward. The two regiments moved in line

through the Pandacan district to the southeast with relatively little

resistance, but then found themselves in a pitched battle in the Paco

district for control of the Paco Railroad Station, Paco School, and

Concordia College. On 9 February, both 129th Infantry Regiment and

148th Infantry Regiment advanced only 300 yards.24

101
Given the new intensity of the fighting in the 37th Infantry Division’s sector, the division requested and received a lifting of the restrictions previously imposed on artillery fires. To that point, fires had been

restricted to observed enemy positions but had failed to force an enemy

withdrawal. Thereafter, fires would be allowed “in front of . . . advancing lines without regard to pinpointed targets.” In other words, fires

could blanket enemy positions U.S. troops were assaulting. “Literal destruction of a building in advance of the area of friendly troops became

essential,” as the 37th Infantry Division Report After Action put it.25

The Japanese defensive positions U.S. troops encountered in the

Paco district were well developed, as they would be for the rest of the

battle. Japanese observers were present in almost every building. At

street intersections, machine gun pillboxes were dug into buildings and

sandbagged so as to cover the intersection and its approaches. Artillery

and antiaircraft weapons were placed in doorways or in upper story

windows. Most streets and borders of streets were mined, using

artillery shells and depth charges buried with their fuses protruding an

inch or so above the surface. The streets were a fireswept zone forcing

Americans to move between streets and within buildings. Americans

entered and searched each building and house, top to bottom, and

neutralized whatever enemy they found.26

Besides controlling the urban terrain with fires, the Japanese in the

Paco district and points west had fortified particular sturdy public

buildings as urban strongpoints. In some cases, these buildings were

mutually supporting. The first of the urban strongpoints the 37th

Infantry Division encountered was the Paco Railroad Station. The

Japanese had machine gun posts all around the station, and foxholes

with riflemen surrounded each machine gun post. Inside at each corner

were sandbag forts with 20mm guns. One large concrete pillbox in the

building housed a 37mm gun. About 300 Japanese troops held Paco

station. The Japanese placed observers in the Paco church steeple, and

the station could not be approached until the Paco School and other

neighboring positions had been cleared.27

Americans inched forward to within 50 yards of the Paco station

building, set up a bazooka or Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), and

pounded the building as riflemen rushed forward covered by fire. The

station was finally seized at 0845 on 10 February after 10 assaults.

Between the Provisor fighting and the Paco station fighting on 9 and 10

February, the 37th Infantry Division suffered 45 killed in action (KIA)

and 307 wounded in action (WIA).28

102
American troops would have much more such fighting ahead. Once

the 129th Infantry Regiment and the 148th Infantry Regiment had

secured Provisor Island and the Paco Railroad Station respectively,

both swept westward toward Intramuros and the bay. The 129th

Infantry Regiment collided with the Japanese strongpoint at the New

Police Station, and the 148th Infantry Regiment collided with the

strongpoint of the Philippine General Hospital (see Map 2). The 129th

Infantry Regiment began its assaults on the New Police Station on 12

February. The strongpoint consisted of the police station itself, the shoe

factory, the Manila Club, Santa Teresita College and San Pablo Church.

By nightfall, the 129th Infantry Regiment had consolidated its lines on

Marques de Camillas Street fronting the strongpoint. Maintaining

lines—keeping units that advanced faster than others from leaving

hazardous gaps in the line—offered many challenges in the highly

compartmented urban environment.

The bitter fighting at the New Police Station went on for eight days,

until 20 February. On 17 February, the relatively fresh 145th Infantry

Regiment replaced the battle-worn 129th Infantry Regiment. The first

tanks arrived on 14 February to assist the Americans. Tanks were not

present earlier in this part of the city because they could not cross the

Pasig. Once committed, they were used for direct-fire bombardment on

the New Police Station and in later operations.

The American method was to bombard the resisting structure with

tanks and 105mm guns and howitzers, then to conduct an assault.

Sometimes the Japanese defenders counterattacked, driving the Americans out, in which case the whole process was repeated. The Japanese

had trenches and foxholes outside the buildings and numerous sandbagged machine gun positions inside. U.S. artillery reduced the exterior

walls to rubble, but infantry still had to go into the buildings and clear

them room by room and floor by floor. The preferred American method

was to fight from the roof down, but the troops were unable to do this at

the New Police Station, probably because no structures were near

enough to give roof access. Thus, they had to work from the ground up.

Japanese defenders cut holes in the floors and dropped grenades

through them. They also destroyed the stairways to prevent access to

upper stories. Nevertheless, the 145th Infantry Regiment managed to

secure the New Police Station strongpoint by 20 February.29

From 20 to 22 February, the 145th Infantry Regiment repeated this

exercise a block to the east at the city hall and general post office. At the

city hall, the regiment employed the usual method of having artillery

pound the exterior walls and then assaulting into the structure that

103
remained. As at the New Police Station, the process of bombardment

and assault had to be repeated several times. Americans in the assault

made generous use of “submachine guns, bazookas, flame throwers,

demolitions, and hand grenades.” At one point when Japanese resisters

in a first floor room refused to surrender, the Americans blew holes in

the ceiling, put flamethrowers through them, and annihilated all of the

defenders. Americans sometimes had to fight their way into prepared

positions in the darkened basements of these buildings. By the evening

of 22 February, the 145th Infantry Regiment had fought its way through

the worst of the strongpoints to the walls of Intramuros.30

Meanwhile, the 148th Infantry Regiment was fighting its way

through the Philippine General Hospital and the University of the

Philippines, operating parallel to and just south of the 129th Infantry

Regiment and its follow-on 145th Infantry Regiment (see Map 2). The

tactical battle here was similar to that elsewhere but complicated by the

fact that there were still civilian patients in the hospital. When the 148th

Infantry Regiment discovered this on the afternoon of 16 February, it

tried to limit its artillery fires to Japanese positions in the foundations of

the hospital buildings. During the day of 17 February, the 148th

escorted 2,000 patients out of the hospital, and 5,000 more that night.31

On the morning of 19 February, the 5th Cavalry Regiment, having

been assigned to the 37th Infantry Division from the 1st Cavalry

Division, relieved the battle-worn 148th Infantry Regiment. The 5th

Cavalry Regiment continued attacks in this sector on the University of

the Philippines strongpoint. The Japanese here not only had established

the usual defenses of sandbagged machine gun nests, but also had cut

firing slits through the foundations just above the ground and put

machine gun nests on the flat roof. After assaults on Rizal Hall, the 75

Japanese survivors of the original complement of 250 committed

suicide on the night of 23 February. The next morning, the 5th Cavalry

Regiment made the final assaults into University Hall, so concluding

the strongpoint fighting for the 148th Infantry Regiment and the

follow-on 5th Cavalry Regiment. For these units, as for the northerly

129th and follow-on 145th Infantry Regiments, the hardest strongpoint

fighting was now over, and U.S. forces had secured Manila south of

Intramuros.32

While the battle of the strongpoints raged, 7 to 24 February, the 1st

Cavalry Division was sweeping wide east, south, and west, around the

city to Manila Bay (see Maps 1 and 2). When the 37th Infantry Division

crossed the Pasig at Malacanan Gardens, the 129th Infantry Regiment

pivoted sharply west, campaigning toward the east wall of Intramuros.

104
The 148th Infantry Regiment swung more broadly south, west, and

north, bringing it up against the south wall of Intramuros. The 1st

Cavalry Division swung on an axis parallel to these, but flung farther

out, around the whole city. Thus, the 1st Cavalry Division implemented

a standard element of siege doctrine: isolate the defenders.

On 8 February, as the 37th Infantry Division was crossing the Pasig

at Malacanan Gardens, the 5th and 8th Cavalry Regiments began a

105

I I

1 12

I I

2 5

I I

2 12

15-16 FEB 13-16 FEB

13-16 FEB

RMNTS, MANILA

NAVAL DEFENSE

FORCE

129

148

III

37

1 CAV

XX

(20 FEB)

III

12 Cav 5 Cav

III

5 Cav

145

(19 FEB)

MANILA

BAY

Estero

SOUTH

PORT

AREA

Jones

Bridge Malacanan

Palace

PROVISOR

ISLAND

Malacanan

Gardens

INTRAMUROS

Manila Hotel

General

Post

Office

Legislative

Bldg

Finance Bldg

Agriculture

Bldg

Old

Luneta

Burnham

Green

U. OF

PHILIPPINES

Univ

Hall

Admin

Hall

PHILIPPINES

GENERAL

HOSPITAL

Rizal

Hall

Medical

School

High

Commissioner’s

Residence

La Salle

University

Harrison

Park

Rizal

Stadium

New

Police

Station

Santa

Teresita

College

Manila Club

City

Hall

THE CAPTURE OF MANILA

THE DRIVE TOWARD INTRAMUROS

13 – 22 February 1945

U. S. FRONT LINE, EVENING, 12 FEB

U. S. FRONT LINE, EVENING, 18 FEB

U. S. FRONT LINE, EVENING, 22 FEB

JAPANESE STRONGPOINTS

••••••••••

1000 YARDS

1000 METERS

500

0 500

0

d e

Paco

Science

Bldg

Fort

Abad Santa

Escolastica

College Estero

Tribao

Pasig R

Pasig R

Map 2
sweep around the east and south sides of Manila (see Map 1). The 8th

Cavalry Regiment swung close and the 5th Cavalry Regiment swung

wide. The 8th Cavalry Regiment crossed the Pasig at the Philippine

Racing Club against little opposition; the 5th Cavalry Regiment

crossed at the suburb of Makati against intermittent machine gun fire.

On 10 February, the 5th Cavalry Regiment secured the Makati electrical power substation, following Krueger’s policy of sparing as much

city infrastructure as possible. By 12 February, both the 12th Cavalry

Regiment, relieving the 8th Cavalry Regiment, and the 5th Cavalry

Regiment had reached the waterfront, completing the encirclement of

the city. They both had contact with the 37th Infantry Division on their

right.33

Once they reached the waterfront, the 12th Cavalry Regiment and

the 5th Cavalry Regiment immediately turned northward, to move up

the shore and join their forces to those of the 37th Infantry Division as it

closed in on Intramuros (see Map 2). Moving abreast, the two regiments

encountered a developed Japanese strongpoint in the Harrison Park

area, which contained Rizal Stadium, La Salle University, and other

structures. The 1st Cavalry Division fought pitched battles there, as the

37th Infantry Division had at the Paco Railroad Station and elsewhere.

Japanese defenders had constructed heavy bunkers all over the baseball

diamond at Rizal Stadium, which the 1st Cavalry finally overcame with

the use of flamethrowers, demolitions, and three tanks.34

On 16 February, the 1st Cavalry Brigade (5th and 12th Regiments)

passed from the 1st Cavalry Division’s operational control to that of the

37th Infantry Division for the assault on the central city. At this point,

the 5th Cavalry Regiment relieved the 148th Infantry Regiment, and the

12th Cavalry Regiment continued advancing northward and on 20-22

February cleared the High Commissioner’s Residence, Burnham

Green, and the Manila Hotel. There was a hard fight, floor by floor, for

the Manila Hotel, and MacArthur himself appeared on the scene, since

he had resided in a penthouse apartment of the Manila Hotel during his

former stay in the Philippines.35

By 23 February, the 37th Infantry Division had fought its way to the

eastern wall of the Japanese stronghold of Intramuros and was prepared

to assault it. Intermittent bombardment of the fortress began on 17 February. There was then a focused bombardment from 0730 to 0830 on 23

February, the day of the assault. This preparation employed an abundance of 105mm and 155mm howitzers, 75mm tank guns, 4.2-inch

mortars, a few 8-inch howitzers, and other pieces; in other words, it was

almost all of the 37th Infantry Division’s artillery assets. The 8-inch

106
howitzers proved most effective against the thick walls of Intramuros.

Thirty machine guns were used for the artillery preparations, of which

26 were trained on Japanese machine gun positions and four were reserved for targets of opportunity before and during the assault. Overall,

7,487 high-explosive shells were dropped on Intramuros.36

At 0830, a red smoke signal was fired to mark the end of the artillery

preparation and the beginning of the assault. Ten minutes later, a

second bombardment began placing a smokescreen east to west across

the central section of Intramuros to obscure the north-lying assaults

from Japanese gunners in the south-lying Legislative, Finance and

Agriculture Buildings (see Map 3). The 129th Infantry Regiment

assaulted southward across the Pasig in engineer boats at 0830, the first

troops disembarking at 0836. Simultaneously the 145th Infantry

Regiment assaulted the east wall. Japanese fires within Intramuros

evidently were less intense than in earlier encounters because the heavy

bombardment had destroyed or disorganized them. Both the 129th

Infantry and the 145th Infantry Regiments therefore moved easily

through the breached walls and then through the streets of Intramuros.

The 145th Infantry Regiment’s progress was soon blocked, however,

by the flow of 2,000 refugees, women and children, from Del Monico

107

SPECIAL SECURITY FORCE

Pasig R

Elms 5

I I

3 129

I I

2 145

I I

1 145

I I

1 148

I I

1 12

I I

2 5

I I I

12 Cav 5 Cav III

SOUTH

PORT

AREA

QUEZON

GATE

General

Post

Office

Letran

University

PARIAN

GATE

INTRAMUROS

VICTORIA

GATE

San

Augustin

SANTA Church LUCIA

GATE

Del

Monico

Church

Legislative

Building

Aquarium

Old

Luneta

Burnham

Green

Agriculture

Building

San

Luis

Apartments

1000 YARDS

1000 METERS

500

500

0

0

U. S. FRONT LINE, EVENING, 22 FEB

U. S. AXIS OF ATTACK, 23–25 FEB

U. S. AXIS OF ATTACK, 26 FEB–3 MAR

THE CAPTURE OF MANILA

ELIMINATING THE LAST RESISTANCE

23 February – 3 March 1945

FORT SANTIAGO

Government

Mint

Finance

Building

General

Luna

ST

Customs

House

City

Hall

Manila

Hotel

III

145

5 CAV

Map 3
Church on General Luna Street where the Japanese had been holding

them. Many would be evacuated from the west gate of Intramuros by a

truck convoy of the 37th Quartermaster Company. Male civilians had

evidently been separated by the Japanese, detained in the Intramuros’

old citadel, Fort Santiago, and executed there en masse. By nightfall of

23 February, the 129th and 145th Infantry Regiments held nearly all of

Intramuros and would secure the rest the next day.37

The hardest fighting in Intramuros was the 129th’s effort to capture

Fort Santiago in the northwest corner of the old walls. They fought

room to room, and then through subterranean dungeons and tunnels, using flamethrowers, phosphorus grenades, demolitions, and bazookas.

In some cases, they poured gasoline or oil through holes in the floor

then ignited it to flush out the die-in-place defenders. The regiment did

not secure the last of the fort’s tunnels until 1200 on 25 February.38

During the fighting in Intramuros, some Japanese troops attempted

to exfiltrate wearing U.S. uniforms and carrying M1 rifles. Others

showed a white flag in the belfry of Del Monico Church only to follow

up with rifle fire. None of this helped them. Only twenty-five Japanese

surrendered in the Intramuros fighting, all of them Formosans of the

Imperial Japanese Labor Force. At dawn on 26 February, seeing that the

Intramuros stronghold had fallen, Rear Admiral Iwabuchi and his staff

committed suicide at their headquarters in the Agriculture Building. 39

Despite the loss of Intramuros, the Japanese still held three strong

positions, the Legislative, Finance and Agriculture Buildings, which

lay just southeast of the old fortress. Since Iwabuchi had expected U.S.

attacks to come from the south, he had fortified these buildings more

thoroughly than the more northerly strongpoints. It is probably also for

this reason that Iwabuchi had put his headquarters in the Agriculture

Building. The Legislative, Finance, and Agriculture Buildings were of

reinforced concrete. Window-sited machine guns covered exterior

approaches. Sandbags and barricades blocked all ground-level doors

and windows. Interiors were also fortified as in other strongpoints.

The U.S. artillery preparation on the buildings began on 25 February. However, the 1st Cavalry Division, then deployed along the bay

shore west of Intramuros, reported shells falling on its positions. These

were 37th Infantry Division rounds that had overshot the government

buildings to fall on the 1st Cavalry Division. Major General Robert S.

Beightler, commander of the 37th Infantry Division, immediately ordered a cease-fire at 1050 to resolve this problem by shifting troops out

of the fire zone. Fires resumed at 1245.40

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On 26 February, the148th Infantry Regiment assaulted the

Legislative Building and secured it by 28 February. The regiment’s

troops were harassed by Japanese firing up through holes in the floor

and had to withdraw after their first assault to allow more shelling of the

still vigorously resisting defenders. On 26 February, the 5th Cavalry

Regiment assaulted the Agriculture Building after an artillery

preparation, but troops had to withdraw because of withering Japanese

covering fire from the nearby San Luis Terrace Apartments. The 5th

Cavalry Regiment had to spend 27 February clearing out the

apartments. On 28 February, the regiment returned to the Agriculture

Building with a three-hour artillery preparation. Point-blank 155mm

howitzer fires alternated with point-blank tank and tank-destroyer fires,

with all of these fires aimed no higher than the first floor of the

Agriculture Building so as to avoid endangering friendly troops. Much

of the Agriculture Building thus pancaked on its own first floor, and the

5th Cavalry Regiment assaulted into what was left. A flamethrower

tank reduced a pillbox on the southeast corner, and other tanks swarmed

around the building to provide point-blank 75mm fire. The 5th Cavalry

Regiment otherwise used flamethrowers, bazookas, and small arms.

On 1 March, the 5th Cavalry Regiment made a surrender appeal to

Japanese survivors. When there was no response, the regiment employed demolitions and burning gasoline and oil against remaining defenders. An artillery preparation was applied against the sole remaining

Japanese position, the Finance Building, on 28 February and 1 March.

A surrender appeal this time garnered twenty-five Japanese responses.

After more artillery preparation on 2 March, the 148th Infantry Regiment assaulted the building. They cleared the last of the Japanese defenders from the elevator shaft on top of the building on the morning of

3 March.41

On the afternoon of 3 March Lieutenant General Oscar W. Griswold,

commander of 14th Corps, reported to General Krueger of 6th Army

that all resistance had ceased. The struggle to capture Manila was

over.42 The struggle to administer the battle-torn city, however, was just

beginning. U.S. military assets on the scene would play a major part in

reviving and running Manila for several weeks after the battle. The task

of administering the city was complicated by the enormous toll the

battle had taken. U.S. casualties in the battle were 1,010 KIA and 5,565

WIA, for a total of 6,575. Japanese counted dead were 16,665. In

addition, there were an estimated 100,000 civilian casualties, of

varying degrees of seriousness and of diverse causes; most were

probably generated by Japanese executions and atrocities toward

109
Philippine civilians, by friendly fire from American artillery, and by

mishap or exposure associated with dislocation. Much of Manila itself

was in ruins. The water system within the city needed extensive repairs.

Sewage and garbage collection systems were not functioning. The

electrical system was out. Most streets were ruined and public

transportation no longer existed. The major government buildings, the

Philippine General Hospital, and the University of the Philippines were

destroyed, along with many residential districts. The port installations

were severely damaged. Besides all this, numerous homeless civilians

were milling about seeking food, shelter, and medical care.43

U.S. forces in Manila were immediately enlisted for occupation

duty. After the battle, the 37th Infantry Division bivouacked near Grace

Park, in the northern suburbs. On 5 March, the division was removed

from 14th Corps, placed directly under 6th Army, and given the mission

of providing security for the city. Troops from the division were distributed to Filipino police stations, and so they had to deal with collaborators brought in by civilians until the Counterintelligence Corps could

investigate. Looting was a major problem for the division’s security

troops. Large-scale looting was conducted during the battle by organized bands of Filipinos who moved just behind the American advance.

The looters placed a point man in the American front lines to identify

where the spoils were richest, allowing those behind to carry off the

goods without delay. American security troops did not try to reverse the

looting done during the battle. They stopped further looting when the

battle was over, however, by mounting guard and patrol duty throughout the city, 24 hours a day.44

Security forces faced the problem of the city being strewn with

numerous mines, unexploded shells, and booby traps. Areas where

fighting had been heaviest were roped off from the public by military

police until the 37th Infantry Division’s engineer companies could

clear them. On 8 March, the track was blown off a U.S. bulldozer on

Dewey Boulevard. There were occasional casualties from mines

throughout March. The 117th Engineer Battalion piled fifty tons of

cleared mines and shells in Burnham Green Park, where on 16 March

these exploded from causes unknown. There were no casualties. The

117th Engineers were also busy repairing warehouses, plumbing and

electrical facilities, and building an airstrip and Red Cross recreation

center.45

Troops of the 37th Infantry Division carried weapons in Manila until

17 March. Since the end of the fighting on 3 March, things had been

done on a more relaxed basis. New movies were brought to the units

110
every other night. Seats for the troops were placed in open air, and the

block of seats then roped off because of the crowds of civilians who

also came and watched. Most of the units began holding dances weekly,

attended by Filipinos and expatriate women. The Division Special

Service Band sometimes played for these events, although the 2d

Battalion, 129th Infantry Regiment had its own orchestra. Troops had

fresh food every day, and there were no epidemics. Unit staffs also

caught up on paperwork, replenished supplies, and began training the

hundreds of arriving replacements. This respite was short-lived,

however. 37th Infantry Division marched out of Manila on 29 March to

begin its next campaign.46

The Japanese defense of Manila had failed. Nevertheless, there are

some remarkable features of the Japanese effort. On the one hand,

Japanese operations show the shortcomings of trying to fight without

training, doctrine, or equipment, and without significant joint support.

On the other hand, the Japanese showed how much could be done in

defense of a city with nothing to work with but resolute personnel and

the resources of a great metropolis.

Japanese tactics were simple but effective. Troops fought in small

units that tenaciously defended particular assigned positions. They

conducted a static defense with almost no maneuver or coordinated

action between positions. On the streets north of the Pasig, they set up

minefields and obstacles covered by interlocking machine gun fires.

The mines were often made of artillery shells, depth charges, or aerial

bombs, and the machine guns were often dismounted naval aviation

machine guns. In strongpoints south of the Pasig, the Japanese set up

positions in sturdy reinforced-concrete buildings and sometimes put

foxholes outside. Typically they swept the approaches with automatic

fires sighted through windows or loopholes. They put sandbagged

machine gun nests throughout these buildings, sometimes fortified

cellars and roofs, and sometimes fired through holes cut in walls,

ceilings and floors. In most cases, they chose neither to surrender nor

retreat, but instead died in place.

U.S. infantry who faced these positions perceived them as

formidable. Nonetheless, it is remarkable what these positions lacked.

They had little artillery, no armor, no air support, and few suppressive

fire weapons for the close fight. They had almost no field radios

allowing communication between units, and almost no trenches or

tunnels connecting units. They had almost no underground positions

except cellars in buildings. There were limited numbers of Japanese to

man these positions: Iwabuchi had only 5,000 troops in the central

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Manila force. There was also limited time to prepare: the Japanese army

had decided to leave Manila in December 1944.

The Japanese had few artillery pieces compared to the Americans,

most of them converted naval guns. They fired isolated rounds

randomly or against preregistered junctions or bridges. Apparently,

they had no forward observers with radios to direct fires and perhaps

also had comparatively limited ammunition. The Japanese appeared to

be short on close-range suppressive fire weapons also. There is no

report of their using flamethrowers or submachine guns. They had

grenades, but sometimes used Molotov cocktails, suggesting local

shortages. Most but not all had rifles. Some of the rifles were U.S.

makes captured in 1942. In place of rifles, some carried jury-rigged

spears made of bayonets on poles. In other words, the Japanese were

woefully lacking in both heavy weapons and light weapons. All they

really had in abundance were machine guns and automatic cannon.

They were fighting the Battle of Manila with naval aviation equipment,

not ground warfare equipment.47

The Japanese naval defenders in Manila had military discipline and

dedication. But they had no doctrine, no training, no armor, no air, little

artillery, no communication between positions, no maneuver, no

coordination, and no reinforcements. Nonetheless, they held the

Americans at bay for four weeks. They showed what could be done by

defenders who had nothing to work with but their own resoluteness,

urban terrain, and the abundant resources of a great city. The Battle of

Manila shows that urban warfare significantly favors the defender.

Although the Japanese navy conducted a remarkable ad hoc defense

in Manila, U.S. forces ground their way steadily through the Japanese

positions. American tactics were decisively more effective. What were

the Americans doing that allowed them to advance? U.S. forces in

Manila were practicing modern combined arms warfare against a static

defense. They were trained ground forces with abundant troops,

equipment, and service assets. They were experienced in fighting in

restrictive jungle terrain. To their credit, they used all the assets

available to them, except for some capabilities of airpower.

Corps and division staffs made sure that regiments and battalions

were operationally and tactically coordinated. Tanks were used to

the maximum for direct fires and suppressive fires from the time they

became available to 37th Infantry Division on 14 February, and by 1st

Cavalry Division throughout. Airpower, however, was never used to

bomb or strafe Japanese positions in the city of Manila, as MacArthur repeatedly denied requests from subordinate units for air

112
bombardment. This was a major departure from U.S. combined arms

doctrine, justified by MacArthur’s desire to spare Philippine civilians

in the city. Airpower was used in other ways, however. Cub planes were

used continuously for artillery spotting. The 1st Cavalry Division used

airpower, indeed joint airpower, for close air support and scouting in

the division’s sweep around the outer edge of the city. Marine Air

Groups 24 and 32, flying from an airstrip near Lingayen Gulf, kept nine

shipborne dive-bombers over the 1st Cavalry Division’s leading elements, and P-40s from the 5th Air Force flew reconnaissance missions

to 1st Cavalry’s left and front. Moreover, U.S. airpower closed the skies

completely to Japanese aircraft.48

The restrictions on air bombardment within the city may have

mattered little, however, because the enemy was contained within a

confined space easily within artillery range. U.S. forces had abundant

artillery assets and could get effects similar to those of air bombardment

by employing massed artillery. Initially, artillery fires were also limited

by MacArthur to “observed fire on known targets.” These restrictions

were abandoned on 10 February because of mounting U.S. casualties.

This was shortly after the 37th Infantry Division had crossed the Pasig

and encountered developed Japanese strongpoints. Permission was

obtained for “area artillery fire in front of advancing lines.”49

The American method, once area artillery fires and tanks became

available, was to pulverize the building they faced and then to assault

into the remains. They used bazookas and flamethrowers against

machine gun nests. They used abundant light suppressive fire weapons,

grenades, and mortars, as well as small arms. Sometimes U.S. assaults

failed because of withering fire or counterattacks, in which case troops

would pull back and repeat the process. Tanks and tank destroyers were

used in a direct-fire role for the artillery preparation. Their use beyond

that was limited by mines, rubble, and the heavy concrete walls of the

buildings themselves. Tanks could not follow infantry into the cellars

and onto the roofs. Americans in Manila evidently learned to use their

assets as they went along and used them to full advantage. Casualties

suffered by the 37th Infantry Division when artillery restrictions were

first lifted from 10-12 February averaged twenty-six KIA per day. By

21-23 February, when the division was fighting at city hall and

assaulting Intramuros, casualties were down to six KIA per day on

average.50

The Americans at Manila learned fast. They used artillery and tanks

to the fullest to achieve their objectives with minimal loss of friendly

troops’ lives. The falling friendly casualty rates suggest that American

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troops between 3 February and 23 February had refined all manner of

urban warfare methods, at all operational levels, that allowed them to

advance more efficiently at the end than at the beginning. American

troops had superior assets from the start; by the end, they knew how to

use them. Americans won at Manila because they applied a full range of

combined arms methods against a static defense. They got better at it as

they went along.

The Battle of Manila offers many lessons and insights that may be

applicable to future instances of urban warfare. Some of these insights

are tactical in nature. They show how to cope with the enemy force.

Others are civil in nature. They show how to cope with the civilian

population and with objectives relating to the civilian population. Many

of the tactical lessons of Manila we have already explored in examining

the methods of Japanese and U.S. forces. Some of these lessons are

applicable to combined arms warfare in general, not exclusively to

urban warfare. Some of the tactical features of Manila, however, are

peculiar to cities and likely to recur in operations in other cities.

The tactical battle of Manila, like many other urban conflicts, was a

tale of fire and water. On 5 February, the 37th Infantry Division was

stymied by raging fires that it had no way to fight or bring under control.

The possibility of fire is endemic to urban environments. Manila

showed that firefighting may be a feature of urban warfare for ground

forces. The Manila fighting also demonstrated that urban warfare may

have an amphibious war aspect. Both the 37th Infantry Division and the

1st Cavalry Division repeatedly had to cross rivers and esteros in assault boats and on pontoon bridges, often under fire. Though little came

of it, the Japanese defenders attempted an amphibious envelopment of

American lines on 7 February, using barges on Manila Bay. The final

Manila operation for Americans was the search on 6-7 March by elements of the 129th Infantry Regiment, deployed on landing craft, of 32

ships sunk in the harbor where Japanese continued to resist.51 The amphibious element is not unique to Manila. Almost all great cities are situated on a river or harbor or both. Urban fighting usually requires some

projection over water.

Several artillery issues at Manila are characteristic of urban warfare.

To avoid counterbattery fire, Japanese defenders put 75mm guns on

trucks and moved them after firing. A shell passing through a target was

a concern in Manila; shelling a building could jeopardize friendly

troops on the other side. This is a case where some urban operations

would necessitate more coordination than other forms of ground

warfare. Some other artillery issues are more difficult to resolve. When

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is it justified to use massive area artillery bombardment, or air

bombardment, when civilians may be present? It is a question that

probably must be answered case by case. Commanders may be prudent

to think through this question before they are in an operational

situation. Study of the Manila battle may help them to do that.

Manila offered some tactical lessons for armor. Urban warfare is

often siege warfare. Driving tanks around the city will not bring victory

in itself, but it may achieve the first stage of victory, which is to isolate

the enemy. Within Manila, tanks were useful for direct artillery fire and

to suppress pillboxes in the open. Tanks could not get into the buildings,

however, just as tanks cannot get into caves. Tanks accompanied

infantry to the wall. Once through the wall, infantry were on their own.

Tank movement was inhibited in Manila. Tanks did not reach the 37th

Infantry Division until 14 February because they could not cross the

light pontoon bridges over the Pasig. Japanese defenders had mined

approach routes, so mine-clearing operations delayed tank movement

every time lines moved forward. Electromagnetic mine detectors did

not work because of all the metal already present in debris on the

street.52 Sometimes rubble thrown down by the giant artillery

bombardments obstructed the tanks. Tanks were useful in Manila, but

not as decisive as they would be in maneuver battles over open ground.

Infantry did the hardest work at Manila. Artillery reduced the walls,

and armor accompanied them to the walls. The greatest challenge,

however, lay inside the walls. Indoor fighting in Manila resembled

World War I trench warfare in that it was heavily reliant on light

suppressive fire weapons, flamethrowers, bazookas, mortars, and

grenades. As in World War I, force fatigue was a potential problem, a

problem that U.S. commanders astutely minimized by replacing

fighting regiments with fresh regiments after about 14 days of heavy

engagement.53

While Manila offers many tactical lessons pertinent to the military

dimension of urban warfare, it also offers many lessons in the other

dimension of urban warfare—the civic dimension. In this dimension,

problems were not always as amenable to technical solutions as they

had been in the military dimension.

What were Manila’s lessons for civil affairs? Operators faced two

categories of problems, one being to preserve or revive the functions of

the city as a whole, and the other being to provide for the multitude of

citizens as individuals. The Sixth Army was keen to keep the major collective services in the city—water and electricity—from being destroyed. The 1st Cavalry Division succeeded in preserving most of the

115
water system, which lay outside the city, but the electrical steam power

generator at Provisor Island within the city was destroyed, in spite of

Sixth Army’s good intentions. Moreover, the city’s refuse collection

stopped, the sewage system was damaged, public transportation ceased

to function, and roads and bridges were destroyed throughout the central city. Local government barely had existed in Manila during the

early weeks of the battle but was revived soon after MacArthur reestablished the Commonwealth Government on 28 February. Local authorities, although they existed after 28 February, were heavily assisted by

the 37th Infantry Division until the latter’s departure on 29 March. The

division also performed major service after the battle by keeping order,

clearing mines, and helping repair facilities. The lesson of Manila as regards collective municipal functions—government, water, electricity,

and the like—is to do as the 1st Cavalry Division and the 37th Infantry

Division did: safeguard them as much as possible and, failing that, restore them as soon as possible.

The multitude of civilians also provided many challenges for U.S.

forces in Manila. Civilians in pursuit of various purposes sometimes

obstructed military activity for the 37th Infantry and the 1st Cavalry Divisions. One of these cases was the celebration by jubilant crowds at the

beginning of the battle. This public celebration impaired force movement, though it may also have helped troop morale. On several occasions during the battle, civilians fled against or across the U.S. axis of

advance, obstructing movement or fire. The presence of civilians made

U.S. authorities unwilling to use air bombardment and reluctant to use

area artillery fire. Americans believed Japanese were establishing positions in facilities such as hospitals and churches where civilians were

present, knowing U.S. artillery would not fire on them there.54 In one

case, at Santo Tomás, civilians were held hostage by Japanese troops in

exchange for safe passage of lines.

Besides hampering military operations, civilians often made

positive demands on U.S. service support activities that could not be

ignored. At Bilibid Prison, the 37th Infantry Division was suddenly

forced to evacuate, then house some 1,300 internees in the way of an

advancing fire. Civilians injured in the battle, some of whom were

victims of Japanese atrocities, came to U.S. medical aid stations for

help.55 Finally, individual civilians immediately after the battle

depended on military personnel to maintain order and protect them

from looting and other transgressions.

The lesson here for operators in an urban warfare environment is that

they must be prepared to exercise patience in their operations given that

116
in urban terrain, more than any other terrain, there are likely to be

numerous nonbelligerents present. The lesson for planners in an urban

warfare environment is to make sure that friendly forces have a

superabundance of food and medical supplies, and of service assets,

medical transportation, engineering, and so on. During and especially

after the battle, they may have to devote these to that part of the mission

objective that is to reestablish the fabric of civic life. The Manila battle

is rich in lessons for urban warfare in its civil dimension as well as in its

military dimension.

117
Notes

1. For this and following information on Manila, see Robert R. Smith,

Triumph in the Philippines, The War in the Pacific, United States Army in

World War II (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1993 [1963]),

237-40, and Stanley A. Frankel, The 37th Infantry Division in World War II

(Washington, DC: Infantry Journal Press, 1948), 243-47.

2. Smith, 241-42, appendix D and appendix E.

3. Ibid., 242-44.

4. Reports of General MacArthur, 2v., Gordon W. Prange, ed.,

Volume II, Part II (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1944 [1966]),

(hereafter MacArthur Reports II), 498; Smith, 271-73; Richard Connaughton,

John Pimlott, and Duncan Anderson, The Battle for Manila (Novato, CA:

Presidio Press, 1995), 142.

5. Ibid., 141-42.

6. Ibid., 143, 187; and U.S. Army, 37th Infantry Division, Report After

Action on Operations of the 37th Infantry Division, M-1 Operations

(Headquarters, 37th Infantry Division, 1945) (hereafter 37th Infantry

Division), 47. For organization of Japanese forces in Manila area see Smith,

appendix D.

7. Smith, 308; Connaughton, 189-91; and 37th Infantry Division, 51.

8. Smith, 244-45.

9. Ibid., 241-42, and Connaughton, 186-87.

10. Ibid., 83, 180-81.

11. Smith, 249; Connaughton, 83, 179-81; and Reports of General

MacArthur, 2v., Gordon W. Prange, ed., Volume I (Washington, DC: Center

of Military History, 1994 [1966]), (hereafter MacArthur Reports I), 276.

12. Smith, 249-50. For U.S. urban warfare doctrine of the day, see U.S.

War Department, Field Manual 31-50, Attack on a Fortified Position and

Combat in Towns (Washington, DC: 31 January 1944).

13. Connaughton, 83-84; Smith 217-18; Frankel, 242; and Bertram C.

Wright, The 1st Cavalry Division in World War II (Tokyo: Toppan Printing

Co., 1947), 128-29.

14. Wright, 129.

15. Smith, 251-52; Wright, 132-33; and Frankel, 255.

16. Smith, 250-51, 256, and Wright, 133.

17. Smith, 253-54; 37th Infantry Division, 41, 43; and Frankel, 254, 259.

18. Smith, 253.

19. Frankel, 252, 254-57; Smith, 255; and 37th Infantry Division, 41.

20. 37th Infantry Division, 43, and Smith, 254.

21. Connaughton, 109; 37th Infantry Division, 45; Smith, 259-60; and

Frankel, 272.

118
22. 37th Infantry Division, 47.

23. Smith, 260-63; 37th Infantry Division, 49, 51; and Frankel, 275-76.

24. 37th Infantry Division, 49.

25. Ibid., 51.

26. Ibid.

27. Frankel, 273-75, and 37th Infantry Division, 49.

28. Frankel, 273, 275, and 37th Infantry Division, 49, 52.

29. Above account of New Police Station strongpoint drawn from

Frankel, 276-80, and Smith, 280-83.

30. Above account of city hall and general post office strongpoints

drawn from Smith, 284-85, and Frankel, 280.

31. Smith, 285-87.

32. Ibid., 287-90.

33. Wright, 134, 136; Smith, 264-65, 269; and Connaughton, 84-85.

34. Smith, 277-78.

35. Smith, 279-80, and Connaughton, 180.

36. The 129th Infantry in World War II, Regimental Staff ed. (Washington, DC: Infantry Journal Press, 1947) (hereafter 129th Infantry), 107; Smith,

294, 296; and 37th Infantry Division, 77, 79.

37. Smith, 297-300; 37th Infantry Division, 79, 81; and Frankel, 291.

38. 129th Infantry, 108; Smith, 298; and 37th Infantry Division, 83.

39. 37th Infantry Division, 81; Connaughton, 170-71; and Frankel,

292-93.

40. Smith, 303; Connaughton, 188; Frankel, 293-94; and 37th Infantry

Division, 86.

41. Smith, 303-306; Frankel, 294-95; and 37th Infantry Division, 86.

42. Smith, 306.

43. Ibid., 307; Frankel, 295-96; General Walter Krueger, From Down

Under to Nippon, The Story of Sixth Army in World War II (Washington, DC:

Combat Forces Press, 1953), 251; Wright, 136; and 129th Infantry, 97.

44. Frankel, 297-98; 37th Infantry Division, 88; and 129th Infantry, 109.

45. Frankel, 299.

46. Ibid., 299-303, and 129th Infantry, 110.

47. 37th Infantry, 43; Smith, 308; and Connaughton, 190-91.

48. On coordinating advance and consolidating lines, see Frankel, 276.

On tanks, see 37th Infantry Division, 59. On airpower, see Smith 235, 249-50,

264, 294.

49. Ibid., 249-50, 263-64, 296, and 37th Infantry Division, 51.

50. 37th Infantry Division, 53, 55, 75, 77, 81.

51. Frankel, 261, and 129th Infantry, 109.

52. 37th Infantry Division, 59.

53. Ibid., 65, 67.

119
54. Connaughton, 123; 37th Infantry Division, 53; and Frankel, 278.

55. Frankel, 277. For atrocities, see Connaughton, 113-25.

120
Bibliography

The 129th Infantry in World War II. Regimental Staff, ed. Washington, DC:

Infantry Journal Press, 1947. History of the 129th Infantry Regiment

in the Pacific in World War II, prepared by the regimental staff.

Describes operational events as seen at the regimental level. Useful

appendixes.

Connaughton, Richard, John Pimlott, and Duncan Anderson. The Battle for

Manila. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1995. Excellent single-volume

treatment of the Manila battle. Synthesizes earlier literature and

provides interesting insights of its own.

Frankel, Stanley A. The 37th Infantry Division in World War II. Washington,

DC: Infantry Journal Press, 1948. A history of the 37th Infantry Division’s service in the Pacific written apparently on behalf of the 37th

Division’s Veterans Association. Describes operational events and is

especially good for details relating to divisional morale and unusual

challenges the division faced. Useful appendixes.

Krueger, General Walter. From Down Under to Nippon, The Story of Sixth

Army in World War II. Washington, DC: Combat Forces Press, 1953.

Memoir of the commander of Sixth Army in the Pacific. Describes

succinctly Sixth Army’s Pacific operations.

Reports of General MacArthur, 2v. Gordon W. Prange, ed. Washington, DC:

Center of Military History, 1994 [1966]. Authoritative account of the

Pacific war compiled by MacArthur’s staff in Japan shortly after

World War II. Volume I addresses U.S. operations in the Pacific, and

Volume II addresses Japanese operations in the Pacific.

Smith, Robert R. Triumph in the Philippines, The War in the Pacific, United

States Army in World War II. Washington, DC: Center of Military

History, 1993 [1963]. Official U.S. Army history of the Philippine

campaign of 1944-1945. Contains detailed coverage of combat

events, maps, casualty figures, and the like for U.S. ground forces.

U.S. Army. 37th Infantry Division. Report After Action on Operations of the

37th Infantry Division, M-1 Operations. Headquarters, 37th Infantry

Division, 1945. The day-by-day after-action report of the 37th Infantry Division. Describes daily deployments and results for the division.

Thoughtful commentary is provided at many points by division staff

officers.

U.S. War Department. Field Manual 31-50. Attack on a Fortified Position and

Combat in Towns. Washington, DC, 31 January 1944. Field manual

describing U.S. Army doctrine for urban warfare during World War II.

121
Wright, Bertram C. The 1st Cavalry Division in World War II. Tokyo: Toppan

Printing Company, 1947. History of the Pacific campaigns of the 1st

Cavalry Division compiled by the division historian. Colloquial in

tone. Contains numerous photos and useful appendixes.

122
The Battle for Hue, 1968

James H. Willbanks

On 8 March 1965, elements of the U.S. 9th Marine Expeditionary

Force came ashore in Vietnam at Da Nang, ostensibly to provide security for the U.S. air base there. A month later, President Lyndon Johnson authorized the use of U.S. ground troops for offensive combat

operations in Vietnam. These events marked a significant change in

U.S. involvement in the ongoing war between the South Vietnamese

government and its Communist foes. Heretofore, U.S. forces had been

supporting the South Vietnamese with advisers and air support, but

with the arrival of the Marines, a massive U.S. buildup ensued that resulted in 184,300 American troops in Vietnam by the end of 1965. This

number would rapidly increase until over 319,000 troops were in country by the end of 1967.1

Eventually, U.S. ground troops were deployed in all four corps

tactical zones and actively conducted combat operations against the

southern-based Viet Cong (VC) and their counterparts from North

Vietnam, the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN—also known as the

North Vietnamese Army or NVA). The first major battle between U.S.

forces and PAVN troops occurred in November 1965 in the Ia Drang

Valley. Over the next two years, U.S. forces conducted many large-scale

search-and-destroy operations such as MASHER/WHITE WING,

ATTLEBORO, CEDAR FALLS, and JUNCTION CITY. These

operations were designed to find and destroy the enemy forces in a war of

attrition. By the end of 1967, however, the war in Vietnam had degenerated

into a bloody stalemate. U.S. and South Vietnamese operations had

inflicted high casualties and disrupted Communist operations, but the

North Vietnamese continued to infiltrate troops into South Vietnam.

Nevertheless, General William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces

in Vietnam, was very optimistic that progress was being made; on 21

November 1967, he appeared before the National Press Club in

Washington and asserted, “We have reached an important point when the

end begins to come into view. I am absolutely certain that, whereas in 1965

the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing. The enemy’s hopes

are bankrupt.”2 Events in 1968 would prove him wrong.

The plan for the 1968 Tet Offensive was born in the summer of 1967.

Frustrated with the stalemate on the battlefield and concerned with the

aggressive American tactics during the previous year, Communist

leaders in Hanoi (the North Vietnamese capital) decided to launch a

123
general offensive to strike a decisive blow against the South Vietnamese and their U.S. allies. This campaign was designed to break the stalemate and achieve three objectives: provoke a general uprising among

the people in the south, shatter the South Vietnamese armed forces, and

convince the Americans that the war was unwinnable. The offensive

would target the previously untouched South Vietnamese urban centers. The Communists prepared for the coming offensive by a massive

buildup of troops and equipment in the south. At the same time, they

launched a series of diversionary attacks against remote outposts designed to lure U.S. forces into the countryside away from the population

areas. In the fall of 1967, the plan went into effect with Communist attacks in the areas south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating

North and South Vietnam along South Vietnam’s western border in the

Central Highlands. The main effort of this preliminary phase of the offensive began on 21 January 1968 at Khe Sanh in northwestern South

Vietnam, where two PAVN divisions lay siege to the Marine base there.

Believing that the Communists were trying to achieve another Dien

Bien Phu, President Johnson declared that Khe Sanh would be held at

all costs.3

With all eyes on Khe Sanh, the Communists launched the main

offensive itself in the early morning hours of 31 January 1968, when

84,000 North Vietnamese and VC troops, taking advantage of the Tet

(lunar New Year) cease-fire then in effect, mounted simultaneous

assaults on thirty-six of forty-four provincial capitals, five of the six

autonomous cities, including Saigon and Hue, sixty-four of 242 district

capitals, and fifty hamlets. Many of the South Vietnamese troops were

on holiday leave, so the Communist forces initially enjoyed widespread

success. Within days, however, all of the attacks in the smaller towns

and hamlets were turned back. Heavy fighting continued for a while

longer in Kontum and Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands, in Can

Tho and Ben Tre in the Mekong Delta, and in Saigon itself.

The longest and bloodiest battle of the Tet Offensive occurred in

Hue, the most venerated city in Vietnam. Located astride Highway 1

ten kilometers west of the coast and a hundred kilometers south of the

DMZ, Hue was the capital of Thua Thien Province and South Vietnam’s third largest city, with a wartime population of 140,000 (see Map

1). It was the old imperial capital and served as the cultural and intellectual center of Vietnam. It had been treated almost as an open city by the

VC and North Vietnamese and thus had remained remarkably free of

war. Although there had been sporadic mortar and rocket attacks in the

area, Hue itself had been relatively peaceful and secure prior to Tet in

124
1968. Nevertheless, the city was on one of the principal land supply

routes for the allied troops occupying positions along the DMZ to the

north, and it also served as a major unloading point for waterborne supplies that were brought inland via the river from Da Nang on the coast.

125

Kilometers

Miles

HUE AREA 0 5

0 5 10

PK 17

Thon Thuang

Thon La Chu

Thon Bon Tri

Perfume River

HUE

Thuy Thanh

Highway 1

Hue-Phu Bai

Airfield Phu Bai

Nam Hoa

Ta Trach River

Chi Voi Mountain

Huu Trach River

NN

South China Sea

LAOS

CAMBODIA

II CORPS

NORTH

VIETNAM

QUANG Tri

Quang Tri

Phu Bai

HUE

THUA THIEN

QUANG NAM

Danang

Hoi An

Tam Ky

QUANG TIN Chu Lai

Quang Ngai

QUANG NGAI

XXX

I CORPS

TACTICAL ZONE

0 10 25 50

0 10 25 50 75

Miles Kilometers

DMZ

Map 1
Hue was really two cities divided by

the Song Huong, or River of Perfume,

which flowed through the city from the

southwest to the northeast on its way to

the South China Sea ten kilometers to

the east. One-third of the city’s population lived north of the river within the

walls of the Old City, or Citadel, a picturesque place of gardens, pagodas,

moats, and intricate stone buildings.

Just outside the walls of the Citadel to

the east was the densely populated district of Gia Hoi (see Map 2).

The Citadel was an imposing fortress, begun in 1802 by Emperor Gia

Long with the aid of the French and modeled on Peking’s Forbidden

City. Once the residence of the Annamese emperors who had ruled the

central portion of present-day Vietnam, the Citadel covered three

square miles and really included three concentric cities and a labyrinth of readily defensible positions. The Citadel was protected by an

outer wall 30 feet high and up to 90 feet thick, which formed a square

about 3,000 yards on each side. Three sides were straight, while the

fourth was rounded slightly to follow the curve of the river. The three

walls not bordering the river were encircled by a zigzag moat that was

90 feet wide at many points and up to 12 feet deep. Many areas of the

wall were honeycombed with bunkers and tunnels that had been constructed by the Japanese when they occupied the city in World War II.

The Citadel included block after block of row houses, parks, villas,

shops, various buildings, and an airstrip. Within the Citadel was another enclave: the Imperial Palace compound, where the emperors had

held court until 1883 when the French returned to take control of Vietnam. Located at the south end of the Citadel, the palace was essentially

a square with 20-foot-high walls that measured 700 meters per side.

The Citadel and the Imperial Palace were a “camera-toting tourist’s

dream,” but they would prove to be “a rifle-toting infantryman’s nightmare.”4

South of the river and linked to the Citadel by the six-span Nguyen

Hoang Bridge, over which Route 1 passed, lay the modern part of the

city. This was about half the size of the Citadel and included about twothirds of the city’s population. The southern half of Hue contained the

hospital, the provincial prison, the Catholic cathedral and many of the

126

The Citadel
city’s modern structures, to include government administrative buildings, the U.S. Consulate, Hue University, the city’s high school, and the

newer residential districts.

The 1st Infantry Division Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN)

was headquartered in Hue, but most of its troops were spread out along

127

IMPERIAL

PALACE OF PEACE

Western Gate

GIAHOI

AREA

Perfume River

P e r f u m e R i v e r

Route 1

FIRST ARVN

DIVISION

HEADQUARTERS

Tay Loc

airfield

CITADEL

moat

Dei Greng River

Route 1

Phu Cam

Cathedral

Route 550

Prison

Province

Hospital

Cercle

Sporiff

Radio

Station

University

apartments

Tu Dam

Pagoda

Treasury

Post

Office

MACV Compound Hue University

Route 1

Doc Lao

Park

Boat Ramp

Joan of Arc School and Church

Nguyen Hoang

Bridge

An Cuu

Bridge

Railroad

Bridge

Thua Thien

Priovince Headquarters

0

0

500m

1/2mile

HUE,

1968

Flagpole

Power

Station

5 n th i Mar e Corps To Phu Bai,

C b o t a mba se 8 miles

Phu Cam Canal

Map 2
Highway 1, from Hue north toward the DMZ. The division headquarters was located at the northwest corner of the Citadel in a fortified compound protected by 6- to 8-foot-high walls, topped by barbed wire. The

closest South Vietnamese unit was the 3d ARVN Regiment, with three

battalions, that was located 5 miles northwest of Hue. A fourth ARVN

battalion was operating some miles southwest of the city. The only

combat element in the city was the division’s Hac Bao Company,

known as the “Black Panthers,” an elite all-volunteer unit that served as

the division reconnaissance and rapid reaction force. Security within

the city itself was primarily the responsibility of the National Police.

The only U.S. military presence in Hue when the battle began was

the MACV (Military Assistance Command, Vietnam) compound,

which housed 200 U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, and Australian

officers and men who served as advisers to the 1st ARVN Division.

They maintained a lightly fortified compound on the eastern edge of the

modern part of the city south of the river about a block and a half south

of the Nguyen Hoang Bridge.

The nearest U.S. combat base was at Phu Bai, 8 miles south along

Route 1. Phu Bai was a major Marine Corps command post and support

facility that was the home of Task Force X-Ray, which had been established as a forward headquarters of the 1st Marine Division. The task

force, commanded by Brigadier General Foster C. “Frosty” LaHue, assistant commander of the 1st Marine Division, was made up of two Marine regimental headquarters and three battalions—the 5th Regiment

with two battalions and the 1st Regiment with one battalion. Most of

these troops, including LaHue, had only recently arrived in the Phu Bai

area, having been displaced from Da Nang, and they were still getting

acquainted with the area of operations when the Communists launched

their attack on Hue.

In addition to the U.S. Marines, there were also U.S. Army units in

the area. Two brigades of the 1st Cavalry Division were scattered over a

wide area from Phu Bai in the south to landing zone (LZ) Jane just south

of Quang Tri in the north. The 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne

Division had recently been attached to the 1st Cavalry and had just

arrived at Camp Evans (located north along Highway 1 between Hue

and Quang Tri), coming north from its previous area of operations.

Opposing the allied forces in the Hue region were 8,000 Communist

troops, a total of ten battalions. These were highly trained North Vietnamese regular army units that had come south either across the DMZ

or more likely, down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They were armed with

AK-47 assault rifles, RPD machineguns, and B-40 rocket-propelled

128
grenade launchers. In addition, the PAVN had 107-millimeter (mm),

122mm, and 140mm free-flight rockets; 82mm and 120mm mortars;

recoilless rifles; and heavy machine guns. The North Vietnamese units

were joined by six VC main force battalions, including the 12th and

Hue City Sapper Battalions.5 A typical main-force VC infantry battalion consisted of 300 to 600 veteran, skilled fighters. The VC soldiers

were armed similar to the PAVN except that they did not have some of

the heavier weapons.6 During the course of the battle for Hue, the total

Communist force in and around the city would grow to twenty battalions when three additional infantry regiments were dispatched to the

Hue area from the Khe Sanh battlefield.

Before the Tet Offensive began, the Communists had prepared

extensive plans for the attack on Hue, which would be directed by

General Tran Van Quang, commander of the B4 (Tri Thien-Hue) Front.

The plan called for a division-size assault on the city, while other forces

cut off access to the city to preclude allied reinforcements. Quang and

his senior commanders believed that once the city’s population realized

the superiority of the Communist troops, the people would immediately

rise up to join forces with the VC and PAVN against the Americans and

the South Vietnamese, driving them out of Hue. Possessing very

detailed information on civil and military installations within the city,

the Communist planners had divided Hue into four tactical areas and

prepared a list of 196 targets within the city. They planned to use more

than 5,000 soldiers to take the city in one swift blow.

Communist documents captured during and after the Tet Offensive

indicate that enemy troops received intensive training in the technique

of city street fighting before the offensive began.7 Extremely adept at

fighting in the jungles and rice paddies, the PAVN and VC troops

required additional training to prepare for the special requirements of

fighting in urban areas. This training, focusing on both individual and

unit tasks, included offensive tactics, techniques, and procedures to

assist in taking the city and defensive measures to help the Communists

hold the city once they had seized it.

While the assault troops trained for the battle to come, VC

intelligence officers prepared a list of “cruel tyrants and reactionary

elements” to be rounded up during the early hours of the attack.8 This

list included most South Vietnamese officials, military officers,

politicians, American civilians, and other foreigners. After capture,

these individuals were to be evacuated to the jungle outside the city,

where they would be punished for their crimes against the Vietnamese

people.

129
The enemy had carefully selected the time for the attack. Because of

the Tet holiday, the ARVN defenders would be at reduced strength. In

addition, bad weather that traditionally accompanied the northeast

monsoon season would hamper aerial resupply operations and impede

close air support, which would otherwise have given the allied forces in

Hue a considerable advantage.

The city’s defense against the impending attack hinged in large part

on the leadership of Brigadier General Ngo Quang Truong, commander

of the 1st ARVN Division, regarded by many U.S. advisers as one of the

best senior commanders in the South Vietnamese armed forces.9 A

1954 graduate of the Dalat Military Academy, he had won his position

through ability and combat leadership and not because of political

influence or bribery, as was the case with many of his ARVN peers.

On the morning of 30 January, the beginning of the Tet holiday,

Truong received reports of enemy attacks on Da Nang, Nha Trang, and

other South Vietnamese installations during the previous night.

Sensing that something was up, he gathered his division staff at the

headquarters compound and put them and his remaining troops on full

alert. Unfortunately, over half of his division was on holiday leave and

out of the city. Believing that the Communists would not attack the

“open” city directly, Truong positioned the forces left on duty around

the city to defend outside the urban area. Therefore, when the

Communist attack came, the only regular ARVN troops in the city were

from the Hac Bao “Black Panther” reconnaissance company that was

guarding the airstrip at the northeastern corner of the Citadel.

Unknown to Truong as he prepared for whatever was to come, there

was a clear indication that there would be a direct attack on his city. On

the same day that the South Vietnamese commander put his staff on

alert, a U.S. Army radio intercept unit at Phu Bai overheard Communist

orders calling for an imminent assault on Hue. Following standard

procedure, the intercept unit forwarded the message through normal

channels. Making its way through several command layers, the

intercept and associated intelligence analysis did not make it to the Hue

defenders until the city was already under attack.10

Even as the intelligence report made its way slowly through

channels, the Viet Cong had already infiltrated the city. Wearing

civilian garb, Communist troops had mingled with the throngs of

people who had come to Hue for the Tet holiday. They had easily

transported their weapons and ammunition into the city in wagons,

truck beds, and other hiding places. In the early morning hours of 31

January, these soldiers took up initial positions within the city and

130
prepared to link up with the PAVN and VC assault troops. At 0340, the

Communists launched a rocket and mortar barrage from the mountains

to the west on both old and new sectors of the city. Following this

barrage, the assault troops began their attack. The VC infiltrators had

donned their uniforms, met their comrades at the gates, and led them in

the attack on key installations in the city.

The PAVN 6th Regiment, with two battalions of infantry and the

12th VC Sapper Battalion, launched the main attack from the southwest

and moved quickly across the Perfume River into the Citadel toward the

ARVN 1st Division headquarters in the northeastern corner. The 800th

and 802d Battalions of the 6th Regiment rapidly overran most of the

Citadel, but Truong and his staff held the attackers off at the 1st ARVN

Division compound, while the Hac Bao Company managed to hold its

position at the eastern end of the airfield. On several occasions, the

802d Battalion came close to penetrating the division compound, so

Truong ordered the Black Panthers to withdraw from the airfield to the

compound to help thicken his defenses there. By daylight on 31

January, the PAVN 6th Regiment held the entire Citadel, including the

Imperial Palace. The only exception was the 1st Division compound

that remained in South Vietnamese hands; the PAVN 802d Battalion

had breached the ARVN defenses on several occasions during the

night, but each time they were hurled back by the Black Panthers.

The story was not much better for the Americans south of the river in

the new city. It could have been worse, but the North Vietnamese made

a tactical error when they launched their initial attack on the MACV

compound. Rather than attack immediately on the heels of the rocket

and mortar barrage, they waited for approximately 5 minutes. This gave

the defenders an opportunity to mount a quick defense. The PAVN

804th Battalion twice assaulted the compound, but the attackers were

repelled each time by quickly assembled defenders armed with individual weapons. One U.S. soldier manned an exposed machine gun position atop a 20-foot wooden tower; his fire stopped the first rush of North

Vietnamese sappers who tried to advance to the compound walls to set

satchel charges, but he was killed by a B-40 rocket. The PAVN troops

then stormed the compound gates where they were met by a group of

Marines manning a bunker. The Marines held off the attackers for a

brief period, but eventually the PAVN took out the defenders with several B-40 rockets. This delay, however, slowed the North Vietnamese

attack and gave the Americans and their Australian comrades additional time to organize their defenses. After an intense firefight, the

Communists failed to take the compound, so they tried to reduce it with

131
mortars and automatic weapons fire from overlooking buildings. The

defenders went to ground and waited for reinforcements.

While the battle raged around the MACV compound, two VC

battalions took over the Thua Thien Province headquarters, police

station, and other government buildings south of the river. At the same

time, the PAVN 810th Battalion occupied blocking positions on the

southern edge of the city to prevent reinforcement from that direction.

By dawn, the North Vietnamese 4th Regiment controlled all of Hue

south of the river except the MACV compound.

Thus, in very short order, the Communists had seized control of

virtually all of Hue. When the sun came up on the morning of 31

January, nearly everyone in the city could see the gold-starred, blue and

red National Liberation Front flag flying high over the Citadel. While

the PAVN and VC assault troops roamed the streets freely and

consolidated their gains, political officers began a reign of terror by

rounding up the South Vietnamese and foreigners on the special lists.

VC officers marched through the Citadel, reading out the names on the

lists through loudspeakers and telling them to report to a local school.

Those who did not report were hunted down.11 The detainees were

never seen alive again; their fate was not apparent until after the U.S.

and South Vietnamese forces recaptured the Citadel and nearly 3,000

civilians were found massacred and buried in mass graves.

As the battle erupted at Hue, other Communist forces had struck in

cities and towns from the DMZ to the Ca Mau Peninsula in the south.

Allied forces had their hands full all over the country, and it would

prove difficult to assemble sufficient uncommitted combat power to

oust the Communists from Hue. Additionally, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces had been moved to the west to support the action in and

around Khe Sanh, thus reducing the number of troops available in the

entire northern region. This situation would have a major impact on the

conduct of operations to retake Hue from the Communists.

Brigadier General Truong, who only had a tenuous hold on his own

headquarters compound, ordered his 3d Regiment, reinforced with two

airborne battalions and an armored cavalry troop, to fight its way into

the Citadel from positions northwest of the city. En route these forces

encountered intense small-arms and automatic weapons fire as they

neared the Citadel. They fought their way through the resistance and

reached Truong’s headquarters late in the afternoon.

As Truong tried to consolidate his forces, another call for

reinforcements went out from the surrounded MACV compound. This

132
plea for assistance was almost lost in all the confusion caused by the

simultaneous attacks going on all over I Corps. Lieutenant General

Hoang Xuan Lam, commander of the South Vietnamese forces in I

Corps, and Lieutenant General Robert Cushman III, Marine

Amphibious Force (MAF) commander, were not sure what exactly was

happening inside the city. The enemy strength and the scope of the

Communist attack was less than clear during the early hours of the

battle, but the allied commanders realized that reinforcements would be

needed to eject the Communists from Hue. Accordingly, Cushman

ordered TF X-Ray to send reinforcements into Hue to relieve the

besieged MACV compound.

While both ARVN and U.S. commanders tried to assess the situation

and made preparations to move reinforcements to Hue, the North Vietnamese quickly established additional blocking positions to prevent

those reinforcements from reaching the beleaguered defenders. The

PAVN 806th Battalion blocked Highway 1 northwest of Hue while the

PAVN 804th and K4B Battalions took up positions in southern Hue. At

the same time, the 810th Battalion dug in along Highway 1 south of

Hue.

Responding to III MAF orders, Brigadier General LaHue, commander of TF X-Ray, dispatched Company A, 1st Battalion, 1st

Marines (A/1/1), to move up Route 1 from Phu Bai by truck to relieve

the surrounded U.S. advisers. The initial report of the attack on

Truoung’s headquarters and the MACV compound had not caused any

great alarm at LaHue’s headquarters. The TF commander, having received no reliable intelligence to the contrary, believed that only a small

enemy force had penetrated Hue as part of a local diversionary attack;

little did he know that almost a full enemy division had seized the city.

He therefore sent only one company to deal with the situation. LaHue

later wrote that “initial deployment of force was made with limited information.”12

Not knowing exactly what to expect when they reached the city, the

Marines from A/1/1 headed north as ordered, joining up with four M48

tanks from the 3d Tank Battalion en route. The convoy ran into sniper

fire and had to stop several times to clear buildings along the route of

march. When the convoy crossed the bridge that spanned the Phu Cam

Canal into the southern part of the city, the Marines were immediately

caught in a withering crossfire from enemy automatic weapons and

B-40 rockets that seemed to come from every direction. They advanced

slowly against intense enemy resistance, but became pinned down

between the river and the canal, just short of the MACV compound they

133
had been sent to relieve. The company commander, Captain Gordon D.

Batcheller, was wounded during this fight, as were a number of his

Marines.

With his Company A pinned down, Lieutenant Colonel Marcus J.

Gravel, the battalion commander of 1/1 Marines, organized a hasty

reaction force: himself; his operations officer; some others from his

battalion command group; and Company G, 2d Battalion, 5th Marines

(G/2/5), a unit from another battalion that had just arrived in Phu Bai

earlier that day. Gravel had never met Captain Charles L. Meadows, the

Company G commander, until that day, and he later said that the only

planning he had time to accomplish was to issue the order: “Get on the

trucks, men.”13

With little information other than that its fellow Marines were

pinned down, the relief force moved up the highway, reinforced with

two self-propelled, twin 40mm guns. The force met little resistance

along the way and linked up with A/1/1st Marines, now being led by a

wounded gunnery sergeant. With the aid of the four tanks and the 40mm

self-propelled guns, the combined force fought its way to the MACV

compound, breaking through to the beleaguered defenders at about

1515. The cost, however, was high: ten Marines were killed and thirty

were wounded.

Having linked up with the defenders of the MACV compound, Lieutenant Colonel Gravel received new orders from LaHue, directing him

to cross the Perfume River with his battalion and break through to the

ARVN 1st Division headquarters in the Citadel. Gravel protested that

134

Co H, 2d Bn, 5th Marine troops take cover in heavy fighting in Hue City.
his “battalion” consisted of only two companies, one of which was in

pretty bad shape, and that part of his force would have to be left behind

to assist with the defense of the MACV compound. Nevertheless,

LaHue, who still had not realized the full extent of the enemy situation

in Hue, radioed back that Gravel was to “go anyway.”14 Sending

Gravel’s battered force to contend with the much stronger PAVN and

VC north of the river would ultimately result in failure.

Leaving Company A behind to help with the defense of the MACV

compound, Gravel took Company G, reinforced with three of the

original M48 tanks and several others from the ARVN 7th Armored

Cavalry Squadron, and moved out to comply with LaHue’s orders.

Leaving the tanks on the southern bank to support by fire, Gravel and

his Marines attempted to cross the Nguyen Hoang bridge leading into

the Citadel. As the infantry started across the bridge, they were met with

a hail of fire from a machine gun position at the north end of the bridge.

Ten Marines went down. Lance Corporal Lester A. Tully, who later

received the Silver Star for his action, rushed forward and took out the

machine gun nest with a grenade. Two platoons followed Tully, made it

over the bridge, and turned left, paralleling the river along the Citadel’s

southeast wall. They immediately came under heavy fire from AK-47

rifles, heavy automatic weapons, B-40 rockets, and recoilless rifles

from the walls of the Citadel.

As mortar shells and rockets exploded around them, the Marines

tried to push forward but were soon pinned down by the increasing

volume of enemy fire. Gravel determined that his force was greatly

outnumbered and decided to withdraw. However, even that proved

very difficult. According to Gravel, the enemy was well dug-in and

“firing from virtually every building in Hue city” north of the river.15

Gravel called for vehicle support to assist in evacuating his wounded,

but none was available. Eventually, the Marines commandeered some

abandoned Vietnamese civilian vehicles and used them as makeshift

ambulances. After 2 hours of intense fighting, the company was able to

pull back to the bridge. By 2000, the 1st Battalion had established a

defensive position near the MACV compound along a stretch of

riverbank that included a park (which they rapidly transformed into a

helicopter LZ). The attempt by the Marines to force their way across the

bridge had been costly. Among the casualties was Major Walter D.

Murphy, the S3 Operations Officer of the 1st Battalion, who later died

from his wounds. Captain Meadows, commander of Company G, lost

one-third of his unit killed or wounded “going across that one bridge

and then getting back across the bridge.”16

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At Phu Bai, despite detailed reports from Gravel, LaHue, and his

intelligence officers still did not have a good appreciation of what was

happening in Hue. As LaHue later explained, “Early intelligence did

not reveal the quantity of enemy involved that we subsequently found

were committed to Hue.”17 The intelligence picture in Saigon was just

as confused; General Westmoreland, commander of U.S. MACV,

cabled General Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

that the “enemy has approximately three companies in the Hue Citadel

and Marines have sent a battalion into the area to clear them out.”18 This

repeated gross underestimation of enemy strength in Hue resulted in

insufficient forces being allocated for retaking the city.

With Brigadier General Truong and the 1st ARVN Division fully

occupied in the Citadel north of the river, Lieutenant General Lam and

Lieutenant General Cushman discussed how to divide responsibility

for the effort to retake Hue. They eventually agreed that ARVN forces

would be responsible for clearing Communist forces from the Citadel

and the rest of Hue north of the river, while TF X-Ray would assume

responsibility for the southern part of the city. This situation resulted in

what would be, in effect, two separate and distinct battles that would

rage in Hue, one south of the river and one north of the river.

In retaking Hue, Lam and Cushman were confronted with a unique

problem. The ancient capital was sacred to the Vietnamese people,

particularly so to the Buddhists. The destruction of the city would result

in political repercussions that neither the United States nor the

government of South Vietnam could afford. Cushman later recalled, “I

wasn’t about to open up on the old palace and all the historical buildings

there.”19 As a result, limitations were imposed on the use of artillery and

close air support to minimize collateral damage. Eventually these

restrictions were lifted when it was realized that both artillery and close

air support would be necessary to dislodge the enemy from the city.

However, the initial rules of engagement played a key role in the

difficulties incurred in the early days of the battle.

Having divided up the city, Cushman—with Westmoreland’s

concurrence—began to make arrangements to send reinforcements into

the Hue area in an attempt to seal off the enemy inside the city from

outside support. On 2 February, the U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division’s

3d Brigade entered the battle with the mission of blocking the enemy

approaches into the city from the north and west. The brigade airlifted

the 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry (2/12 Cav), into an LZ about 10

kilometers northwest of Hue on Highway 1. By 4 February, the cavalry

troopers had moved cross country from the LZ and established a

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blocking position on a hill overlooking a valley about 6 kilometers west

of Hue. This position provided excellent observation of the main enemy

routes into and out of Hue.

During the same period, the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry (5/7 Cav),

conducted search-and-clear operations along enemy routes west of

Hue. On 7 February, they made contact with an entrenched North

Vietnamese force and tried for the next 24 hours to expel the

Communists. However, the enemy forces held their position and

stymied the cavalry advance with heavy volumes of automatic weapons

and mortar fire. On 9 February, Headquarters, 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry

Division, ordered 5/7 Cav to fix the PAVN in place and directed 2/12

Cav to attack northward from its position. The latter ran into heavy

resistance near the village of Thong Bon Ti but continued to fight its

way toward 5/7 Cav’s position. For the next ten days, the two cavalry

battalions fought with the entrenched Communists who held their

positions against repeated assaults. Despite the inability of the cavalry

troops to expel the North Vietnamese, this action at least partially

blocked the enemy’s movement and inhibited its participation in the

battle raging in Hue.

For almost three weeks, the U.S. cavalry units tried to hold off the

reinforcement of Hue by North Vietnamese troops from the PAVN

24th, 29th, and 99th Regiments. The Americans were reinforced on 19

February when the 2d Battalion, 501st Infantry (2/501st) was attached

to the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, from the U.S. Army’s 101st

Airborne Division. The battalion was subsequently ordered to seal

access to the city from the south. The 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry (1/7

Cav), deployed south to the Hue area also on that day after being

relieved from its base defense mission at Camp Evans. While these U.S.

Army units saw plenty of heavy action in these outlying areas and

contributed greatly to the eventual allied victory at Hue, the fighting

inside the city was to remain largely in the hands of South Vietnamese

troops and U.S. Marines.

As allied reinforcements began their movement to the area, the

ARVN and Marines began making preparations for counterattacks in

their assigned areas. Making their task more difficult was the weather,

which took a turn for the worse on 2 February when the temperature fell

into the 50s (F) and the low clouds opened up with a cold drenching

rain.

As the rain fell, Lieutenant Colonel Gravel’s “bobtailed” 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, was ordered to attack to seize the Thua Thien

Province headquarters building and prison, six blocks west of the

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MACV compound. At 0700, Gravel launched a two-company assault

supported by tanks to take his assigned objectives, but the Marines immediately ran into trouble. An M79 gunner from Company G recalled:

“We didn’t get a block away [from the MACV compound] when we

started getting sniper fire. We got a tank...went a block, turned right

and received 57mm recoilless which put out our tank”; the attack was

“stopped cold,” and the battalion fell back to its original position near

the MACV compound.20

By this time, Brigadier General LaHue had finally realized that he

and his intelligence officers had vastly underrated the strength of the

Communists south of the river. Accordingly, he called in Colonel

Stanley S. Hughes, the new commander of the 1st Marine Regiment,

and gave him overall tactical control of U.S. forces in the southern part

of the city. Assuming control of the battle, Hughes promised Gravel

reinforcements and gave him the general mission to conduct “sweep

and clear operations. . . to destroy enemy forces, protect U.S. Nationals

and restore that [southern] portion of the city to U.S. control.”21 In

response, Gravel ordered Company F, 2d Battalion, 5th Marines

(F/2/5), which had been placed under his operational control when it

arrived the previous day, to relieve a MACV communications facility

near the VC-surrounded U.S. Consulate. The Marines launched their

attack, fighting most of the afternoon, but failed to reach the U.S. Army

signal troops, losing three Marines killed and thirteen wounded in the

process. At that point, Gravel’s troops established night defensive

positions; during the night, Gravel made plans to renew the attack the

next morning.

The next day, the Marines made some headway and brought in

further reinforcements. The 1st Battalion finally relieved the MACV

radio facility in the late morning hours, and after an intense 3-hour

fight, reached the Hue University campus. During the night, the

Communist sappers had dropped the railroad bridge across the Perfume

River west of the city, but they left untouched the bridge across the Phu

Cam Canal. At 1100, Company H, 2d Battalion, 5th Marines (H/2/5),

commanded by Captain Ronald G. Christmas, crossed the bridge over

the canal in a convoy, accompanied by Army trucks equipped with

quad .50-caliber machine guns and two ONTOS, which were tracked

vehicles armed with six 106mm recoilless rifles. As the convoy neared

the MACV compound, it came under intense enemy heavy machine

gun and rocket fire. The Marines responded rapidly, and in the ensuing

confusion, the convoy exchanged fire with another Marine unit already

in the city. As one Marine in the convoy remembered, “our guys

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happened to be out on the right side of the road and of course nobody

knew that. First thing you know everybody began shooting at our own

men . . . out of pure fright and frenzy.”22 Luckily, neither of the Marine

units took any casualties. Company H joined Gravel where the 1st

Battalion had established a position near the MACV compound. The

PAVN and VC gunners continued to pour machine gun and rocket fire

into the position, and by day’s end, the Marines at that location had

sustained two dead and thirty-four wounded.

On the afternoon of 2 February, Colonel Hughes decided to move his

command group into Hue where he could more directly control the

battle. Accompanying Hughes in the convoy that departed for the city

was Lieutenant Colonel Ernest C. Cheatham, commander of 2d

Battalion, 5th Marines, who had been sitting frustrated in Phu Bai while

three of his units—companies F, G, and H—fought in Hue under

Gravel’s control. Hughes quickly established his command post in the

MACV compound. The forces at his disposal included Cheatham’s

three companies from 2/5 Marines and Gravel’s depleted battalion

consisting of Company A, 1/1 Marines, and a provisional company

consisting of one platoon of Company B, 1/1, and several dozen cooks

and clerks who had been sent to the front lines to fight.23

Hughes wasted no time in taking control of the situation. He directed

Gravel to anchor the left flank with his one-and-a-half-company

battalion to keep the main supply route open. Then he ordered

Cheatham and his three companies to assume responsibility for the

attack south from the university toward the provincial headquarters,

telling him to “attack through the city and clean the NVA out.” When

Cheatham hesitated, waiting for additional guidance, the regimental

commander who, like everyone else going into Hue, had only the

sketchiest information, gruffly stated, “if you’re looking for any more,

you aren’t going to get it. Move out!”24

Cheatham devised a plan that called for his battalion to move west

along the river from the MACV compound. He would attack with

companies F and H in the lead and Company G in reserve. Although the

plan was simple, execution proved extremely difficult. From the

MACV compound to the confluence of the Perfume River and the Phu

Cam Canal was almost 11 blocks, each of which the enemy had

transformed into a fortress that would have to be cleared building by

building, room by room.

The Marines began their attack toward the treasury building and post

office, but they made very slow progress, not having yet devised

workable tactics to deal with the demands of the urban terrain. As the

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Marines, supported by tanks, tried to advance, the Communists hit them

with a withering array of mortar, rocket, machine gun, and small-arms

fire from prepared positions in the buildings. According to Cheatham,

his Marines tried to take the treasury and postal buildings five or six

different times. He later recalled, “You’d assault and back you’d come,

drag your wounded and then muster it [the energy and courage] up

again and try it again.”25

The Marines just did not have enough men to deal with the enemy

entrenched in the buildings. The frontage for a company was about one

block; with two companies forward, this left an exposed left flank,

subject to enemy automatic weapons and rocket fire. By the evening of

3 February, the Marines had made little progress and were taking

increasing casualties as they fought back and forth over the same

ground.

The following morning, Colonel Hughes met with his two battalion

commanders. Hughes ordered Cheatham to continue the attack. He told

Gravel to continue to secure Cheatham’s left flank with his battalion,

which now had only one company left after the previous day’s

casualties. As Gravel ordered his Marines into position to screen

Cheatham’s attack, they first had to secure the Joan of Arc school and

church. They immediately ran into heavy enemy fire and were forced to

fight house to house. Eventually, they secured the school but continued

to take effective fire from PAVN and VC gunners in the church.

Reluctantly, Gravel gave the order to fire on the church, and the

Marines pounded the building with mortars and 106mm recoilless rifle

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Co L, 3d Bn, 5th Marine troops use walls and houses to cover their advance in street

fighting in the Citadel.
fire, eventually killing or driving off the enemy. In the ruins of the

church, the Marines found two European priests, one French and one

Belgian, who were livid that the Marines had fired on the church.

Gravel was sorry for the destruction but felt that he had had no choice in

the matter.26

With Gravel’s Marines moving into position to screen his left flank

to the Phu Cam Canal, Cheatham launched his attack at 0700 on 4

February. It took 24 hours of bitter fighting just to reach the treasury

building. Attacking the rear of the building after blasting holes through

adjacent courtyard walls with 106mm recoilless rifle fire, the Marines

finally took the facility but only after it had been plastered with 90mm

tank rounds, 106mm recoilless rifles, 81mm mortars, and CS gas, a

riot-control agent.

In the rapidly deteriorating weather, the Marines found themselves

in a room-by-room, building-by-building struggle to clear an

11-by-9-block area just south of the river. This effort rapidly turned into

a nightmare. Fighting in such close quarters against an entrenched

enemy was decidedly different from what the Marines had been trained

to do. Accustomed to fighting in the sparsely populated countryside of I

Corps, nothing in their training had prepared them for the type of

warfare this urban setting demanded.27 Captain Christmas later

remembered his apprehension as his unit prepared to enter the battle for

Hue: “I could feel a knot developing in my stomach. Not so much from

fear—though a helluva lot of fear was there—but because we were new

to this type of situation. We were accustomed to jungles and open rice

fields, and now we would be fighting in a city like it was Europe during

World War II. One of the beautiful things about the Marines is that they

adapt quickly, but we were going to take a number of casualties learning

some basic lessons in this experience.”28

It was savage work—house-to-house fighting through city

streets—of a type largely unseen by Americans since World War II.

Ground gained in the fighting was to be measured in inches, and each

city block cost dearly: every alley, street corner, window, and garden

had to be paid for in blood. Correspondents who moved forward with

the Marines reported the fighting as the most intense they had ever seen

in South Vietnam.

The combat was relentless. Small groups of Marines moved doggedly from house to house, assaulting enemy positions with whatever

supporting fire was available, blowing holes in walls with rocket

launchers or recoilless rifles, then sending fire teams and squads into

the breach. Each structure had to be cleared room by room using M16

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rifles and grenades. Taking advantage of Hue’s numerous courtyards

and walled estates, the PAVN and VC ambushed the Marines every

step of the way. Having had no training in urban fighting, the Marines

had to work out the tactics and techniques on the spot.

One of the practical problems that the Marines encountered early

was the lack of sufficiently detailed maps. Originally their only

references were standard 1:50,000-scale tactical maps that showed

little of the city detail. One company commander later remarked, “You

have to raid the local Texaco station to get your street map. That’s really

what you need.”29 Eventually, Cheatham and Gravel secured the

necessary maps and numbered the government and municipal buildings

and prominent city features. This permitted them to coordinate their

efforts more closely.

Making the problem even more difficult was the initial prohibition

on using artillery and close air support. The Marines had a vast arsenal

of heavy weapons at their disposal: 105mm, 155mm, and 8-inch howitzers; helicopter gunships; close air support from fighter-bombers; and

naval gunfire from destroyers and cruisers with 5-inch, 6-inch, and

8-inch guns standing just offshore. However, because of the initial rules

of engagement that sought to limit damage to the city, these resources

were not available to the Marines at the beginning of the battle.

Even after Lieutenant General Lam lifted the ban on the use of fire

support south of the river on 3 February, the Marines could not depend

on air support or artillery because of the close quarters and the

low-lying cloud cover. Lieutenant Colonel Gravel later explained part

of the difficulty: “Artillery in an area like that is not terribly effective

because you can’t observe it well enough. You lose the rounds in the

buildings in the street . . . and you have a difficult time with

perspective.”30 Additionally, the poor weather, which also greatly

limited close air support, had a negative impact on the utility of artillery

because with low clouds and fog obscuring the flashes, the rounds had

to be adjusted by sound.

The Marines had other firepower at their disposal. They used tanks to

support their advance but found they were unwieldy in close quarters

and drew antitank fire nearly every time they advanced. The Marines

were much more enthusiastic about the ONTOS, with its six 106mm

recoilless rifles that were used very effectively in the direct-fire mode to

suppress enemy positions and to blow holes in the buildings so the

Marines could advance.31 Despite their preference for the 106mm

recoilless rifle, the Marines used every weapon at their disposal to

dislodge the PAVN and VC troops.

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Progress was slow, methodical, and costly. On 5 February, Captain

Christmas’ H/2/5 Marines took the Thua Thien province capitol

building in a particularly bloody battle. Using two tanks and 106mm

recoilless rifles mounted on mechanical mules (a flat-bedded,

self-propelled carrier about the size of a jeep), the Marines advanced

against intense automatic weapons fire, rockets, and mortars.

Responding with their own mortars and CS gas, the Marines finally

overwhelmed the defenders in mid-afternoon.

The province headquarters had assumed a symbolic importance to

both sides. A National Liberation Front flag had flown from the

flagpole in front of the headquarters since the initial Communist

takeover of the city. As a CBS television crew filmed the event, the

Marines tore down the enemy ensign and raised the Stars and Stripes.

This was a politically sensitive situation; the Marines should have

turned over the provincial headquarters building to the ARVN and

continued the fight, but Christmas told his gunnery sergeant, “We’ve

been looking at that damn North Vietnamese flag all day, and now

we’re going to take it down.”32 To Lieutenant Colonel Cheatham, this

proved to be the turning point of the battle for Hue. He later said, “When

we took the province headquarters, we broke their back. That was a

rough one.”33

The provincial headquarters had served as the command post of the

PAVN 4th Regiment. With its loss, the integrity of the North

Vietnamese defenses south of the river began to falter. However, the

fighting was far from over. Despite the rapid adaptation of the Marines

to street fighting, it was not until 11 February that the 2d Battalion, 5th

Marines, reached the confluence of the river and the canal. Two days

later, the Marines crossed into the western suburbs of Hue, aiming to

link up with troopers of the 1st Cavalry and 101st Airborne Division

who were moving in toward the city. By 14 February, most of the city

south of the river was in American hands, but mopping-up operations

would take another 12 days as rockets and mortar rounds continued to

fall and isolated snipers harassed Marine patrols. Control of that sector

of the city was returned to the South Vietnamese government. It had

been very costly for the Marines who sustained 38 dead and 320

wounded. It had been even more costly for the Communists; the bodies

of over 1,000 VC and PAVN soldiers were strewn about the city south

of the river.34

While the Marines fought for the southern part of the city, the battle

north of the river continued to rage. Despite the efforts of the U.S. units

trying to seal off Hue from outside reinforcement, Communist troops

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and supplies made it into the city from the west and north, and even on

boats coming down the river. On 1 February, the 2d ARVN Airborne

Battalion and the 7th ARVN Cavalry had recaptured the Tay Loc

airfield inside the Citadel but only after suffering heavy casualties

(including the death of the cavalry squadron commander) and losing

twelve armored personnel carriers. Later that day, U.S. Marine

helicopters brought part of the 4th Battalion, 2d ARVN Regiment, from

Dong Ha into the Citadel. Once on the ground, the ARVN attempted to

advance but were not able to make much headway in rooting out the

North Vietnamese. By 4 February, the ARVN advance north of the

river had effectively stalled among the houses, alleys, and narrow

streets adjacent to the Citadel wall to the northwest and southwest,

leaving the Communists still in possession of the Imperial Palace and

most of the surrounding area.

On the night of 6-7 February, the PAVN counterattacked and forced

the ARVN troops to pull back to the Tay Loc airfield. At the same time,

the North Vietnamese rushed additional reinforcements into the city.

Brigadier General Truong responded by redeploying his forces,

ordering the 3d ARVN Regiment to move into the Citadel to take up

positions around the division headquarters compound. By the evening

of 7 February, Truong’s forces inside the Citadel included four airborne

battalions, the Black Panther company, two armored cavalry

squadrons, the 3d ARVN Regiment, the 4th Battalion from the 2d

ARVN Regiment, and a company from the 1st ARVN Regiment.

Despite the ARVN buildup inside the Citadel, Truong’s troops still

failed to make any headway against the dug-in North Vietnamese who

had burrowed deeply into the walls and tightly packed buildings. All

the time, the PAVN and the VC seemed to be getting stronger as

reinforcements made it into the city. With his troops stalled, an

embarrassed and frustrated Truong was forced into appealing to III

MAF for help. On 10 February, Lieutenant General Cushman sent a

message to Brigadier General LaHue directing him to move a Marine

battalion to the Citadel. LaHue ordered Major Robert Thompson’s 1st

Battalion, 5th Marines, to prepare for movement to Hue. On 11

February, helicopters lifted two platoons of Company B into the ARVN

headquarters complex (the third platoon from the unit was forced to

turn back when its pilot was wounded by ground fire).

Twenty-four hours later, Company A, with five tanks attached, plus

the missing platoon from Company B, made the journey by landing

craft across the river from the MACV compound along the moat to the

east of the Citadel and through a breach in the northeast wall. The next

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day Company C joined the rest of the battalion. Once inside the Citadel,

the Marines were ordered to relieve the 1st Vietnamese Airborne TF in

the southeastern section. At the same time, two battalions of

Vietnamese Marines moved into the southwest corner of the Citadel

with orders to sweep west. This buildup of allied forces inside the

Citadel put intense pressure on the Communist forces, but they stood

their ground and redoubled efforts to hold their positions.

The following day, after conferring with South Vietnamese

President Nguyen Van Thieu, Lieutenant General Lam authorized

allied forces to use whatever weapons were necessary to dislodge the

enemy from the Citadel. Only the Imperial Palace remained off limits

for artillery and close air support.

The mission of the 1/5 Marines was to advance down the east wall of

the Citadel toward the river with the Imperial Palace on their right. At

0815 on 13 February, Company A moved out under a bone-chilling

rain, following the wall toward a distinctive archway tower. As they

neared the tower, North Vietnamese troops opened up on the men with

automatic weapons and rockets from concealed positions that they had

dug into the base of the tower. The thick masonry of the construction

protected the enemy defenders from all the fire being brought to bear on

them. Within minutes, several Marines lay dying, and thirty more were

wounded, including Captain John J. Bowe, Jr., the company

commander. These troops, fresh from operations in Phu Loc, just north

of the Hai Van Pass, were unfamiliar with both the situation and city

fighting; finding themselves “surrounded by houses, gardens, stores,

buildings two and three stories high, and paved roads littered with

abandoned vehicles, the riflemen felt out of their element.”35

Under heavy enemy fire, the Marine advance stalled; in the first

assault on the south wall, the Marines lost fifteen killed and forty

wounded. Major Thompson pulled Company A back and replaced it

with Company C, flanked by Company B. Once again, the Marines

were raked by heavy small-arms, machine gun, and rocket fire that

seemed to come from every direction, but they managed to inch

forward, using airstrikes, naval gunfire, and artillery support. The

fighting proved even more savage than the battle for the south bank.

That night, Thompson requested artillery fire to help soften up the area

for the next day’s attack. At 0800 on 14 February, Thompson renewed

the attack, but his Marines made little headway against the entrenched

North Vietnamese and VC. It was not until the next day when Captain

Myron C. Harrington’s Company D, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines (D/1/5),

was inserted into the battle by boat that the wall tower was finally taken

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but only after six more Marines were killed and more than fifty

wounded. That night, the PAVN retook the tower for a brief period, but

Harrington personally led the counterattack to take it back.

On the morning of 16 February, Major Thompson’s Marines

continued their push southeast along the Citadel wall. From that point

until 22 February, the battle seesawed back and forth while much of the

Citadel was pounded to rubble by close air support, artillery, and heavy

weapons fire. The bitter hand-to-hand fighting went on relentlessly.

The Marines were operating in a defender’s paradise—row after row of

single story, thick-walled, masonry houses jammed close together up

against a solid wall riddled with spider holes and other enemy fighting

positions. The Marines discovered that the North Vietnamese units in

the Citadel employed “better city-fighting tactics, improved the already

formidable defenses, dug trenches, built roadblocks and conducted

counterattacks to regain redoubts which were important to . . . [their]

defensive scheme.”36 The young Marines charged into the buildings,

throwing grenades before them, clearing one room at a time. It was a

battle fought meter by meter; each enemy strongpoint had to be reduced

with close-quarter fighting. No sooner had one position been taken than

the North Vietnamese opened up from another.

M48 tanks and ONTOS were available, but these tracked vehicles

found it extremely difficult to maneuver in the narrow streets and tight

alleys of the Citadel. At first, the 90mm tank guns were ineffective

against the concrete and stone houses; the shells often ricocheted off the

thick walls back toward the Marines. The Marine tankers then switched

to concrete-piercing fused shells that “resulted in excellent penetration

and walls were breached with two to four rounds.”37 From that point on,

the tanks proved invaluable in assisting the infantry assault. One

Marine rifleman later stated: “If it had not been for the tanks, we could

not have pushed through that section of the city. They [the North

Vietnamese] seemed to have bunkers everywhere.”38

As a result of the intense fighting, Hue was being reduced to rubble,

block by block. By the end of the battle, estimates tallied 10,000 houses

either totally destroyed or damaged, roughly 40 percent of the city.39

Many of the dead and wounded were trapped in the rubble of homes and

courtyards. Enemy troops killed by the Marines and South Vietnamese

troops lay where they had fallen. One of the MACV advisers later

wrote: “The bodies, bloated and vermin infested, attracted rats and

stray dogs. So, because of public health concerns, details were formed

to bury the bodies as quickly as possible.”40 For those who fought in

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Hue, the stench and horrors of the corpses and the rats would never be

forgotten.

By 17 February, 1/5th Marines had suffered 47 killed and 240

wounded in just five days of fighting. Constantly under fire for the

whole time, the Leathernecks, numb with fatigue, kept up the fight

despite having slept only in three- to four-hour snatches during the

battle and most not even stopping to eat. The fighting was so intense

that the medics and doctors had a very difficult time keeping up with the

casualties. Because of the mounting casualties, Marine replacements

were brought in during the battle, but many of them were killed or

wounded before their squad leaders could even learn their names. Some

replacements arrived in Hue directly upon their completion of infantry

training at Camp Pendleton, California. The rapid rate of attrition was

evident from the fact that there were Marines who died in battle while

still wearing their stateside fatigues and boots.41

On 18 February, with what was left of his battalion completely

exhausted and nearly out of ammunition, Major Thompson chose to

rest his troops in preparation for a renewal of the attack. They needed

time to clean their weapons, stock up on ammunition, tend the walking

wounded, and gird themselves for the next round of bitter fighting. The

following morning, Thompson and his Marines again attacked toward

the Imperial Palace. They inched forward, paying dearly for every bit of

ground taken. After another 24 hours of bitter fighting, they secured the

wall on 19 February but had virtually spent themselves in doing so.

As the U.S. Marines had fought their way slowly toward the Imperial

Palace, the Vietnamese Marine TF entered the battle. At 0900 on the

14th, the South Vietnamese launched their attack from an area south of

the 1st ARVN Division headquarters compound to the west. They were

to make a left turning movement to take the southwest sector of the

Citadel but did not get that far because they immediately ran into heavy

resistance from strong enemy forces as they engaged in intense

house-to-house fighting. During the next two days, the South

Vietnamese advanced fewer than 400 meters. To the north of the

Vietnamese Marines, the 3d ARVN Infantry Regiment in the northwest

sector of the Citadel was having problems of its own and making little

progress. On the 14th, enemy forces broke out of their salient west of

the Tay Loc airfield and cut off the 1st Battalion, 3d ARVN Regiment in

the western corner of the Citadel. It would take two days for the ARVN

to break the encirclement and then only after bitter fighting.

The enemy was also having his own problems. On the night of 14

February, a U.S. Marine forward observer with ARVN troops inside the

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Citadel, monitoring enemy radio frequencies, learned that the PAVN

was planning a battalion-size attack by reinforcements through the west

gate of the Citadel. The forward observer called in Marine 155mm

howitzers and all available naval gunfire on preplanned targets around

the west gate and the moat bridge leading to it. The forward observer

reported that he had heard “screaming on the radio,” monitoring the

PAVN net.42 Later, it was confirmed by additional radio intercepts that

the artillery and naval gunfire had caught the North Vietnamese

battalion coming across the moat bridge, killing a high-ranking North

Vietnamese officer and a large number of the fresh troops.

Shortly after this incident, U.S. intelligence determined that the

PAVN and VC were staging out of a base camp 18 kilometers west of

the city and that reinforcements from that area were entering the Citadel

using the west gate. Additionally, intelligence identified a new enemy

battalion west of the city and a new regimental headquarters with at

least one battalion 2 kilometers north of the city. Acting on this information, elements of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division were ordered to

launch coordinated assaults on the city from their blocking positions to

the west. On 21 February, the 1st Cavalry troopers attacked and were

able to move up to seal off the western wall of the fortress, thus depriving the North Vietnamese of incoming supplies and reinforcements and

precipitating a rapid deterioration of the enemy’s strength inside the

Citadel. The North Vietnamese were now fighting a rear guard action,

but they still fought for every inch of ground and continued to throw replacements into the fight.

As elements of the 1st Cav advanced toward Hue from the west and

action continued in the Citadel, fire support coordination became a

major concern. On 21 February, Brigadier General Oscar E. Davis, one

of the two assistant division commanders for the 1st Cav, flew into the

Citadel to take overall control of the situation and to serve as the area’s

fire support coordinator. He collocated his headquarters with Brigadier

General Truong in the 1st ARVN Division headquarters compound.

For the final assault on the Imperial Palace itself, a fresh unit,

Captain John D. Niotis’ Company L, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, was

brought in. By 22 February, the Communists held only the

southwestern corner of the Citadel. Niotis led his Marines along the

wall to breach the outer perimeter of the palace. Once inside, they were

faced with devastating fire from the entrenched Communists. Niotis

ordered his Marines to pull back so plans could be made for another

attack.

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While the Marines prepared for the next assault on the Imperial City,

it was decided that it was politically expedient to have the South

Vietnamese liberate the palace.43 On the night of 23-24 February, the 2d

Battalion, 3d ARVN Regiment, launched a surprise attack westward

along the wall in the southeastern section of the Citadel. The North

Vietnamese were caught off guard by the attack but quickly recovered.

A savage battle ensued, but the South Vietnamese pressed the attack.

The Communists, deprived of their supply centers to the west by the

linkup between the 1st Cavalry and 2/5th Marines, fell back. Included

in the ground gained by the South Vietnamese attack was the plot upon

which stood the Citadel flagpole. At dawn on the 24th, the South

Vietnamese flag replaced the VC banner that had flown from the

Citadel flagpole for twenty-five days. Later that day, the ARVN 1st

Division reached the outer walls of the Citadel where it linked up with

elements of the 1st Cavalry Division. The last Communist positions

were quickly overrun by the allied forces or were abandoned by VC and

North Vietnamese troops who fled westward to sanctuaries in Laos.

On 2 March 1968, the battle for Hue was officially declared over. It

had been a bitter ordeal. The relief of Hue was the longest sustained

infantry battle the war had seen to that point. The losses had been high.

In the twenty-six days of combat, the ARVN had lost 384 killed and

more than 1,800 wounded, plus 30 missing in action. The U.S. Marines

suffered 147 dead and 857 wounded. The U.S. Army suffered 74 dead

and 507 wounded. The allies claimed over 5,000 Communists killed in

the city and an estimated 3,000 killed in the fighting in the surrounding

area.

Although the U.S. command had tried to limit damage to the city by

relying on extremely accurate 8-inch howitzers and naval gunfire, the

house-to-house fighting took its toll, and much of the once beautiful

city lay in rubble. In the twenty-five days of fighting to retake Hue, 40

percent of the city was destroyed, and 116,000 civilians were made

homeless (out of a pre-Tet population of 140,000).44 Aside from this

battle damage, the civilian population suffered terrible losses from the

Communist attackers: some 5,800 were reported killed or missing. After the battle was over, South Vietnamese authorities discovered that

VC death squads had systematically eliminated South Vietnamese government leaders and employees. Nearly 3,000 corpses were found in

mass graves—most shot, bludgeoned to death, or buried alive, almost

all with their hands tied behind their backs.45 The victims included soldiers, civil servants, merchants, clergymen, schoolteachers, intellectuals, and foreigners. It was estimated that the VC and PAVN murdered

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many of the other missing South Vietnamese during the battle or as

Communist forces withdrew from the Citadel.

The fighting had been intense and bloody, but in the end, the allies

had ejected the Communists and recaptured the city. The battle of Hue

is a textbook study of the difficulties involved in combat in an urban

area. A number of factors that played a key role in the conduct of the

battle are worthy of particular note; they include intelligence, command

and control, training, rules of engagement, medical support, and

population control.

Intelligence, or the lack thereof, had a major impact on the course of

the battle for Hue. The intelligence system completely failed to anticipate that an attack on the city was imminent. Even when there were attack indicators, they were not provided to the commanders on the

ground who could have best used the warning. Once the attack was

launched, the intelligence systems failed to provide an adequate appreciation for enemy strength and intentions in Hue. This greatly inhibited

the effectiveness of the allied response, especially in the early days of

the battle when both the ARVN and the Marines were unclear as to how

many enemy units were in the city. This resulted in a piecemeal approach that saw units thrown into battle against vastly superior numbers.

Command and control was also a crucial factor. The division of labor

between the ARVN and U.S. Marine and Army forces resulted in a lack

of coordination and unity of effort that inhibited the attempt to retake

the city. This can be seen even before the battle began. When a radio

intercept indicated that an attack on Hue was pending, it was the

convoluted command channels that led to a sluggish response and the

failure of the Hue defenders to be alerted in time.46 Until Brigadier

General Davis was placed in overall charge on 21 February, the various

allied forces had acted in isolation of each other. The Marines took their

orders from TF X-Ray; the ARVN obeyed the commands of Brigadier

General Truong; and the U.S. Army troops to the west, largely ignorant

of what the Marines and ARVN forces were doing inside the city,

operated on their own. The result was three separate battles that raged

simultaneously with no overall commander coordinating allied efforts.

By the time that Davis was given overall control, the battle was

effectively over. As one Marine later remarked, Davis “didn’t have

anything to coordinate, but he had the name.” 47

The lack of an overall hands-on commander meant that there was no

general battle plan for retaking Hue, no one to set priorities, no one to

deconflict the requests for artillery and close air support, and no one

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person to accept the responsibility if things went wrong. Also, there was

no overall system to ensure an equitable distribution of logistics resupply. The U.S. Marines and Army scrambled to take care of their own

while the ARVN got next to nothing. It was a command arrangement

that almost guaranteed difficulty in achieving any meaningful unity of

effort.

The command and control situation caused problems in other areas

as well. With no single commander orchestrating the battle, it was difficult to coordinate the isolation of the city from outside reinforcement as

the Marines and South Vietnamese tried to clear the city. This permitted

the North Vietnamese and VC to rush replacements in to replace the

troops they lost during the intense fighting. Thus, they were able to replenish their ranks even as the fighting intensified and after they began

to take increasing numbers of casualties. When the elements of the 1st

Cavalry Division effectively sealed the city from the northwest on 21

February, it had a decisive impact on the battle inside the city. Perhaps

this could have been achieved earlier had there been a single commander to better synchronize the efforts of the units outside the city

with those fighting inside the city.

The command and control situation also had the potential for

increased fratricide because of the lack of coordination between the

battles north of the river and those south of the river. The piecemeal

insertion of forces also contributed to the potential of fratricide, as can

be seen in the incident on 3 February when forces being rushed to the

battle exchanged fire with forces already in the city.

Training played a key role in the conduct of the battle for Hue,

particularly on the part of the Marines from TF X-Ray. The struggle for

the city was made even more difficult by the fact that the allies were

unprepared for the type of fighting required during combat in a builtup

area such as Hue. The Marines who played such a crucial role in

retaking the city were accustomed to fighting an enemy in jungle or

open terrain away from populated areas of any significance. They had

no training for urban warfare and essentially had to develop their own

tactics, techniques, and procedures as they went along. The first three

days of the battle had been a bloody learning process as the Marines

went through what was, in effect, on-the-job training in house-to-house

fighting.

The tactics the Marines had used so effectively in previous

operations in I Corps had little application inside the city. The Marines

therefore had to devise ways to defeat an entrenched enemy who used

the myriad of buildings, walls, and towers so effectively.48 Different

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techniques were tried. One of the best used an eight-man team. Four

riflemen covered the exits while two men rushed the building with

grenades and two other riflemen provided covering fire. The team

would rotate the responsibilities among the eight men and move on to

the next building. Lieutenant Colonel Cheatham, commander of 2/5

Marines, later described the tactics used: “We hope to kill them inside

or flush them out the back for the four men watching the exits. Then,

taking the next building, two other men rush the front. It sounds simple

but the timing has to be just as good as a football play.”49

The Marines learned quickly that more heavy weapons were needed.

Tactics of fire and maneuver would not work in street fighting without

the threat of heavy weapons. Objectives often could be reached only by

going through buildings. Tanks, 106mm recoilless rifles, and 3.5-inch

rocket launchers proved essential in the house-to-house fighting. The

rocket launchers, called “bazookas” in World War II, were easily the

more portable and, according to some Marines, the most effective.50

The 106mm recoilless rifles were also extremely effective. The gun

could be employed singularly, either mounted on jeeps or mules or

carted around by hand (even though it weighed over 400 pounds

dismounted), or it could be used in a unit of six on the ONTOS tracked

vehicles. The Marines used these weapons to create holes in compound

walls and the sides of buildings through which they would rush. They

were also extremely useful for providing suppressive fire and as

countersniper weapons.

Tear gas was used as an effective weapon to chase enemy troops

from their bunkers and spider holes. The Marines had tried using smoke

grenades on the treasury building south of the river, but what little

smoke they produced was quickly dispersed by the breeze coming off

the river. One Marine officer suggested using an E8 tear gas launcher

that he had seen stacked against the wall of an ARVN compound

adjacent to the MACV compound. The launcher, about 2 feet high,

could hurl as many as sixty-four 35mm tear gas projectiles up to 250

meters in four 5-second bursts of sixteen each. Unlike the grenades, the

E8 could flood an entire area so that the gas would permeate every room

and bunker. The Marines used the CS dispenser very successfully

throughout the remainder of the battle, and one company commander

credited this approach with limiting his casualties during the fighting.51

In the early days of the battle when the Marines were trying to work

out ways to deal with the entrenched enemy in the city, they had to do it

largely without the artillery and close air support they were so

accustomed to using. The rules of engagement the allied senior

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commanders initially agreed upon limited the use of artillery and close

air support to minimize the damage to the historic and symbolic city.

This made it extremely difficult, particularly during the early days of

the battle, for the Marines to dig the North Vietnamese out of their

prepared positions inside the city. These restrictions, which the

Marines generally obeyed, were later abandoned when the allies argued

successfully that adhering to that standing order was causing

unacceptable casualties. Nicholas Warr, who had served as a platoon

leader in Company C, 1/5 Marines, during the battle for Hue, later

wrote, “These damnable rules of engagement . . . prevented American

fighting men from using the only tactical assets that gave us an

advantage during firefights—that of our vastly superior firepower

represented by air strikes, artillery, and naval gunfire—these orders

continued to remain in force and hinder, wound and kill 1/5 Marines

until the fourth day of fighting inside the Citadel of Hue.”52

Because of the initial restrictions on artillery and air strikes and the

fact that most of the available artillery from Phu Bai was directed at

interdicting enemy escape routes to the rear and not on the city itself, the

Marines had to use their own mortars for close-in fire support, using

them as a “hammer” on top of the buildings. Lieutenant Colonel

Cheatham later observed, “If you put enough [mortar] rounds on the top

of a building, pretty soon the roof falls in.”53 The mortars also proved

useful against enemy soldiers fleeing from buildings being assaulted by

the Marines. By preregistering on both the objective building and the

street to that building’s rear, the Marines were able to inflict heavy

casualties by shifting fire from the objective to the rear street as they

pushed the enemy soldiers out of the building.54

The intensity of the bitter fighting resulted in a tremendous amount

of casualties. Because the bad weather inhibited medical evacuation by

helicopter, it soon became apparent that there was a need for forward

medical facilities. The 1st Marine Regiment established the regimental

aid station at the MACV compound with eight doctors in attendance.

This facility provided emergency care and coordinated all medical

evacuation. Each of the forward battalions had its own aid station.

Cheatham, commander of 2/5 Marines, later lauded this highly

responsive medical support, declaring that it was “a throwback to

World War II. [I] had my doctor . . . one block behind the frontline

treating the people right there.”55 The Marines used trucks, mechanical

mules, and any available transportation to carry the wounded back to

the aid stations. From there, U.S. Marine and Army helicopters were

used for further evacuation, often flying with a 100-foot ceiling. In the

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battle for Hue, if a Marine reached an aid station alive, his chances of

survival were close to 99 percent.56

Due to the heavy fighting in the city, population control quickly

became a problem. In urban warfare, the people are often caught in the

middle between the two opposing forces. Hue was no exception. The

initial attack provided the first trickle of civilians seeking refuge in the

relative safety of the MACV compound. The trickle would become a

flood over the next weeks, creating a logistics and security nightmare

for the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces in Hue as the refugee problem

reached staggering proportions. Every turn in the fighting flushed out

hundreds of Vietnamese civilians of every age. Whole families were

able to survive the shelling and street warfare by taking refuge in small

bunkers they had constructed in their homes. Out of the rubble came old

men, women, and children, waving pieces of white cloth attached to

sticks. Something had to be done about this growing flood of refugees

and displaced persons as the battle continued to rage.

A U.S. Army major from the MACV advisory team was placed in

charge of coordinating the effort to manage the refugee situation.

Temporary housing was found at a complex near the MACV compound

and at Hue University where the number of refugees swelled to 22,000.

Another 40,000 displaced persons were in the Citadel area across the

river. Most of the refugees were innocent civilians, but some were

enemy soldiers or sympathizers, and many were ARVN troops trapped

at home on leave for the Tet holidays. All of these ARVN soldiers who

were fit for duty were put to use helping the Marines and MACV

advisers with the refugees.

In addition to dealing with shelter for the refugees, U.S. and South

Vietnamese officials had to restore city services, including water and

power; eliminate heath hazards, including burying the dead; and secure

food. With the assistance of the local Catholic hierarchy and American

resources and personnel, the South Vietnamese government officials

tried to restore order and normalcy in the city. By the end of February, a

full-time refugee administrator was in place, and the local government

slowly began to function once more.

The battle of Hue remains worthy of study when considering the

complexities and requirements for urban operations. It was a bloody

affair that resulted in a severe casualty toll, largely because of the

aforementioned reasons, not the least of which were intelligence

failures and lack of centralized command and control. It was only

through both the American and South Vietnamese Marines’ and

soldiers’ valor that they prevailed against a determined enemy under

154
combat conditions in an urban environment that far exceeded anything

that any of the allies had previously experienced. However, the victory

at Hue proved irrelevant in the long run. Despite the overwhelming

tactical victory the allies achieved in the city and on the other

battlefields throughout South Vietnam, the Tet Offensive proved to be a

strategic defeat for the United States. U.S. public opinion, affected in

large part by the media coverage of the early days of the offensive,

began to shift away from support for the war.57 On 31 March 1968, the

full impact of the Tet Offensive was demonstrated when President

Lyndon B. Johnson halted all bombing of North Vietnam above the

20th parallel and gave notice that he would not seek reelection to a

second term in the White House. Thus, the Communists won a great

strategic victory. However, in doing so, they lost an estimated 30,000

fighters, and the VC would never recover. Nevertheless, the Tet

Offensive resulted in a sea change in U.S. policy in Vietnam, and the

United States soon began its long disengagement from the war.

Despite the outcome of the war, the battle of Hue remains a classic

study in urban warfare that clearly demonstrates not only the rigors and

demands of fighting in a builtup area but also the valor and fortitude

demanded of the soldiers who are to fight in such situations. The U.S.

Marines and South Vietnamese soldiers retook the city from the

Communists and paid for the effort in blood; many of the lessons they

learned the hard way are just as valid for urban fighting today as they

were in 1968.

155
Notes

1. U.S. military troop strength reached its peak of 543,300 in April

1969.

2. Spencer Tucker, Vietnam (London: UCL Press, 1999), 136.

3. The Viet Minh defeated the French forces in a decisive battle at

Dien Bien Phu on 7 May 1954 after a two-month siege. The French subsequently withdrew from Vietnam.

4. Edward F. Murphy, Semper Fi Vietnam: From Da Nang to the

DMZ, Marine Corps Campaigns, 1965-1975 (Novato, CA: Presidio Press,

1997), 189.

5. The Viet Cong, or as it was more properly known, the People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF), included regular forces, called main force VC,

full-time guerrillas, and a part-time self-defense militia. The main-force VC

battalions were organized, trained, and equipped similarly to the PAVN battalions.

6. Pham Van Son. Tet—1968 (Salisbury, NC: 1980), 458.

7. Ibid., 459.

8. Don Oberdorfer, Tet! (New York: Avon, 1972), 225.

9. George W. Smith, The Siege at Hue (New York: Ballentine Books,

2000), 17, and Keith W. Nolan, Battle for Hue (Novato, CA: Presidio Press,

1983), 3.

10. James J. Wirtz, The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War

(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 98.

11. Pham, 272-76.

12. Jack Shulimson, Leonard A. Blasiol, Charles R. Smith, and David A.

Dawson, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Defining Year 1968 (Washington, DC:

Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1997), 171.

13. Ibid., 172.

14. Ibid., 173.

15. Ibid., 174.

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid.

18. Westmoreland message to Wheeler, dated 31 Jan 68, Westmoreland

Messages, Westmoreland Papers, Center of Military History, quoted in

Shulimson et al., 174.

19. Quoted in Shulimson et al., 176.

20. Shulimson et al., 176.

21. 1st Marines (Rein), 1st Marine Division (Rein) Combat Operations

After-Action Report (Operation HUE CITY), dated 20 Mar 1968, 11

(hereafter 1st Marines AAR).

22. Ibid., 13, and Marine quoted in Shulimson et al., 176.

156
23. Murphy, 198-99.

24. Quoted in Shulimson et al., 179-80.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid., 182.

27. 1st Marines AAR, 79.

28. Quoted in Stanley Karnow, Vietnam, A History (New York: Penguin

Books, 1997), 545.

29. Quoted in Shulimson et al., 185.

30. Ibid., 186.

31. Ibid.

32. Quoted in Murphy, 206; Nolan, 77-79.

33. Smith, 161.

34. Shulimson, 191.

35. Murphy, 209.

36. Quoted in Shulimson et al., 201.

37. 1st Marines AAR, 80.

38. Quoted in Shulimson et al., 202.

39. Nolan, 183.

40. Smith, 162.

41. Murphy, 213.

42. Shulimson et al., 204-205.

43. Ibid., 211, and Nolan, 172.

44. Shulimson et al., 219.

45. Ibid., 214.

46. Wirtz, 98.

47. Quoted in Shulimson et al., 223.

48. 1st Marines AAR, 79.

49. Quoted in Smith, 141-42.

50. 1st Marines AAR, 81.

51. Capt. G. R. Christmas, “A Company Commander Reflects on

Operations Hue City,” in The Marines in Vietnam 1954-1973, An Anthology

and Annotated Bibliography, Edwin H. Simmons et al., eds. (Washington,

DC: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1974), 162.

52. Nicholas Warr, Phase Line Green: the Battle for Hue, 1968

(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 124.

53. Quoted in Shulimson et al., 188.

54. Christmas, 161-62.

55. Shulimson et al., 219.

56. Ibid.

57. There are indications that public opinion had already begun to shift

by the end of 1967, but the Tet Offensive certainly accelerated this shift.

157
Annotated Bibliography

Arnold, James R. Tet Offensive 1968: Turning Point in Vietnam. London:

Osprey, 1990. One of the Osprey Military Campaign Series that

contains extremely good maps, diagrams, and photographs.

1st Cavalry Division, 14th Military History Detachment, Combat

After-Action Report—Op Hue, Period 2-26 February 1968, dated 16

August 1968.

1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Division Commander’s AAR, Tet Offensive,

29 January-14 February 1968, dated 25 May 1968.

1st Marine Division, TF X-Ray AAR, Operation Hue City, with enclosures,

dated 14 Apr 68.

1st Marines (Rein), 1st Marine Division (Rein) Combat Operations

After-Action Report (Operation HUE CITY), dated 20 Mar 1968.

Ford, Ronnie E. Tet 1968: Understanding the Surprise. London: Frank Cass,

1995. Addresses the intelligence breakdown that contributed to the

surprise and impact of the Tet Offensive.

Hammel, Eric M. Fire in the Streets: the Battle of Hue, Tet 1968. Chicago:

Contemporary Books, 1991. A very thorough hour-by-hour, day-byday account of the battle that also addresses the strain that the surprise

attack put on the South Vietnamese-U.S. alliance.

Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2d revised and updated ed. New York:

Penguin Books, 1997. One of the most comprehensive overall

accounts of the entire American experience in the Vietnam war that

provides a useful context for the events that unfolded in Hue in 1968.

Krohn, Charles A. The Lost Battalion: Controversy and Casualties in the

Battle of Hue. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1993. A first-hand

account from the battalion intelligence officer of 1/12 Cavalry of

operations by the 1st Cavalry Division against the PAVN forces on the

outskirts of Hue in February 1968.

Murphy, Edward F. Semper Fi: From Da Nang to the DMZ, Marine Corps

Campaigns, 1965-1975. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1997. Addresses

U.S. Marine Corps operations in I Corps tactical zone during the

Vietnam war.

Nolan, Keith William. Battle for Hue: Tet, 1968. Novato, CA: Presidio Press,

1983. A detailed account of not only U.S. Marine operations in Hue

but also the actions of the South Vietnamese soldiers and Marines who

participated in the fight to retake the city.

158
Oberdorfer, Don. Tet! New York: Doubleday, 1971. The classic work on the

1968 Tet Offensive; includes a particularly good description of the

roundup and massacre of civilians by the Viet Cong at Hue.

Pearson, Willard. The War in the Northern Provinces, 1966-1968.

Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1975. An official history

of U.S. Army operations in the I Corps tactical zone, including the

action around Hue in 1968.

Pham Van Son. Tet—1968. Salisbury, NC: Documentary Publications, 1980.

A study written by the Military History Division, Joint General Staff,

Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces. It provides the South Vietnamese

perspective of the fighting during the Tet Offensive, including the

action at Hue.

Shulimson, Jack; Leonard A. Blasiol; Charles R. Smith; and David A.

Dawson. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Defining Year 1968. Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1997. An official Marine

Corps history that addresses operations in 1968, focusing on the fighting at Khe Sanh and Hue; impeccably documented with detailed maps.

Simmons, Edwin H. et al. The Marines in Vietnam 1954-1973, An Anthology

and Annotated Bibliography. Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S.

Marine Corps, 1974. A compendium of articles and first-hand

accounts of Marine Corps operations during the Vietnam war.

Smith, George W. The Siege at Hue. New York: Ballentine Books, 2000. A

first-hand account of the fighting in Hue by a former MACV adviser

with the 1st ARVN Division in 1968.

Tucker, Spencer. Vietnam. London: UCL Press, 1999. A detailed overview of

the numerous wars of Vietnam concentrating on the period of U.S.

involvement. It is particularly useful in putting the action at Hue in the

larger context of North Vietnamese strategy and tactics.

Warr, Nicholas. Phase Line Green: The Battle for Hue, 1968. Annapolis, MD:

Naval Institute Press, 1997. A first-hand account by a platoon

commander in Company C, 1/5 Marines.

Wirtz, James J. The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War. Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press, 1991. Focuses on the failure of allied

intelligence to anticipate the timing and scope of the enemy offensive;

draws heavily on Viet Cong and declassified U.S. sources.

159

The 31 December 1994-8 February

1995 Battle for Grozny

Timothy L. Thomas

The Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation is located in the

federation’s southwestern corner near the Caspian Sea. It covers

approximately 6,500 square miles, measuring nearly 100 miles by 70

miles at its widest points. Several terrain features dominate the

republic. In the north, there is a plain that runs nearly 35 to 40 miles until

it empties into the center of Chechnya (where Grozny is located). The

foothills begin south of Grozny and run close to 20 miles until they

merge into the Caucasus Mountains in the south. Elevations in

Chechnya range from 200 feet in the northern plains to 12,000 feet in

the mountains. The republic has one major river, the Terek, which runs

west to east across the plains in the north of Chechnya (see Map 1).

From late December 1994 until 8 February 1995, Russia’s armed

forces fought against its own citizens in the city of Grozny, Chechnya,

the capital of the republic.1 The roots of the conflict are historical. The

entire region was part of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. Russian

expansion into the region began in the late eighteenth century as Russia

sought allies among the Christian population and suppressed local revolts that had tribal and religious content. In the Soviet period, the region briefly enjoyed independence from Moscow but was reconquered

by the early 1920s. Some national groups in the region, the Chechens

being one of them, sided with German invaders during World War II

and were treated as traitor-nations when areas were reconquered by the

Soviets. Joseph Stalin deported the population of Chechnya to

Kazakhstan and other areas in 1944 for Chechen disloyalty. It was not

until 1957 that the Chechens returned on the order of then General Secretary Nikita Khruschev. Regardless of this act, a simmering hatred of

Russians remains just below the level of consciousness for many

Chechens. A local saying supporting this attitude is that “a shot is fired

in the Caucasus, but the echo lasts for 100 years.”2

The term “Grozny” means terrible or formidable. Russian General

Alexy Yermolov founded Grozny on 10 June 1818. It served as a

fortress or outpost for Russian forces operating in the Caucasus against

the Chechens. When Yermolov assumed command of the Caucasus in

1816, he quickly appreciated the difficulty of defending the 700-mile

Caucasian perimeter against raiders and established Grozny to help

161
protect it. In 1994, it was a city of approximately 490,000 inhabitants. It

had a mixture of Chechens and Russians, along with a few other

nationalities, and covered nearly 90 square miles if the suburbs are

included. The city runs predominantly from the northwest to the

southeast. It is cut into four sectors by two features: the Sunzha River

running from the northeast to the southwest and a railroad line running

from the southwest to the center of the city and then departing the city

due east. A refinery complex is located in the southwestern portion of

the city, and there are two airports, one to the northwest and one due east

162

Map 1
of the city. The city has a mixture of buildings ranging from 10- to

15-story structures to those with only one story. These buildings are

made of concrete for the most part. Approximately 123 roads lead in

and out of Grozny.

Russian authorities became concerned with activities in Chechnya in

1991, in particular with the intentions of Chechen President Dzhokhar

Dudayev. He publicly sought to create a “single trans-Caucasian republic stretching to include parts of Russia and Ukraine as well as all of the

Caucasian and trans-Caucasian region.”3 This was of immense concern

to Russia, since critical oil and natural gas pipelines run through the region, as well as trade routes to the Middle East. In fact, the Caucasus is a

key geostrategic door for Russia to the Middle East.

The 1994-95 fight for Grozny was precipitated by a strange, even bizarre sequence of events. Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian Republic and serving under the Soviet Union’s General Secretary Mikhail

Gorbachev, stated in 1991 that the republics should “chew off all the

sovereignty they can swallow.” The Russian Republic’s president soon

came to wish he had never uttered that phrase. Chechnya, a component

part of the Russian Republic, took Yeltsin at his word. A small, localized revolution began on 21 August 1991 in Chechnya, two days after

the August coup in the former Soviet Union. Chechnya declared its independence from Russia on 6 September 1991, citing Yeltsin’s proclamation concerning sovereignty. The Amalgamated Congress of the

Chechen People invited former Soviet Air Force General Dzhokhar

Dudayev, living in Estonia, to be president. Later, he was popularly

elected in Chechnya and stated he wanted to free Chechnya from Russian rule. Many Russians in the current regime considered the elections

illegal and therefore characterized Dudayev’s presidency as illegitimate.4 Russia’s Fifth Congress of People’s Deputies not only decreed

the elections illegal but also declared Dudayev’s regime unconstitutional.5

In early September, the Yeltsin administration had transferred power

in Chechnya to a provisional supreme council under the command of a

professor named Hussein Akmadov. Dudayev, whose power had been

growing, decided to take a risk, and he used national guard forces to

dissolve the council and occupied its building in the spring of 1993.

Russia sent a delegation to negotiate with the Chechen president, but it

was too weak to engender military support from Yeltsin to remove

Dudayev. In June, Dudayev’s presidential guard clashed with

protestors of the parliament’s dissolution and killed nearly fifty people.

In addition, Russia protested the ongoing violations of the Russian

163
Constitution in Chechnya, the sharp increase in criminal activity in the

region, the seizure of hostages by Chechens, and the increased number

of deaths among the civilian population. All of these issues increased

tension between President Yeltsin and Chechen President Dudayev.6

By the latter half of 1993, a group in opposition to Dudayev emerged

in Chechnya, primarily in the northern part of the republic. This group

initiated a small-scale guerrilla war. In spring 1994 the opposition

called upon Russia to support it and help restore constitutional order.

Russia’s security services eventually supported the opposition covertly

during an unsuccessful attack on Grozny in November 1994.7 Russian

complicity was exposed but not before Russian Defense Minister Pavel

Grachev had publicly declared that no Russian soldiers were involved.

Humiliated by the loss to the Dudayevites during this so-called Black

Operation, Yeltsin ordered an immediate intervention into Chechnya. It

began on 11 December 1994. Article 88 of the Russian Constitution and

a decree from Yeltsin on 30 November served as the legal basis for the

Russian action. The tasks of the Russian forces were to stabilize the

situation, disarm armed bands, and reestablish law and order.

The situation itself was unique for Russia’s armed forces. The command designation, a combined force operation of troops from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and the Ministry of Defense (MOD),

had not been tried before under such circumstances and on such a scale

with such short notice. In addition, before the intervention, there was no

serious thought given to the current condition and relative strength of

Russia’s forces. A special command was created in the North Caucasus

Military Region to direct the operation’s joint grouping.8 The operational plan was designed:

With the goal of disarming illegal armed bands and confiscating

weapons and armaments from the population and reestablishing

constitutional law and order on the territory of the Chechen Republic,

the formations and units of the armed forces, together with other

military forces of the Russian Federation, are to implement a special

operation in four stages.9

Stages one and two were movement plans from outside of Chechnya

into the republic. Stage three of the operation focused on objectives:

Formations and units advance from the north and south to capture the

Presidential Palace, government buildings, television and radio

facilities, and other important structures in Grozny. Then, together

with Special Forces subunits of the Internal Affairs Ministry and FSB,

continue to confiscate weaponry and materiel.10

164
Finally, stage four was the stabilization of the conflict after capturing

key objectives in Grozny.

The Russians believed that Dudayev’s men totaled some 10,000 in

the city and that they were armed with up to 80 D-30 122-millimeter

(mm) howitzers, 25 tanks, and 35 BTRs and BMPs.11 A few

multiple-rocket launchers were also among the Chechens’ equipment,

as seen on local television reports. The Chechen account of its force size

is different. Ilias Akhmadov, a fighter during the first battle for Grozny

and now the republic’s foreign minister, stated that only 450 Chechen

fighters were “permanent,” while the others were locals or those who

came from neighboring villages. The republic’s vice president at the

time, Yanderbaiyev, believed the number was closer to 4,500 to 6,000.

The actual size of the Chechen force thus remains in doubt.

According to the Russian description of their own forces, they had

nearly 24,000 men, 19,000 from the armed forces and 4,700 from the

MVD Internal Forces. For equipment, the Russians had 34 battalions

(five motorized rifle, two tank, seven airborne, and twenty MVD

battalions), which yielded 80 tanks, 208 BMPs, and 182 artillery pieces

and mortars. Some 90 helicopters supplemented this effort. Thus, the

Russians clearly had an advantage in men and equipment. Some of the

Russian forces were real professionals such as the airborne units. Other

Russian units, however, not only had never seen combat but also had

not been involved in an exercise of this magnitude. Chechen forces

were equally diversified. Some Chechens had fought in Abkhazia and

were tried veterans. Others were fighting for the first time, although

Chechen Ilias Akmadov noted that it took only a few days to turn most

Chechens into competent fighters.

Three Russian force groupings were created to move troops into

Chechnya from three directions: Mozdok, Vladikavkaz, and Kizliar

(see Map 2). The operational plan was for the force groupings to advance on Grozny from six directions (additional directions were variants of the three main movement routes) and to blockade the city by

forming two concentric rings. The outer ring, the MVD’s responsibility, was to coincide with Chechnya’s administrative border, and the inner ring, the MOD’s responsibility, was to coincide with Grozny’s

outer city limits. By the end of December, everything was more or less

ready for the Russians to advance on Grozny. Reconnaissance was conducted, vehicles and positions camouflaged, and engineers cleared

lanes for passage. Defense Minister Grachev’s forces believed that the

Chechen command had created three defensive rings to defend Grozny.

There was an inner circle with a radius of 1 to 1.5 kilometers (km)

165
around the presidential palace, a middle circle to a distance of up to 1

km from the inner borderline in the northwestern part of the city and up

to 5 km in its southwestern and southeastern parts, and an outer circle

that passed mainly through the city outskirts. The outer and middle defense rings were based on strongpoints, while the inner line consisted of

prepared positions for direct artillery and tank fire. Lower and upper

166

Map 2
floors of buildings were prepared for the use of firearms and antitank

weapons.12

The Mozdok grouping under the command of General Lieutenant

V.M. Chilindin, moving from the northwest, was composed of the

131st Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade (MRB), the 106th

Paratroop Division, and the 56th Independent Paratroop Brigade.

Before moving into the city, the units of the northern group were

situated in the following way. On the left flank was the 81st Motorized

Rifle Regiment (MRR), the 131st MRB was in the center, and on the

right was the 276th MRR, according to an interview with force

commander General Major Konstantin Pulikovsky (it is assumed these

regiments were part of the 106th Paratroop Division). Forces had to

cross the small Neftyanka River on the way into Grozny. The western

Vladikavkaz axis under the command of General Lieutenant Chindarov

contained the 693d MRB of the 19th Motorized Rifle Division, a

regiment from the 76th Paratrooper Division, and a paratrooper

battalion from the 21st Independent Paratrooper Brigade. The east

grouping from Kizlyar under the command of General Lieutenant Lev

Roklin contained the 20th Motorized Rifle Division. Commanders,

however, were unprepared to move quickly enough, and as the

groupings advanced through Chechnya on their way to the city, only the

forces from Mozdok and Kizlyar kept to their initial schedules. Other

groups only reached initial positions by 20 or 21 December, and as a

result, the blockade of the city was never completed. The south

remained open to escaping refugees and to Chechen resupply routes,

which the Russians did not foresee.13

On 26 December 1994, Russia’s National Security Council authorized the final move on Grozny. The majority of Dudayev’s forces and

armaments were thought to be in the city, while armed attacks on Russian forces continued in the outlying areas. As one general noted about

the plan of attack:

The operational plan called for the separation of Grozny into areas or

zones, with the railroad tracks and the Sunzha River serving as

boundaries in the east-west and north-south directions, respectively.

Storm detachments were to attack from several directions at once:

from the north, west and east. Upon entering the city they were to

coordinate with Special Forces of the MVD and the Federal Security

Service and capture the Presidential Palace.14

Four columns advanced on Grozny (see Map 3). From the east,

General Lieutenant Nikolay Staskov, deputy commander of airborne

167
forces for peacekeeping activity, commanded storm detachments of the

129th MRR and a parachute battalion from the 98th Airborne Division.

They were to capture the bridges across the river and link up with the

Northern and Western Force Group to block the central part of the city.

From the west were two storm detachments of the 19th Motorized Rifle

Division from Vladikovkaz under the command of General Major V.

Petruk (overall commander of the western direction) and a regiment of

the 76th Airborne Division from Pskov under the command of General

Ivan Babichev (who was later designated the commander of western

forces when Petruk was relieved). These forces were to attack along a

168

Staropromyslovskoye Blvd.

Pervomayskaya St.

Mayakovskaya St

Presidential

Palace

Dinamo

Stadium

Train Station

Lenin Park

Russian Organization for

Combat to Seize Grozny, Chechnya

(4 Directions)

Map 3
zone bordered on the right by the railroad tracks and on the left by

Popovicha Street. Their objectives were to capture the train station and

then blockade the presidential palace from the south. In the north,

General Major K. Pulikovsky commanded the 131st MRB, the 276th

MRR, and the 81st MRR that were to isolate the Chechen formation

from the city proper. General Lieutenant Lev Rokhlin commanded the

final direction (he also commanded the move from Kizlyar toward

Chechnay), the northeast, and he had under his command the 255th

MRR. Their job was to block off the northern part of the city and the

presidential palace from the north.

On 31 December, when the forces were told to move on the city, the

western column commanded by General Petruk still had not arrived at

his unit’s assembly area outside Grozny. This caused the movement on

the city to be disjointed and uncoordinated. According to Pulikovsky,

the operation was unfolding so rapidly that the command almost did not

have time to name it.

Russian Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev, who planned the attack

and hoped to celebrate his birthday on the 31st with the rout of the

Chechens, estimated that in 5 to 6 days the town would be fully cleansed

of bandit formations.15 The 81st MRR in the north moved into the city

and became ensnared in an ambush on Pervomayskaya Street at about

1500 on 31 December. There was not enough infantry present, according to Pulikovsky, to sniff out the ambush, and the Chechens fired on

the tanks in the column repeatedly from the upper windows of

multistoried buildings. Pulikovsky, who thought the army would arrive

to face little resistance and the Chechens would run, hide in the hills, or

at least hide their weapons, later admitted that this initial resistance

caught him by surprise. It was hard to imagine the Chechens doing anything while the Russians were in the town.

The 131st Maikop Brigade had moved at 0600 to the bridge over the

Sunzha on 31 December and then into the city. Leaflets were

distributed stating Chechen combatants should take their magazines

out of their weapons, put their weapons over their left shoulder, and

slowly advance toward Russian troops. The Chechens laughed at these

instructions. In fact, a real but extremely small army was facing the

Russians, one with former Soviet officers who understood the basics of

Russian city tactics and operating procedures. The 131st entered

Grozny unopposed. It was to have taken up a blocking position on the

western side of the city but, sensing no opposition, reported back to

Pulikovsky that it was ready to move on to its next objective.

Apparently unaware of the situation of the 81st MRR, Pulikovsky

169
authorized the 131st Maikovskiy Brigade to proceed to the train station

near the city’s center, also around 1500 on 31 December. Perhaps there

was no opposition because Dudayev had only a few hundred fighters at

the time and had focused most of his attention on the 81st MRR, the

initial unit in contact. Colonel Savin led his forces into the city as if

participating in a parade, according to Russian reports. He went along

Staropromyslovskoye Boulevard to Mayakovskaya Street and then to

the train station in the city center. All units were to link up there, and

Savin got there first.

Savin reported that nothing was happening and that troops were

lined up at the ticket counter arranging their rides home. Later in the

day, however, Savin’s communications chief reported that he had heard

the phrase “welcome to hell” through his headset. Savin did not know if

this was some type of joke or a warning. Suddenly, without warning,

some Chechen fighters appeared behind the train station, and all hell

broke loose. The Russians did not understand initially what had

happened. Since the situation appeared so calm, they had gone into the

train station, hardly securing their vehicles or even bothering to post

guards. In the meantime, Chechen mobile units had fallen back on the

city center and had surrounded them at the train station. They

methodically began to destroy the Soviet BMPs with rocket-propelled

grenade (RPG) fire. Not in their wildest dreams could the Russians

imagine how unpredictable and vulnerable their situation had become.

According to one participant, everything happened very fast, as if a

nuclear war had started with no one around. In addition to the shooting,

the Chechens attempted to demoralize the Russians, using communications intercepts to relay threats. For the Russians, of course, there was

no thought of surrender. But after a few hours, Russian ammunition began to run low (they had not planned on extensive battles in the city),

and they began to lose scores of soldiers to the Chechen onslaught. The

74th Brigade was to have advanced at nearly the same time as the 131st,

which would have offered some reinforcements, but they stopped to

celebrate New Year’s Eve. The 503d Regiment was supposed to be sent

into Grozny to support the movement as well, but it refused to move,

citing lack of preparation. The commander of the 503d said he had fulfilled his order already and saw no reason to put everyone at risk that

way at night in a city. The 131st then attempted a breakout from the

train station and lost 60 more men, including Colonel Savin. The

Chechens also took severe losses in the fighting. Estimates later were

that the Russians had 300 soldiers in the train station to fight against

1,000 Chechens, figures that the Chechens contest.

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Clearly, the Chechen plan of defense perceived by Grachev (the

three concentric rings) did not appear to be the case in reality as the

Chechens were apparently organized quite differently. Otherwise, the

Russian force could not have proceeded to the city center with such

ease. According to Chechen Ilias Akmadov, the Russians were not

“lured” into the city center but “driven” there because there were no

concentric rings or forces available for such resistance. The Chechens,

in fact, noted that no such plan existed. Instead, the “situation did the

organizing.” One fighter noted that the attack on 31 December came as

a surprise to him, a statement supported by the fact that no barricades or

fighters met the Russian force moving into the city that day. The

Chechens lacked enough numerical strength to organize even one

echelon of defense around the city.

However, the company or group commanders had a great deal of autonomy. Mobile groups of ten to twelve people operated relatively independently, each group consisting of one grenade launcher, two

snipers, and the rest with automatic weapons. There simply were no

well-defined lines of defense. The groups were always on the move.

The greatest weakness was their inability to coordinate Chechen regular forces with local militias, although intimate knowledge of the city

helped overcome this weakness. At times, seventy people made their

way through dead space while Russians were only 30 to 40 meters

away. This was especially true at night when the Russian soldiers lost

the desire to move around, according to a Chechen fighter.16 The

Chechens had little if any urban combat training, a fact that makes one

marvel at their success. Akmadov noted that everything was so condensed and quick that it only took a few days to turn a raw recruit into

the Chechen concept of “a professional.”

According to interviews conducted after the fighting ended, the

Chechens also had a fixed method of conducting ambushes. The

ambush was based on using 25-man groups composed of three mobile

squads of two heavy machine gunners, two RPG gunners, one sniper,

and three riflemen. Three of these 25-man groups (supported by an

82mm mortar crew with two tubes) would conduct an ambush as a

75-man unit. Three of the eight-man squads would serve as a “killer

team” and set up in three positions along the ambush route. They would

occupy the lower level of buildings in the ambush zone to prevent being

wounded by incoming artillery. The remaining fifty men would occupy

blocking positions to ensure the entrapped Russians could not escape

and to prevent reinforcements from entering the ambush area.17 To

counter this tactic, the Russians would conduct extensive artillery fire

171
on a proposed route of advance, attempting to reduce buildings along the

route to rubble. This method proved effective, although on occasion, the

rubble served as excellent ambush positions for the Chechen fighters.

In fairness to the Russians, however, it must be noted that theRussian

force was poorly trained. As General Boris Gromov, commander of the

Soviet Union’s 40th Army in Afghanistan, noted about Russia’s armed

forces:

The troops taking part in the combat operations had not been prepared

for this either morally or physically or professionally. The armed

forces are not distinguished today by a high degree of training or

personnel and they lack a sufficient quantity of equipment that is in

good working order and combat-ready, communication and control

facilities, technical and rear support, and so forth. All this condemned

the military campaign in Chechnya in advance to big casualties on

both sides.18

State Duma deputy Viktor Sheynis’ eyewitness information about the

31 December operation was available in newspapers on 2 January. He

indicated that the initial attack on New Year’s Eve was a total disaster for

Russia. According to an interview with a participant of the operation, the

131st MRB and the 81st MRR took the brunt of the losses. In one column

alone, 102 of 120 armored personnel carriers and 20 of 26 tanks were

destroyed by Chechen antitank fire; all six “Tunguska” surface-to-air

missile systems were destroyed. Seventy-four servicemen, including a

corps operations officer, were captured.19 The commander of a division

surface-to-air missile platoon, Lieutenant Colonel Aleksandr Labzenko,

added that:

. . . they were not trained to fight in cities and an enormous amount of

armored equipment, thoughtlessly left in narrow streets without any

cover, was not protected by the infantry . . . there is a lack of even basic

cooperation between different subunits and their commanders and

subordinates.20

In short, the Chechens nearly brought the Russian force to its knees

from 1-3 January. One Russian close to the fighting reported that

“many officers in Chechnya have confessed to me in mid-January 1995

that at the beginning of that month the Russian Army was on the verge

of refusing to obey the ridiculous orders of its commanders and the

government.”21Later in the year, the head of Yeltsin’s personal security

force, Alexander Korzhakov, allegedly noted that “Grachev dragged

Yeltsin into the Chechen mess, and a man of integrity [in Grachev’s

shoes] would have shot himself.”22

172
According to retrospective reports, there were three principal reasons for the initial disaster. First, the Russian army worked under severe

restrictions, some self-imposed and some imposed by nature. One officer noted that the rules of engagement did not allow for the Russians to

open fire first, resulting in the deaths or wounding of many soldiers.23

Military support was most severely affected, however, by some commanders refusing to participate in the coordinated attack on Grozny (in

particular, the commanders of axes west and east who did not enter the

city despite their radio reports that they had). Most likely this was not

due to cowardice on the part of the officers in charge of the western and

eastern columns but, rather, to confusion and a lack of administrative

and air support available after entering the city’s outskirts, leaving their

forces vulnerable. This left the 131st MRB and 81st MRR without support and at the mercy of the Chechens. In addition, nature worked

against the Russian force. Not only was it winter but also bad weather

limited air support on 1 and 2 January.

Second, the Russian army was unprepared and untrained for immediate combat, let alone combat in cities. To fight under such circumstances was simply absurd and doomed to failure. Anne Garrels of

National Public Radio was in the basement of the presidential palace on

3 January and interviewed Russian prisoners of war (POWs).24 Some of

the young recruits told her that they did not know with whom they were

riding as they entered the city because they had been thrown together as

a crew only a day or so before; that they did not understand who was

fighting whom; that some of the soldiers thought they were going into

Grozny for police or law enforcement duty and not to fight; and that

some of the soldiers had neither a weapon, ammunition, a map, nor a

mission. Some, in fact, were sleeping in the back of their BMP or BTR

as it entered the city. In addition, there was little training to coordinate

units’ and subunits’ actions. This was particularly true for missions involving the armed forces and the MVD troops.

Third, the Russian leadership did not do a good job of preparing the

“theater” for warfare. The High Command neither sealed off the

republic’s borders nor took the time required to rehearse properly for

the potential scenarios that Dudayev had prepared for them. One

general, choosing anonymity, noted that after liberating several city

districts, Russian forces realized that Dudayev had created numerous

firing points, communications nets, and underground command points

that made the job much more difficult. In this respect, the main military

intelligence (GRU) and federal counterintelligence service (FSK) did

173
poor jobs of providing information on the armed formations that the

Russian force faced, compounding the fate of the untrained soldiers.25

Still unexplained in the initial plan is the Russian commanders’

apparent disregard of the lessons learned from the “Black Operation”

the anti-Dudayev opposition forces conducted in November 1994. For

example, Major Valeriy Ivanov, speaking to State Duma deputies about

the failed 26 November attack, noted that he was told “special forces

would be at work there [in Grozny] and helicopters would provide fire

support from the air. Infantry would be attached to the tanks.” None of

this support appeared. Lieutenant Dmitriy Volfovich supported

Ivanov, noting that the tankers could not respond with machine gun fire

because “the machine guns were not loaded.” And a plan to paint tank

hatches white to allow helicopter pilots to identify friend from foe

backfired when no helicopter support appeared, and Dudayev’s force

fired on “white caps” against a gray background.26 Chechen forces

fought according to their own plans, which Defense Minister Grachev,

for one, viewed as inhumane. For example, he noted that Chechen

forces conducted attacks under cover of civilian “human shields” and

fought from positions in hospitals, schools, and apartment blocks.27

The shocking defeat of 1-3 January changed the course of the

remainder of the fight for the city. In fact, the battle of Grozny can be

divided into three separate parts. Part one is the 31 December-3 January

fight described to this point. Part two refers to actions taken between

4-17 January when the Russians recovered and captured President

Dudayev’s palace and the northern portion of the city while Chechen

resistance evacuated the presidential palace and took up defensive

positions on the other side of the Sunzha River. Part three focuses on the

fighting from 17 January to 8 February when Russian forces managed

to rid Grozny of the major Chechen fighting elements on the southern

side of the Sunzha (see Map 4).

Despite the shock and heavy losses suffered in the attack of 1-3 January, the worst appeared over by 4-5 January due to an apparent Chechen

retreat. Moscow’s official mood once again appeared to be one of optimism. First came reports of Chechens moving out of Grozny and aircraft strikes on their remaining tanks and other combat vehicles (or

those the Chechens captured in the first four days of the fight).28

Chechen convoys moving in a southerly and southeastern direction

were passing through outlying villages along two routes—either

through the villages of Shali, Serzhen-Yurt, and Benoy-Vedeno or the

villages of Shali, Kirov-Yurt, and Makhkety—while the center of

Grozny remained under Chechen control.29Enemy groups were also re174
portedly moving in a northeasterly direction away from Grozny but

were repulsed from entering Dagestan by OMON (special purpose militia detachments), border troops, and Internal Forces, as well as fire

support from the air, according to official sources.30 Russian Vice Premier Yegorov noted that Grozny should be taken on 5 January without

any further fighting and the legitimate government established simultaneously.31 This information was contradicted by live reporting from the

area by Russian journalists who reported that Dudayev subunits controlled the streets and had many Russian units surrounded.32 Thus,

when viewed in hindsight, reports that the worst appeared over indicate

that Russian officials tried to cover up their shortcomings while the independent media thwarted this attempt at official deception.

It was clear to those on the ground that the battle would indeed

proceed according to a different scenario. On the 6th, the Interfax news

agency reported that special units of the Russian MOD destroyed a

Chechen commando group using weapons “with elements of artificial

intelligence.” These elements included using aerial reconnaissance and

satellite data as well as laser- and television (TV)-guided air-to-surface

175

0 1 KmsKms

GROZNY - CENTRAL AREA

Map 4
missiles. According to the source, this would not be the last use of

weapons designed for other “theaters of operation.”33

By 7 January, Orthodox Christmas, it was evident that the Russian

military was in a dogfight, and no amount of optimistic press reports

would change the story. Ostankino TV noted that the fighting was the

most fierce since 31 December-1 January, reporting on the 7th that the

entire town was ablaze, along with the refinery and other outlying

industrial companies.34 Clearly, the war was not getting any easier for

the Russian forces. Ham radio operators in Chechnya transmitted

information on Russian troops that allowed the Chechens to pinpoint

Russian locations.35

Russian reconnaissance units searched for Russian POWs, while

federal troops continued to fight well-armed mobile groups of

Chechens. The Chechens used civil defense as well as underground

sewage and water tunnels both to flank and to get into the rear of military units. Chechen tactics added to the advancing Russians’ psychological stress. They booby-trapped tanker trucks, mined roads, and held

civilians hostage.36 In addition, Russian artillery shells were reportedly

falling in the city of Grozny at a rate of 15 to 20 per minute (the latter report from a Duma representative).37

One Chechen commander reported having 85 to 125 men defending

a district of Grozny that extended 1 km. He added that he had only two

RPG-7s at the time and that he doubted if Chechen Chief of Staff Aslan

Maskhadov had more than 400 men total. His unit’s tactic:

was to fire at the enemy everywhere without being seen anywhere.

The Russians did not know where and who the enemy was. We shot,

destroyed, withdrew, went home to sleep, returned to start military

actions again. No organization or planning. We were independent

hunters.38

At the same time, journalists were striking back at Russian military

leaders for the latter’s criticism of the reporting from Grozny. Members

of the news media pointed out that it was nearly impossible to report

from military bases because they could not go anywhere and their

cameras and film were confiscated, whereas the Dudayevites helped

reporters. This resulted in “one-sided” reporting from the Dudayev

perspective according to some journalists who asked who was to blame

for portraying events under such conditions, the journalists or the

Russian military commanders who refused the journalists access to

Russian soldiers?39 Even the Russian command later indicated it had

made a serious mistake in this area. Counterintelligence head Sergei

176
Stepashin noted that “we began the operation in Chechnya without

having prepared public opinion for it at all...I would include the simply

absurd ban on journalists working among our troops... while

journalists were his [Dudayev’s] invited guests.”40

Regrouping took place on 8 and 9 January after the ferocious

fighting of the 7th. Russian Internal Forces busily tried to restore the

Chechen police force, a necessity to return Grozny to self-rule. They

appealed to anyone among the local populace who wished to work to

restore law and order.41 Russian military commanders talked to

militants in buildings through megaphones, urging them to lay down

their arms. As these efforts were under way, indications were that

young Chechen volunteers aged 16 to 18 arrived to reinforce their

republic’s armed formations as well as “a regiment of kamikazes”

wearing black headbands.42 Chechens also were sent to the Russian

side to misinform the federal armed forces about Chechen plans, and a

network of informers advised on all movements of internal and defense

forces as the latter proceeded through North Ossetia, Ingushetia, and

Dagestan.43 Another report indicated that in early January a group of

sixty fighters, half of them women, swore on the Koran an oath of

allegiance to sovereign Chechnya and its president, vowing to go to

Moscow to commit subversive and terrorist actions.44 There also was a

report that up to a hundred Russians had surrendered in Grozny on 7 and

8 January, some of them special forces troops. In a few instances, some

soldiers were drunk. Reporting ended on the stark note that in recent

days, in the freezing basements where the civilians were huddled,

babies were being born.45 This indicates the extent of the varied

missions and problems confronting soldiers in urban environments and

the difficulty in uncovering the truth.

On 9 January, the Russian government declared a cease-fire. It

would begin at 0800 on 10 January and last for 48 hours, according to

the official announcement. Just two hours after the cease-fire started on

the 10th, Russian artillery shells began raining down on the Chechen

presidential palace.46 The head of the Chechen General Staff, Aslan

Maskhadov, declared the 48-hour cease-fire a Moscow “trick.” It is not

known if Russia’s forces simply disobeyed the order on purpose or if

the continuation of firing was due to Chechen actions and the Russian

forces were merely acting in self-defense:

The Russians reported on the 10th of January that the Chechens were

breaking the cease-fire of the 9th (which the Chechens reported was

already broken by the Russians), and so federal troops were merely

responding according to the principle of “adequate response.”47

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This tactic of double-crossing one another after an agreement was to be

repeated many times in the coming months.

By 10 January, the Russian force had managed to make two corridors

into the city for supplying the army and evacuating wounded servicemen to hospitals, but talks with authorities to remove the bodies of Russian soldiers lying on Grozny’s streets were fruitless.48 However, the

Chechens did allow a Russian POW and representatives of the Russian

Orthodox Church in Grozny to do the negotiating with the Russian side

(with General Babichev, the new commander of Russian forces entering Grozny from the west). Moscow radio reported that the Chechens

had gathered the bodies of Russians lying near the presidential palace

and piled them in one place, with sentries firing short volleys to drive

hungry dogs away from the bodies.49

Also on 10 January, a report indicated that federal forces attacked in

the direction of the presidential palace but were beaten back. If the attack occurred, it was not a serious one, and only rarely were mortars

heard. Russian troops remained about 400 meters to the north and 1.5

km to the west of the city center.50 Radio Ekho Moskvy was, as usual,

much more negative in its reporting (Radio Ekho Moskvy talked with

Chechens and did not rely on strictly official Russian reports), noting

that two Chechen negotiators carrying white flags were killed, Chechen

villages were bombed, and Russian units appeared to be preparing for a

new assault on 12 January, when the cease-fire officially ended.51 The

contradictions in these two reports indicate just how much

ITAR-TASS’s official reporting and the nongovernmental reporting

from agencies such as Ekho Moskvy differed.

During the cease-fire that finally took place later on the 10th,

Russian Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin offered an interesting

concession worthy of note. He proposed to villagers in Chechnya that if

they ensured that armed formations did not open fire from or within

populated areas, he would guarantee that the federal troops would not

conduct combat operations there.52

On the combat front, Dudayev’s militants continued to resist in scattered regions of the city, especially in the Katayama, Baranovka, and

Oktyabrskiy districts, and they continued to disguise themselves as local inhabitants or even Russian soldiers. Internal forces focused on

guarding administrative borders of the Chechen republic and on conducting operations to locate local gangs to disarm and/or liquidate

them. Federal forces continued the search for POWs.53 On 11 January, a

Russian TV documentary depicted the fighting in Chechnya for the first

time from a Russian perspective. Titled “Hell” and produced by

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Aleksandr Nevzorov, who previously held anti-Yeltsin views, the documentary clearly was a progovernment production designed to bolster

army morale and to show the country the difficulties the average soldier

in Chechnya faced. For the first time, the character of the conflict was

given a new understanding, as the Chechen force’s strength and their

atrocities were depicted. Nevzorov, speaking with commander Lev

Rokhlin, noted that the Chechens could only be considered an army and

not merely bandit formations. Rokhlin agreed and added, “it is a mercenary army.”54

In another report, more difficult to believe but supported by later

interviews with Chechen fighters, Radio Ekho Moscow tape recorded

interviews with Russian soldiers and reported that special troops stood

behind the soldiers when they went into battle and threatened to shoot

them if they retreated or tried to give up; the soldiers also reported that

they had an order to kill women, old people, and children.55 This

statement was reminiscent of the actions of the old People’s

Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) to prevent Russian and

Soviet desertions in past hostilities.

At 0800 on 12 January, the cease-fire officially ended. During the

cease-fire, an additional 100 vehicles arrived to reinforce Russian

positions. Federal forces regrouped, rotated troops, and prepared for the

next assault. The Russians apparently could not wait for 0800 to arrive.

At 0700, Russian forces pounded the city center incessantly with

artillery (shells landed every ten seconds for over three hours), and at

0930, forty Grad rockets slammed into the main city square. Russian

snipers also gained some ground.56 Fighting was intense, and the

Russian assault continued during 13-14 January, with most of the

combat activity centered at the buildings of the presidential palace, the

Council of Ministers, Chechen Internal Affairs, and security ministries

and at the railway station.57 Simultaneously, MVD forces blockaded

the main departure routes out of Grozny as well as Chechnya’s

administrative borders. An indicator of how intense the fighting had

become was that doctors no longer put on their white smocks because

Chechen snipers were using them for targets. Earlier, Chechen

militants downed three ambulance helicopters displaying red crosses,

according to Moscow reports.58

It was not until 15 January that the whole town was sealed off,

including its southern sector.59 This was the first time the armed forces

had succeeded in accomplishing this, a fact many viewed as a

prerequisite to entering the town in the first place. Chechen forces

immediately tried to deploy additional troops in the south to prevent the

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encirclement from becoming permanent.60 The 15th also witnessed

continued attacks by Russian shock units and assault detachments to

dislodge Dudayev’s fighters from a number of buildings and continued

attempts by paratroopers, motorized infantry units, and marines to get

inside the presidential palace, an effort that would take another four

days. Female snipers were rumored to be fighting for the Chechens, and

during the assault, Interfax news agency reported that a female sniper

from Belarus had been killed.61 However, when asked his opinion,

Russian 8th Army Corps commander Lev Rokhlin noted that the

militants’ resistance had slackened, and the only reason the Russians

had not taken the presidential palace was to keep the casualty rate low

since Russian POWs reportedly were still in the basement. Rokhlin

noted the militants were short of ammunition, supplies, and food, and

on orders from the Chechen leadership, the militants were now possibly

being issued drugs.62

On 19 January, the Mayak Radio Network reported that the Russian

Federation flag was flying over the presidential palace in Grozny.

While many assumed that the fighting was over, combat continued for a

month or so. The battle to date had only included the northern and

central parts of Grozny. South of the Sunzha, the Chechens still

controlled much of the city. Therefore, raising the flag was mostly a

symbolic act. It did, however, confirm Russian control over President

Dudayev’s center of power and symbol of resistance.

ITAR-TASS reported on 19 January that Dudayev had lost control

over his forces, Chechen communications had become unreliable, and

foreign mercenaries were now in the second echelon. Dudayev’s

militants reportedly killed those who ran away.63 Dudayev moved to

the southeastern district of the town (to the opposite side of the Sunzha

River) and replaced his bodyguard with Lithuanian mercenaries.64

Another report had Dudayev taking refuge in the bomb shelter of City

Hospital No. 5 along with a 150- to 200-man guard force while a new

headquarters was being prepared for him in the mountain regions of

Chechnya.65

Meanwhile, battles continued to rage in the southern sections of

Grozny. Russian reinforcements continued to be rushed in from as far

away as the Pacific Fleet. It was not until 21 January that group West

and group North (now containing elements of group East and the

remnants of the main assault force from the north) met in the center of

Grozny. The Chechens moved to the southeast section of the city and

established a bridgehead on the other side of the Sunzha River. A few

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days later, the Russian army began a month-long final assault on those

positions.66

Also on 21 January, Russian reporting indicated that the situation in

the center of Grozny had somewhat eased.67 Russian Federal

Counterintelligence Service director Sergey Stepashin noted that about

3,500 Chechen militants still remained in Grozny, however. Vladimir

Polozhentsev of Ostankino TV reported that military and political

leaders of the Chechen Republic were preparing provocations in the

region, aiming to exacerbate ethnic tensions and destabilize the

situation in the North Caucasus in general.68 On 22 January, news

agencies reported that elements of the Chechen population were

beginning to insist that Dudayev’s men occupying villages surrounding

Grozny leave and take their weapons with them, to include mobile

missile launchers.69 In Grozny, however, militants continued to lay

mines along their routes of retreat, to recruit new fighters, to bring in

reserves, and to set up command posts to the south of the Sunzha River.

Fifty new mercenaries with blue berets and the inscription “Ukraine”

had also appeared.70

On 24 January, ITAR-TASS reported that army troops and internal

forces were preparing to form “commandant zones.” They also formed

a garrison procurator’s office. Militant actions now were only occurring at night and appeared to lack synergy. However, some Chechen

units were bribing people to provoke aggressive actions, and some representatives of the Chechen clergy still were reported to be calling on

local residents for terrorist acts against Russian servicemen.71 Russian

forces continued artillery bombardment of the outlying districts of

Grozny. Russian Defense Minister Grachev felt the scattered resistance

was insignificant and believed that there were no population centers in

Chechnya where bandit formations could mount serious opposition to

federal forces.72 This assessment would be proven tragically wrong.

The normally antigovernment radio station, Ekho Moskvy, noted

that federal forces had basically completed their tasks and that the

MVD would have the city under its total control by the end of January.

Then only the MVD and troops from the North Caucasus Military

District would be left in Chechnya.73 On 26 January, Radio Rossii

reported that Security Council Secretary Oleg Lobov disclosed that,

until a general election was held, an interim administrative body would

be set up to rule Chechnya.74 Also on 26 January, ITAR-TASS offered a

final situation report. Clearly, the essence of the report was that the

internal forces now were in charge. While federal troops continued to

combat militants on the Sunzha River left bank, internal forces:

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. . . blocked the main routes of movement of Chechen militants, sealed

off the areas of dislocation of armed formations, and blocked the

administrative border of the Chechen republic in order to prevent an

inflow of bands, mercenaries, weapons, and military hardware, as

well as protected communications, roads and bridges, and inspected

transport vehicles.75

Finally, on 26 January, control of the fighting on the Russian side

was transferred to the MVD in the person of General Anatoliy Kulikov,

commander of the internal forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs

(some 290,000 soldiers at the time). All Russian armed forces in

Chechnya were now under his control. He still had much work to do to

capture the city.

Reporting from 31 January indicated that Russian troops were

blocking streets, engaging in street fighting, and repulsing armed

groups’ attacks. Thus, the indication was that the Chechens would not

leave the city quickly or easily. In addition, Russian troops reported directing intensified shelling on Minutka Square, a key transport and

communication intersection a few km southeast of the presidential palace. A large number of Chechen forces were reportedly concentrating

there. Mobile groups as large as thirty to forty men were in the area.76

On 2 February, Kulikov noted that the army and internal forces were

continuing to succeed in pushing the Chechens out of Grozny, underscoring that the larger part of the city was under Russian control. Part of

Oktyabrskiy District, another key road intersection in the south of the

city near Minutka Square, remained under Dudayev’s control. Russian

forces used the Shmel flamethrower to destroy strongpoints and snipers, and began to demonstrate more confidence in their operation.77

Troops continued disarming Chechen formations in Grozny and organized police work in the Leninskiy district of Grozny. The Chechens,

however, maintained that they retained control of the right bank of the

Sunzha and that they continued to smash Russian special subunits. On 3

February, the Russian bridgehead was expanded to Leningrad Street

where it crossed Yakutskiy Street. As a result, Kulikov noted that a

“turning point” was now in sight, and on 5 February, Minister of Defense Grachev stated that control was established over Minutka Square

and over the southern approaches to the city.78

The Chechens, however, still held out and decided not to give up the

city without a fight. On 6 February, Kulikov noted that some of his

forces in the city were under multiple rocket launcher and heavy

artillery attacks from the few items of this sort in the Chechen inventory

(obtained before the war illegally or acquired during the fight for

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Grozny). Countering these threats required the operational

subordination of Defense Ministry tanks and helicopters to the internal

forces, equipment not standard issue to the MVD. The Chechens

reported that they still held most of the Oktyabrskiy District and the

suburb of Chernorechye in the southern and southwestern parts of

Grozny, while Russian reporting countered these claims. In addition,

snipers and small formations of Chechens infiltrated the city in some

regions and continued to battle the Russian blockade in other areas. On

8 February, the city was reported to be 80 percent under the control of

General Kulikov’s internal forces, but Chechen mobile assault groups

still remained. At night, the Chechens continued to rule the streets, and

it was then that most of the Russian casualties occurred. Supposedly,

the Chechen main command had evacuated the city and moved to other,

smaller cities, leaving only a reconnaissance and harassment force in

place.79 This tactic of “successive cities” was a recurrent theme

throughout the war.

A significant development very much related to the battlefield activities under way was the announcement on 8 February that a Bureau for

Current Information and a Mobile Information Center were being established under the federal executive authorities’ Territorial Administration in the Chechen Republic. Yevgeniy Ivanov was appointed chief

of the Press Service Mobile Information Center. Representatives of the

public relations center of all the security services were also included in

the work of the center.80 This would finally allow the Russian press service to control some of the reporting from Chechnya and would allow

all of the services to sing from a common sheet of music. To date, Russia had completely lost the “information war” because it had allowed

the Chechens (who even gave reporters access to operational material)

to control the reporting.

The battle for Grozny continued until 23 February. On 16 February,

a cease-fire was declared to exchange prisoners and the wounded.

Combat resumed on the 20th, and the Russians seized the heights above

the area of Novye Promysly. This was important in that Dudayev’s TV

broadcasting center was located there on Hill 373. The Chechens tried

to retake the hill three days later but failed and instead fled to other cities

or into the mountains. By 23 February, Dudayev’s remaining

detachments were surrounded in the areas of Novye Promysly, Aldy,

and Chernorech’e.

Chechen Chief of Staff Aslan Maskhadov commented on the final

withdrawal of his forces from Grozny. He expressed pride at his men’s

accomplishments over the past month and termed the current situation

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not a retreat but a planned withdrawal. He added that his Chechen force

did not possess Russia’s superiority in artillery, tanks, and planes but

that if one of his men had ten RPGs, then he expected eight tanks to be

destroyed. One Chechen fighter added the following:

I never thought that I would see this happen. There will be much blood

paid for this. The Russians have made a bad, bad mistake. But we did

manage to hold out here for 37 days—Berlin lasted only two weeks in

1945. This war will continue, only now it will be one without front

lines.81

When a shot is fired in the Caucasus, the echo lasts 100 years.

Thus, at the end of February, after nearly 40 days of sustained battle,

the fight for Grozny was over. The Chechens moved on to other cities, a

habit they followed throughout the course of the war, which ended in

August 1996. Perhaps the Chechens’ initial success in Grozny was the

motivation for this tactic. They found out in the first few weeks of

January 1995 that, even when badly outmanned and outequipped, the

city offered them unique advantages—familiarity with the terrain, the

element of surprise, and the use of nonlinear and asymmetric tactics,

among others. The Chechens gained confidence in their ability to

withstand even the most ferocious Russian armed offensive. They did

so despite having no air support at all. The Russians, for their part, did

not consider the battle for Grozny a victory as much as they did a

successful operation. They suffered incredible losses in the first week

of fighting and then drew on the experience of their artillery forces and

storm detachments to collect themselves and conduct block-by-block

fighting until they eventually drove the Chechens out of the city.

Simultaneously, the Russian forces began the process of turning the

local population against them. Unfortunately, the Russians maintained

an air of arrogance after this success that eventually led to their defeat

and expulsion from the republic in the August 1996 battle for Grozny.

The January 1995 battle for Grozny offered lessons learned from a

variety of perspectives. What follows are four different looks at the

fighting. First, there is the reporting of Russian military correspondents—beginning with Igor Korotchenko—who were in the city during

the fight. Second, there are named and unnamed Russian military specialists who wrote for journals and magazines, trying to explain what

happened in January 1995. Third, there are some professional analyses

by Russian leaders of the operation, such as Minister of Defense

Grachev and the leader of the main assault and later head of the North

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Caucasus Military District, General Kvashnin. Finally, there are testimonies from Chechens who fought the Russians.

News correspondent Korotchenko, a civilian who had studied the

ongoing fighting in Chechnya closely over the months of December

and January, stated that it was critical to increase dramatically the use of

special troops and especially electronic warfare units in the combat

zone. He advocated creating a total information vacuum by putting

remotely controlled portable jammers near guerilla bases and by

suppressing satellite communications channels Dudayev used. He also

believed it was vital to force tactics on the Chechens that put them at a

disadvantage such as night operations. He also recommended not

sending composite units to Chechnya with servicemen selected from

several units and thrown together for a particular mission. Such a

selection process results in losses two to three times higher than usual,

according to Korotchenko.82

Another reporter, Anatol Lieven, offered telling observations about

the fight for Grozny that could apply to any armed force. For example,

the effectiveness of even the best technologies for urban warfare will

depend on how confused and afraid the man using them is.

Furthermore, the capacity of social tradition to mobilize fighters and

impose a discipline on them goes beyond the “surface discipline”

(imposed by basic training) of a modern army. Finally, failure can result

from the limitations of firepower when fighting a dispersed infantry

opponent behind good cover.83

Other lessons Russia’s military learned based on information analysis also seeped into the papers. FSK director Sergey Stepashin noted

that the enemy’s potential was underestimated, Russia’s strength was

overestimated, Dudayev’s Moscow connections were not identified,

and Dudayev’s informers with connections in high places continued to

operate in place during the war.84 Now we understand, Stepashin

added, that special services must have special subdivisions to resolve

the struggle against bandit groups and particularly dangerous criminals

who head criminal structures.85 Another commentator noted that the

Russian army had to fulfill its task while an “information war” was conducted behind its back with its own country’s propaganda machine firing the shots!86 The truth of the matter was that the Russian military

refused to allow cameramen or journalists to interview their soldiers.

Dudayev, on the other hand, understood full well the implications of the

press and had it dancing to his tune. He showed the press what he

wanted it to see, put his own spin on events through interviews, and

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along with his propaganda chief Udugov, literally won the information

war without opposition.

The second lesson learned was that opinions of Russian military professionals writing for journals and newspapers had influence. One

lengthy critique of the operation, supposedly written by an unidentified

but highly placed military officer writing for Novaya Yezhednevnaya

Gazeta, noted shortcomings in so many areas that it appeared that the

Russian armed forces must nearly be incompetent (which was not the

case).87 The officer listed troop preparation shortcomings such as poor

morale and physical preparations. He noted a lack of training for a

march or offensive combat, weak knowledge of materiel and armaments, weak fighting and weapon skills, poorly trained drivers, and a

lack of confidence in using armaments. He added that the force lacked

an overall knowledge of the rules of engagement against targets of opportunity and moving targets, first aid and administering antishock

drugs, ambush preparations and means of movement, and target designation with smoke. Finally, he stated that there was poor use of smoke

screens and sniper groups to neutralize enemy gun crews; poor preparation of assault groups to destroy enemy fire positions, pillboxes, and

emplacements; and poor training in using flamethrowers and grenade

launchers. In addition, personnel did not carry identification tags according to this officer, making their identification in case of death difficult.88

In April 1995, an article about the fight for Grozny appeared in the

Russian military journal, Armeyskiy Sbornik (Army Journal). One of

the first to address lessons learned in a professional journal, the article,

titled “Sweeping Built Up Areas,” did more than hint at some of the

problems Russian commanders encountered. It noted the importance of

unexpectedly, quickly, and completely sealing off areas to the enemy

and the requirement to establish two rings of encirclement, the first 2 to

3 km from the main objective and the second on the outskirts of the city.

Another problem was inability of tanks, BMPs, and other vehicles to

cover the advance of ground troops and the lack of even “amateur”

improvements to fighting vehicles and firing positions (such as putting

screens on armor made from fine mesh metal netting or filling cartridge

and shell boxes with crushed rock, broken brick, or gravel to reduce the

effect of rounds fired at the vehicle).89 The article also revealed that on

many occasions one Russian unit fired on another due to Chechen

chicanery. For example, during the assault on Grozny:

Mortars mounted on Kamaz trucks fired one salvo and immediately

moved to another area. They have learned to skillfully disorient fire

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spotters [forward observers], often creating a friendly fire situation.

Thus, on the eve of the taking of the palace, a Russian Grad multiple

rocket launcher fired on its own reconnaissance forces. Troops

subjected each other to a half-hour of fire on approaches to Grozny,

while motorized riflemen tested the strength of airborne personnel

while moving up to the train station.90

According to Russian guidelines, the Russian force was undermanned

for the operation. For combat in cities, the ratio of offensive and

defensive forces must be 4:1 or 5:1 in favor of the attacker.91 This was

not the case in Grozny. It was apparent that 50,000 to 60,000 men

were needed to storm Grozny. In 1941 when Kalinin was liberated, a

ratio of 4:1 was needed. On 3 January 1995, only 5,000 Russian soldiers

were in the city. In addition, the element of surprise was lost, and

Dudayev reinforced his men with replacements from the south. This

general situation sometimes is forgotten during the interpretation of

lessons learned after the fight ended, but it greatly affected the course

and outcome of the battle.

Russian officers interviewed in Moscow after the fight noted that

elements of the Russian force appeared unprepared in both training and

planning to fight in builtup areas. There were few local guides to move

Russian forces through the city. As a result, Russian forces ended up in

gardens and dead-end streets. A major problem both the MVD and the

army encountered was identifying Chechen guerilla forces that would

walk around the city, sometimes wearing Red Cross armbands, and

then fire at Russian personnel from windows or dark alleyways. To

distinguish fighters from peaceful city dwellers, the army and MVD

began looking at men’s shoulders for evidence of bruising from firing

weapons and at forearms for burned hair or flesh from extracting hot

cartridges. They closely examined clothing and smelled for gunpowder

residue.92 Further, to identify a Chechen artilleryman, Russian soldiers

looked for glossy spots left by artillery and mortar rounds on the bends

and cuffs of sleeves. Pockets that carried cartridges, if turned inside out,

showed a shiny, silvery, leaden hue. A grenade launcher operator or

mortar man was recognized from fibers and crumpled pieces of gun

cotton on clothing.93

According to many Russian officers, Chechen use of the antitank, or

RPG launcher, was the most effective city weapon. It could be used in

the direct- or indirect-fire (that is, set up like a mortar) mode and was

effective against people, vehicles, or helicopters as an area or point

weapon. Russian forces used flamethrowers to drive snipers from their

nests and clear buildings for their initial entry. Two other initial Russian

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mistakes were that the Russians did not always properly employ

infantrymen to support armor attacks (they followed behind armor

instead of feeling out Chechen ambush sites), and they did not hold an

area once it had been cleared.94

The third lesson learned was that some high-ranking Russian defense officials offered a more optimistic picture of what had transpired.

Defense Minister Pavel Grachev and General Staff Chief Anatoliy

Kvashnin, in interviews on 1 and 2 March 1995, presented their urban

combat lessons learned. Their comments indicated they understood

clearly the problems their forces encountered and that their forces now

had to implement solutions. To Grachev, the main reasons for the initial

failure to fulfill tasks were the lack of experience in fighting in cities,

some commanders’ lack of resolve, and the inadequate morale and psychological preparation of personnel.95 Different rules, different laws,

and a different pace applied since forces were fighting within Russia.

The armed forces and MVD units lacked coordination. This forced

some units to slow down or stop on some routes. The General Staff had

to coordinate training and planning with other ministries in peacetime

and in wartime, and to review relationships with the mass media and

public organizations to keep patriotism high during a conflict.96

Grachev underscored that Grozny demanded tactical changes in the

way Russian forces would conduct city fights, especially in terms of

manning assault units, improving sniper activities, carrying out intelligence operations, and explanatory work among the population. Colonel

General Kvashnin noted that this was a real war, one that politicians began and they had to end. The army is merely a means of waging a large

or small war and is unfamiliar with the techniques of waging a war on

Russian territory.97

Finally, Chechen lessons learned were worthwhile to study for their

insights on fighting a force that both greatly outnumbers them and is

theoretically more organized for urban warfare. The Chechens fought

in a nontraditional way, with rapid mobile units instead of fixed defenses. One key lesson was the importance of the sniper and the RPG

gunner, or a combination of the two. For example, snipers were employed to draw fire from a Russian force, and then a Chechen ambush

position overlooking the sniper’s activities would open fire on the Russian column fighting the sniper. Additionally, forces could operate successfully in an independent mode. Both regular and volunteer forces

under President Dudayev learned to work in a specific area or to respond to calls for assistance. While command was less centralized than

in the Russian force, Motorola radios made coordination possible.

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Chief of Staff Maskhadov directed his forces to fight in small groups,

although this limited their ability to engage in extended combat. When

the Chechens were able to force Russian soldiers from a building:

They left at most five of their fighters in the building. After some time,

the Russians would counterattack and concentrate at least a company

against the building . . . but having taken back the building they

invariably found only a few bodies of Chechen fighters. Also

whenever the Russian soldiers took up defensive positions, they

customarily positioned several people in every building, thus diluting

their forces.98

It was also reported that the Chechens would fire a “fuga” into a

window before attacking. A fuga was an RPG-7 round with two

400-gram pieces of trotyl explosives attached with adhesive tape. The

Chechens also attached napalm to antitank grenades that could help

damage the turret of the target.99

The most detailed Chechen lessons learned came from interviews

with Chechen fighters some three or four years after the fighting ended.

In one interview, titled “Chechen Commander: Urban Warfare in

Chechnya,” a Chechen commander listed some recommendations for

conducting urban operations against both regular and irregular forces

based on his experience.100 First, study the people. One must

understand the enemy in detail, not only from a military and political

sense but also from a cultural sense. Chechen forces suffered only

minimal psychological trauma due to their warrior ethic, their heritage

of resisting Russian control, and their sense of survival. Chechens also

used noncombatants to exercise psychological deception on the urban

battlefield. They declared some villages and suburbs as “pro-Russian”

or noncommitted when, in fact, these same areas were centers for

strategic planning, command and control, and logistics purposes. This

was a well-conducted information operation against the Russians.

Second, know the territory. Key terrain in a city is at the micro level.

Do not rely on streets, signs, and most buildings as reference points.

Use prominent buildings and monuments instead, as they usually

remain intact. It was better to conduct reconnaissance by day and attack

at night, which the Russians did not like to do. When forty Ukrainian

volunteers signed up to support the Chechens, they were required to

conduct detailed reconnaissance with Chechens before entering

combat.

Third, study the opposition’s weapons and equipment, and how this

equipment might be employed in an urban environment. The

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Chechens’ “national weapon” was the RPG. Destroying armor was a

great psychological defeat for the Russians and a great morale booster

for the Chechens. The most effective weapon system employed against

pure infantry was the sniper, a casualty producer, psychological

weapon, and impediment to rapid movement. Nothing could slow

down a force as much as a sniper. Chechens feared the Russian mortars

more than any other weapon in the city but learned to employ their own

with great skill as well. The Chechen force began the battle for Grozny

with individual protective equipment but soon discarded it because it

impaired mobility in the urban environment. The Motorola hand-held

radio was the primary communications device. There was one radio for

every six combatants, but it would have been preferable to have one per

combatant. Little encryption was used, only the Chechen language. At

the national equivalent of a headquarters, access was available to

Inmarsat.101

The Chechen force also was very successful in redirecting Russian

artillery and fighter fire to rain down on Russian forces. Chechen

hunter-killer units would sneak between two Russian positions in the

city, especially at night, and fire in one direction and then the other

before moving out of the area. Thinking they were under attack, the

Russian units would fire at each other, sometimes for hours. Many such

episodes of fratricide were reported among the Russian ranks. The

Chechens were also very interested in capturing or obtaining any Shmel

thermobaric weapon system available. The Shmel is a 93mm Russian

flamethrower that is 920mm long and weighs 12 kilograms. It has a

maximum range of 1,000 meters, a sighting maximum of 600 meters,

and a minimum range of 20 meters. The Shmel strongly resembles the

U.S. Army’s light antitank weapon (LAW) of the 1970s. The Russian

force, to explain extensive damage to buildings in Grozny, stated that

the Chechens had captured a boxcar full of Shmel weapons and were

now using them indiscriminately. The Shmel was important because

both sides realized a “heavy blast” direct-fire weapon system was a

must for urban warfare. They also could be used against vehicles and

fortified positions as a breaching device.

Finally, the Chechen force, by necessity, went into battle as light as

possible. Mobility was the key to success against the slower and heavier

Russian force, in the opinion of the Chechen commander. Organizationally, the Chechen force had seven-man subgroups (armor

hunter-killer teams, a number slightly different than the six-man groups

reported earlier) that contained three riflemen/automatic riflemen/ammunition bearers, two RPG gunners, one sniper, and one medic/corps190
man. Three of these subgroups made up most of a 25-man group or

platoon, and three of these platoons formed 75-man groups. The

Chechen force exploited Russian disorientation by moving behind and

parallel to the Russian force once it entered the city. Snipers set up in

hide positions that supported their respective platoons. The Chechen

commander, according to the person who interviewed him, described

the ambushes/assaults as follows:

Each 75-man ambush group set up in buildings along one street block,

and only on one side of the street—never on both sides of a street

because of the cross fires a two-sided ambush would create. Only the

lower levels of multi-story buildings were occupied to avoid

casualties. One 25-man platoon comprised the ‘killer team’ and set up

in three positions along the target avenue. They had the responsibility

for destroying whatever column entered their site. The other two

25-man platoons set up in the buildings at the assumed entry points to

the ambush site. They had responsibility for sealing off the ambush

entry from escape by or reinforcement of the ambushed forces. The

killer platoon established a command point (platoon HQ) with the

center squad. As the intended target column entered the site, the squad

occupying the building nearest the entry point would contact the other

two squads occupying the center and far building positions. Primary

means of communications was by Motorola radio. Once the lead

vehicle into the site reached the far squad position, the far squad would

contact the other two squads. The commander at the central squad

would initiate or signal to initiate the ambush. Minefields were

employed to reinforce ambushes by taking out reinforcing armor and

to relieve pressure on the killer platoons in case the ambush bogged

down.102

U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence Activity analyst Arthur Speyer,

speaking about the battle for Grozny to an audience at RAND, noted

several Chechen weaknesses from a U.S. perspective. First, the

Chechens’ greatest weakness was their inability to conduct an

extensive engagement. The small size of the Chechen units, coupled

with their limited ammunition supplies, caused them to avoid

large-scale battles. The Russians discovered that drawing the Chechens

into a long engagement would allow the Russian force the time to

surround the position and use overwhelming fire support. Control was

another problem for Chief of Staff Aslan Maskhadov. He stated that

many of the independent groups decided for themselves when, where,

and how long they would remain in combat. On more than one

occasion, Maskhadov noted that local militia forces would simply pick

up and go home when they got bored, tired, or cold. Troops were

191
required to withstand long periods of intense combat with limited

resupply and rest.

The lessons of the fight for Gronzy are many and quite sobering for

anyone who contemplates using troops in an urban environment. While

some of the lessons learned by Russian and Chechen combatants are

peculiar to that region, others have wider applicability. No army wants

to engage in urban combat, but increasing urbanization and the danger

of strikes from high-precision weapons may well force the fight into the

city where the defender has the advantage. The Chechen decision to

continue to fight from “successive cities” is indicative of their reliance

on this tactic.

Most Russian analysts viewed the Grozny operation as a success but

one that fell far short of a victory. Many pointed directly to the high

command as being guilty of sending troops into battle before they were

prepared and for implementing a less than complete plan. One analyst

called the top brass the “Children of August 1991,” a reference to those

who came to power after the failed coup in 1991 against then General

Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. Their dramatic upward climb came after

they disobeyed their superiors, such as Defense Minister Pavel

Grachev’s decision to support Boris Yeltsin and not his superior at the

time, Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov, the first such case in the

army’s history.103 Colonel General Boris Gromov, the last commander

of the 40th Army to leave Afghanistan, was relieved of his duties by one

of the Children of August. Gromov had hesitated in putting his support

behind the fight in Chechnya. He noted that Russian specialists did not

take into account the historical, national, religious, geographical, and

meteorological factors, all of which should have affected the planning

and time of year for such an intervention. Most unfortunate of all, the

battle for Grozny was only two months of what would become a

21-month war.

One Russian officer noted that Russian military and political leaders

required a deeper understanding of when and how to use force. As a

result, it was recommended that political leaders participate in short

courses at the General Staff Academy. This idea is not new. For the past

five or so years, Harvard University has been conducting classes for

selected members of the Russian leadership. Each class received

instruction in the basic principles of the use of force from a U.S.

perspective. Obviously the planners of the battle for Grozny ignored

this military-political guidance. The Russian armed forces lacked

criteria for the development of rules of engagement. Advanced

instruction in combat in cities was lacking in the curriculum of the

192
academies, even if at the expense of large-scale wars (for example, the

tactics of assault detachments and shock groups need updating to

include modern equipment and techniques). Further, the Russian

government did not understand how low the military had sunk in terms

of readiness in the past five years. Lip service to military reform by

politicians had not worked, and the military leadership needed to throw

off its pompous attitude.

Preparation for urban combat begins in peacetime and requires the

development of an extensive set of conditions under which the fight

will be attempted. A vast template of courses of action, options, constraints, limitations, force mixes, enemy compositions, legal factors,

and city characteristics must be studied and digested before decisions

are made. Two of the most important conclusions drawn from Grozny

are that there is no standard urban combat operation and reinforcing

failure to attain success does not necessarily result in culmination. First,

each operation is unique to the opponent, the city, specific operational

and tactical issues, and geopolitical considerations, among other factors. This is a difficult, crucial task for any army but especially for one

moving from a forward-deployed to an expeditionary state as the

United States is attempting. The requirements to sufficiently sustain or

support urban combat become enormous. Second, the Chechens were

eventually evicted from Grozny after 37 days of fighting. This initial

Russian success in Grozny did not last. In August 1996, the Chechen

force recaptured the city, and the Russians were never able to culminate

their effort and left Chechnya later that month. However, the Chechens

were only to lose Grozny again to the Russians in January 2000 in the

second Chechen-Russian conflict. As more information becomes available, a look at the latter battles for Grozny would also be educational

and informative for the military professional.

193
Notes

1. Varied sources, speaking from their own national perspective, are

used in the writing of this chapter. It is impossible to check the reliability of

each account because the authors cannot be reached personally. Thus, the

reader should keep in mind that each account of an incident depended to a great

degree on one’s perspective (Russian military, Chechen fighter, Russian

journalist). This chapter includes all perspectives in retelling this battle and

avoids terms such as freedom fighter or rebel when describing the Chechens.

2. Luisa Meireles, Interview with Ramazan Abdulatipov, Expresso (4

February 1993), 20 as reported in Foreign Broadcast Information Service

(FBIS)-SOV-95-025, 7 February 1995, 13.

3. Anatoliy Sergeevich Kulikov, “The First Battle of Grozny,”

Appendix B of RAND report, Capital Preservation: Preparing for Urban

Operations in the Twenty-First Century, 13-58, based on Kulikov’s remarks at

a March 2000 conference in Santa Monica, California.

4. “Chechnya,” Moscow News, 16-22 December 1994, No. 50, 1, 2.

5. Valeriy Vyzhutovich, “Chechnya Will Spurn Kremlin’s

Representatives,” Izvestiya, 20 December 1994, 2, as reported in

FBIS-SOV-94-244, 19.

6. Kulikov.

7. “Chechnya.”

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. A. Kvashnin, “Troops Acquired Combat Maturity in Grave Ordeals;

From Speech Delivered by Colonel General A. Kvashin at 28 February

Assembly of Armed Forces Leading Personnel,” Krasnaya Zvezda, 2 March

1995, 3, as translated and published in FBIS-SOV-95-044, 7 March 1995, 23.

13. Kulikov, 29-31.

14. Ibid., 34.

15. Moscow Mayak Radio, 1 January 1995, as reported in

FBIS-SOV-95-001, 3 January 1995, 24.

16. Dodge Billingsley, “Interview with Ilias Akhmadov,” The Harriman

Review (Winter 1999-2000), 38-42.

17. Based on an interview with Arthur Speyer who interviewed several

Chechen fighters after the first battle for Grozny.

18. Aleksandr Zhilin, Interview with Colonel General Boris Gromov,

Moskovskiy Novosti (8-15 January 1995), 1, 5.

19. Viktor Litovkin, “Shooting the 131st Maykop Brigade,” Izvestiya

(11 January 1995), 4, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-008, 12 January 1995, 37.

194
Litovkin included in his report actual interviews with participants from the

battle. In another report, a high-ranking Russian officer said losses were not as

great as this. He said 210 of the 450 men originally listed as missing were

discovered in hospitals or other units. Only 26 were registered as killed. See

Interfax, 17 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-011, 18 January 1995,

27. A report appeared in Red Star on 11 January that said the losses the 81st

Guards MRR sustained in Grozny on 1 January were greatly exaggerated. To

date, only sixteen soldiers and six officers died in combat, according to the

article. However, the report also noted that no data was available on 463

servicemen listed as missing. The report indicated many soldiers were

scattered all over Grozny and were slowly returning to the unit. How many

may have been in the pile of bodies near the presidential palace was not

mentioned. See Aleksandr Bugay and Oleg Bedula, “About the 81st MRR:

Reliable Information With No Sensations,” Krasnaya Zvezda (11 January

1995), 1, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-007, 11 January 1995, 31. As it turned

out, this was a Russian attempt to cover up its massive losses in the first few

days of January 1995.

20. Ibid., Litovkin.

21. Pavel Felgenhauer, “The Chechen Campaign,” from a talk given at a

conference in Monterey, California, 7 November 1995, 14.

22. Natalia Gevorkyan, Moskovskoiyi Novostii (17-24 December 1995),

6, as printed in The Current Digest, Vol. XLVII, No. 50 (1995), 17, 18.

23. ITAR-TASS, 19 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-013, 20

January 1995, 22.

24. From the author’s discussion with Ms. Garrels in Moscow, March

1995.

25. Interfax, 19 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-013, 20

January 1995, 23.

26. Konstantin Merezhko, “Caucasian Prisoners, or Pawns are in the

Hands of Amateurs,” Sluzhba (20 December 1994), 1, as reported in Japan

Registry Service (JPRS)-UMA-95-003, 31 January 1995, 11.

27. “Pavel Grachev: Russian Unity Defended,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta (2

March 1995), 2, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-042, 3 March 1995, 21.

28. Moscow Russian TV, 4 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV95-003, 5 January 1995, 12.

29. Moscow Mayak Radio, 4 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV95-004, 6 January 1995, 15.

30. ITAR-TASS, 5 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-004, 6

January 1995, 8.

31. ITAR-TASS, 4 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-002, 4

January 1995, 24.

195
32. Moscow Mayak Radio, 5 January 1995, as reported in

FBIS-SOV-95-004, 6 January 1995, 17.

33. Interfax, 6 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9

January 1995, 23, 24.

34. Ostankino TV, 7 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9

January 1995, 27.

35. ITAR-TASS, 9 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-006, 10

January 1995, 4.

36. ITAR-TASS, 7 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9

January 1995, 25.

37. Moscow TV, 7 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9

January 1995, 24.

38. Marine Corps interview with Grozny unit commander.

39. Nikita Vaynonen, “Television Camera Does Not Shoot, But It is

Unmerciful,” Rossiyskiye Vesti (10 January 1995), 1, as reported in

FBIS-SOV-95-006, 10 January 1995, 8. For other reports on the military

“victimizing” journalists, see Oleg Panfilov, “The Next Target—Journalists,”

Izvestiya (6 January 1995), 3, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9 January

1995, 35, and Interfax, 10 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-007, 11

January 1995, 24.

40. Vladimir Georgiyev, “The Chechen People Are for a Peaceful Life,”

Rossiyskiye Vesti (24 January 1995), 1, 2, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-015,

24 January 1995, 23.

41. Moscow TV, 8 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9

January 1995, 11.

42. ITAR-TASS, 8 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9

January 1995, 29.

43. Ibid.

44. Interfax, 8 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9

January 1995, 30.

45. Moscow Mayak Radio, 8 January 1995, as reported in

FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9 January 1995, 31.

46. Paris AFP, 10 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-006, 10

January 1995, 14.

47. ITAR-TASS, 10 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-007, 11

January 1995, 35.

48. Moscow RIA, 9 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-008-A,

12 January 1995, 11.

49. Moscow Radiostantsiya Ekho Moskvy, 8 January 1995, as reported

in FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9 January 1995, 28.

50. Interfax, 10 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-007, 11

January 1995, 34.

196
51. Radiostantsiya Ekho Moskvy, 10 January 1995, as reported in

FBIS-SOV-95-007, 11 January 1995, 35.

52. Moscow RIA, 10 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-008-A,

12 January 1995, 5.

53. ITAR-TASS, 11 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-007, 11

January 1995, 30.

54. Moscow Ostankino TV, 11 January 1995, as reported in

FBIS-SOV-95-009, 13 January 1995, 32.

55. Radiostantsiya Ekho Moskvy, 12 January 1995, as reported in

FBIS-SOV-95-009, 13 January 1995, 38.

56. Paola Messana and Catherine Triomphe, Paris AFP, 13 January

1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-009, 13 January 1995, 14.

57. Moscow 2x2, 14 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-010, 17

January 1995, 31.

58. ITAR-TASS, 16 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-010, 17

January 1995, 37.

59. Moscow Radiostantsiya Ekho Moskvy, 15 January 1995, as reported

in FBIS-SOV-95-010, 17 January 1995, 31.

60. ITAR-TASS, 14 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-010, 17

January 1995, 33.

61. Interfax, 16 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-010, 17

January 1995, 32. For a more complete account of shock units and assault

detachments, see Mr. Les Grau, “Russian Urban Tactics: Lessons From the

Battle for Grozny,” National Defense University Strategic Forum, Number

38, July 1995.

62. Interfax, 17 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-010, 17

January 1995, 43.

63. ITAR-TASS, 19 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-013, 20

January 1995, 19.

64. Interfax, 19 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-013, 20

January 1995, 19.

65. Mayak Radio, 19 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-013,

20 January 1995, 19. Apparently, contracts were also being concluded with

those Chechens of this district who wanted to participate in opposing the

Russians.

66. Felgenhauer, 17.

67. ITAR-TASS, 21 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-014, 23

January 1995, 24.

68. Moscow Ostankino TV, 21 January 1995, as reported in

FBIS-SOV-95-014, 23 January 1995, 26.

69. Interfax, 22 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-014, 23

January 1995, 28.

197
70. ITAR-TASS, 22 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-014, 23

January 1995, 28.

71. ITAR-TASS, 24 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-016, 25

January 1995, 26.

72. Ibid.

73. Radiostantsiya Ekho Moskvy, 23 January 1995, as reported in FBISSOV-95-015, 24 January 1995, 30.

74. Radio Rossii, 26 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-017, 26

January 1995, 12.

75. ITAR-TASS, 26 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-018, 27

January 1995, 41.

76. ITAR-TASS, 31 January 1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-021, 1

February 1995, 15.

77. Pavel Felgenhauer, “The Russian Army Will Be in Chechnya for a

Long Time...” Segodnya, 25 January 1995, 1, as reported in FBIS-SOV95-022, 2 February 1995, 12.

78. ITAR-TASS, 1318 GMT, 3 February 1995, as reported in

FBIS-SOV-95-024, 6 February 1995, 21; and Interfax, 1416 GMT, 6 February

1995, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-025, 7 February 1995, 23.

79. Anatoliy Yurkin, ITAR-TASS, 1529 GMT, 7 February 1995, as

reported in FBIS-SOV-95-027, 9 February 1995, 25.

80. “Objectively and Promptly,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta (8 February 1995),

2, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-028, 10 February 1995, 25.

81. Anthony Loyd, “Fleeing Chechens Pledge ‘War With No Front

Lines,’” The Times, 8 February 1995, 11.

82. Igor Korotchenko, “The Operation in Chechnya: Success or Defeat

of the Russian Army,” Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, supplement to

Nezavisimaya Gazeta (February 1995), 1, 2, as reported in JPRS-UMA95-008, 28 February 1995, 1-3.

83. Anatol Lieven, “The World Turned Upside Down,” Armed Forces

Journal(August 1998), 40-43. Lieven’s article is worth the time to look up and

read.

84. Ibid., and Vyzhutovich interview with Stepashin, as reported in

FBIS-SOV-95-043, 6 March 1995, 35.

85. Gregoriyev, 23.

86. Sergey Pavlenko, “The Chechen Drama: Why is its Essence Often

Better Understood by the Ordinary Soldier Than by Many Politicians?”

Krasnaya Zvezda (7 February 1995), 1, as reported in FBIS-SOV-95-027, 9

February 1995, 29.

87. Yelena Afanasyeva and Dmitriy Muratov, “Minister Grachev’s

Statement That He Would Take Grozny With a Single Regiment Had a

Deleterious Effect on the Consciousness of Commanders,” Novaya

198
Yezhednevnaya Gazeta (28 January 1995), 1-2, as reported in JPRS-UMA95-007, 21 February 1995, 6-9.

88. Afanasyeva, 7, 8.

89. Colonel Oleg Namsarayev, “Sweeping Built Up Areas,” Armeyskiy

Sbornik (April 1995), 35-37, as reported in FBIS-UMA-95-139s, 20 July

1995, 20, 21.

90. Namsarayev, 21.

91. Igor Sibirtsev, on press conference of Lieutenant General Mayorov,

“On the Northern Front of Grozny,” Vecherniy Novosibirsk (30 January

1995), 4, as reported in JPRS-UMA-95-005, 7 February 1995, 6.

92. From a conversation with an MVD officer, Moscow, June 1995.

93. Namsarayev, 22.

94. From the author’s discussions with Russian officers who fought in

Grozny.

95. Ibid., and Kvashnin, 25.

96. Pavel Grachev, Krasnaya Zvezda (2 March 1995), 2.

97. Ibid., and Kvashnin, 27.

98. Stasys Knezys and Romanas Sedlickas, The War in Chechnya

(College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1999), 108. 99. Ibid.

100.“Chechen Commander: On Urban Warfare in Chechnya,” working

draft received from the Marine Corps, 1999.

101.Ibid.

102.Ibid. Other significant Chechen lessons learned and related by the

Chechen commander were: The tracer round is useless in urban areas due to

serious negative tradeoffs. Operations security is especially important in the

urban fight. Chechen commanders were so concerned about secrecy that they

did not brief their men about the objective of an operation until they were

already on the way to their objective. Chechen commanders did not move by

“flanking maneuvers” but instead by “chess-like maneuvers” to hit the

Russians where they least expected it. “Hugging” techniques were also used

(setting up positions within 50 to 250 meters from Russian positions to render

Russian artillery and rocket fire ineffective). As a rule, the Chechens did not

place mines or booby traps inside buildings. The possibility of “friendly”

casualties was not worth any possible benefit gained.

103.Feliks Babitskiy, “Dismissals for Generals, That May Be the

Outcome of the Chechen Crisis,” Rossiyskiye Vesti (21 January 1995), 1, as

reported in FBIS-SOV-95-013, 20 January 1995, 19.

199
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201
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Mayak Radio, 1 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-001, 3 January

1995.

_______ 19 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-013, 20 January 1995.

Merezhko, Konstantin. “Caucasian Prisoners, or Pawns are in the Hands of

Amateurs.” Sluzhba, 20 December 1994. Reported in JPRS-UMA95-003, 31 January 1995.

Messana, Paola and Catherine Triomphe. Paris AFP, 13 January 1995.

Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-009, 13 January 1995.

Moscow 2x2, 14 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-010, 17 January

1995.

Moscow Mayak, 4 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-004, 6 January

1995.

_______ 5 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-004, 6 January 1995.

_______ 8 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9 January 1995.

Moscow Ostankino TV, 11 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-009, 13

January 1995.

_______ 21 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-014, 23 January 1995.

202
Moscow Radiostantsiya Ekho Moskvy, 8 January 1995. Reported in

FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9 January 1995.

_______ 15 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-010, 17 January 1995.

Moscow RIA, 9 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-008-A, 12 January

1995.

_______ 10 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-008-A, 12 January

1995.

Moscow Russian TV, 4 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-003, 5

January 1995.

Moscow TV, 7 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9 January 1995.

_______ 8 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9 January 1995.

Namsarayev, Oleg. “Sweeping Built Up Areas.” Armeyskiy Sbornik, April

1995. Reported in FBIS-UMA-95-139s, 20 July 1995.

“Objectively and Promptly.” Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 8 February 1995. Reported

in FBIS-SOV-95-028, 10 February 1995.

Ostankino TV, 7 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9 January

1995.

Panfilov, Oleg. “The Next TargetJournalists.” Izvestiya, 6 January 1995.

Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-005, 9 January 1995.

Paris AFP, 10 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-006, 10 January

1995.

“Pavel Grachev: Russian Unity Defended,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 2 March

1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-042, 3 March 1995.

Pavlenko, Sergey. “The Chechen Drama: Why is its Essence Often Better

Understood by the Ordinary Soldier Than by Many Politicians?”

Krasnaya Zvezda, 7 February 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-027, 9

February 1995.

Radio Rossii, 26 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-017, 26 January

1995.

Radiostantsiya Ekho Moskvy, 10 January 1995. Reported in

FBIS-SOV-95-007, 11 January 1995.

_______ 12 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-009, 13 January 1995.

_______ 23 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-015, 24 January 1995.

203
Vyzhutovich, Valeriy. “Chechnya Will Spurn Kremlin’s Representatives.”

Izvestiya, 20 December 1994. Reported in FBIS-SOV-94-244.

Vaynonen, Nikita. “Television Camera Does Not Shoot, But it is Unmerciful.”

Rossiyskiye Vesti, 10 January 1995. Reported in FBIS-SOV-95-006,

10 January 1995.

Yurkin, Anatoliy. ITAR-TASS, 1529 GMT, 7 February 1995. Reported in

FBIS-SOV-95-027, 9 February 1995.

Zhilin, Aleksandr. Interview with Colonel General Boris Gromov.

Moskovskiy Novosti, 8-15 January 1995.

Interviews

Garrels, Anne. Reported for National Public Radio from Grozny in January

1995. She was interviewed by the author in Moscow, March 1995.

Speyer, Arthur. Interviewed several Chechen fighters after the first battle for

Grozny. Interviewed by the author in March 2000 at the RAND

conference.

204
The Siege of Beirut

George W. Gawrych

But was it a siege when most civilians could come and go between

artillery rounds?

—Robert Fisk, reporter1

The siege of Beirut turned into the single most intensely televised and

reported war in living memory. Journalists were able to operate on

both sides of the encounter and thus produce vast quantities of

uniquely synoptic material every day.

—Avner Yaniv2

In invading Lebanon on 6 June 1982, Israel sought to deal a major

blow to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), an umbrella organization that included all Palestinian resistance groups opposed to

the Israeli state. The 1982 campaign into Lebanon drew the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) into an unanticipated siege of Beirut. Despite detailed coverage by the international media of the human suffering in the

city, the Israeli coalition government persevered in maintaining pressure on the Lebanese capital for seventy days without resorting to a

full-scale ground assault. The siege turned into a saga of Israeli bombardment from the air, land, and sea, with limited ground attacks into

the city. In the end, Israel forced the PLO to evacuate its political leadership and fighters from Beirut to other Arab countries. The Israeli success resulted from a combination of Israeli military and economic

pressures and American diplomacy.

Background

By 1982, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Defense Minister

Ariel Sharon, and Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant General Raful

Eitan were all determined to remove the PLO threat from Lebanon. In

the 1970s, the PLO had established its headquarters in west Beirut and

had turned most of southern Lebanon into a mini Palestinian state,

popularly known as Fatahland. Israel viewed Fatahland as a serious

threat, in that Palestinian resistance groups used it as a base for

launching artillery shells and guerrilla operations into Israel’s northern

region of Galilee.

205
PLO strength derived, in large measure, from Lebanon’s weakness.

In 1975, the Lebanese civil war broke out, fragmenting the country into

numerous fiefdoms headed by heads of various Lebanese confessional

groups. The central government had no power in the face of warlords

with their own militias. In 1976, Syria, given its own political and territorial ambitions in Lebanon, had taken advantage of the internecine

strife to occupy large parts of the country, including the important

Bekaa Valley (see Map 1). An election for a new president was scheduled for August 1982, and under the terms of a decades-old agreement,

the holder of that office had to be a Maronite Christian. Christians constituted 40 percent of Lebanon’s three million people; Muslims and

Druse formed 60 percent. Much of the political power resided in the

Maronite and, to a lesser extent, the Sunni Muslim communities.

In response to the emerging Palestinian threat, Israel had slowly and

clandestinely developed close ties with the Phalangists, the most

powerful political party and military organization in the Maronite

community. Pierre Gemayel, the patriarch of the Gemayel family,

headed the Phalange Party but left control of the militia to his son

Bashir. The Phalange Party opposed the PLO’s presence in Lebanon,

and Phalange militiamen had fought Palestinian guerrillas on numerous

occasions. Consequently, Israel and the Phalange found a common

interest in wanting the destruction of Fatahland and Syria’s withdrawal

from the country.

Bashir Gemayel was a rising political figure in Lebanon. A

charismatic and ruthless individual, he was slowly positioning himself

to be elected as Lebanon’s new Maronite president. Begin and Sharon

came to view the Phalange as an instrument for furthering Israel’s

security interests on its northern border. During the first half of 1982,

both men held a number of secret meetings with Bashir in the hope of

forging an Israeli-Lebanese Christian alliance against the PLO and the

Syrian presence in Lebanon. Apparently, throughout his discussions

with Israeli officials, Bashir welcomed Israel’s support but avoided

committing to military cooperation.3

In the meantime, Begin and Sharon also sought a pretext for

launching a major invasion against the Palestinian threat in southern

Lebanon. An assassination attempt against the Israeli ambassador in

London, Shlomo Argov, on 3 June 1982 provided them with the

opportunity they were looking for. In a shrewd calculation, Begin

limited Israel’s immediate response to air strikes, and on 4 June, Israeli

planes bombed PLO targets in Beirut and southern Lebanon. In

particular, the Israeli air force pulverized the PLO’s munitions depot in

206
Beirut’s sports stadium. Now, Begin and Sharon fully expected the

PLO to retaliate by shelling Israel’s northern settlements. When the

Palestinians did in fact fire back with artillery rounds, they fell right

into the Israeli trap. Late on 5 June, the Israeli cabinet used the

Palestinian retaliation as the sought-after pretext for approving a land

campaign into Lebanon.

207

  







































 















 

























ISRAEL

Galilee

SYRIA

Litani River

Bekaa Valley

Tyre

Sidon

Beirut

Tripoli

Damour River

Awali River

Beir s

ut-Dam c h

y

a us Hig wa

  

Syrian-controlled

PLO- controlled

Christian-controlled

Damascus

LEBANON ON THE EVE OF

OPERATION PEACE FOR GALILEE

SYRIA

LEBANON

Mediterranean

Sea

Map 1
The Israeli cabinet named the operation PEACE FOR GALILEE. A

secondary objective was to sign a peace treaty with Lebanon. The main

objective was to “place all the civilian population of Galilee beyond the

range of the terrorist fire from Lebanon by attacking [the Palestinian

guerrillas], their bases, and their headquarters.”4 At the cabinet

meeting, Sharon assured his fellow ministers that the campaign plan

limited ground operations to 40 kilometers (km), thus leaving Beirut

outside of the area of operations.5 In his directive to the armed forces,

however, the defense minister ordered the IDF to be prepared to

execute a junction with Lebanese Christian militia near Beirut within

96 hours of the operation’s commencement.6

Suspicious of Sharon’s sincerity and concerned about possible Syrian intervention, the cabinet decided to monitor the campaign closely,

thus leaving any military escalation subject to its approval. Begin told

the ministers that “the cabinet will meet daily and make decisions according to the evolving situation.”7 Such political supervision of tactical events would prove unprecedented in modern Israeli history. As

Sharon noted, “For the first time in all of Israel’s war experience, cabinet meetings were held every day and sometimes twice a day. For the

first time the government set specific goals for the army on an ongoing

basis.”8 To address the cabinet’s daily scrutiny, Sharon appointed a brigadier general as permanent liaison to the cabinet, and all the ministers

received a special defense ministry phone number that they could dial at

any time for “updates or clarification.”9 Daily cabinet supervision of

the campaign would directly affect the conduct of the siege of Beirut.

In this war, unlike any other in the Arab-Israeli conflict, “Israel’s advantage was absolute in every category.”10 The IDF committed 75,000

troops; 1,250 tanks (including the highly prized Israeli-made

Merkava); and 1,500 armored personnel carriers organized into four independent divisions, an amphibious brigade, a two-division corps, and

a reserve division. The Lebanese army of 23,000 regulars was a

nonplayer, remaining neutral throughout the campaign. The main

forces facing the Israelis were 30,000 Syrian troops and 20,000 Palestinian fighters. The Syrians, deployed mainly in the Bekaa Valley and

along the Beirut to Damascus highway, sported some 600 tanks (the

older Soviet-made T-54s and T-62s) and 300 artillery pieces and antitank guns. For their part, the Palestinians counted 100 T-34 tanks, 100

artillery tubes, and 60 rocket launchers mounted on trucks.11 The IDF

thus possessed a clear numerical superiority in troops and weapons for

an initial advance of only 40 km, anticipated to take two days to reach

the Awali River and the southern tip of the Bekaa Valley. Few Syrian

208
troops were located in this area. Therefore, the PLO presented the main

military obstacle in southern Lebanon.

On 6 June at 1100, the IDF launched Operation PEACE FOR

GALILEE. Despite a marked superiority in troops and weaponry, the

Israeli army fell behind its timetable as friction and Palestinian

resistance proved more formidable forces than expected. Advance

units had expected to go 40 km within 48 hours but failed to do so.

Moreover, this goal of 40 km itself quickly emerged as a matter of

controversy. In a letter on 6 June to U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the

Israeli prime minister indicated that the military operation would be

limited to 40 km. Two days later, on 8 June, Begin went public and

informed the Israeli parliament of this territorial limitation. The

announcement surprised the IDF. No one had heard of such a

restriction. Major General Amir Drori, the commander of the invading

troops, later stated that he first learned of the 40-km limit from the

media.12 Another Israeli general put it differently: “The prevailing

understanding among the senior officer cadre of the IDF [was a] prompt

penetration into the depth of Lebanese territory all the way to Beirut.”13

Sharon had failed to inform the IDF of any territorial limitation.

In the five days that followed Begin’s announcement of 8 June,

Sharon did everything he could to gain approval for tactical moves that

inched the IDF to an encirclement of Beirut. The resultant piecemeal

movements aggravated the question in the IDF concerning the final

objectives of the campaign. Meanwhile, confusion started to grow in

both the cabinet and the public when military operations began to

exceed the publicly stated 40-km limit. Finally, on 13 June, fully one

week after the commencement of the war, Israeli units linked up with

the Phalange forces at the presidential palace in Baabda. Beirut lay in

full view in the valley below.

The City

In 1982, Beirut was but a shell of its former splendor. By the 1960s,

the city had gained the deserved reputation as the Paris of the Middle

East. Palm trees and outdoor cafes lined the main thoroughfares. Suqs

(marketplaces and shopping centers) attracted wealthy tourists from the

Middle East and Europe. Sun worshippers could bask on its lovely

beaches under the shadow of luxurious hotels while skiers came down

the slopes on the mountains overlooking the city. In addition to offering

the fine pleasures of life, Beirut served as a financial, educational, and

cultural center for the Arab world. Rue de Banques was rumored to

209
possess half the Arab wealth. American University and St. Joseph

University were both prestigious institutions of higher learning,

attracting students from the Arab elites in the entire Middle East. The

press was relatively free, and many Arabs could print their ideas in the

publishing houses of the city.

Unfortunately, the Lebanese Civil War, begun in 1975, dramatically

changed the city’s quality of life. War brought much destruction and

left a divided capital, one part primarily Christian, the other primarily

Muslim. The Maronite Christian family of the Gemayels controlled

east Beirut, collecting taxes and providing many basic services.

Lebanese Muslims and the PLO dominated west Beirut. The Green

Line—a narrow patch of trees, bushes, and earthen works stretching for

some 10 miles—separated the two parts, in effect, acting as a moat.

Three crossing sites along the Green Line connected west and east

Beirut. West Beirut showed evidence of the civil war more than its

Christian counterpart. Entire streets lacked any intact buildings; many

families lived in war-damaged structures.

In 1982, Beirut and its suburbs sported a population of over

1,000,000 (see Map 2). West Beirut was the newer section of the city,

containing some 600,000 residents and 25,000 buildings squeezed into

an area of 10 square miles. The port area still contained elegant

beachfront hotels. American University and most Western embassies,

including that of the United States, were located here as well. South of

the port area stood Corniche Mazraa with its business district. Here,

high-rise buildings served as offices, apartments, or hotels. Built

mainly in the post-1950s, these buildings used glass extensively.

Hamra Street served as the commercial heart of the Muslim sector.

Adjacent to Corniche Mazraa was the Fakhani district where the

PLO had established its headquarters. A few buildings rose to fourteen

stories, but the construction was generally of lower quality than that in

Corniche Mazraa. Fakhani contained a sports stadium that the PLO had

converted into a major ammunition depot and a recruiting and training

center. Fakhani, as well as the Sabra and Shatilla camps to its south,

contained many Palestinian refugees who lived in one-story buildings

with no foundation and only one or two rooms. Streets were very often

too narrow for large military vehicles. Finally, the southernmost area

contained the large refugee camp of Burj al-Barajinah, the Shiite slums,

and Beirut International Airport. Here, the terrain was flat and sandy.

The PLO had turned west Beirut into a Palestinian capital in exile,

therefore a strategic center of gravity for the IDF’s targeting. In anticipation of an Israeli invasion or a major flareup in the Lebanese Civil

210
War, the PLO headquarters had constructed three levels underground.

West Beirut had also become home to many Palestinian bourgeoisie,

some of whom had obtained Lebanese citizenship. Most of the city’s

200,000 Palestinians, however, were poor and concentrated in the three

major Palestinian refugee camps mentioned above. Essentially, west

Beirut was divided into two parts, a Lebanese sector in the north and a

Shiite and Palestinian part in the south.

Geography gave the Israeli invader two advantages. Mountains in

the east, southeast, and south, some rising to over 6,000 feet,

overlooked Beirut and provided excellent observation and artillery

positions. Moreover, the Palestinians were concentrated in the southern

area where the terrain was more open. The IDF could thus concentrate

its bombing on Fakhani and the three refugee camps without placing

most of the Lebanese inhabitants at great risk, at least in theory.

211

MUSEUM

CROSSING

GALLERY

CROSSING

Beirut

International

Airport

U.S.

Embassy

American

DRUSE University

MILITIA

Beirut R.

HIGHWAY

Soviet

Embassy

CORNICHE MAZRAA

Stadium

FAKHANI

P.L.O.

Headquarters

Mediterranean

Sea PALESTINIAN

STRONGHOLDS

Burj

al - Barajinah

SHATILLA

CAMP SABRA

CAMP

SHIITE

MUSLIMS

GREEN LINE

MURABITUN

MILITIA

Mile

0 5

Christian Phalange

Military Headquarters

LEFTIST MILITIAS

PORT

CROSSING

National

Museum

American

University

Hospital

HAMRA STREET

CITY OF BEIRUT

AND SUBURBS

BEIRUT-DA

S

MA

CUS

Map 2
Opposing Forces

The siege of Beirut involved at least ten separate armed forces, each

fighting for its own interest. Figures vary considerably as to the size of

the various militia groups, for in siege warfare, civilians often function

as combatants. At the beginning of the war, the PLO had some 3,000

full-time fighters in west Beirut. This force increased as Palestinians

fled southern Lebanon in the face of advancing Israeli forces. By 13

June, there were over 16,000 Arab fighters in the city. These included

12,000 Palestinian forces, 2,000 Lebanese militiamen, and 2,300 Syrian troops. Syria controlled several thousand of the Palestinian forces.

Together, the fighting groups in west Beirut formed a “plethora of competing organizations,” devoid of unity of command.14 Each group

fought its own battle with a minimum of coordination with other

groups.

The PLO was an umbrella organization for a number of different

Palestinian groups. Yasser Arafat was the chairman of the PLO

Executive Committee as well as the commander in chief of all PLO

military forces. He also directly controlled Fatah, the largest group. In

addition to Fatah, whose strength inside the city had grown to 8,000

fighters, at least four other Palestinian organizations were in west

Beirut: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the

Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front for

the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, and al-Saiqa,

controlled by Damascus. The Palestinian fighters concentrated on

protecting the PLO headquarters and the three refugee camps of Sabra,

Shatilla, and Burj al-Barajinah. The PLO relied on some forty T-34

tanks, a few dozen DM-2 scout cars, fifty to seventy obsolete antiair

guns, and twenty BM-21 Katyusha multiple rocket launchers.

Lebanese Muslims divided into two main groups, the leftist Sunni

Murabitun and the Shiite Amal. Each Lebanese militia had fewer than

1,000 fighters in the city. The Murabitun defended the port area and

National Museum crossing, while Amal concentrated its forces on

protecting the Shiite slum areas in the south. A small Druse contingent

guarded the port area.15

To exert its interest in the city, Syria had stationed its 85th

Mechanized Infantry Brigade in west Beirut as well. Comprising some

2,300 men, the brigade possessed thirty to forty T-54/55 tanks, armored

personnel carriers, D-30 122-millimeter (mm) howitzers, 82mm

mortars, Katyushas, 130mm field artillery, and 57mm antiair guns. The

Syrians deployed in the southern parts of west Beirut, an area relatively

open and hence good defensive terrain for Syrian tanks. They also

212
guarded the area around the Soviet embassy. The Syrian brigade,

however, had suffered heavy damage south of the airport fighting

Israeli units advancing from the coastal road toward the Beirut to

Damascus highway.16

By the time of Operation PEACE FOR GALILEE, the PLO had prepared underground bunkers and tunnels in anticipation of an Israeli invasion. It had stockpiled arms, fuel, food, and medicine. In 1981, the

Palestinians had also begun constructing a number of secret emergency

command posts.17 These prewar preparations paid dividends for the besieged fighters. As noted by a Western reporter in Beirut during the

siege, “the PLO suffered no serious shortages. Their generators could

be heard roaring away during the night.”18Civilians suffered from want

but the fighters not as much.

East Beirut fell under the control of the Gemayel family. Bashir

Gemayel commanded a militia force of 8,000 fighters called the

Lebanese Forces (LF). Between 1975 and 1982, the IDF had trained

some 250 LF officers and 1,000 noncommissioned officers in Israel.

The LF was a paramilitary force, organized on paper into companies

and battalions but employed more at the platoon and squad levels.

Essentially a light force sporting M16s and AK47s, Bashir’s militiamen

possessed a small number of T-54/55 tanks, Katyushas, and artillery

pieces.19 During the Israeli siege, the LF provided indirect support:

blocking northern and northeastern approaches to west Beirut,

manning checkpoints along the Green Line, and offering intelligence to

the Israelis. Despite this assistance, Bashir proved a poor ally for Israel

because he refused Israel’s demand to commit his forces to capture west

Beirut.

The siege of west Beirut thus fell squarely on the shoulders of the

IDF. All three services—army, air force, and navy—participated in the

attempt to pound the Palestinian defenders into submission. Israeli

ground forces stood between 35,000 to 50,000 with 400 tanks and over

100 heavy artillery pieces, including 105mm, 155mm, and 175mm

cannons.20 The navy committed most of its small fleet to a blockade and

provided naval gunfire as needed. The air force conducted thousands of

combat sorties. The IDF clearly possessed a marked numerical

advantage in men and equipment for the siege of Beirut.

Israeli Doctrine

In undertaking its siege, “the IDF was in uncharted waters, both doctrinally and in terms of what they had planned for before the invasion.”21

213
Certainly, the army had had some experience in urban warfare in previous wars. But, in 1982, the Israeli Army faced a seemingly formidable

challenge: an Arab capital with a million inhabitants. The IDF’s previous urban battles paled before the siege of Beirut.

At the operational level, IDF doctrine for urban warfare stressed that

“cities should be encircled before anything else.”22 At the tactical level,

the IDF had refined its tactical doctrine and stepped up its training

program for urban warfare, based in large measure on the battle for

Suez City in the 1973 war. Israeli urban operations (UO) doctrine called

for armor to lead or to support infantry. The army favored using tanks in

urban warfare because the tank afforded both firepower and protection,

and the IDF placed a premium on minimizing casualties in war.

Unfortunately for Israel, the emphasis on armor in the IDF force

structure left the army with a shortage of qualified infantry for a major

urban operation. Regular infantry received adequate preparation, but

reservists generally gained limited training for UO in their refresher

courses. As a result, reserve infantry troops suffered greater casualties

in the war. Training exercises before operations helped alleviate some

deficiencies.

Doctrine emphasized using combined arms in city fighting. Tank

units were trained to task organize with other combat arms for battle.

Thus, Israeli UO doctrine stressed flexibility in force design. Generally,

when employed in an attack, tanks fought under infantry command.

The infantry commander was expected to be in the lead tank where he

could focus on navigation while the crew fought the battle. Artillery

observers accompanied troops to help provide timely fire support.

Doctrine writers encouraged using loudspeakers whenever appropriate

to convince civilians to leave the targeted area. Moreover, patrols were

encouraged to find civilians willing to provide information and help

guide troops through the maze of streets to their objectives.23

A Missed Opportunity?

The linkup between Israeli and Phalange forces on 13 June signified

the encirclement of west Beirut. That same day, Sharon met with Bashir

Gemayel, expecting that the Lebanese warlord would seize west Beirut

with his own forces, supported by the IDF. What transpired should have

been no surprise to Sharon. Bashir again backed away from such

military cooperation with Israel. He was maneuvering to be elected as

Lebanon’s next president in the August election. Although the Israelis

had helped him a great deal, Gemayel stressed that he needed time to

214
build bridges to the United States and mend fences with the various

Muslim groups.24 Clearly, the Lebanese warlord wanted to avoid the

appearance of doing Israel’s dirty work of clearing the Palestinians out

of Beirut. Such an image would seriously damage his credibility with

the Lebanese people, and he was determined to be president of all

Lebanon.

Apparently at this juncture in the war, the IDF missed a golden

opportunity to capture west Beirut in quick order. A Western reporter

inside Beirut at the time observed how “the sheer speed and depth of the

mass Israeli invasion stunned both the Palestinians and the Syrians.”25

In interviews conducted after the war, a number of Palestinians

depicted the Arab forces in the city as “demoralized, dispirited, and

panic-stricken as a result of the crushing defeat they had suffered in the

previous week.”26 In fact, “The key [for the IDF] lay in the ability of its

troops in the field to win a rapid, indisputable, and psychologically

overwhelming triumph.”27 On 12 June, Arafat had already expressed a

desire for a cease-fire between Israel and the PLO in the hope of gaining

valuable time.

Political considerations, not military possibilities, weighed heavily

on Begin and Sharon in assessing their next move. Both men wanted to

remove the PLO from Lebanon, which meant destroying its center of

gravity in Beirut. They had hoped that Gemayel would take the lead in

securing west Beirut, but that had proved to be wishful thinking.

Occupying west Beirut would represent a major military escalation in

the war. Such a move definitely required cabinet approval, and most of

the ministers opposed such an attack, expressing concern over Israeli

casualties and the strategic ramifications of escalating the conflict with

an assault on an Arab capital.28 Moreover, Sharon and Begin were fully

aware of the public’s abiding concern about casualties. Urban fighting

would certainly have increased Israeli losses. Israel had already

suffered 214 killed, 1,176 wounded, and 23 missing in action.29 Finally,

Begin had informed the Israeli parliament publicly and President

Reagan privately that Israel was limiting its operation to 40 km. Beirut

clearly lay outside this geographical limit.

Rather than seek cabinet approval for a forced entry, Sharon decided

to strengthen his position around west Beirut. He admitted in his

memoirs to being “intent on achieving the strongest position we could”

in this phase of the war.30 The immediate military objective became

pushing the Syrians out of positions in the surrounding hills and along

the Damascus to Beirut highway. The IDF spent the next thirteen days

fighting in the hills east of Beirut. By 26 June, the IDF controlled 22 km

215
of the strategic highway. While maintaining its hold around west

Beirut, the IDF periodically shelled the Lebanese capital, mainly with

artillery.

In response to Sharon’s encirclement of Beirut, the Israeli cabinet

changed the objectives of OperationPEACE FOR GALILEE. Instead of

placing Galilee’s civilian population out of artillery range, Israel now

demanded that all Palestinian fighters and Syrian troops depart from

Beirut. The Lebanese army would enter west Beirut to accept arms

from the PLO fighters who, in turn, would leave without their weapons.

In contrast to its demands on the PLO in Beirut, Israel offered a

different arrangement to the Syrians. The Syrian brigade could depart

the city, fully armed and with assurances of safe passage. Damascus

declined this offer. Clearly, at this point in the war, military operations

were driving policy. Sharon’s decision to secure the hills surrounding

Beirut altered the strategic and tactical situation significantly. The

cabinet now found itself widening the war’s objectives in response to

Sharon’s military escalation.

Arafat rejected Israel’s demand to leave the city with his organization and decided to bide his time. Meanwhile, Arab forces in west Beirut took advantage of the Israeli delay in assaulting the city by

frantically fortifying their own positions. “They mined the southern approaches to the city, booby-trapped junctions, placed explosives in

buildings so that they could be blown up to collapse on advancing

forces, dug trenches, and fortified bunkers.”31 Eventually, a system of

strongpoints and barricades guarded all possible avenues of entry into

the city.

While strengthening defenses around the city, Arafat and other

Palestinian leaders began making extravagant claims: “We are ready

for this battle, which will be . . . the Stalingrad of the Arabs.”32

Increasing numbers of defenders took heart. Brigadier General Abu

al-Walid, the PLO chief of military operations, reversed his earlier

pessimistic assessment. On 13 June, the retired colonel from the

Jordanian army saw the Palestinian situation militarily hopeless. By the

end of the month, however, he could boast of defensible positions

ringing west Beirut. More important, perhaps, the passage of time

indicated to many Palestinian fighters that Israel lacked the will for

heavy casualties associated with urban warfare.33

In addition to strengthening Palestinian resolve, the Israeli delay in

attacking west Beirut offered Arafat an opportunity for an honorable

end to the siege. The PLO leader concluded that Israel had little

stomach for city fighting. Attrition and time together might work to the

216
Palestinians’ advantage. Israel could tire of a long siege with its

concomitant high casualties. Moreover, the international media would

certainly expose the suffering of civilians, especially of children,

women, and the elderly. Arafat expected to appeal to Western

conscience in this regard: “In being beleaguered in Beirut, I am

imposing a moral siege on all capitals.”34 Arafat seemed to hope that the

PLO might end up maintaining a political presence in Beirut, with or

without a small militia force.

Strategic Context

After securing control around Beirut, Sharon was ready at the beginning of July to tackle the city directly. The cabinet, however, remained

opposed to a major ground assault on west Beirut. Cabinet members expressed concern over the international repercussions from such an escalation and over the anticipated loss of Israeli soldiers from urban

combat. Sharon would thus have to rely on general bombardments and

limited ground operations designed to pressure the PLO into agreeing

to depart Beirut.

The Israeli domestic front remained generally supportive of the

Begin government during the siege. However, public approval for the

war did drop from 93.3 percent at the onset of Operation PEACE FOR

GALILEE to 66 percent within the first month.35 Although a significant

drop, domestic support remained sufficiently strong throughout the

length of the siege, despite sporadic antiwar rallies in the streets of

Israeli cities. Countermarches took place as well. In fact, most of Israel

stood behind the government in the war.

Polls showed both Begin and Sharon gaining in popularity during

this period. Begin saw his approval rating rise from 47.7 percent at the

beginning of June to 57.6 in July; Sharon witnessed an increase from

48.9 to 59.6 percent. And the main opposition party backed the

government in the war. Both Shimon Peres and Yitzak Rabin, the heads

of the Labor Party, offered only mild criticism, and neither called for an

end to the siege of Beirut.36 Israeli politicians and the public were thus

willing to accept Arab civilian casualties in the fight against the PLO,

an organization perceived as a threat to the Jewish state. Consequently,

the IDF had the time it needed to force the PLO’s withdrawal from west

Beirut.

On the diplomatic front, the United States remained essentially a

steady ally of Israel during the siege. Some friction existed between the

two countries, however. Washington sought a quick end to the invasion

217
and generally pushed to reduce the level of violence, especially during

the siege of Beirut. Although at times critical of Israel for inflicting

suffering on civilians, the Reagan administration avoided any direct

confrontation with Israel over Lebanon. In the end, Washington used its

diplomatic offices to help negotiate the PLO’s withdrawal from west

Beirut. Israel could thus claim a military victory over the PLO.

Desirous of a speedy end to the war, the Reagan administration relied

on Ambassador Philip C. Habib as its special envoy to seek a

diplomatic solution. Habib, a Lebanese-American career diplomat,

faced numerous problems. During negotiations, Arafat played for time,

hoping to avert a political disaster. Moreover, because the United States

refused to recognize the PLO, Habib had to negotiate with Arafat

through intermediaries, primarily Sunni Prime Minister Shafik

al-Wazzan and Saeb Salem, a former holder of the office. Complicating

matters, both Wazzan and Salem lived in west Beirut and declined to

leave their part of the city. Consequently, Habib had to deal with both

men mainly by phone. The wheels of diplomacy moved very slowly in

this strategic environment.

Since Israel’s establishment in 1948, Palestinians have generally

come to view Arab states as wanting in their support of the Palestinian

plight, especially during crises. It was no different in 1982. Conservative states led by Saudi Arabia preferred quiet diplomacy and avoided

directly challenging U.S. support for Israel. Arafat had strained relations with Hafiz al-Asad, the Syrian president. Asad wanted to control

the PLO, and Arafat stood in his way. Egypt offered general support to

the Palestinians but refused to sever diplomatic relations with Israel.37

Habib, for his part, experienced difficulty gaining the Arab states’

quick and full cooperation to accept the PLO fighters from Beirut. No

Arab state was eager to offer to accept all the Palestinian fighters, especially before Arafat agreed to depart the city.

Finally, the Palestinians were essentially strangers in Lebanon, and

the PLO had overstayed its welcome in the country. Many Lebanese

initially welcomed the Israeli invasion in the hope that the Israelis

might dismantle the Palestinian ministate in the country. In a similar

vein, Lebanese Muslims in Beirut wanted to keep their city from

becoming an Arab Stalingrad. The PLO had to show some sensitivity

toward the Lebanese people’s suffering. In this light, on 2 July, Arafat

promised the Muslim Lebanese leadership of west Beirut that the PLO

would do everything to spare the city death and destruction.38 It took six

weeks to fulfill that pledge. Meanwhile, the IDF slowly laid waste to

west Beirut.

218
Battle for Beirut

At the beginning of July, the IDF shifted its main focus to Beirut and

away from the hills surrounding it.39 Before any major military move,

Israel first warned the PLO and the civilian population of an impending

attack on the city. The Begin government also softened its earlier position and announced that the Palestinian fighters could leave with their

light weapons. At dusk on 1 July, Israeli aircraft suddenly swooped

down on the city in mock bombing runs, making loud noise and lighting

the sky with flares. Meanwhile, Israel’s Arabic-speaking radio encouraged civilians to flee the city before the military attacks. The next day

the IDF command confidently announced its readiness for an assault on

the city.

On 3 July, the IDF tightened its economic blockade. A force of some

200 tanks moved from east Beirut and quickly secured the Green Line

separating the Christian and Muslim parts of Beirut. Now Israeli

soldiers and LF militiamen at checkpoints stopped all but essential

personnel (doctors or policemen, for example) from entering west

Beirut. The IDF also shut off all fuel, food, and water into the city. This

situation lasted until 7 July, when the Reagan administration convinced

the Begin government to rescind its order for a brief period.

While Sharon ordered artillery to pound Palestinian sections of west

Beirut, the Israeli air force limited its operations to fake bombing raids

and dropping flares and leaflets. Meanwhile, on the ground, a column

of armor and infantry advanced toward the Burj el-Barajinah refugee

camp in the southern part of the city. After a heavy firefight, this force

managed to gain only a shallow penetration but deep enough to signal

Israel’s firm resolve to defeat the PLO. On 8 July, the Israeli high

command stressed the army’s willingness to conduct the siege through

the winter if necessary.

The next two weeks saw the PLO and IDF conduct artillery duels.

These were mostly one-way exchanges, as the Palestinians had to

husband their ammunition wisely if they wanted to prolong the siege as

long as possible. On a number of occasions, the Palestinians directed

their fire into east Beirut to disrupt the otherwise tranquil life there.

Israel maintained a steady military pressure on west Beirut. One Israeli

officer underscored the need for a regular bombardment: “If a city is

supposed to be under siege and nothing happens, they will start doing

their laundry and making coffee.”40 Artillery shelling took place almost

daily.

219
Then, on 21 July, the IDF escalated its bombing campaign.

According to Israel, the Palestinians launched several raids into Israeli

positions killing five IDF soldiers. Israel used the Palestinian action to

justify a major attack on west Beirut. For the first time since 25 June, the

air force launched a major strike. Residents in Beirut experienced

ninety minutes of intense shelling by the air force, artillery, and tanks.41

From 22 to 30 July, Israel increased its air strikes, artillery shelling, and

naval gunfire.

At the end of July, Sharon decided to complement the bombardment

of west Beirut with ground attacks designed to tighten the noose around

the PLO headquarters and the Palestinian camps.42 He seemed determined to force a military resolution to the PLO’s withdrawal from the

Lebanese capital rather than to see a diplomatic one under American

auspices. The new strategy began on 31 July with a prolonged bombardment of the city. Then, on 1 August at 0300, a task force of Israeli

infantry, paratroopers, and tanks launched an attack in the south and

captured Beirut International Airport by the end of the day. During daylight hours, the IDF pounded west Beirut for fourteen straight hours

with air, naval, and artillery bombardment. As ground troops consolidated their gains, the IDF continued a bombardment of west Beirut for

two more days.

Then, on 4 August, Sharon launched the war’s largest ground

operation against the city. Beirut residents now experienced twenty

straight hours of shelling as the IDF conducted a general bombing

attack that day. Israeli gunboats blasted the entire shoreline from the

hotel district in the north to Ouzai in the south. Planes and artillery

struck other areas of west Beirut. Especially hard hit were the refugee

camps and the Fakhani district. No place, however, appeared safe, as

every civilian seemed to have been in close proximity to an exploding

shell.

The attack of 4 August inflicted significant damage on west Beirut.

Shells had hit many of the city’s most important landmarks and

institutions. Among the damaged buildings were the American

University Hospital, the prime minister’s building, the Central Bank,

the Ministry of Information, the offices of Newsweek and United Press

International, and the two luxury hotels housing foreign journalists.

Residential areas also experienced damage. To increase suffering on

the civilian population, the IDF maintained a blockade of water,

electricity, and fuel, so much so that American University Hospital

appealed on the radio for diesel fuel to help doctors and staff treat the

many wounded. Unable to inflict serious damage on the IDF, the Arab

220
defenders fired rockets and artillery into Christian east Beirut, leaving

many streets temporarily deserted. Sections of the business district

appeared as a ghost town for a brief period.

Sharon launched a ground operation in conjunction with the

bombing campaign (see Map 3). On the eastern front, Israeli forces

crossed into west Beirut at the three checkpoints on the Green Line. The

main effort appeared to take place at the Museum Crossing in the

direction of the PLO headquarters in Fakhani. Here, engineers and

bulldozers led the way for tanks, infantry, and paratroopers, clearing

barricades and other barriers set up on the streets. The fighting proved

quite difficult, often house to house, but the IDF managed to capture the

National Museum and the Hippodrome. Heavy Palestinian resistance

prevented the Israelis from severing the Fakhani district from northern

sections of west Beirut.

Meanwhile, on the southern front, the IDF launched attacks in two

areas. One thrust headed north along the coast and captured a number of

PLO strongpoints in Ouzai. The Israelis managed to advance a km or so

before Palestinian fighters stopped their advance. A second attack

fanned out from Beirut International Airport and headed northeast,

managing to drive a wedge between Palestinian positions in Ouzai and

the Burj al-Barajinah camp. By this time, however, most of the 80,000

or so residents of Burj al-Barajinah had fled to Fakhani district or the

Sabra and Shatilla camps, leaving a sparsely populated slum area. Both

Israeli attacks made limited progress. Arab defenders relied mainly on

rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), machine guns, and 130mm artillery

guns to stop the Israelis.

By the end of 4 August, the Israeli army had established positions

closer to the three refugee camps and the PLO headquarters. But that

day would prove the costliest twenty-four hours of the siege for the IDF.

Israel suffered nineteen killed and sixty-four wounded. On the diplomatic front, the ground assault temporarily stalled Habib’s negotiations

and, therefore, drew sharp criticism from Washington because Israel

escalated the battle at a time when negotiations were seemingly bringing some progress. Socially, the attack on 4 August caused more civilians to abandon the city, upwards of 6,000 per day for the next week

according to some accounts.

Time was clearly running out for the PLO at the beginning of

August. The IDF had begun to demonstrate its willingness to use

ground forces to squeeze and defeat the Palestinians. Moreover,

Israel’s bombardment was becoming more widespread, threatening to

level Lebanese sections of west Beirut. Diplomatically, the PLO was

221
essentially isolated, under pressure from Washington and with largely

ineffective support from the Arab world. Virtually every PLO leader

realized that there remained little if any hope for better terms.43 So on 6

August, Arafat agreed to evacuate, albeit with minor reservations.

Israel received the document on 9 August. On 11 August, the Israeli

cabinet offered its approval in principle but expressed its own concerns

over a number of details. A military surprise awaited the politicians and

the diplomats.

222

HAMRA ST.

MUSEUM

CROSSING

BEIRUT

RIVER

GALLERY

CROSSING

OUZAI

BURJ AL - BARAJINAH

GREEN LINE

BAABDA

LAILAKI

AIRPORT

MURABITUN

MILITIA PHALANGE MILITARY

HEADQUARTERS

PORT CROSSING

SEAPORT

DRUSE MILITIA

FAKHANI

PLO HQ

P.L.O. STRONGPOINTS

SHATILLA

SABRA STADIUM

CORNICHE MAZRAA

ISRAELI ASSAULTS ON

4 AUGUST 1982

Map 3
On 12 August, despite diplomatic progress under American sponsorship, Sharon ordered, without cabinet approval, the IDF to launch its

most massive bombardment of the city. The aerial assault lasted from

0600 to 1700, a day that became known as “Black Thursday.” Targeting

focused on the refugee camps and the area around PLO headquarters.

At the end of the day, losses stood at 128 killed and 400 wounded,

mainly civilians. Sharon apparently had wanted military pressure to

convince Arafat to accept the American-sponsored evacuation plan. In

this way, Israel could claim its military had clearly defeated the PLO.

When challenged by the cabinet to explain his independent action,

Sharon tried to justify the attack by claiming that PLO artillery fire had

killed two and wounded seventy-seven Israeli soldiers the day before.

Unconvinced by this explanation, the cabinet stripped Sharon of all

authority to order military operations. Any air force or ground attacks

now required the prime minister’s approval in the event the cabinet was

unable to meet.44

The American administration was also upset with Sharon.

Washington felt his action had undermined the diplomatic effort, and

Reagan, affected by new images on television and in the newspapers of

innocent women and children being killed or wounded, personally

called Begin to express outrage and demand an end to the shelling and

bombing. That night, 12-13 August, Arafat did drop his last demands

and agreed to evacuate Beirut. By this time, Habib had lined up seven

Arab states to receive the Palestinian fighters. For the next five days,

diplomats labored feverishly to work out the final details for the PLO’s

departure.

Finally, on 19 August, Israel offered its consent to the evacuation

plan. The PLO would withdraw under the protection of a MultiNational Force (MNF) comprising 800 U.S. Marines, 800 French

troops, and 400 Italian troops. An advance contingent of 350 French

troops arrived on 21 August. That day, the first 395 Palestinian fighters

boarded ships and departed Beirut. On 30 August, with much fanfare,

Arafat sailed off on a ship destined for Greece. The Palestinian exodus

ended on 3 September. Counts of the number of evacuees vary slightly,

from 14,614 to 14,656.45 These fighters left Beirut with guns blazing in

the air in defiance.

Lebanese sources placed the official toll of dead in Beirut at 6,776.

This figure included those victims of the 4 June bombing, two days

before Operation PEACE FOR GALILEE actually commenced.

Lebanese police claimed that civilians accounted for 84 percent of the

fatalities. This figure squares with the estimate of 80 percent often cited

223
by international doctors who had served in Beirut during the siege. Of

the 1,100 combatants among the killed, Palestinians accounted for 45.6

percent; Lebanese, 37.2 percent; Syrians, 10.1 percent; and other

nationalities, 7.1 percent.46 The IDF lost 88 killed and 750 wounded in

the battle for Beirut. Total IDF losses up to this point in the war stood at

344 soldiers killed and over 2,000 wounded. Beirut thus accounted for

23 percent of Israelis killed and 32 percent of the wounded for

Operation PEACE FOR GALILEE.

47

Although the siege had officially ended on 21 August, the story of

violence in west Beirut had not. Bashir Gemayel was elected president

on 23 August, only to be assassinated on 14 September. The IDF used

his assassination as an excuse to enter west Beirut and destroy elements

of the Palestinian infrastructure in the city. Sharon also permitted units

of Bashir’s militia to move into the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla,

where Phalange fighters, clearly intent on revenge for the loss of their

leader, massacred innocent civilians from 16-18 September. Political

repercussions were felt in Washington and Tel Aviv. Reagan, having

guaranteed the safety of Palestinian civilians, now ordered the Marines

back into west Beirut to provide security. The Israeli public demanded

an investigation of the events. The massacres at Sabra and Shatilla

proved a tragic ending to the siege. As noted by a retired Israeli general,

“These atrocities led to the loss of legitimacy of the entire campaign, to

direct intervention by the U.S. and the U.N., and to the beginning of the

Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.”48

Battle Dynamics

The world watched for over two months as the IDF gradually

tightened its grip on Beirut. Israel’s main aim in the siege remained

constant: the expulsion of Arafat and Palestinian fighters from the city.

Sharon expected that the Sunni Lebanese leadership in west Beirut

would seek to avoid destruction and would therefore apply pressure on

the PLO to leave. To achieve its goal, Israel resorted to diplomacy, an

information campaign, military pressure, and economic strangulation.

The military effort employed all three services.

The Israeli navy, though small, performed three missions during the

siege. First, it imposed a naval blockade on the port of Beirut. A ring of

patrol boats, gunboats, and missile boats, supported by submarines,

maintained a tight naval blockade. The Reshef class was Israel’s premier ship in the blockade. Sporting a crew of forty-five, this fast patrol

boat contained six Gabriel missile launchers and two 76mm guns. The

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Reshef boats could operate on the sea for long periods. Second, the

navy threatened the Arab defenders with an amphibious landing on the

beaches. A precedent had been set earlier in the campaign when, on the

first evening of the war, naval boats landed forces at the Awali River

north of Sidon. To avoid being outflanked from the sea, the Arab defenders deployed fighters to guard the coastline. The IDF never attempted a major sea landing. Third, the navy provided naval gunfire in

conjunction with air strikes and artillery barrages. For this, the navy relied largely on the Gabriel missile and the 76mm gun.49 Directed by radar or optical sighting, the Gabriel missile possessed a maximum range

of 38 km and carried a delayed-action fuse on its 150-kilogram warhead.

The Israeli air force also played a major role in the siege of Beirut.

Fixed-wing aircraft conducted the air war over Beirut. F-15 Eagles and

F-16 Flying Falcons generally provided cover while F-4 Phantoms, A-4

Skyhawks, French-built Mirages, and Israeli-made Kfirs conducted

bombing runs. Israeli aircraft dropped smart munitions, cluster bombs,

missiles, and rockets. Because Arab air defenses were ineffective

except against helicopters, Israeli pilots approached their targets with a

30-degree dive angle and dropped their payloads at 3,000 to 4,000 feet.

After an attack, an RF-4 reconnaissance aircraft would generally fly

over the target area to take pictures for assessing the damage. The air

force avoided using helicopters in combat roles and instead assigned

them missions of transporting supplies or carrying wounded.50

Israel used cluster, incendiary, and concussion bombs. Cluster

bombs maximized the killing of human beings. In this vein, the Israelis

employed the American-made GBU58, MK180, M42, and M434E1.

After the siege, a thirteen-member American ordnance team spent six

weeks helping the Lebanese army de-mine the western and southern

parts of Beirut. The Americans counted 1,144 explosive devices—rockets

and mines, grenades and booby traps, 256 cluster bombs, 18,500 pounds

of explosives, 47,500 rounds of ammunition, and 30 gallons of chemical

explosives.51

To the media, Israel stressed its employment of precision weapons

against military targets, but general bombing also took place. As

described firsthand by retired British Major Derek Cooper, “From early

July the attacks from sea, land and air got intense, sustained and

indiscriminate, often by night as well as in the day time; little warning

was given and the creeping barrage of destruction grew as the days went

by and the siege and blockade began to bite . . . the shelling and

225
bombing were indiscriminate as building after building was destroyed

from sea, land and air.”52

Several districts were especially hit hard. Fakhani district and the

three refugee camps saw the greatest damage. The port area and

Corniche Mazraa experienced less damage, but this was all relative.

Virtually all the embassies and seventeen of twenty-six hospitals

suffered damage. “In a city that was an armed camp, hospitals were not

going to escape the contamination of their patients’ politics.”53 The

siege left the city devastated. As noted by an Israeli historian, “Come

August Beirut was in shambles: running out of food and medicines;

electricity cut off; and water supplies so short that inhabitants used

artesian wells.”54

Artillery and tanks played an important role in providing ground

firepower. The IDF relied on artillery as the main weapon for shelling

west Beirut. Ground operations emphasized combined arms. Tanks

(mainly M-60s) generally led the attack formation, with 155mm

howitzers bringing up the rear, ready to be brought forward.55 Artillery,

especially the 155mm self-propelled howitzer, saw employment in a

direct-fire role against buildings or strongpoints. The M163 Vulcan

20mm antiaircraft gun with its high-elevation capability, mounted on

an M-113 armored personnel carrier (APC), proved extremely useful

against upper-level floors in tall buildings. M-113 APCs transported

troops and supplies, but the IDF understood their vulnerability to RPGs

and used them sparingly as a result. Engineers played an important role

in clearing road obstacles and mines. The D-9 bulldozer was the vehicle

of choice.56

Israeli infantry sported American small arms as well as the

domestically produced Galil assault rifle. The Galil borrowed heavily

from the Soviet AK47 assault rifle. The Israeli rifle had a

thirty-five-round magazine and a fifty-round magazine for the machine

gun version. This weapon proved very effective at close range. To fight

on foot in Beirut, Israeli soldiers received additional equipment: hand

radios, hand grenades, RPG launchers, light antitank weapons, and

illumination rounds for mortars. Flak jackets helped reduce casualties,

but still some 55 percent of Israeli casualties resulted from small-arms

fire, many in the head or neck. Snipers proved most troublesome. Rules

of engagement allowed for the application of heavy ordnance on

buildings hiding Palestinians firing on Israeli troops.

PLO forces relied heavily on the AK47. They also quickly grasped

the effectiveness of RPGs in urban warfare and distributed them

widely. Small mobile teams of three to six fighters formed around a

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single RPG; they manned the outer circle of defense against Israeli

ground attacks. RPGs were most effective against M-113s, less so

against tanks. Palestinians also employed Katyusha truck-mounted,

multiple rocket launchers. Because the Israelis had good fields of

observation, the Palestinians fired the rockets and then quickly hid the

trucks in alleys, garages, and between buildings.57

Noncombatant Aspects

To isolate the PLO and the Syrians, Israel encouraged the civilian

population to flee the city using leaflets (dropped by planes),

loudspeakers, and radio broadcasts. The IDF even sent personalized

flyers to the Syrian brigade, naming its commander and providing

instructions for its safe passage to Damascus. Israeli soldiers kept

checkpoints open for townspeople to leave. Some people returned after

the bombing ceased. These Lebanese were afraid to leave their

apartments or businesses for too long lest squatters occupy them. Many

did not return. By the end of the siege, over 250,000 residents of the

original 600,000 had abandoned west Beirut. Journalists especially

took advantage of Israel’s open-door policy that permitted some traffic

back and forth. “In the morning, we could talk with the Palestinian

defenders of west Beirut. In the afternoon, we could take tea with the

army that worked to destroy them.”58

The IDF also resorted to economic sanctions, trying to make life

difficult for the people. Periodic cuts in fuel, water, and electricity were

expected to persuade the people to abandon the city. Inhabitants faced

severe water shortages and resorted to artesian wells. International

pressures forced resumption of water and electricity for brief periods.

Enterprising Christian merchants in east Beirut found ways to smuggle

supplies into west Beirut. Telephones, however, were left intact.

Despite the hardships, on some days, women took to the beaches to

sunbathe in swimsuits. People defiantly struggled to maintain some

normalcy in the midst of the siege.

Israel maintained a steady information campaign for international

consumption. But it was extremely difficult to put a positive spin on a

siege that brought misery and death to children, women, and the

elderly. The IDF could not hide this human suffering because reporters

moved freely back and forth across the Green Line and could verify

either side’s claims. Television became an emotive source of daily

reporting. On several occasions, for example, the Israelis were shown

to practice misinformation. Claiming a desire to minimize civilian

227
casualties, Israeli spokesmen stressed precision bombing methods

targeting only the PLO “terrorists” and denied using cluster bombs.

Then the truth came out that the IDF was using them. In another case,

the IDF blamed Lebanese Christians for cutting off water and

electricity to west Beirut until reporters discovered Israelis helping to

man the pumping stations. Israeli censors even tried to edit newsreels,

so the major networks sent their material to Damascus.59

Israeli bombardment of west Beirut produced unforeseen political

consequences. Many Lebanese welcomed the Israeli invasion, wanting

to see an end to Palestinian autonomy within Lebanon. But most of

these individuals turned against the IDF as the war brought significant

death and destruction to the country. As early as 7 July, Nabih Berri, the

head of the Shiite organization Amal, prophetically stated the future

role of his Shiite community. “If the Israelis stay in Lebanon, we’ll

become the new Palestinians.”60 For the next eighteen years of Israeli

occupation, Shiite organization Hizbullah proved Israel’s main threat

in Lebanon, eventually forcing the IDF to withdraw unilaterally from

the country in May 2000.

Dissent against the war did emerge early in Israel, even in the army.

During the third week of July, Colonel Eli Geva, a brigade commander,

refused an order to fire his artillery into areas of west Beirut. He argued

to his superiors that such bombardment would naturally cause numerous civilian casualties. The senior leadership relieved Geva of his command. Eventually, several hundred Israeli officers and soldiers refused

to serve in Lebanon, and some formed a peace organization. Of these,

170 faced trials and imprisonment. Such dissent within the military,

though limited in numbers, was unprecedented in the annals of the IDF

and therefore a shock to the society.61 Siege warfare did stir the conscience of many Israelis, both civilian and military, but not enough to

derail military operations.

The IDF launched Operation PEACE FOR GALILEE without cabinet approval for expanding the war to Beirut. This political constraint

prevented the IDF from attempting a rapid capture of west Beirut. Determined to defeat the PLO in Beirut, Begin and Sharon adopted a strategy that avoided Israeli casualties as much as possible. Initially, both

men had sought an alliance with Bashir Gemayel, hoping that he would

assume the principal role in west Beirut’s capture. This proved a strategic miscalculation. When the Maronite leader refused to cooperate,

Sharon slowly dragged the IDF into a siege based on a strategy of attrition, combining military pressure and economic strangulation. At

228
times, military operations drove policy. On other occasions, policy restrained military operations.

After seventy days of siege, Arafat and the PLO surrendered, owing

to a combination of factors. First, the Begin government and the Israeli

people possessed the will to stay the course in forcing the PLO’s exodus

from the city. Second, the IDF enjoyed a marked superiority in numbers

and technology that slowly constricted the area the PLO fighters

controlled. Israeli ground forces employed combined arms centered on

the tank. Third, the PLO had become isolated diplomatically. American

diplomacy essentially helped Israel attain its war aim of expelling the

PLO from Beirut.

By the end of the first week of August, the PLO faced little, if any,

hope of a compromise. Nevertheless, the IDF lacked a political mandate to attempt a decisive military defeat of the PLO with ground forces,

and the Reagan administration would not countenance such a dramatic

escalation. Taking advantage of international guarantees, Arafat finally

abandoned Beirut to fight Israel another day in other places. The city of

Beirut had provided enough shelter for the PLO leader to depart defeated but not destroyed.

229
Notes

1. Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon (NY:

Atheneum, 1990), 295.

2. Avner Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security: Politics, Strategy, and Israeli

Experience in Lebanon (NY: Oxford University Press, 1987), 145.

3. Ariel Sharon, Warrior: An Autobiography of Ariel Sharon (NY:

Touchstone, 1989), 437-44, 450-51; Avraham Tamir, A Soldier in Search of

Peace: An Inside Look at Israel’s Strategy (NY: Harper & Row, 1988),

119-21; and Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (NY:

Norton, 2000), 398. Tamir, a major general and Sharon’s military adviser at

the time, attended some of the meetings.

4. Itimar Rabinovich, The War in Lebanon, 1970-1983 (Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press, 1984), 121-22; Tamir, 127; and Shlaim, 406.

5. Sharon, 457, and Shlaim, 405.

6. Author, discussions with Israeli officers attending the U.S. Army

Command and General Staff College (CGSC), Fort Leavenworth, Kansas,

1999-2001.

7. Rabinovich, 134.

8. Sharon, 463.

9. Ibid., 464.

10. The Middle East Military Balance, 1983, Mark Heller, ed. (Tel Aviv:

Tel Aviv University, 1983), 12.

11. Dov Tamari, “Military Operations in Urban Environments: The Case

of Lebanon, 1982,” Soldiers in Cities: Military Operations on Urban Terrain,

Michael C. Desch, ed. (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute,

2001), 36. For higher figures, see Trevor N. Dupuy and Paul Martell, Flawed

Victory: The Arab-Israeli Conflict and the 1982 War in Lebanon (Fairfax,

VA: Hero Books, 1986), 86-91; and Roman Gabriel, Operation Peace for

Galilee: The Israeli-PLO War in Lebanon (NY: Hill and Wang, 1984), 47-54,

81, 233.

12. Israel Shahak, “New Revelations on the 1982 Invasion of Lebanon,”

Middle East International (7 October 1994), 19.

13. Tamari, 39.

14. R.D. McLaurin and Paul A. Jureidini, Battle of Beirut, 1982

(Aberdeen, MD: U.S. Army Human Engineering Laboratory, 1986), 35.

15. Ibid., 23-24.

16. Ibid., 25, 48, and Gabriel, 141.

17. Rashid Khalidi, Under Siege: P.L.O. Decision-Making During the

1982 War (NY: Columbia University Press, 1986), 59.

18. Fisk, 289.

230
19. Middle East Military Balance, 1983, 263-65; Gabriel, 129-30; and

McLaurin and Jureidini, 20-21.

20. Ibid., 19.

21. Khalidi, 56.

22. Tamari, 37.

23. Discussion is based on McLaurin and Jureidini, 17-20, 29-30; The

MOUT Home Page, “Operation Peace for Galilee,” at <www.

specialoperations.com/mout/pfg.html>; and author, discussions with Israeli

officers attending CGSC, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1999-2001.

24. Rabinovich, 139, and Tamir, 132.

25. Fisk, 215.

26. Dupuy and Martell, 152-53. Others have echoed this assessment. See

Khalidi, 55, and Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The

Lessons of Modern War, I: The Arab-Israeli Conflicts, 1973-1989 (Boulder,

CO: Westview Press, 1990), 144, 151.

27. Khalidi, 47.

28. Rabinovich, 139.

29. Cordesman and Wagner, 144.

30. Sharon, 476.

31. Dupuy and Martell, 150.

32. Khalidi, 118.

33. Ibid., 112.

34. Ze’ev Schiff and Ehud Ya’ari, Israel’s War in Lebanon (NY: Simon

and Schuster, 1984), 207.

35. Martin van Creveld, The Sword and the Olive: A Critical History of

the Israeli Defense Force (NY: Public Affairs, 1998), 298.

36. James F. Clarity, “Antiwar Minority Remains Vocal and Visible and

Small,” New York Times, 8 August 1982, A12, and Yaniv, 127-28.

37. Khalidi, 148-54.

38. Thomas L. Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem (NY: Anchor

Books, 1989), 147, and Khalidi, 115-16.

39. The account draws heavily upon the following sources: New York

Times, 1 June to 21 August 1982; Gabriel, 139-58; Schiff and Ya’ari, 195-229;

Dupuy and Martell, 155-63; Cordesman and Wagner, 146-47; and McLaurin

and Jureidini, 43-45.

40. James M. Markham, “Israelis Keep Reminding Beirut That Siege Is

On,” New York Times, 5 July 1982, A4.

41. Gabriel, 146-47.

42. For a flow of the siege in the month of August, see Ibid., 151-54;

Dupuy and Martell, 160; Cordesman and Wagner, 147; Khalidi, 96; and

Michael Jansen, The Battle of Beirut: Why Israel Invaded Lebanon (Boston,

231
MA: South End Press, 1982), 39-64. Also see the numerous articles in theNew

York Times during the period 1 to 21 August 1982.

43. Khalidi, 174.

44. Schiff and Ya’ari, 225-27; Gabriel, 158; Yaniv, 147; and Shlaim,

413.

45. Dupuy and Martell, 179.

46. “Lebanese Add 1,200 to Beirut Siege Toll,” Washington Post, 2

December 1982; John Yemma, “New Figures Emerge on the Cost of Lives in

Israel’s War in Lebanon,” Christian Science Monitor, 21 December 1982;

Franklin P. Lamb, Reason Not the Need: Eyewitness Chronicles of Israel’s

War in Lebanon (Nottingham, UK: Spokesman, 1984), 342.

47. Gabriel, 169.

48. Tamari, 51-52.

49. McLaurin and Jureidini, 62.

50. Ibid., 67.

51. David Zucchino, “In Weary Beirut, the Litter of War Kills, Too,”

Philadelphia Inquirer, 23 January 1983.

52. Lamb, 338.

53. Fisk, 286.

54. Van Creveld, 297.

55. McLaurin and Jureidini, 39.

56. Ibid., 55.

57. Ibid., 33-34, and The MOUT Home Page.

58. Fisk, 300.

59. Ibid., 286-89, and Lamb, 432, 455-56.

60. Khalidi, 88.

61. Van Creveld, 299.

232
Selected Bibliography

Few English sources provide a detailed treatment of tactical and technological

events of the siege. Consequently, this study has given more attention

to the strategic dimensions.

Dupuy, Trevor and Paul Martell. Flawed Victory: The Arab-Israeli Conflict

and the 1982 War in Lebanon. Fairfax, VA: Hero Books, 1986. Little

on the siege; better on the military events leading to the encirclement.

Fisk, Robert. Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon. NY: Atheneum,

1990. The best account of life inside Beirut by a reporter who

witnessed the siege.

Friedman, Thomas L. From Beirut to Jerusalem. NY: Anchor Books, 1989.

Award-winning book with surprisingly very little on the siege even

though the author filed daily reports on the siege for the New York

Times.

Gabriel, Roman. Operation Peace for Galilee: The Israeli-PLO War in

Lebanon. NY: Hill and Wang, 1984. Offers a succinct but superficial

chapter on the siege from the Israeli perspective.

Jansen, Michael. The Battle of Beirut: Why Israel Invaded Lebanon. Boston,

MA: South End Press, 1982. Good overview of the siege based on

quotes taken from various newspapers in the English language.

Khalidi, Rashid. Under Siege: P.L.O. Decision-Making During the 1982 War.

NY: Columbia University Press, 1986. Provides insight into the

Palestinian resistance to the Israeli siege. A must read for balance.

McLaurin, R.D. and Paul A. Jureidini. Battle of Beirut, 1982. Aberdeen, MD:

U.S. Army Human Engineering Laboratory, 1986. Most detailed

treatment of tactical, technological, and doctrinal aspects of the siege.

MOUT Home Page. “Operation Peace for Galilee.” <www.Specialoperations.com/mout/pfg.html>. A list of lessons learned from the Israeli

siege. Complements McLaurin and Jureidini’s study.

New York Times, 13 June to 21 August 1982. Excellent daily coverage of the

siege. Several good maps depicting Israeli attacks into the city.

Schiff, Ze’ev and Ehud Ya’ari. Israel’s War in Lebanon. NY: Simon and

Schuster, 1984. A scathing treatment of the Israeli invasion. Schiff is a

well-respected military journalist in Israel.

233
Tamir, Avraham. A Soldier in Search of Peace: An Inside Look at Israel’s

Strategy. NY: Harper and Row, 1988. Senior Israeli general who

attended several important meetings before and during the war.

Tamari, Dov. “Military Operations in Urban Environments: The Case of

Lebanon.” Soldiers in Cities: Military Operations on Urban Terrain,

edited by Michael C. Desch. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies

Institute, 2001. Interesting strategic-operational analysis of the siege.

Van Creveld, Martin. The Sword and the Olive: A Critical History of the

Israeli Defense Force. NY: Public Affairs, 1998. Chapter on Lebanon

is best short summary of the entire war and the subsequent Israeli

occupation from 1982 to 1998.

Yaniv, Avner. Dilemmas of Security: Politics, Strategy, and Israeli

Experience in Lebanon. NY: Oxford University Press, 1987. A

critical, detailed treatment of the war from the perspective of Israeli

politics.

234
The Siege of Sarajevo, 1992-1995

Curtis S. King

Like all of the studies of this volume, the struggle for Sarajevo from

1992 to 1995 offers a unique perspective on urban operations (UO).

Within the wide range of UO, the siege of Sarajevo seems to fall at a

mid-intensity level roughly halfway between full-scale house-to-house

fighting and noncombat disaster relief. Yet, perhaps more than most

other entries in this collection, the three-year clash at Sarajevo

represents the largest variety of UO in a single campaign. At various

times, the siege included moments of high-intensity street fighting,

lengthy siege operations dominated by bombardments and sniper fire,

and political posturing. In fact, all factions in the Bosnian war found

that operations in Sarajevo could serve more as a tool for propaganda

than as a means for military advantage. All the while, UN forces were

involved in the struggle, initially in a limited and almost impossible

effort to bring humanitarian aid to the city and later in a more active

peacekeeping and mediation role.

The complexity of the conditions and conduct of the siege are a cautionary tale and a lesson in the pitfalls of attempts to simplify the bitter

war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the role of Sarajevo in that fight. Still,

there are some themes that emerge from the conflict for Sarajevo that

provide insight into UO. First, the reluctance of all factions to commit

to an intensive house-to-house struggle for the city reinforces the impression that urban fighting demands greater resources, especially

manpower and ammunition, than battles on most other terrain. Second,

as the factions realized they were unable or unwilling to pay the price

for the complete capture of the city, they also discovered that they could

still use the battle for the city for political gain. This realization

spawned a wide variety of tactical techniques that contributed little to

capturing or relieving the capital but was designed to elicit political dividends. Finally, in connection with the potential political advantages to

be gained in Sarajevo, many of the combatants came to view the city’s

civilian population as a chip in the game of Bosnian power politics.

The siege of Sarajevo was part of a vicious war in BosniaHerzegovina (for brevity, hereafter referred to as Bosnia) from 1992 to

1995. While historians have debated the supposed “ancient ethnic”

origins of this war, the more immediate causes lay in Yugoslavia’s

collapse after the death of Josip Broz Tito.1 Since World War II, this

former partisan leader had held together the diverse republics of

235
Yugoslavia with a combination of propaganda, incentive, and brute

force. Without Tito, nationalistic movements reemerged and drove

several of the republics toward independence. This nationalism

ultimately led to conflict among the newly independent states of the old

Yugoslavia, and it was a key element of the political and military

factors that dominated the fighting in Bosnia and the siege at Sarajevo

(see Map 1).

The first republic to leave Yugoslavia was Slovenia, which initially

declared itself a sovereign state on 27 September 1989. For the next

year, there was high tension, but relatively light military conflict,

between Slovenia and the federal government of Yugoslavia, which

was becoming increasingly dominated by Serbia and its leader,

Slobodan Miloševiæ. According to several accounts, Miloševiæ agreed

236

Map 1
in January 1991 to allow Slovenia its independence primarily because

there were so few ethnic Serbs in Slovenia.2 This decision revealed that

Miloševiæ had shifted from his earlier goal of maintaining a united

Yugoslavia to a more nationalistic aim of building a “greater Serbia.”

Croatia’s assertion of independence in June 1991 was far less simple

and much bloodier than that of Slovenia. Most Croatians were Catholic,

but helping to generate friction with Serbia, the new Croatian Republic

also included a significant population of Eastern Orthodox Serbs

located primarily in a region known as the Krajina. In addition, parts of

Croatia bordered Serbian and Bosnian Serb lands. In spring 1991,

Miloševiæ and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman maneuvered

militarily and politically as conflict loomed between the two republics.

Miloševiæ had the stronger military forces, while Tudjman hoped to

portray the Serbs as aggressors to the international community. At the

same time, extremist groups on both sides sent forces to the Krajina to

stir up passions among the local population.3 Open warfare broke out in

summer 1991, and the brutality of the struggle came to be symbolized

by the fight for Vukovar from September to November 1991. After the

fall of Vukovar to pro-Serbian forces, Croatia and the Krajina Serbs

(backed by the Serb Republic) came to an uneasy truce, and by early

1992, UN soldiers were in Croatia administering a cease-fire between

the warring factions.

The Croatian war exhibited several factors that influenced the war

that later engulfed Bosnia. First, at the highest political levels, both

Miloševiæ and Tudjman were flexible in tactics and goals. They were

capable of extreme nationalistic pronouncements, yet willing to sacrifice nationalistic allies for the sake of support from the international

community. Second, the fighting in Croatia transformed the Yugoslav

People’s Army (known by the Serbo-Croatian acronym of JNA) from a

multiethnic force fighting for a federal Yugoslavia to a pro-Serb force

that supported Miloševiæ’s agenda for a greater Serbia.4 Additionally,

one of the JNA’s major commanders in Krajina who became familiar

with the conditions of urban fighting was Ratko Mladiæ. He later

emerged as the overall Bosnian Serb commander at Sarajevo. Third, the

problems UN forces encountered after the cease-fire in Croatia prefigured the difficulties UN forces faced in Bosnia.5 Their underlying neutral stance and their general lack of substantial military strength meant

that they had to perform their mission with great awareness of political

conditions and the limits of their own military power.

Finally, pro-Serb forces used tactics in the battle for Vukovar that

were similar to those later employed at Sarajevo. The JNA showed its

237
sympathies to the Serbs and used its heavy weapons outside Vukovar to

bombard and devastate the city. Serb paramilitaries (soldiers Bosnian

Serb leaders raised outside of the official military structure) were more

willing to do the urban fighting but found that the cost of fighting from

house to house was costly. Although the Serbs had taken the city, the

price for Vukovar was high, not only in the manpower and time

expended but also in the international support lost in the effort.6 After

Vukovar, the JNA and Serb paramilitary forces tended to rely on heavy

weapons to bombard urban areas while remaining reluctant to commit

to costly street fighting.

Unlike Slovenia, which did not have a significant ethnic minority,

and Croatia, which had a single and relatively concentrated Serb minority, Bosnia consisted of three ethnic groups, none of which commanded

an absolute majority of the population. According to the April 1991

census, Bosnia’s ethnic mix was 43.6 percent Muslim, 31.3 percent

Serb, 17.3 percent Croat, and 5.2 percent Yugoslav (this last category

mainly representing people of mixed ethnic backgrounds).7 This demographic factor meant that no single ethnic group could rule Bosnia with

an absolute majority, making it difficult to create a workable unified

political structure. It was just as difficult to partition Bosnia along reasonable and simple ethnic lines. These ethnic groups were not divided

into clearly defined geographic areas. In the cities, especially Sarajevo,

the ethnic groups were often intermingled, and in the countryside, the

more ethnically homogenous villages dotted the landscape in a mixed

fashion that defied a regional pattern.

These problems had been apparent in Bosnia’s first free elections in

November 1990. Each of the republic’s three ethnic groups formed

strongly nationalistic parties that dominated the elections, with the vote

dividing almost strictly along ethnic lines (the one party that fostered

multiethnic unity gathered few votes). Thus, the Muslims captured the

most votes but not a majority, and after some complicated political

maneuvering, one of the Muslim leaders, Alija Izetbegoviæ, became

Bosnia’s president.8 The three national parties agreed to govern as a

coalition, but relations were strained.

The new coalition government in Bosnia watched events in Slovenia

and Croatia with a careful eye. Izetbegoviæ initially had hoped that

Bosnia could remain in Yugoslavia, along with Slovenia and Croatia, in

an autonomous status. However, once both Slovenia and Croatia had

declared their independence from Yugoslavia, Bosnia was forced to

choose between remaining in a Serb-dominated rump Yugoslavia or

declaring its own sovereignty. By spring 1991, Izetbegoviæ had become

238
a proponent of an independent Bosnian state, while the Bosnian Serbs,

under the leadership of Radovan Karadiæ, preferred to remain a part of

Yugoslavia. The Bosnian Serb members of Parliament often boycotted

legislative sessions, and finally on 14 October 1991, they left

Parliament indefinitely.9

As nationalist elements gained ascendancy on all sides, the possibility for compromise diminished. The Bosnian Serbs threatened to create

their own Bosnian state if Izetbegoviæ pushed toward independence,

and they called on the JNA to protect the four self-declared Bosnian

Serb autonomous regions within Bosnia. Ironically, Izetbegoviæ also

tried to woo the JNA to his side, hoping that the federal army could prevent the Serb paramilitaries’ intervention.10 These efforts collapsed.

Subsequently, Izetbegoviæ, perhaps hoping for international recognition and protection, called for a referendum on Bosnian independence

that took place on 29 February and 1 March 1992. Karadiæ and the

Bosnian Serb leadership called for a boycott of the referendum. Most

Bosnian Serbs did not vote, and the overall turnout was 64 percent.

However, the Muslims and Bosnian Croats voted almost unanimously

for independence.11 The day after the vote, at a Bosnian Serb wedding

ceremony in Sarajevo, Muslim gunmen killed a member of the wedding

party, and tension in the city reached a new high. The factions managed

to avoid open fighting in Sarajevo for another month, but by late spring,

war seemed inevitable.

In the events leading up to the outbreak of the war, all of the major

factions and their leaders staked out their positions, which was to have

considerable influence on the siege of Sarajevo. Alija Izetbegoviæ, the

Bosnian Muslim leader, wanted a united and independent Bosnia,

multiethnic but with Muslims as the largest segment of the population.

Radovan Karadiæ, leader of the Bosnian Serbs, initially pushed for all

of Bosnia to remain in a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia, but by 1992, his

aim was to partition Bosnia and bring the Serb regions, as a contiguous

unit, into Yugoslavia. This goal required physically relocating

significant parts of the ethnic populations and “ethnic cleansing.” This

term came to describe a variety of actions—threats, house burnings,

beatings, rape, and executions—designed to force opposition ethnic

groups out of a region, thus leaving that area ethnically pure. These

actions were not a full-scale policy of genocide but were usually

designed to create larger, contiguous regions populated by single ethnic

groups. In the Bosnian war, the Bosnian Serbs were the first to employ

this tactic, but all factions eventually engaged in ethnic cleansing.

Miloševiæ initially supported Karadiæ because they shared the

239
common goal of a greater Serbia; however, the occasional conflicts

between these two leaders grew worse as the war continued. Karadiæ

tried to keep some measure of independence from Belgrade for the

Bosnian Serbs while Miloševiæ distanced himself from the Bosnian

Serbs when their ethnic cleansing brought increasing international

pressure and economic sanctions.

The final Bosnian faction, the Bosnian Croats, wavered between

supporting the Muslim and Serb sides. In the independence referendum

and at the opening of the war, the Bosnian Croat leadership supported

the concept of a multiethnic Bosnia, but the idea of a partition—with

segments of Bosnia being incorporated into newly independent

Croatia—was always a possibility. Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban

supported partition, but the Croatian president, Tudjman, had firmer

control over his Bosnian counterpart than Miloševiæ had over Karadiæ.

Tudjman appeared to be the ultimate opportunist, willing to support any

policy in Bosnia that benefited Croatia. He wavered between a partition

that could add parts of Bosnia to Croatia and keeping a unified Bosnia

as a buffer between Croatia and Serbia. The one constant for Tudjman

was to support any action that could aid in the recovery of the Krajina.

The role of actors outside Bosnia also had a major influence on the

conflict. The most obvious external players were Serbia and Croatia,

whose political goals clearly influenced (but did not control) their

Bosnian clients’ policies. Just as important, the Bosnian Serbs and

Bosnian Croats could count on military support from contiguous

benefactor states. This support included heavy weapons and money.

Additionally, the JNA was clearly a pro-Serb force, and it would be the

crucial force that enabled the Bosnian Serbs to lay siege to Sarajevo.

The Muslims had no adjacent ally, and Izetbegoviæ hoped that the

international community, primarily the UN and NATO, would aid the

Muslim side. However, a UN arms embargo on Bosnia actually hurt the

Muslims the most because they started the war with no heavy weapons

and could not smuggle them in from adjacent allies. Later in the war,

Izetbegoviæ’s forces would get some support from Muslim nations that

managed to get weapons through the embargo.

All of the factions in Bosnia with their varied aims fought for more

than three years. During this time, the fighting spread to almost every

region of the country, but throughout the conflict, Sarajevo remained a

focal point of the struggle and the most visible symbol of the war. During the siege, as it does today, the city of Sarajevo stretches out along

both sides of the Miljacka River in a narrow, oblong shape approximately 13 kilometers (km) long from east to west but generally only 3 to

240
4 km wide as it follows the river (see Map 2). The urban area contained

virtually all of the types of terrain and structures that are found in most

modern cities. However, the truly dominant characteristic of the city

was the ring of mountains surrounding it, placing the city in a bowl visible and vulnerable to anyone who occupied the rim of high ground on

the outside edges. Keeping in mind that there was only limited fighting

in the streets of Sarajevo itself, it is worth examining key pieces of terrain that influenced the siege both militarily and politically.12

Transportation routes into and out of the city, rivers and roads,

provided only limited capacity. The Miljacka River, like almost all

watercourses in Bosnia, was nonnavigable, and thus Sarajevo had no

port facilities. The river roughly divided the Bosnian capital in half. The

Miljacka is a tributary of the Bosna River that, along with the

eljeznica River, bounded the city on its western border. There were

numerous bridges across the Miljacka throughout the city, including

the famous “Latin Bridge” where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was

assassinated. The Miljacka was only a limited barrier to movement

between the northern and southern portions of the city and played only a

minor role in the siege.

The city’s major roads were a much larger factor in the struggle. As

might be expected, Sarajevo was (and is) a nexus of major highways for

Bosnia (see Map 3). Two roads led out of the city north toward Tuzla, a

major Bosnian Serb stronghold, and Zenica, one location the UN

designated as a safe haven. Toward the east, one highway connected the

city with Višegrad, and more important Pale, which was the capital of

the Bosnian Serb faction within Bosnia (later to be called the Republika

Srpska, or RS, in its Serbo-Croatian acronym). One major route from

the city passed near the airport and continued south to Trnovo, Foèa,

Dubrovnik, and Split. This was the main path connecting the city with

Bosnian Croat strongholds and, to a lesser extent, the Muslim ones in

the south. Finally, the main road to the west connected Sarajevo with

Mostar, the scene of some of the bitterest fighting of the war when

Bosnian Croats and Muslims turned against each other in 1993 and

1994. All factions, as well as the UN, used the roads to attempt to

transport supplies and humanitarian aid and to evacuate refugees,

children, the sick, and the elderly.

One other road, the infamous “sniper’s alley,” is also noteworthy.

Starting in the west, the road name changed several times until

becoming Marshal Tito Boulevard as it entered the old city. This was

the main east-west path through the city. It was not a highway, but for

much of its route, it was a wide, four-lane street with a median in the

241
242

MountIgman

Mount

Bjelasnica

ZucHill

Ilidza

Butmir

Rajlovac

Lukavica

Mount

Jahorina

Grbavica

NoviGrad A

B

Builtup AreaRiversRoadsMountainsRailroadLine of BosnianSerb Encirclement

KEY

SARAJEVO

D E C

Novo

Sarajevo

F G

Centar

Sarajevo

H

I

J

K L M N

Stari Grad

Major Sites

A--Oslobodenje Bldg E--The “Unis” Bldgs I--Radio/TV Bldg M--LibraryB--PTT Bldg F--Museum J--Presidency Bldg N--Market PlaceC--Tito Barracks G--Parliament K--Residency

D--Holiday Inn H--Zetra, Kosevo Stadiums L--Bascarsija

Sniper Alley

Dobrinja

Airport Tunnel

Milja cka

R

e

i v

r

Bosna Rive r

Dobri nja Rive r

Zelje znica

Riv

e

r

Miljacka R vi er

Map 2
middle for the city’s tram. From its origins on the west side of the city

up to the point where it split near the “old city,” the street was an open

area that was visible from many high buildings and most of the

surrounding mountains, thus rendering it vulnerable to sniper fire. The

single, ground-level tram down the center of the boulevard was

Sarajevo’s only internal mass transit system, but as a transportation

line, it often did not run during much of the siege and had little effect on

the fight for the city. However, the tram cars were sometimes turned on

their sides and used as obstacles and barricades.

Looking at the various sectors of the city, one can start with the western area of Sarajevo, best known during the siege for the suburb of

Ilida and the Sarajevo airport. Ilida is split by the eljeznica River

and, at the time of the siege, consisted of modern residential homes and

small apartment buildings. Its most famous site is a spa consisting of

243

Livno

Jablanica



Mostar

Montenegro

Foca

Gorazde

Visegrad  Sarajevo

Visoko

Zenica 

Serbia

Zvornik

Vares

Bijeljina 

Brcko

Tuzla

Doboj



Banja Luka

Prijedor

Croatia

Bihac

Drvar

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Split

Ploce



Vlasenica

Bosaski Brod

Dubrovnik 

Map 3
several hotels that served as a Bosnian Serb headquarters during much

of the siege and later was the headquarters for the multinational Implementation Force (IFOR) that replaced the UN Protection Force

(UNPROFOR) in 1996. The airport lies slightly east of Ilida, and like

the highways emanating from the capital, its significance at the time

was more political than military. Neither side used the airport for combat aircraft or military supply, but it became a symbol of contact with

the international community and a major connection for humanitarian

aid.

Just north and east of the airport was the sector of the city known as

Dobrinja. It consisted largely of three- and four-story apartment

complexes. The open area of the airport on the southwest side of

Dobrinja gave clear fields of fire from the surrounding mountains, and

much of Dobrinja was devastated during the siege. This part of the city

also became known for being the eastern end of a tunnel that ran under

the airport. The Bosnian (Muslim and Croat) forces built the tunnel to

aid in resupplying the city while avoiding the Bosnian Serb guns that

dominated the region around the airport. It is also interesting to note

that the tunnel was the one example of underground operations in the

siege; Sarajevo did not have a subway and had only a small sewer

system. Unlike some other urban conflicts, Sarajevo saw virtually no

subterranean fighting.

Just north of Dobrinja, but still south of the Miljacka River, was the

area of town known as Novi Grad. Most of this sector was made up of

housing for the city’s industrial laborers, and it included several

massive apartment buildings built in the old Communist style of

repetitive, high-rise structures. These tall buildings provided perches

for snipers from all of the factions. Also in this region was the

Oslobodjenje building, the home of Sarajevo’s pro-Bosnian (Muslim)

press, which was devastated in the siege. Farther east was the Postal,

Telephone, and Telegraph (PTT) building, which was the headquarters

for UNPROFOR during part of the siege.

Moving farther east in the city past residential apartments and

moderately sized buildings on both sides of the Miljacka, the center of

the city contained several areas and structures that figured prominently

in the struggle. On the north side of the main east-west boulevard

(sniper’s alley) lay Tito Barracks, a complex of large concrete buildings

that housed the old JNA garrison for the city. Close by was the Holiday

Inn that gained fame as the favorite location for the international press

during the conflict. Slightly farther east were two high-rise buildings

called the Unis, also known locally as Mono and Uzier, two famous

244
characters from jokes told by Sarajevo’s residents. Although tall, the

Unis buildings were not a popular site for snipers because they were

subjected to heavy mortar and artillery fire throughout the struggle.

Across the boulevard from the Holiday Inn—but still north of the

Miljacka—were the Parliament Building and National Museum. These

buildings received only moderate damage during the fighting; the

Muslim defenders held trench lines closer to the river rather than

occupying the structures themselves. Just across the Miljacka from the

parliament and museum was the district of Grbavica, a residential area

of mostly two- and three-story apartments. This district marked the

farthest advance of the Bosnian Serbs into the city itself.

Continuing eastward toward the old sector of the city, a road called

Alipašina branched north from Marshal Tito Boulevard. This road

climbed rapidly upward toward mountains on the north side of the city.

About 2 km from the center of the city, the Alipašina passed two

stadiums built for the 1984 Olympics: the Koševo outdoor stadium and

the Zetra indoor ice rink. Across the Alipašina from the stadiums was a

large open hillside that contained a small cemetery before the siege.

During the war, many of the dead bodies were stored in Zetra stadium

before being buried on the hillside across from the rink. Often, snipers

killed mourners during these funeral processions. By 1995, the

cemetery was four times its original size.

Returning to the area near the intersection of the Alipašina and Tito

Boulevard, there were two significant buildings: the Residency and the

Presidency. Neither structure is particularly large or militarily

important, but both had political significance. The Residency was

Tito’s old vacation home in the city, and it later functioned as

UNPROFOR headquarters. The Presidency was the office of Bosnian

President Izetbegoviæ during the war.

Finally, the eastern sector of the city is a mixture of closely packed

residential buildings, stores, and famous historical structures centered

on the Muslim old city known as Bašèaršija. The old city was interlaced

with numerous narrow streets and cobblestone pedestrian paths. On the

eastern tip of this sector, a large stone building constructed in the

Austro-Hungarian era (1894) as the City Hall later became the city’s

library. Although not a major factor in the siege, the building suffered

heavy artillery fire, which tragically destroyed a substantial number of

priceless books. Just west of the library, the most prominent Muslim

mosque, Catholic cathedral, and Orthodox church lay within 500

meters of each other—miraculously little damaged during the

war—perhaps symbols of the potential for peaceful coexistence. Near

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these places of worship lay a more tragic symbol, the central market

place (the Markale market), a small open area (a square about 200

meters on all sides) filled with wooden stands for produce and other

vendors. It had no military importance, but bombings of the market and

the resultant civilian deaths had a great impact on the politics of the

siege.

The high ground surrounding Sarajevo was the dominant terrain of

the struggle. During the siege, almost every road to Sarajevo had to go

through a pass dominated by mountains the Bosnian Serbs controlled.

The most publicized of these high points was Mount Igman on the

southwest outskirts of the city. Two other sectors of elevated terrain

stand out. First, on the south side of the city, the Bosnian Serbs held a

series of hills starting at Lukavica and continuing east past the location

of the bobsled run of the 1984 Olympics. Control of these southern

heights gave the Bosnian Serbs their best artillery and sniper shots into

the city. Second, although the Bosnian Serbs also controlled much of

the high ground on the northern half of the city, the Bosnian Muslims

held one hilltop less than 1 km from the Zetra stadium, which was also

the location of the Bosnian television broadcasting station. This station

continued to broadcast throughout the siege.

As mentioned earlier, the population of Sarajevo was cosmopolitan

and relatively tolerant of religious differences. Its ethnic groups

extensively intermingled throughout the city. According to the 1991

census, the total population was 428,617. Sarajevo had a relatively

small land area for a major urban area and, therefore, was more densely

populated than many comparable cities. As in the nation at large, the

Muslims made up the largest percentage of the city population at 49.3

percent. The Bosnian Serbs were 27.4 percent of the total. Interestingly,

the Yugoslav percentage of the city population (12.1) was greater than

the Croat portion (7.3). This factor shows that a sizable segment of

Sarajevo’s population was the product of mixed ethnic backgrounds.

Finally, 3.9 percent of the city was listed as “others,” which included a

small but growing Jewish population.

Before the siege, the distribution of the ethnic groups throughout

Sarajevo was so mixed that almost no sector, except for the old city

(Bašèaršija), could claim a majority of one faction. The large apartment

buildings had people from each group, and the residential areas usually

had Muslim, Orthodox, and Catholic homes side by side. However, not

long after the siege began, segments of the population shifted. In

particular, significant numbers of Bosnian Serbs left their homes to

seek safety behind Bosnian Serb lines around the city. Thus, in addition

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to the old city, a few other sectors of Sarajevo became predominantly

Muslim and subject to bombardment.

The opposing forces at Sarajevo were a mix of military, paramilitary,

pseudo-military, armed civilian, and even some criminal elements that

represented the myriad of factions vying for control of the city. For simplicity, it is useful first to discuss the concept of Total National Defense

and then each of the factions’ forces in turn: the JNA, Bosnian Serb irregulars, Croat and Bosnian Croat units, and the Muslim-dominated

forces initially designated as the Bosnian Defense Force (BDF) and

eventually renamed the Army of the Federation of Bosnia and

Herzegovina (known by its Serbo-Croatian acronym of AFBiH). After

examining the factions, we will examine the other major player in

Sarajevo, UNPROFOR. Scrutiny of the leadership, organization,

weaponry, doctrine, training, and experience of all of the fighting elements reveals a general lack of UO preparation and a shortage of the resources (and in some cases the will) needed to carry out a sustained city

fight.

Before its breakup, Yugoslavia’s armed forces were based on a concept called Total National Defense. Not surprisingly, this concept grew

out of Yugoslavia’s experience in World War II as well as the nature of

the country’s terrain and Yugoslavia’s position as a nonaligned player

between the Soviet Union and the United States in the Cold War.13 Under Total National Defense, the active army (JNA) was not expected to

defeat a major power in a conventional war. Instead, the JNA acted

more as a training vehicle for conscripts who became members of the

Territorial Defense Force (TDF) after completing their two-year term

in the JNA. The TDF, fighting as partisans, was expected to carry most

of the fight against any invader (much like in World War II).

The forces needed for Total National Defense doctrine had several

unique characteristics. Both the JNA and TDF trained in small-unit

tactics with an emphasis on partisan warfare. The TDF was locally

based and reflected the ethnic composition of its region. The JNA was

multiethnic (at least before 1990) and answered to the Yugoslav federal

government. The TDF had access to small-arms caches that were

distributed throughout the country, with a particular concentration of

weapons in the rugged terrain of Bosnia. The JNA had all of the heavy

weapons: tanks, armored personnel carriers (APCs), artillery, and

mortars. As the Yugoslav wars evolved after 1990, the TDF fragmented

into supporting its local regions while the JNA generally became more

of a pro-Serbian force.

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When fighting broke out in Sarajevo in April 1992, the Yugoslav

federation controlled the JNA units in Bosnia. By this time, Slovenia

and Croatia had departed Yugoslavia, leaving the federation dominated

by Serbia, and thus Miloševiæ had a preeminent influence on the JNA’s

role. This being said, it is important to emphasize that the JNA,

especially at the outset of the war, was not simply an unquestioning tool

of Serbian nationalism. It still contained some non-Serbian officers and

several moderate Serb officers who hoped to restore Yugoslav unity or

at least to mitigate the suffering in Bosnia. Additionally, at the

beginning of the Bosnian war, the Bosnian Serb leader, Karadiæ, had

only limited influence on JNA operations. Finally, not long after the

fighting erupted in April 1992, the federal government ordered the JNA

to withdraw from Bosnia. However, only limited parts of the JNA

withdrew, while many of the JNA soldiers and most of their heavy

equipment remained behind and eventually became the basis of the

Bosnian Serb Army (later known by its Serbo-Croatian acronym as the

VRS).14

Just as fighting erupted in Sarajevo, General Ratko Mladiæ, a veteran

commander of JNA forces fighting in Croatia, became the JNA

commander in Bosnia. Mladiæ was a Serb nationalist who did not

hesitate to take whatever measures he felt were necessary to eradicate

Croat and Muslim opposition in Bosnia. Initially, as a JNA officer, he

reported to the Yugoslav government, but he did all he could to support

the Bosnian Serbs. Later in 1992, when parts of the JNA departed

Bosnia and the rest became the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS),

Mladiæ received command of this new force. At that point, he no longer

kept up the façade of Yugoslav unity, and he worked directly for

Karadiæ. Mladiæ remained the VRS commander for the rest of the war.

The JNA leader in the Sarajevo region was Colonel-General Milutin

Kukanjac. While he disliked Izetbegoviæ and the new Muslimdominated Bosnian government, Kukanjac focused on protecting and

preserving his JNA forces and was uninterested in taking the city by

storm. He seemed to have a genuine interest in acting as a moderating

force, but he nonetheless permitted Bosnian Serbs to occupy dominant

positions in the hills around Sarajevo, gave them heavy weapons, and

occasionally assisted in bombarding the city. Kukanjac’s actions

reflected the JNA’s mixed role at the beginning of the war.

The fighting in Slovenia and Croatia had prompted a significant

reorganization of the JNA in December 1991 that had a major influence

on the composition of Kukanjac’s forces around Sarajevo. The

Yugoslav federation shuffled its old military districts (MDs) and

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created a new one, the 4th MD, to operate in Bosnia with its

headquarters at Sarajevo.15 The 4th MD was actually redesignated once

more before April 1992, when it became the 2d MD. It consisted of four

corps and approximately 60,000 men throughout Bosnia. The 4th

Corps was positioned at Sarajevo and consisted of 15,000 to 20,000

men. These soldiers reflected a transition in the composition of the JNA

in 1991 and early 1992; the JNA lost its multiethnic mix as Muslim and

Croat soldiers, and particularly officers, left the federal army or were

purged by the dominant Serbian leadership. By the time fighting broke

out in Sarajevo, the 4th MD consisted largely of Bosnian Serb, Serb,

and Montenegrin soldiers. (Montenegro was the only Yugoslav

republic to remain with Serbia in the rump Yugoslavia that remained

after 1992).

The JNA forces were the best equipped of any of the factions

fighting for Sarajevo, including possessing heavier weapon systems

than those of UNPROFOR. While there are rough estimates of the total

number and types of JNA equipment throughout former Yugoslavia

(about 800 to 900 tanks, 740 APCs, 6,400 mortars, and about 1,300

field guns), it is difficult to estimate the numbers available for the

Sarajevo fight. Simple mathematics would indicate that the 2d MD in

Bosnia might have had about one-quarter of the JNA totals, while the

JNA troops at Sarajevo had only a portion of the 2d MD’s total (for

example, perhaps 50 tanks, 400 mortars, and 80 field guns). In any case,

the JNA at Sarajevo deployed a wide mix of heavy weapon systems that

included T-34, T-54/55, and M-84A tanks; wheeled and tracked APCs

from both Western and former Soviet stocks; some multiple rocket

launchers; an extensive variety of artillery and mortars (from

60-millimeter [mm] up to 155mm); and Gazelle and Mi-8 helicopters.

The number and types of JNA equipment may not seem impressive, but

this was virtually the only heavy equipment available in the siege for

any of the factions.

By April 1992, the JNA was in the process of transforming its role

and doctrine based on experiences in Slovenia and Croatia. The federal

army was no longer a training ground for multiethnic conscripts to join

the TDF. Instead, the JNA became a force of long-term Serb and

Montenegrin soldiers whose mission was to support the Serb-dominated

federal government in Yugoslavia’s internal wars. Despite this change

in roles, the JNA transformation was incomplete. It still carried traditions of partisan doctrine and training (small-unit actions, decentralized

control), and it lacked the numbers to conduct a large-scale conventional war in Bosnia’s rugged terrain. Increasingly, the JNA relied

249
on its heavy weapons to destroy or intimidate its opponents while

Bosnian Serb irregulars did the close fighting. The JNA, like all of the

factions in Sarajevo, had no special UO training or doctrine. Some of

the JNA officers had seen the high cost of the fighting in Vukovar, and

they were reluctant to commit their forces in house-to-house fighting in

Sarajevo.

The Bosnian Serb irregular forces were initially more aggressive

than the JNA and more willing to engage Izetbegoviæ’s Bosnian forces

in urban combat. However, they lacked the strength necessary to take

the city, and after parts of the JNA converted to a Bosnian Serb force,

the irregulars adopted the JNA tactics that relied on heavy weapons in

order to avoid casualties that might result from a city fight.

To imply that all of the irregulars in support of the Bosnian Serbs at

Sarajevo were Bosnian Serbs under Karadiæ’s control is an oversimplification. While most of the irregulars were probably Bosnian Serbs,

some were Serbians, Montenegrins, and even Croatian Serbs who were

fighting for the overall cause of Serb nationalism.16 Karadiæ certainly

had more control over most of these units than he had over the JNA, but

due to the irregulars’ disparate nature, the Bosnian Serb political leader

never had complete command of them.

Similarly, the Bosnian Serb irregulars did not have a unified military

commander in April 1992. The most infamous of the irregular leaders

went by the nom de guerre of “Arkan” (his real name was eliko

Ranjatoviæ). He commanded a unit known as the Tigers, similar to

other irregular units called the White Eagles and Panthers. Although

Arkan did not participate significantly in the siege at Sarajevo, the

collection of virtually independent battalion-level commanders like

him at Sarajevo only loosely reported to Karadiæ while intermittently

working with the JNA.

The irregulars were mostly light infantry, and they began the war in

Bosnia with sufficient quantities of small arms and ammunition but

limited numbers of heavy weapons. However, they could often count

on the support of JNA weaponry, and in fact, they inherited most of the

4th MD’s equipment when the JNA ostensibly withdrew from Bosnia.

Estimates of Bosnian Serb irregular strength vary between 20,000 and

35,000 throughout all of Bosnia, thus leaving a very rough estimate of

4,000 to 8,000 men immediately available for the fight in Sarajevo.

These forces usually operated in battalion-size units or smaller, and it

was difficult for the Bosnian Serb leadership to coordinate the

irregulars’ efforts.

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Reflecting their light infantry structure (and aspects of their former

partisan training), the Bosnian Serb irregulars relied on small-unit

doctrine that emphasized sudden attacks on enemy weak points while

avoiding decisive confrontations with enemy strengths. The irregulars

did not have a specific UO doctrine, but some of the units deployed near

Sarajevo had fought in builtup areas in Croatia and probably knew more

about city fighting basics (for example, methods for clearing a

building) than the JNA.

Overall, the Bosnian Serb irregulars presented an unusual combination of characteristics. They were more ideologically motivated than

most of the JNA soldiers, and they had some city fighting experience;

thus they seemed more likely to engage, and succeed, in a house-tohouse struggle for Sarajevo. However, their numbers were limited,

their units and leadership were divided, and heavy casualties in the urban battles of Croatia had tempered their enthusiasm for city fighting.

Croat and Bosnian Croat forces had less influence on the conflict in

Sarajevo than in other parts of Bosnia because the Bosnian Croats

tended to focus on terrain that was adjacent to Croatia, particularly

Herzegovina. At the start of the Bosnian war, there were two Bosnian

Croat armies fighting in Bosnia: the Croatian Defense Forces (HOS)

and the armed forces of the Croatian Defense Council (HVO). The

HOS started as local paramilitary units, while the HVO clearly had

closer ties with the more regular units of the Croatian Army (HV). In

August 1992, the HOS merged with the HVO. Their combined forces

often wavered between supporting the Muslims and the Bosnian Serbs,

depending on the political situation.17 A group of moderate Bosnian

Croats, under Stjepan Kljuiæ, supported Izetbegoviæ, but a large

percentage of Bosnian Croats, particularly those in Herzegovina, sided

with the more nationalistic Boban. As the Bosnian Croats shifted their

support, they had a significant but not decisive effect on the siege.

Overall, the HVO was under the political control of Boban, and just

as Boban clearly relied on the support of Croatian President Tudjman,

the HVO often called on the HV for assistance in its campaigns. In

addition, the HVO command largely seemed to answer to orders from

the HV main staff in Zagreb. The HVO was organized on a territorial

basis, with locally recruited soldiers serving close to home. They had

some heavy weapons and were generally better armed than the Bosnian

(Muslim) forces and less well armed than the Bosnian Serbs. HVO

doctrine carried some of the old partisan traditions, and, except in

Mostar, the troops proved reluctant to engage in city fighting. The

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HVO’s overall strength in Bosnia was about 35,000 troops, but few of

these troops took part in the siege.

The only HVO force in the Sarajevo region was a regiment of 2,000

men in the suburb of Stup. During the siege, these troops did not

directly engage in city fighting or even in shelling Sarajevo. Their main

effect was in holding one of the resupply routes into the city.

Throughout 1992, the HVO forces in Stup usually allowed Bosnian

(Muslim) convoys to proceed to the city. For parts of 1993, the HVO

closed this route as part of the bitter Muslim-Croat fighting of that year.

However, after theWashington Accord between Muslims and Croats in

February 1994, the route was reopened to Bosnian supplies. Some

Bosnian Croat soldiers who served in Izetbegoviæ’s forces had a more

direct role in the fight for Sarajevo, as will be discussed later in this

chapter.

The forces that supported Izetbegoviæ’s Bosnian government were

usually more numerous than their opponents, especially in the Sarajevo

region, but they started with little organization and experience and were

woefully lacking in equipment and heavy weapons. Before the

outbreak of fighting in Bosnia, paramilitary Bosnian Muslim units such

as the Green Berets and the Patriotic League of the People had formed

in Sarajevo and other Muslim-dominated regions in Bosnia. However,

most of the BDF came from former TDF soldiers and local police

forces. In any case, the BDF had to start virtually from scratch, taking

elements from a variety of sources.18

The ad hoc nature of the early BDF makes it difficult to determine its

exact structure, strength, equipment, and ethnic composition. On the

issue of ethnic composition, writers and observers of the Bosnian war

have offered widely varying views of Izetbegoviæ’s forces. Some

accounts portray the BDF as a true multiethnic force that reflected the

Bosnian government’s desire to tolerate an inclusive Bosnian unity.

Other works argue that only a small number of Bosnian Serbs and

Bosnian Croats joined Izetbegoviæ’s forces, usually because they were

coerced, and that the Bosnian government made a cynical show of

multiethnic participation without sharing any real power. There are

elements of truth in all of these accounts, but in the end, the Bosnian

government, even if only out of necessity, was the only faction that

made any effort to incorporate all of Bosnia’s ethnic groups. Only a few

Bosnian Serbs continued to serve in the BDF, but the Bosnian Croats

made up a significant percentage of the BDF units. During the siege,

Bosnian Croat units serving in the BDF do not appear to have openly

turned on the Muslim forces and engaged them in combat, but in several

252
cases, Bosnian Croat units refused to cooperate with BDF attacks and

gave tacit assistance to the Bosnian Serbs.

Whatever the post facto arguments of BDF composition, most accounts agree that Izetbegoviæ’s Bosnian government was the least prepared faction at the outbreak of war in April 1992. The Green Berets

were available but were small in number. At first, Izetbegoviæ negotiated with the JNA, perhaps naively in an attempt to woo it to the

Bosnian side, and thus neglected efforts to build his own force. It was

his belated recognition of the need for more substantial Bosnian forces

that led to his call to mobilize the Bosnian TDF and police forces on 4

April 1992, which was the immediate cause (or excuse) for the outbreak

of the war. Even after these events and the significant fighting that continued for two months, it was not until 26 June that the Bosnian government declared a formal state of war.

Initially, the Bosnian government relied on three types of forces to

hold Sarajevo: Muslim paramilitary units, TDF and police forces (containing some multiethnic troops), and Muslim “criminal” elements.

This last group, as might be expected, have been the subject of much

controversy, with some accounts portraying the Izetbegoviæ government as nothing more than a collection of Muslim thugs. While some

members of the Bosnian government (and Izetbegoviæ’s family) probably had connections to organized crime, using Muslim gangs seems to

have come more out of military necessity than out of profit. In any case,

the initial defense of Sarajevo fell to disparate units that were ill

equipped, lacked centralized control, and were untrained in UO doctrine. However, perhaps out of desperation, the Bosnian troops showed

a willingness to engage in costly street fighting to hold the city. Many of

these soldiers also had the advantage of knowing the terrain—as residents of Sarajevo—and thus felt more comfortable in a city fighting for

their own neighborhoods.

It was only after the outbreak of fighting that the Bosnian government began to structure its forces and formally create the Bosnian Army

(later known as the BDF). The commander in chief of the Bosnian

forces was President Izetbegoviæ, and his defense minister was Jerko

Doko, a Bosnian Croat. While the political leaders provided overall

guidance, details of the fighting were left to the Bosnian main staff in

Sarajevo. The chief of staff was Colonel Safir Haliloviæ, a Muslim, and

his two deputies were Colonel Stjepan Šiber, a Bosnian Croat, and

Jovan Divjak, a Bosnian Serb. Almost all members of the main staff had

been former members of the JNA or TDF. Although the main staff divided control of the BDF into seven district staffs with one located in

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Sarajevo, the main staff and the Bosnian government stayed in Sarajevo

throughout the war, and they exercised what amounted to direct control

of the city’s defense.

Arms and equipment were a constant problem for the BDF. At the

beginning of the conflict, small arms and ammunition were barely adequate at best while heavy equipment (artillery, mortars, tanks, and

APCs) was almost nonexistent. This is part of the reason for the

Bosnian government’s willingness to turn to organized crime in

Sarajevo where the local “mafia” provided small arms to the

pro-government forces. The UN embargo on arms hurt the Bosnian

government more than its enemies because Bosnia began the war with

the fewest weapons on the ground, and it did not have an adjacent benefactor nation to supply it arms. Beginning in late 1992, Izetbegoviæ

turned to other Muslim nations (especially Arab) to help finance the

purchase of arms and ammunition, some of which were smuggled

through Croatian ports. Although the BDF was never as well equipped

as its adversaries, the Bosnian forces eventually acquired some T-54

(and later, T-62) tanks; APCs; 60mm, 82mm, and 120mm mortars; a

hodgepodge of old Yugoslav and former Eastern bloc artillery pieces;

the Soviet-designed RPG-7; and German and Yugoslav antitank missiles.

The pro-Bosnian forces did not have UO doctrine or experience at

the beginning of the war, although the units fighting within the city had

the advantage of fighting on familiar terrain. As the BDF became more

structured, it does not seem to have adopted any formal UO doctrine,

but the units within the city became more experienced in urban fighting,

thus making any Bosnian Serb attempt to take the city more difficult as

the war progressed.

UNPROFOR soldiers rarely engaged the factions in direct combat

during the siege; however, they engaged in various activities such as

escorting convoys and guarding the airport. Their mere presence at key

points in the conflict significantly influenced the struggle for the city.

UNPROFOR units were in Sarajevo at the onset of hostilities almost by

accident, as UN leaders chose the Bosnian capital as the headquarters of

the peacekeeping forces deployed in Croatia (for the Krajina conflict)

over the objections of UNPROFOR’s military leaders who felt that

Sarajevo was too far from Croatia. Thus, UNPROFOR troops in

Sarajevo were initially only a small headquarters guard force not

intended for intervention in Bosnia’s conflict.19

The UNPROFOR commander in 1992 was Lieutenant General

Satish Nambiar, an experienced Indian officer. His deputy was a flam254
boyant French officer, Major General Philippe Morillon. Both Nambiar

and Morillon were focused on the deployment of UNPROFOR in

Croatia. They spent most of their time outside of Sarajevo, and they

were not heavily involved with UN operations in the city in the early

months of the Bosnian war. By default, the UNPROFOR officer most

involved in the early fight for Sarajevo was third in the UNPROFOR hierarchy, Brigadier General Lewis MacKenzie, a Canadian officer with

considerable experience in peacekeeping operations.

In accordance with their initial mission in Sarajevo as an administrative headquarters, UNPROFOR forces located in the Bosnian capital

were small. The staff included officers and support personnel from

multiple nations. The only real fighting force in April 1992 was a company-size unit of Swedish guards whose mission was to protect the

headquarters. These guards performed their mission admirably, but

clearly, UNPROFOR lacked the physical strength to influence events

in the city, and MacKenzie had to rely mostly on negotiation, persuasion, and bluff to have some restraining effect on the conflict. The initial small UNPROFOR was located in the PTT building in downtown

Sarajevo.

Although UNPROFOR gained some strength as the war progressed,

it never had the mission of direct military intervention. This increased

strength included troops from several nations who occupied the airport

and a French battalion at Mount Igman that endeavored to keep this

dominating height neutral. All of the UN contingents that rotated

through service in Sarajevo came with their own national equipment.

This included sufficient small arms, some APCs, and wheeled vehicles,

but no heavy weapons (tanks and artillery). Toward the end of the siege,

the main source of military striking power for UNPROFOR became

NATO airpower.

Describing the full course of the siege of Sarajevo presents unique

challenges. The conflict lasted over 30 months—along with Leningrad,

arguably the longest siege of the twentieth century. Events of some

importance occurred almost each day, including bombardments and

sniper fire, yet neither side made an effort to achieve a decisive victory

within the city’s urban environment. Perhaps the best way to capture

the importance, as well as the feel, of the struggle for Sarajevo is to trace

the siege chronologically with a focus on three areas: major attempts to

take the city or lift the siege, efforts to cut or open supply lines into

Sarajevo, and actions that had significant political effects on the

conflict.

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Although tensions had been mounting for some time in Bosnia and

armed conflict had erupted in Bijelina, Bosanski Brod, and other

locations in early April, all of the factions seemed unprepared for the

outbreak of fighting in Sarajevo.20 On 4 April, Izetbegoviæ made

preliminary steps toward mobilizing the Bosnian TDF—on paper, still

accountable to the Yugoslav government—in support of his Bosnian

government. The next day, students and other residents from all of

Sarajevo’s ethnic groups conducted a peace march along Tito

Boulevard that protested the nationalistic policies of each of the

factions’ political leaders. Snipers from the Holiday Inn fired on the

crowd, killing a young medical student from Dubrovnik, Suada

Dilberoviæ, the “first casualty” of the siege. Muslim police entered the

Holiday Inn and arrested several armed Bosnian Serbs. Also that day,

Bosnian Serb paramilitaries attacked the Sarajevo Police Academy.

All sides now scrambled to mobilize forces. On 6 April, the same day

that the European Community (EC) formally recognized Bosnia,

Izetbegoviæ completed the mobilization of the Bosnian TDF and called

on the Sarajevo police to support the Bosnian government. The

Sarajevo chief of police, Dragan Vikiæ (a Muslim), took nominal

command of the combined TDF and police forces and issued a decree

that attempted to reassure the city’s population: “the defenders of

Sarajevo will not open fire on members of the Yugoslav People’s Army

and will not pose a threat to any citizen.” However, another account

claims that Vikiæ was far less sanguine and felt that the situation in

Sarajevo was “out of control.” Bosnian Serb paramilitaries began

setting up checkpoints and roadblocks on the roads surrounding the

city, and they seized control of the airport. The JNA took little action,

largely because its forces were divided and positioned in several

locations. At the outbreak of the fighting, a large part of Kukanjac’s

troops was located at Tito Barracks near the center of the city. Bosnian

forces quickly surrounded these soldiers, and Kukanjac devoted much

of his effort to getting them out of the city. Another large element of the

federal army was located in the barracks at Lukavica, and these soldiers

also hesitated to join in the city struggle. The rest of the JNA was split

into smaller units and positioned in the mountains surrounding the city.

The JNA’s divided positions hindered its ability to make a concerted

effort in the fighting. 21

After Izetbegoviæ declared a state of emergency throughout Bosnia

on 7 April, the JNA stepped up its air strikes on Sarajevo’s suburbs.

Still, the JNA ground troops within Sarajevo remained quiet while

pro-Muslim forces (TDF, police, and irregulars) set up roadblocks

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throughout the city. By 8 April, Bosnian roadblocks controlled the

routes within the interior of Sarajevo, and Bosnian Serb roadblocks on

the perimeter of the city controlled access from the outside. At the same

time, Izetbegoviæ called for the formal organization of the BDF, and he

declared that any irregular forces in Bosnia not submitting to the control

of the Bosnian Ministry of Interior were considered “enemies.” In

effect, the Bosnian president was condemning the use of Bosnian Serb

paramilitaries while trying to avoid completely alienating the JNA

“regular” forces.22

As the opposing sides settled into their positions for the siege, there

were some last-minute attempts at compromise. Kukanjac, perhaps

concerned for the safety of his troops at Tito and Lukavica Barracks,

declared that paramilitaries were the main cause of the conflict (he did

not specify which faction’s paramilitaries), that the JNA’s main aim

was “protecting the town and citizens from clashes and so forth,” and

that the JNA would not bombard Sarajevo. Although this last claim

proved hollow, Kukanjac seems to have genuinely hoped to minimize

the conflict. As the JNA preached moderation to an extent, Izetbegoviæ

met one of Karadiæ’s key subordinates, Momæilo Krajišnik, in

Sarajevo to attempt an eleventh-hour agreement. The discussions came

to naught, and Krajišnik left the city. He would not return for almost

three years.23

For the next several weeks, there was sporadic fighting in and around

the city. Mostly this took the form of air and artillery bombardments

and sniper fire. None of the factions endeavored to take the city by

storm. The Bosnian forces were far too weak and fully engaged in

building their army’s strength, the JNA forces in the center of the city

remained in their barracks, and the Bosnian Serb irregulars devoted

their efforts to strengthening the ring around the city. The JNA retained

control of the airport and kept it closed for part of the month. All sides

put up more and more checkpoints and roadblocks but no clearly

discernable front line separated the opposing forces.24

The situation changed in early May with two major events: a

substantial assault on the city by the Bosnian Serbs and the kidnapping

of Bosnian President Izetbegoviæ. The Bosnian Serb attack on 2 May

1992 seems to have been intended to split the city in two, and it

coincided with offensives throughout much of the rest of Bosnia. For

the assault on Sarajevo, the Bosnian Serbs advanced in two columns of

armored vehicles. One column came from the south out of Vraca and

the Trebovic mountains. It advanced into the district of Grbavica and

attempted to cross the Miljacka River at Skenderija. The other column

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advanced from the west, near the airport, and appeared to be aiming for

the Oslobodjenje building. Both columns were supported with mortar

and artillery fire.25 This fire support probably included JNA units

surrounding the city, but Kukanjac’s troops in the barracks within the

city did not join in the attack. Clearly, the Bosnian Serbs and the JNA

were reluctant to engage in a dismounted house-to-house fight; they

relied on troops mounted in armored vehicles, supported with heavy

indirect fire.

The results of the attack were some limited gains against

ill-equipped, but desperate, Bosnian resistance. The western column

advanced far enough to take the suburbs of Nedariæi and Mojmilo and

isolate the suburb of Dobrinja near the airport. However, this column

stalled quickly once it ran into more serious Bosnian defenders in and

around Dobrinja. The eastern column pressed its attack with more

determination. It reached the river, took all of Grbavica, and even fired

some tank rounds into the Presidency building. Nonetheless, Bosnian

TDF, police, and Muslim irregulars—armed with a few crucial antitank

weapons—fought from the surrounding buildings and halted the

advance. One key shot took out a lead Bosnian Serb vehicle on one of

the narrow streets leading to the bridge at Skenderija, thus blocking a

large part of the attacking force. Other portions of the Bosnian Serb

attackers were reluctant to advance into kill zones, and they would not

dismount to clear the defenders from the surrounding buildings.

Although the ground attacks had stopped, the heavy shelling continued

throughout 2 May and into the next day. One report claimed that the

shelling was the worst yet in the war, “setting buildings ablaze and

covering streets with debris and shrapnel.”26

The Bosnian Serb attack revealed several aspects of the fight for

Sarajevo. First, whether from doctrine and experience with the costs of

taking a city or from a simple lack of ground soldiers, the Bosnian Serbs

showed that they were going to rely heavily on armored vehicles and

firepower. In fact, they grew more reluctant to commit any forces

(armored or otherwise) into the urban area, and for the rest of the siege,

they put most of their effort into fighting on the perimeter of Sarajevo to

close routes into the city. Second, the Bosnian Serb difficulties

confirmed the vulnerability of armored columns without dismounted

support in an urban fight. Armored vehicles gave the Bosnian Serbs

mobility (but only on the roads), protection against small-arms fire, and

additional firepower from mounted machine guns and tank main guns.

But they were too vulnerable to hand-held antitank weapons and bombs

that could be thrown from adjacent buildings. The armored columns

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needed to be teamed with dismounted infantry to clear the buildings and

with engineers to clear obstacles and mines. Finally, although the

Bosnian Serbs ultimately failed in their goal to split the city, they made

significant gains in many of their other offensives throughout Bosnia.

They came to realize that Sarajevo had a large symbolic value to the

Izetbegoviæ government, as well as to the Western media, and that they

could use the city as a diversion for their more general goal of

partitioning the rest of Bosnia.

The other crucial event of early May, Izetbegoviæ’s kidnapping, also

helped shape the future fighting in Sarajevo. The Bosnian president was

returning from negotiations in Spain on 2 May when, after several delays, his flight landed at the Sarajevo airport. Usually, an UNPROFOR

escort would pick up Izetbegoviæ to take him to the Presidency building, but after waiting several hours (and perhaps thinking that the heavy

fighting had canceled the flight), the escort had departed. The president

had now fallen into the lap of the JNA that controlled the airport. From

Tito Barracks, Kukanjac ordered the JNA commander at the airport to

detain Izetbegoviæ and move him to Lukavica Barracks. At first,

Izetbegoviæ refused to go to Lukavica. In a bizarre sequence of events,

while Izetbegoviæ argued with his captors, a phone call from a woman

in downtown Sarajevo rang at the airport desk. She was calling to see

about canceled flights, but Izetbegoviæ quickly picked up the phone and

held the following remarkable conversation:

Good evening Madam, this is Alija Izetbegoviæ, the President of

Bosnia on the phone. There was a brief pause. She was confused. He

said, Yes, yes. That’s right, Alija Izetbegoviæ, the President of Bosnia.

Could you please be so kind, I am here at the airport, sitting in the

director’s office, and the Army won’t let us go. We are kept here.

Could you please call the Presidency and tell them that you talked to

me, that I am here, at the airport, and if you can’t reach the Presidency,

please call radio and TV and inform them.27

Amazingly, the astonished woman informed both the Presidency

(Izetbegoviæ’s deputy, Ejup Ganiæ, eventually got word of the

kidnapping) and the local television and radio stations, which broadcast

the “detention” to Bosnia and the West. Izetbegoviæ, concerned for the

safety of his daughter who was detained with him, later agreed to go to

Lukavica, but the unusual phone conversation at the airport and the

subsequent publicity certainly gave him some leverage in negotiating

his release.

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While the Bosnian resident wrestled with his situation, Kukanjac

telephoned Belgrade for guidance. The JNA leader was not interested

in removing Izetbegoviæ from power, but he asked for and received

permission to use his captive as a bargaining chip in getting the JNA

troops out of their city barracks. Kukanjac told the press that he wanted

a cease-fire and exchange of Izetbegoviæ that would allow the JNA to

“pack and peacefully leave the centre of Sarajevo.”28

The UNPROFOR commander in Sarajevo, MacKenzie, acted as a

mediator and helped to arrange the exchange between Kukanjac and

Izetbegoviæ. UNPROFOR elements in Sarajevo were still basically

headquarters units with minimal security (the main peacekeeping

mission remained in Croatia), and MacKenzie wanted to keep the UN

intervention to a minimum. After much arguing, the plan was for a

column consisting of a few UNPROFOR APCs along with 20 empty

JNA vehicles to escort Izetbegoviæ and his daughter from Lukavica to

Tito Barracks. The convoy would then pick up Kukanjac and a large

segment of the JNA garrison and return to Lukavica (where they could

later be moved outside the city). Along the way, a part of the convoy

with the UNPROFOR escort would break off and deliver Izetbegoviæ to

the Presidency building.

Not unexpectedly, the convoy did not go exactly as planned on 3

May; in his diary, MacKenzie called 3 May “the worst day of my life.”

The initial leg of the journey to Tito Barracks proceeded relatively well.

Once at Kukanjac’s headquarters, there were delays and additional

demands from Kukanjac (he wanted to evacuate a larger number of

men) and confusion between Izetbegoviæ and Ganiæ over whether the

Bosnian government could guarantee the convoy’s safety. The convoy

finally left Tito, and within about 1 km, it came under fire. The Bosnian

forces wanted to disarm the JNA troops in the convoy, but Kukanjac

refused. Neither the small UNPROFOR escort nor the road-bound JNA

were able to battle the Bosnian forces that controlled the buildings

surrounding the convoy. Even with the tension and some casualties,

cooler heads prevailed. Izetbegoviæ switched to another vehicle, and

MacKenzie dismounted to help diffuse a confrontation farther back in

the column. After moving about another km, some of the UNPROFOR

vehicles, along with Izetbegoviæ and his daughter, left the column and

arrived safely at the Presidency building. The main column was hit

once more before reaching Lukavica. Kukanjac managed to keep the

convoy moving, and it finally arrived late that night. After its arrival,

JNA and Bosnian Serb mortars and artillery unleashed a heavy barrage

on the city. Overall, twenty-five were killed and wounded during the

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exchange, and over ninety JNA soldiers were taken prisoner, most of

whom were exchanged by 5 May.29

The kidnapping and convoy ambush had a major impact on the

combatants. Izetbegoviæ finally abandoned all hope of using the JNA as

a moderating force in the conflict and was convinced that he needed to

build the Bosnian units (the BDF) into a force capable of defending his

government on its own. The old-guard members of the JNA, including

Kukanjac, were only too happy to get out of Sarajevo and the rest of the

Bosnian conflict. Following the JNA’s major reorganization on 8 May,

the Serb-dominated government of Yugoslavia removed most of the

old Titoist officers. This date also marked the beginning of the JNA’s

official withdrawal from Bosnia; however, as noted earlier, most

Bosnian Serb soldiers of the JNA remained behind, along with much of

their heavy equipment. They joined the Bosnian Serb irregulars to form

the VRS and came under Mladiæ’s command (and Karadiæ’s control).

Those JNA forces that did not remain behind conducted the initial part

of their withdrawal from Sarajevo between 19 and 25 May with some

harassment at Bosnian checkpoints along the way.30 After May, the

lines separating Bosnian Serb forces surrounding the city and Bosnian

forces within Sarajevo were set, with only minor changes, for the rest of

the siege.

In addition, the kidnapping and convoy incident illustrated the

primacy of political factors in the war. It hardened all of the factions’

positions and soured the UNPROFOR leadership’s attitude. Even at the

tactical level, political considerations came to the fore. The UNPROFORJNA convoy of vehicles was completely at the mercy of the Bosnian

forces—particularly so in the urban environment where the Bosnians

held the buildings that dominated the road. This had nothing to do with

an unsure UN mission or supposedly restrictive rules of engagement;

UNPROFOR would have needed large numbers of ground troops ready

to fight house to house to guarantee the convoy’s safety. However, the

Bosnian militia did not annihilate the convoy, partly because of

political repercussions. In fact, although pundits have criticized

Izetbegoviæ, Kukanjac, and MacKenzie over their role in the convoy

ambush, all three leaders effectively used persuasion rather than

military force to keep a bad situation from getting out of control.

For the next several weeks, sniper fire and bombardments punctuated several cease-fires. On 27 May, artillery shells hit a group of

Sarajevo citizens lined up outside of a store. The incident gained notoriety in the West as the “bread queue bombing” and placed the Bosnian

Serbs in a negative light.31 At about the same time, another series of

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artillery strikes received less publicity, but a recorded radio conversation revealed that the purpose of Mladiæ’s VRS bombardments was

clearly psychological and political:

“Mladiæ: [to Colonel Vukasinovic, artillery chief]: Are you up there?

Vukasinovic: Yes, everything is ready.

Mladiæ: Which weapons have you got ready?

Vukasinovic: I have those up there, in Kresa.

Mladiæ: What can you hit?

Vukasinovic: I can fire all the way to the garrison.

Mladiæ: Do not fire at the garrison. Can you pound Velesici?

Vukasinovic: I can.

Mladiæ: Are your guns pointed toward the target?

Vukasinovic: They are.

Mladiæ: And tell me, can you pound Bašèaršija [the old Muslim

historic area]?

Vukasinovic: I can.

Mladiæ: What?

Vukasinovic: Yes, no problem.

Mladiæ: Keep the Presidency and the Assembly building under

steady, direct fire and pound slowly in intervals until I give the order to

stop.”32

Mladiæ was clearly more concerned with destroying historic, cultural,

and political targets than he was with striking at the enemy’s military

forces (the garrison).

At the end of May and early June, negotiations for withdrawing the

last JNA elements from Tito Barracks continued while bombardments

and sniper fire grew more intense. MacKenzie recorded in his diary that

“things are heating up. Very heavy fighting in Sarajevo,” and that “all

hell has broken loose in Sarajevo. Heaviest shelling yet.” A London

Times account confirmed “the worst night of shelling in almost two

months of seige.”33 That same Times article also reported a Bosnian

Serb attack on the coastal town of Dubrovnik. As was to happen on

several occasions, a major Bosnian Serb offensive in some region of

Bosnia coincided with actions in Sarajevo, thus dividing the attention

of the Western media and the international community. On 5 June, the

last remnants of JNA troops at Tito Barracks, perhaps 300 soldiers,

departed the city during a brief cease-fire. Shortly thereafter, the

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Bosnian Serbs unleashed a particularly heavy bombardment aimed at

Tito and nearby locations that appeared to be targeted at destroying

JNA equipment left behind by the evacuation.34

As the JNA departed the center of the city, it also negotiated with

UNPROFOR and the Bosnian presidency to turn over the Sarajevo airport. These negotiations proved tortuous. An initial trilateral agreement

on 5 June fostered optimism within UNPROFOR’s leadership and

among the citizens of Sarajevo.35 However, both the Bosnian Serbs and

the Izetbegoviæ government obstructed the implementation of the

agreement, and fighting around the airport continued.36 Tactically, the

JNA troops at the airport were subject to harassing fire from the threeto five-story apartment buildings in the adjacent pro-Bosnian community of Dobrinja. Yet, the JNA could retaliate with heavier weapons

such as tanks positioned at the airport as well as artillery and mortars in

the hills to the south and west. Neither side needed the airport for military purposes—the factions lacked combat aircraft, and the airport was

too vulnerable to ground fire to be a good base for such tactical aircraft.

Given this situation, the withdrawing JNA had no desire to hold the airport, but it and the Bosnian Serb forces hoped to extract as much

political benefit as possible from the “concession” of turning over the

airport to UN control. At the same time, Izetbegoviæ’s Bosnian government seemed just as interested in provoking the JNA and Bosnian Serbs

into retaliations and bad publicity as in letting UNPROFOR control the

airport.

French President François Mitterand’s dramatic visit to Sarajevo

helped to give UNPROFOR control of the airport. Mitterand’s appearance illustrates how much the political machinations of the warring factions dominated their military actions. The JNA, Bosnian Serb

irregulars, and pro-Izetbegoviæ forces could have easily stopped the

French president’s visit; they all could sweep the airport runways with

direct and indirect fire. Instead of choosing military options, the fighting factions seemed to focus on the benefits of gaining favor with

Mitterand and Western opinion.37 While the French president’s visit

was delayed as UNPROFOR frantically tried to negotiate his safe arrival, Mitterand finally arrived in Sarajevo on 28 June. He had originally planned to meet only with Izetbegoviæ, but UN representatives

scrambled to ensure that he also saw Karadiæ. Both leaders gave

Mitterand their standard speeches. After listening to their combination

of pleas and harangues, the French president departed the next day.

While some accounts portray Mitterand’s visit as self-serving, the

French president deserves credit for considerable personal courage as

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well as helping to push the factions into fulfilling the terms of the

airport agreement. Soon after his visit, the fighting around the airport

was considerably reduced, and UNPROFOR was able to occupy it at

the end of the month. Although under UNPROFOR control throughout

the rest of the siege, the airport still was bombarded and had to close on

several occasions. However, it is significant that the Bosnian Serbs did

not attempt to cut completely this line of communication from the West

to the city. Again, they may have feared the political repercussions, and

perhaps they thought they could better use the city as a diversion with

Western journalists and relief efforts focused on Sarajevo.

At the end of June, the Bosnian forces (now officially the BDF) made

their first serious effort to break the ring around the city. The main

attack was in the suburb of Vraca, but it failed after only modest gains.

The BDF lacked heavy weapons (although they made moderate use of

mortars for the first time), and the VRS forces, using inherited JNA

weapons, had too much firepower to be dislodged.38 Two other factors

may have influenced the battle. First, Vraca is a suburb of small

residential buildings that lies on the outskirts of the city. Thus, the

terrain—while still containing buildings—was more open than the

more constricted area near the city center, thus favoring the larger

firepower of the VRS. Second, the BDF command complained that its

Croatian units were not supporting their attacks, a complaint voiced

even earlier by Deputy Commander Jovan Divjak.

After this attack, Sarajevo settled back into its siege routine for a few

months. During this time, the UN approved an expansion of the

UNPROFOR mission that finally added Bosnia to the original mandate

for peacekeeping in Croatia. The new, combined UN forces were

designated UNPROFOR-2 (although, for simplicity, we will continue

to refer to it as UNPROFOR). Many of the Canadians, including

MacKenzie, rotated out of Sarajevo, and a mixed force of troops from

Egypt (Muslim), France (Catholic), and Ukraine (Eastern Orthodox)

took over peacekeeping duties in Bosnia and Sarajevo. Lieutenant

General Nambier retained overall control of UNPROFOR, and his

former deputy, French Major General Morillon, took command of the

forces in Bosnia from MacKenzie after a short interlude. Morillon soon

moved UNPROFOR headquarters from Sarajevo to the smaller town of

Kiseljak. In fact, the new commander of UNPROFOR’s Bosnian

contingent—though active in many confrontations in Bosnia,

particularly Srebrenica—showed little concern with events in Sarajevo

and had little influence on the siege. The new UN forces in Bosnia

totaled 1,500 troops, with perhaps fewer than 300 in the capital, and

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while this contingent was larger than the original headquarters in

Sarajevo, it was still far too small to attempt to enforce the UN mission

through force.39

At the end of August, the Bosnian Serbs unleashed some of their

heaviest bombardments coinciding with the opening of the London

Peace Conference, a new round of peace talks hosted in the British

capital. One series of strikes killed eleven and wounded fifty-five.

Another barrage left fourteen dead and 126 wounded in downtown

Sarajevo. During this heavy fire, the BDF attempted to open a reliable

lifeline to the city. It employed an armored train on the rail line through

Ilida, but the Bosnian Serbs repulsed its attack. Also during this time,

the Bosnian Serbs targeted the Bosnian National Library with indirect

fire and destroyed priceless books and manuscripts representing

Bosnian culture.40

After the heavy shelling of August, which culminated a flurry of

activity that had started in April, the city settled into a tragic routine of

bombardments and sniper fire. Often, it was difficult to pinpoint the

origins of this fire, and all of the factions used this uncertainty to accuse

their opponents of unprovoked aggression. On the Bosnian

(pro-Izetbegoviæ) side, the lack of heavy weapons and the disadvantage

of occupying positions in the low ground of the city did not allow for

using indirect fire. It appears that the pro-Izetbegoviæ forces often

shifted their mortar positions within the city, perhaps aided by

observation from the radio/television building that was located on the

one piece of high ground in Bosnian hands, the hill just northwest of

Zetra stadium. Bosnian snipers were also located throughout the city.

Not surprisingly, they were almost always in the taller buildings that

provided the best fields of fire. This included the Holiday Inn, the Unis,

the Europa Hotel, and the workers’ apartment complex at Alipašino

Polje (in Novi Grad). Perhaps the favorite location for Bosnian snipers

and even some heavier weapons was the suburb of Dobrinja, a location

that gave the Bosnians opportunities to harass the VRS positions on the

western side of the airport near Ilida.

The VRS held dominant high ground on all sides of the city, but their

preferred locations for bombardments and sniper fire were on the south

side of Sarajevo. The most well-known VRS artillery and mortar

position was the former JNA barracks at Lukavica. In fact, this was only

one of several locations for VRS indirect fire south of the

city—locations that spread from Mount Igman to Lukavica, past Vraca,

and farther east to the former Olympic bobsled run in the Stari Grad

section of the city. Even today, one can see the Bosnian Serb artillery

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and mortar positions along this path, marked by cement foundations

and buildings without roofs to allow for emplacement of cannons and

mortars. These same hills also provided commanding positions for

snipers who dominated sniper’s alley in the center of Sarajevo. In

addition, the VRS position at Grbavica provided an excellent location

for snipers in moderately high buildings adjoining the Miljacka River.

Positions on Mount Igman and Mount Bjelasnica gave the VRS good

fields of fire on the airport and the Muslim stronghold at Dobrinja.

Although less popular than the positions south of Sarajevo, the VRS

occasionally used firing positions on the Zuc hills northwest of the city.

The regular rhythm of the siege included other repeating, if sporadic,

events. Cease-fires would come and go on a frustratingly routine basis.

Occasionally, these cease-fires allowed valuable humanitarian aid into

the city and medical evacuations out. However, they rarely lasted more

than 48 hours. The airport frequently opened and closed due to shelling,

and relief aircraft received fire on several occasions. The UN would

usually suspend flights for several days at a time when its aircraft

received fire. The city’s water and power supplies were frequently

disrupted, making life even more miserable for its citizens.

In December, Karadiæ offered a cease-fire for “humanitarian”

evacuations from Sarajevo. The Izetbegoviæ government rejected the

offer as a ploy to partition Sarajevo, a means of ethnically cleansing the

capital by consent. At about the same time, the BDF reinforced its

positions near Mount Igman to keep open that vital route to the city.41

Additionally, the Bosnian government began to bring the varied

pro-Bosnian combat units under better control and put the BDF into a

regular structure. By the end of 1992, the BDF had formed five infantry

corps totaling about 80,000 men, although perhaps only 44,000 of these

were fully armed. The 1st (Sarajevo) Corps was deployed in the

Sarajevo region with a rough strength of 35,000 men (it is not known

how many of these troops were fully armed). The 1st Corps was divided

into brigades, but the actual number and designations of these brigades

changed repeatedly. It appears that the corps relied on three to four

brigades derived from the local Sarajevo region, one brigade recruited

from Visoko, and the 1st Tactical Group (about a battalion-size unit)

from Kiseljak. Similarly, the VRS furthered the integration of former

JNA forces and equipment with the Bosnian Serb irregulars. The VRS

designated its units in the Sarajevo region as the 1st (SarajevoRomanija) Corps under the command of General Momir Taliæ. VRS

infantry troop strength was only 29,000, but they continued to retain

their advantage in weapons over their BDF foes.42

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The new year began with considerable tension when Bosnian Serb

irregulars killed Bosnian Deputy Prime Minister Hakija Turajliæ on a

road entering Sarajevo. He had been traveling in a convoy with

UNPROFOR escorts, but the UN troops were unable (or unwilling

depending on accounts) to intervene.43 Despite this incident and the

continued routine of sniper, mortar, and artillery fire, there were no

major moves in Sarajevo for the first four months of 1993 as all sides

seemed engrossed with the negotiations surrounding the Vance-Owen

Peace Plan.

In fact, political events involving the international community took

center stage during this period. The Vance-Owen plan, named after UN

envoys Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen, divided Bosnia into a

series of provinces (three Muslim, three Serb, two Croat, and one

Muslim-Croat) with a weak federal Bosnian government. Sarajevo was

to be its own multiethnic province.44 During the negotiations for the

plan, relations between Karadiæ and Miloševiæ soured; the Serbian

leader feared economic sanctions and urged Karadiæ to accept the

plan, while the Bosnian Serb chief did not want to cede any of the

territory that his forces had gained in the first six months of the war.

While the Bosnian Serbs hesitated to accept the agreement, NATO

began enforcing the UN-approved “no fly” zone over Bosnia on 12

April (more in response to events in Srebrenica than in Sarajevo). The

no fly zone over Bosnia meant that NATO aircraft patrolled Bosnian

airspace to ensure that none of the factions flew combat aircraft in the

country. It was the first time that the UN turned to NATO to apply

military pressure to its peacekeeping effort in Bosnia. Near the end of

the month, the Vance-Owen plan was finalized and Karadiæ

reluctantly signed, but the RS Assembly rejected the plan on 5 May.

The next day, the UN approved the concept of safe havens in Bosnia,

one of which was Sarajevo. This new designation for the city had little

practical effect on the siege.

Events heated up in early July with a VRS offensive south of

Sarajevo that captured the town of Trnovo and blocked the route to

Gorade. Shortly thereafter, the Bosnian Serbs attacked the northern

slopes of Mount Igman, but the BDF clung to a part of the mountain and

barely held open that path to the city. Clearly, the Bosnian Serbs, while

still avoiding the urban terrain in the city, were renewing their efforts to

close the routes surrounding Sarajevo. These efforts intensified

throughout July with renewed assaults at Hrasnice (near the airport), a

fresh attack on the suburb of Rijlovac, and more efforts on Mount

Igman and its neighboring heights of Mount Treskavica and Mount

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Bjelasnica.45 In each case, the attacks were on open, if mountainous,

terrain or suburbs with low residential houses, ground more favorable

than the center of Sarajevo for the VRS advantage in armored vehicles

and heavy firepower. Each attack made limited gains but could not

achieve its entire objective.

During the course of the fighting for Igman, the pro-Izetbegoviæ

forces finished a tunnel under the Sarajevo airport that, at the time, the

Western media and Bosnian Serbs did not notice. This tunnel could

only provide limited relief to the supply difficulties of the BDF and

Sarajevo’s citizens, but these supplies also provided a morale boost to

the city’s defenders. In January 1993, the Bosnian forces began

construction on the tunnel from both ends at the same time: Butmir on

the west side of the airport and the Muslim stronghold in Dobrinja on

the east. The tunnel was completed on 30 July 1993. It was 800 meters

long and 1.5 meters high, and the main mode of transport was a manual

pushcart on rail tracks that carried 50 kilograms of supplies at a time.

Gas, electric, and telephone lines also ran along the side of the tunnel, a

considerable safety risk given that the tunnel often had ankle-deep

water on its floor.46

On 2 August, Mladiæ renewed the efforts to take Mount Igman. He

threw in the newly arrived 1st Krajina Brigade and took a few more bits

of ground against stubborn BDF resistance. The situation was desperate

for the BDF, and the Bosnian delegation walked out of the Geneva talks

in protest over the VRS attack on Sarajevo, a supposed safe haven.

Allegedly, UN officials made a false report that Karadiæ would order

Mladiæ to pull back from Mount Igman if the Bosnians would return to

the Geneva negotiations. By 4 August, three-quarters of Mount Igman

was in VRS hands, but the offensive appeared to have run its course. In

addition, the increasing international pressure may have deterred

Mladiæ from more assaults. In any case, the VRS commander met with

UN observers and agreed to pull back some of his forces and allow UN

(French) peacekeepers to take up positions on part of the mountain. A

few days later, Mladiæ kept his word and pulled part of his force back to

Mount Bjelasnica. He also rotated the 1st Krajina Brigade out of the

Sarajevo region to use in other offensives in Bosnia.47

After the Mount Igman struggle, Sarajevo settled back into the

routine of the siege for the next several months. However, during this

time, relations between the Muslims and Croats reached a low point.

These two groups conducted open warfare in several regions of Bosnia,

although Sarajevo saw very little. In an attempt to crack down on

organized crime in the city, Izetbegoviæ removed some of his military

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commanders who had ties to the criminals in late October. While the

goal of minimizing the criminal element seemed genuine, it also gave

Izetbegoviæ a cover for dismantling the few separate HVO units in

Sarajevo. After November, the Bosnian government had firm control of

the remaining pro-Bosnian Croat units in Sarajevo, which were broken

into smaller groups and made to report through the BDF chain of

command. Perhaps in response to Izetbegoviæ’s actions, a particularly

heavy barrage (nine dead, forty wounded) occurred on 9 November,

and this barrage appears to have been from HVO-controlled units

outside of the city.48

The year ended with increasing suffering for the citizens of Sarajevo.

A Christmas truce fell apart, and the resulting week’s bombardments

killed thirty-two people and wounded 200 more. There was virtually no

electricity in the city, and water supplies were constantly interrupted.

UN attempts to evacuate the elderly made only the barest progress, and

most of the elderly remained behind to suffer the winter with little or no

heat.49 Despite these conditions, UN and private humanitarian efforts

deserve credit for bringing at least a bare minimum of food and medical

supplies. Although there was much malnutrition in Sarajevo, the city’s

civilians did not experience mass starvation or epidemics.

In early 1994, two Bosnian Serb bombardments forced the international community into further action. On 22 January, shells fell in an

area where Bosnian children were playing, killing six and wounding

thirty-five. On 5 February, mortar rounds hit the old central (Markale)

market, resulting in sixty-eight dead and 197 wounded. Four days later,

NATO announced a ten-day ultimatum. Bosnian Serbs had to withdraw

their heavy guns 20 km from Sarajevo or face NATO air strikes.

Karadiæ protested and walked out of the Geneva talks, an act called

“the height of brinkmanship” by one observer. As tension mounted and

NATO planes went on alert, the new UNPROFOR commander, General Sir Michael Rose, worked to avoid the NATO bombardment. He

was helped when Russian troops arrived as part of the rotation of units

in UNPROFOR and occupied parts of Grbavica, allowing their fellow

orthodox Slavs to withdraw in one area and save face. On 20 February,

the NATO deadline passed, but Rose claimed that the Bosnian Serbs

had pulled back in twenty-three of forty-two artillery sites. Some reports suggest that Rose exaggerated these claims, but NATO decided

that there had been enough progress and did not launch airstrikes. However, NATO did shoot down several Serb warplanes over Bosnia, and

on 7 March, all factions agreed to an uneasy cease-fire in Sarajevo.50

Although occasionally violated, the cease-fire eased living conditions

269
in the city for the next three months. However, the Bosnian Serbs maintained their control of almost all of the surrounding routes, and they

kept supplies flowing into the city to a bare minimum.

Two major factors influenced the Bosnian Serb’s limited concessions in Sarajevo and the subsequent, albeit temporary, cease-fire. The

most obvious factor was the threat of NATO air strikes and the actual

downing of Serbian fighter aircraft. However, the VRS also may have

loosened the grip on Sarajevo because it was beginning its major offensive on Gorade. All of the posturing at Sarajevo had succeeded initially in distracting Western media and BDF attention from Gorade.

In July, the cease-fire broke down when Karadiæ rejected a new

peace proposal from the “Contact Group” (Russia, the United States,

France, Germany, and Britain). By the end of the month, the Bosnian

Serbs were tightening their hold on Sarajevo, and sniper fire and bombardments grew in intensity.51 The Bosnian Serb rejection of the Contact Group proposal brought about the final split between Miloševiæ

and Karadiæ. The Serb leader, upset that RS intransigence was keeping

the international community from lifting sanctions on Serbia, cut off

supplies from Serbia to the RS (the UN had imposed economic sanctions in May 1992 and tightened them after the RS rejection of the

Vance-Owen plan in May 1993). The siege continued for the next six

months at a level only slightly less than that of 1993 while fighting

raged in other parts of Bosnia, particularly in Bihaæ. During this time,

the Muslims and Croats reached an agreement that formed a federation

of their factions in Bosnia, ended their open warfare, and paved the way

for some cooperation in the war against the Bosnian Serbs. Also,

Miloševiæ, angered over the Bosnian Serbs rejecting the Contact Group

proposal, withdrew much of his support from the Karadiæ regime. The

war was beginning to turn against the RS.

In March 1995, Karadiæ, Mladiæ, and other RS leadership members

developed a plan to bring a favorable end to the war. They decided to

increase pressure on Sarajevo and complete its isolation while

conducting offensives to wipe out the Muslim enclaves in eastern

Bosnia, all of which were UN safe havens. The offensives began

throughout Bosnia in April, with the first immediate step in Sarajevo

being the Bosnian Serbs forcing the humanitarian airlifts into the city to

end. Bosnian Serb shelling also increased, and in May, one

bombardment killed eleven people in the suburb of Butmir. Later in the

month, the VRS took the bold step of attacking UNPROFOR (French)

peacekeepers holding the Vrbanja bridge open on the outskirts of

Sarajevo. Acting with direct military action, uncommon for UN forces,

270
UNPROFOR counterattacked and retook the position, losing two men

and killing four Bosnian Serbs.52

The next month, BDF forces launched an offensive in an attempt to

break the siege of Sarajevo, their largest such attack of the war. However, the Bosnian forces still lacked the heavy weapon systems needed

to drive the VRS from the high ground around the city. The Bosnian

Serbs repulsed the attacks, and the BDF suffered heavy losses. One account called the renewed struggle the “heaviest fighting since 1993.”

During this time, UNPROFOR abandoned the weapons-collection sites

around Sarajevo, and the Bosnian Serb forces had complete freedom to

bombard the city. The renewed fighting in Sarajevo again distracted

some of the attention from outside battles, in particular the struggle for

Srebrenica.53

After the failed BDF offensive, the Bosnian Serbs continued to increase pressure on Sarajevo with heavy artillery, mortar, and sniper

fire. This increase was reflected in the growing number of civilian and

military casualties in the city. The year had begun with the relatively

light losses of one killed and twenty-one wounded in January. By May

the numbers had grown to sixty-four dead and 221 wounded, and by

July the losses were 152 dead and 547 wounded.54 This expanded pressure on the city coincided with a major VRS offensive on the last Muslim town deep within RS territory, Gorade. However, if the Bosnian

Serb leaders hoped that they could use the Sarajevo siege to divert Muslim-Croat attention from the war in the rest of Bosnia, they miscalculated. The Muslims held Gorade with renewed determination. Bosnian

Muslim-Croat forces, now acting with better cooperation as the

AFBiH, launched successful offensives, particularly in central Bosnia,

that took back significant land that the Bosnian Serbs had captured earlier in the war. The success of the Muslim-Croat offensive was a crucial

factor in convincing the Bosnian Serbs to accept a peace agreement in

1995, but it took a more publicized event in Sarajevo to bring the international community to firm action that forced the Bosnian Serbs to accept peace terms.

The signal event that finally ended the siege was a second bombing

of the central marketplace on 28 August that killed thirty-eight people.

It occurred more than eighteen months after the tragic market bombing

that brought the first significant NATO involvement in the war in 1994,

and despite some similarities between the two events, essential differences contributed to the end of the siege. Initially, as in 1994, the

Bosnian Serbs denied any responsibility for the bombing and accused

the Izetbegoviæ government of manufacturing the market bombing to

271
gain sympathy for the Muslim cause. They even dredged up a former

JNA “ballistics expert” to accuse the Muslims of firing on the market.

Not surprisingly, the Bosnian government accused the Bosnian Serbs

of conducting the tragic shelling, and Izetbegoviæ promised retaliation.

However, unlike their vacillation in the 1994 bombing, the international community reacted decisively in 1995. UNPROFOR inspectors

quickly determined that the Bosnian Serbs had launched the shells that

hit the marketplace, and most European nations and the United States

did not hesitate to condemn the Bosnian Serbs for the massacre. Even

the normally cautious UN Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali,

demanded action.

The market tragedy finally steeled the international community to

unleash NATO air strikes and artillery fire. The strikes began on 30

August 1995 and included heavy attacks on Bosnian Serb radar sites;

artillery positions; and ammunition dumps around Sarajevo and on

Bosnian Serb positions in Tuzla, Gorade, epa, Mostar, and the RS

capital in Pale. One report talked of “wave upon wave” of NATO

aircraft ranging over the Bosnian capital in the largest operation in

NATO’s history. The aircraft were joined by the UN’s Rapid Reaction

Force (RRF): British, French, and Dutch combat units that had been

inserted on Mount Igman in 1994 to ensure that the Igman resupply

route to the city stayed open. The RRF bombarded Bosnian Serb

positions surrounding Sarajevo with 105mm and 155mm artillery fire.

The air and artillery attacks were effective; the Bosnian leaders, while

expressing the usual complaint about UN hesitations since 1992,

expressed their approval of the NATO offensive. Even the Bosnian

Serb government admitted that their forces in Sarajevo and elsewhere

had suffered “immense” damage.56

After two days of bombardment, NATO paused, hoping that the

Bosnian Serbs would comply with their demands to withdraw their

heavy weapons from around the capital city. The United States made a

peace proposal in Geneva that the UN and NATO hoped would draw a

reply from the Bosnian Serbs. Mladiæ and Karadiæ sent out feelers that

they might accept the peace offer, but they remained defiant with their

weapons around Sarajevo. On 4 September, the NATO strikes resumed

and continued to take a heavy toll on the Bosnian Serbs, who finally

agreed on 9 September to the Geneva proposal that would eventually

become the Dayton Accords ending the fighting in Bosnia and

Sarajevo.57 The Bosnian Serbs also began withdrawing their heavy

weapons. The long siege was over.

272
While some city struggles have produced generally straightforward

outcomes (for example, Aachen and Stalingrad), Sarajevo’s results are

more ambiguous. The Bosnian Serbs never took the city, and thus the

BDF—in various permutations as pure Muslim, Muslim-Croat, and

multiethnic forces—could claim victory for having held the city. On the

other hand, the Bosnian Serbs made only limited attempts to take

Sarajevo, and they quickly concluded that a less costly siege could

achieve their ultimate military and political goals. For a time, the siege

accomplished this purpose; the Bosnian Serbs used events in Sarajevo

to distract attention from their larger goal of taking other Bosnian

territory that could be joined into a unified state and ultimately linked to

a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. However, the Bosnian Serbs overplayed

their hand. Their intransigence at Sarajevo, along with atrocities in

other regions, eventually aroused the outrage of the international

community. In short, the concept of using Sarajevo as a diversion for

other operations may have been a sound initial concept, but the Bosnian

Serbs failed to adjust when the siege became more of a liability.

At the operational and tactical levels, politics continued to have a

huge impact on the siege. For example, the lack of airpower

involvement in the fight (until the last month of the siege) was not

because of the urban terrain but was related to concerns over political

fallout and UN and NATO no fly zones. The airport and ground routes

into the city probably could have been closed completely, but instead

they opened and closed intermittently based on the potential political

gain, particularly with the international community. Bosnian Serb

bombardments (and occasionally BDF strikes) were aimed at political

or psychological targets rather than at any target that could help take the

city. Sniper fire was random and designed to make life miserable for the

citizenry, not to support an overall military assault as at Stalingrad.

Understanding the dominance of these political factors, it is worth

emphasizing several considerations of the urban siege at Sarajevo.

First, the early Bosnian Serb decision not to engage in a street fight

for the city was based on experience at Vukovar, the perceived high

demand for dismounted infantry in an urban environment, and the high

casualties that could result from such a fight. Because the VRS never

pressed home an attack, the fight for Sarajevo does not prove the widely

held concepts of troop-intensive, high-casualty fights for urban areas.

However, Sarajevo does stand as an example of how the perceptions of

these concepts permeate modern military thinking and act to

discourage an attacking force from an all-out struggle for any city.

273
Second, despite the paucity of street fighting, some aspects of urban

tactics were confirmed. Armored columns, without dismounted

support, proved relatively ineffective. Dismounted troops, armed with

even the most rudimentary antitank weapons, can occupy buildings that

dominate city streets and block armored advances. On the other hand,

the lightly armed BDF had difficulty in its own offensives against the

Bosnian Serbs’ heavy firepower, especially when the urban terrain was

not as compact as in the inner city. In addition, neither side had

adequate engineer support, which is normally essential to clear blocked

streets in a city fight. In the end, all of the factions lacked aspects of the

full combined arms team, and all struggled to succeed.

Third, sporadic, if occasionally heavy, shelling and sniper fire might

have made life miserable for the city populace, but it did not bring about

its surrender. This was particularly true because Sarajevo continued to

have some lifelines for resupply. While the Bosnian Serbs clearly had

political considerations behind their harassing fires, a true siege designed to bring about the city’s capitulation would have had to close off

the city completely and use much heavier fires.

Finally, looking at the UNPROFOR role in Sarajevo, it appears that

the urban environment made it virtually impossible for peacekeeping

(and peace enforcement) forces to use military force to impose their

will on the opposing sides. These missions are difficult enough in more

open terrain, but the need to control so many buildings and key terrain

features in a city would have called for prohibitively high numbers of

peacekeepers. This does not mean that peacekeeping cannot be done in

a city. In fact, despite some harsh and unfair criticisms, UNPROFOR

certainly moderated the conflict and helped with considerable humanitarian aid. Those cases of UNPROFOR success usually resulted from

politically savvy negotiations and threats of international condemnation, not from using their own military units. Clearly, peacekeeping

forces need to be adequate for inspection, observation, manning some

checkpoints, convoy escort, and their own self-defense, but they are not

designed to engage the factions in combat and compel them to come to

the peace table.

274
Notes

1. Unfortunately, the conflict in Bosnia was (and is) so politicized that

substantial parts of its historiography are little more than biased propaganda

sometimes bordering on diatribe. Four of the more respected works on Bosnia

and background of the Balkans in general include: Noel Malcolm, Bosnia: A

Short History (London: MacMillan Publishers Ltd., 1996); Robert D. Kaplan,

Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1993);

Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (NY: Viking Press, 1941); and

Barbara Jelavich, History of the Balkans, 2 volumes (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1983).

Although all four of these works are clearly superior to much of the

self-serving material available on Bosnia, they still present widely diverse

views on the nature of conflict in Bosnia and the Balkans. In particular, Kaplan

and Malcolm represent opposing views on the depth and severity of the ethnic

roots of the fighting. Kaplan, a journalist who is well traveled in the Balkans,

wrote that deeply engrained ethnic hatreds, particularly between Serbs and

Croats, were the base cause of the fighting that erupted as Yugoslavia

collapsed. Kaplan recognized that Sarajevo was a sophisticated urban center,

but he saw the rest of Bosnia as villages “full of savage hatreds, leavened by

poverty and alcoholism,” and he claimed that the “fact that the most horrifying

violence—during both World War II and the 1990s—occurred in Bosnia was

no accident.”

Malcolm, who is generally sympathetic to the Muslim cause, takes a

dramatically different view of the Bosnian conflict from Kaplan. For

Malcolm, one “great piece of misinformation” grasped by Western leaders

was that the struggle in Bosnia was “the expression of ‘ancient ethnic hatreds’

welling up of their own accord.” For Malcolm, “the animosities which did

exist were not absolute and unchanging. Nor were they inevitable

consequences of the mixing together of religious communities.” Malcolm

believes that while ethnic conflict has existed in Bosnia, it is not the essential

root of the war of 1992-1995—a war driven by the self-seeking interests of

groups and leaders outside of Bosnia rather than intractable differences within

Bosnia’s ethnic communities.

2. Laura Silber and Allan Little, The Death of Yugoslavia (London:

Penguin Books Ltd., 1995 and 1996), 76-78 and 112-14; Christopher Bennett,

Yugoslavia’s Bloody Collapse: Causes, Courses, and Consequences

(London: Hurst & Company Ltd., 1995), 13-14 and 143-45; and Malcolm,

214, 215-17, and 223.

3. Silber and Little, 170, and Bennett, 161-65.

275
4. See Jasminka Udovicki and Ejub Stitkovac, “Bosnia and Hercegovina:

The Second War,” in Burn This House: The Making and Unmaking of

Yugoslavia, Jasminka Udovicki and James Ridgeway, eds. (Durham, NC:

Duke University Press, 2000), 175 for an account of the deal struck between

Tudjman and Miloševiæ for the partitioning of Bosnia. This deal, which both

sides later renounced, shows that both the Croatian and Serbian leaders were

unsure of their ultimate aims in Bosnia; they wavered between outright

annexation and support of separate, but dependent, Bosnian client regimes.

See Silber and Little, 171-72 and 175, and Bennett, 166-67, for accounts of the

pro-Serb leanings of the JNA.

5. Silber and Little, 187-88, and Bennett, 172.

6. Silber and Little, 177-79, and Bennett, 168. See also Silber and

Little, 224, and Malcolm, 226-27, who describe the initial use of Serb

paramilitaries under Zeljko Raznjatovic (known by the pseudonym Arkan).

Arkan’s Tigers gained a reputation for doing the dirty work of ethnic cleansing

within Croatian urban areas, while the JNA remained on the cities’ outskirts

and used their heavy weapons to keep the towns isolated.

7. Bennett, 180. Bosnia’s total population in 1991 was 4,354,911. It is

also interesting to note that of Bosnia’s 109 municipalities, 17 had no majority

of one group; of the rest, the majority group rarely had more than 70 percent of

the municipality’s total population. These numbers bear out the difficulty in

trying to draw boundaries based on ethnic composition.

8. Silber and Little, 206-11. Although the vote divided along ethnic

lines and the one multiethnic party received little support, the parties that won

were not extremist parties. None of them campaigned on separatism, and all

agreed to govern as a coalition.

9. Silber and Little, 211-20. Also see Jasminka Udovicki and Ejub

Stitkovac, 178-86. Some accounts of Izetbegoviæ’s conduct before the

opening of the war criticize him for his handling of the European community’s

recognition of Bosnia and his reversal on the Badinter Commission peace

proposal. Even so, even the most negative views recognize that Izetbegoviæ

faced a hard decision between independence (and possible war) and remaining

in a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. At the same time, Izetbegoviæ supporters

join his critics in recounting his naiveté that led to Bosnia’s unpreparedness for

war.

10. Malcolm, 227-30, and Silber and Little, 218.

11. Malcolm, 230-31.

12. The description of the terrain in and around Sarajevo comes from my

personal observations. I was stationed in Bosnia with the multinational Stabilization Force (SFOR) from November 1999 to April 2000. During that time, I

worked as the assistant SFOR historian and lessons learned analyst. I was able

to travel through the city and its surrounding countryside to observe the build276
ings and terrain that were key during the war. I must also thank a member of the

SFOR Multinational Division Southwest Liaison Team, Corporal N. Marshall, Royal Air Force (RAF), who took me on a battlefield tour of the city. The

liaison team put together an information pamphlet of the tour: Corporal Mark

Bladen, RAF; Corporal Chris Stone, RAF; and Corporal GaryWoodard, RAF,

Sarajevo Battlefield Tour, prepared in August 1999.

13. David C. Isby, “War Returns to Europe: Military Aspects of the

Conflicts in Yugoslavia,1991-93,” Command Magazine, Military History,

Strategy and Analysis (July-August 1993), 28-35.

14. Silber and Little, 218.

15. Dr. Milan Vego, “The Yugoslav Ground Forces,” Jane’s Intelligence

Review (June 1993), 247-53.

16. Edgar O’Ballance, Civil War in Bosnia, 1992-94 (NY: St. Martin’s

Press, 1995), 29-30, and Isby, 31. O’Ballance puts the Bosnian Serb irregular

strength at only 20,000; Isby estimates the irregular strength at 35,000 (these

figures are for all of Bosnia).

17. Dr. Milan Vego, “The Croatian Forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina,”

Jane’s Intelligence Review (March 1993), 99-103. See Bennett, 199-200 for a

good description of the shifts in Bosnian Croat politics and the roles of Boban

and Tudjman during the Bosnian war. Also see Silber and Little, 131-32 and

144-45, and Bennett, 146-47, for a discussion of Miloševiæ and Tudjman’s relationship. Most sources agree that these two leaders, while engaged in war

over the Croatian Krajina, were willing to make a deal that divided Bosnia between them at the expense of Bosnia’s Muslims.

18. Steven L. Burg and Paul S. Shoup, The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina:

Ethnic Conflict and International Intervention (London: M.E. Sharpe, 1999)

128-31; Dr. Milan Vego, “The Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Jane’s

Intelligence Review (February 1993), 63-67; Christopher Collinson, “Bosnia

This Winter—A Military Analysis,” Jane’s Intelligence Review (December

1993), 547-50; Jovan Divjak, “The First Phase, 1992-1993: Struggle for

Survival and Genesis of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina,” The War in

Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1991-1995, Branka Magas and Ivo Zanic,

eds. (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 2001), 162-65; and O’Ballance, 29-30.

Divjak gives an excellent explanation of the complex interplay of police,

territorial forces, and paramilitaries in creating the BDF. He also has a table

with detailed information on weapons and strengths, comparing 1992 and

1995. O’Ballance puts the police strength in Bosnia at 40,000 in mid-April

with an additional 30,000 “available.”

19. General Lewis MacKenzie, Peacekeeper: The Road to Sarajevo

(Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1993), 103-107 and 200-202.

20. Tim Judah and Dessa Trevisan, “Serb Assaults Push Bosnia to Edge

of War,” London Times (4 April 1992), 15.

277
21. O’Ballance, 28, and Silber and Little, 225-27. O’Ballance disagrees

with Silber and Little on the initial date of TDF mobilization, but it is probably

just a case of differing interpretations of the initial call for increased readiness

on 4 April 1992 and placing TDF forces under the presidency’s control on 6

April. See Silber and Little, 226-27, for a description of the first casualty of the

war. See “Sarajevo Defense Units at ‘Full Combat Readiness,’” excerpts from

Sarajevo Radio Network Broadcast on 7 April 1992 in Foreign Broadcast

Information Service (FBIS), Daily Reports: East Europe (hereafter

FBIS-EEU) (8 April 1992), 18, and O’Ballance, 29, for views of Vikic’s

proclamation and attitude. Finally, see “Federal Army Takes Control of

Airport,” from Zagreb Radio, Croatia Network Broadcast of 6 April 1992,

FBIS-EEU (6 April 1992), 39, and Silber and Little, 228, for descriptions of

the JNA takeover of the airport.

22. O’Ballance, 28-29. For a report on the air strikes, see Tim Judah,

“Yugoslav Jets and Snipers Join Battle in Sarajevo,” London Times (6 April

1992), 14. Also note that the London Times places the “state of emergency” on

8 April. See “Sarajevo Leadership Declares Emergency,” London Times (9

April 1992), 15. However, the declaration was probably issued to

pro-Izetbegoviæ forces on 7 April before being given to Western media

sources on 8 April.

23. For Kukanjac’s comments, see “Army Will Not Bombard Sarajevo,”

Sarajevo Radio, Sarajevo Network, 7 April 1992, FBIS-EEU (8 April 1992),

19. For the meeting of Krajisnik and Izetbegoviæ, see Silber and Little, 229.

24. The sporadic fighting in April 1992 is reflected in several FBIS

reports. See “Army Denies Shooting; Sarajevo Airport Closed,” Sarajevo

Radio, Sarajevo Network, 13 April 1992, FBIS-EEU (13 April 1992), 26;

“Muslim Forces Blockade Sarajevo District,” Belgrade Radio, Belgrade

Network, 11 April 1992, FBIS-EEU (13 April 1992), 26; “Sarajevo

Municipality Blockaded by Serbs,” Zagreb Radio, Croatia Network, 20 April

1992, FBIS-EEU (21 April 1992), 18; “Sarajevo Radio Reports Hits From

Mortars,” Belgrade TANJUG in English, 21 April 1992, FBIS-EEU (21 April

1992), 18; “More Fighting Breaks Out in Sarajevo,” Sarajevo Radio, Sarajevo

Network, 23 April 1992, FBIS-EEU (24 April 1992), 20. See also Jonathan

Landay and Louise Branson, “Beseiged Sarajevo Braced for Onslaught,”

Sunday London Times (26 April 1992), 17.

25. See Silber and Little, 232-34, for a description of the two-column

attack. Also there are reports of heavy involvement of Serbian irregulars such

as “Arkan troops” and “White Eagles,” vice the JNA, in the attack. See “U.S.

Ambassador Talks to Izetbegoviæ,” Zagreb Radio, Croatia Network, 2 May

1992, FBIS-EEU (4 May 1992), 29.

26. Louise Branson, “Yugoslav Troops Capture Bosnian Leader,”

Sunday London Times (3 May 1992), 15.

278
27. Silber and Little, 231 and 235-37 (see 235 for Izetbegoviæ’s phone

conversation). See also “Detained on Arrival,” Belgrade TANJUG, 2 May

1992, FBIS-EEU (4 May 1992), 29, and Branson.

28. Ibid.; “Release Negotiations Underway,” Sarajevo Radio, Sarajevo

Network, 2 May 1992, FBIS-EEU (4 May 1992), 29-30; “Izetbegoviæ

Discusses Detention,” Sarajevo Radio, Sarajevo Network, 2 May 1992,

FBIS-EEU (4 May 1992), 30-31; and “Presidency’s Ganiæ on Izetbegoviæ’s

Release,” Belgrade TANJUG Domestic Service, 3 May 1992, FBIS-EEU (4

May 1992), 31.

29. Silber and Little, 237-43; “Izetbegoviæ Released; JNA Convoy

Surrounded,” Sarajevo Radio, Sarajevo Network, 3 May 1992, FBIS-EEU (4

May 1992), 31; “Hostage Deal Ends in Bloodshed,” London Times (4 May

1992), 1; Tim Judah and Dessa Trevisan, “Army Column Attacked After

Releasing the Bosnian Leader,” London Times (4 May 1992), 7; “Central

Sarajevo Hit by Heavy Shelling,” London Times (5 May 1992), 1; Roger

Boyes, “Belgrade Guides Campaign to Dismember Bosnia,” London Times(5

May 1992), 8; Tim Judah and our Foreign Staff, “Sarajevo Spares 156

Yugoslav Soldiers,” London Times(5 May 1992), 8; and MacKenzie, 164-71.

30. O’Ballance, 41 and 46.

31. Ibid., 44.

32. “Recording of Order to Bomb Sarajevo,” Zagreb HTV Television, 29

May 1992, FBIS-EEU (1 June 1992), 36, and Tim Judah and Dessa Trevisan,

“Serbs Defy UN and Bomb Old Dubrovnik,” London Times(30 May 1992), 1.

33. MacKenzie, 194-95, and Tim Judah and Dessa Trevisan, “Serbs

Defy UN and Bomb Old Dubrovnik.”

34. MacKenzie, 200-201, and Bill Frost and Dessa Trevisan, “Besieged

Troops Leave Sarajevo,” London Times (6 June 1992), 13.

35. MacKenzie, 198-200. MacKenzie gives most of the credit for the

initial agreement to UN negotiator Cedric Thornberry.

36. MacKenzie, 207-40; “Sarajevo Fighting Said Fiercest of the War,”

Belgrade TANJUG, 8 June 1993, FBIS-EEU (9 June 1992), 37-38; “Roundup

of Battles,” Sarajevo Radio, Sarajevo Network, 9 June 1992, FBIS-EEU (9

June 1992), 39-40; Bill Frost, “Serbs Savor Artillery Power Over Muslims,”

London Times (7 June 1992), 10; Dessa Trevisan, “UN Sarajevo Convoy

Comes Under Attack,” London Times (11 June 1992), 12; “Serb Guns and

Snipers Break Bosnian Truce,” London Times (16 June 1992), 12; John

Holland, “Airport Setback for Serbs,” London Times (19 June 1992), 13; and

John Holland et al., “Serbs Move to Take Suburb After Vow to Evacuate

Airport,” London Times (20 June 1992), 12.

37. MacKenzie, 241-64; “Roundup of Battles,” Sarajevo Radio,

Sarajevo Network, 9 June 1992, FBIS-EEU (9 June 1992), 39-40; “Heavy

Fighting Prevents Withdrawal,” Belgrade TANJUG, 27 June 1992,

279
FBIS-EEU (29 June 1992), 38; Louise Branson and Ian Glover-James,

“Mitterand Flies to Sarajevo as EC Backs Military Action,” London Times(21

June 1992), 1; and Tim Judah and Dessa Trevisan, “Mitterand Opens Way for

Sarajevo Airlift,” London Times (29 June 1992), 1.

38. O’Ballance, 57; and “Muslim Forces Reportedly Attack Serb

Positions,” Belgrade Radio, Belgrade Network, 30 June 1992, FBIS-EEU (1

July 1992), 26.

39. O’Ballance, 76-77 and 98-103; MacKenzie, 298-323; John Holland

et al., “UN Troops Bring Hope to Sarajevo,” London Times (3 July 1992), 1;

and Dessa Trevisan and Tim Judah, “UN Supplies Relieve 71-Day Serb Siege

of Sarajevo Suburb,” London Times (13 July 1992), 8. According to

MacKenzie, the temporary French UNPROFOR commander was Colonel

Davout d’Auerstadt, and the temporary Egyptian commander was Colonel

Abdel Abdelouahab Altahllawi.

40. Robert Seely and Dessa Trevisan, “UN Centre Hit as Shelling of

Sarajevo Intensifies,” London Times (22 August 1992), 7; Roger Boyes and

Nicholas Wood, “Bosnian Muslims Launch Attack to Regain Territory,”

London Times (24 August 1992), 1 and 4; Michael Binyon et al., “Talks

Blighted by Gunfire and Carrigan Resignation,” London Times (26 August

1992), 1; Robert Seely, “Relentless Artillery Barrage Takes Toll on Civilian

Morale,” London Times (29 August 1992), 10; Robert Seely and Adam Le

Bor, “16 Die as Serbs Shell Sarajevo Marketplace,” London Times(31 August

1992), 1; “Serbs Deny Responsibility for Sarajevo Attack,” Belgrade

TANJUG Domestic Service, 30 August 1992, FBIS-EEU (31 August 1992),

27; “Sarajevo Shelled; Chemical Agents Reportedly Used,” Sarajevo Radio,

Bosnia-Hercegovina Network, 28 August 1992, FBIS-EEU (31 August 1992),

28; and O’Ballance, 85.

41. O’Ballance, 118-19, 121-22, 125-26, and 134-35; “UNPROFOR HQ

Partially Moved From Sarajevo,” Belgrade TANJUG Domestic Service, 26

December 1992, FBIS-EEU (28 December 1992), 27; “Serb Leaders,

Morillon Discuss Sarajevo Situation,” Belgrade SRNA, 26 December 1992,

FBIS-EEU (28 December 1992), 27; “Karazdic, Morillon Discuss

Evacuations of Civilians,” Belgrade Radio, Belgrade Network, 25 December

1992, FBIS-EEU (28 December 1992), 27; “Serbs Agree to Open Aid

Corridor to Sarajevo,” Belgrade TANJUG Domestic Service, 25 December

1992, FBIS-EEU (28 December 1992), 27-28; “Sarajevo Civilians Not

Permitted to Leave City,” Belgrade TANJUG Domestic Service, 25

December 1992, FBIS-EEU (28 December 1992), 28; “Muslims Reject Plan

to Evacuate Civilians,” Belgrade TANJUG, 27 December 1992, FBIS-EEU

(28 December 1992), 28; “Muslim Plan for Sarajevo Aid Corridor Rejected,”

Belgrade TANJUG, 26 December 1992, FBIS-EEU (28 December 1992), 28;

“Sarajevo Radio Reports Shelling,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Hercegovina

280
Network, 29 December 1992, FBIS-EEU (29 December 1992), 38; “Civilians

Prevented From Leaving Sarajevo,” Zagreb Radio, Croatia Network, 28

December 1992, FBIS-EEU (29 December 1992), 39.

42. Vego, “The Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” 63-67; Collinson,

547-50; Jovan Divjak, 162-65. See also “Wargamer” Internet site, copyright

2001, accessed on 5 March 2002 <www.wargamer.com/sp /military/bih/

armija>. As with many Internet sites, it is difficult to verify the information

posted on the site, and the orders of battle listed here give an impression of

well-structured units that did not really exist in Bosnia on either side.

However, the site includes some good information, including the unit

designations of the brigades fighting on each side.

43. O’Ballance, 138; “Intense Fighting Reportedly Continues in

Sarajevo,” Paris AFP, 1 January 1993, FBIS-EEU (4 January 1993), 58;

“TANJUG Reports Muslim Offensive in Sarajevo,” Belgrade TANJUG, 2

January 1993, FBIS-EEU (4 January 1993), 58-59; “Deputy Prime Minister

Shot by Serb Troops,” Paris AFP, 8 January 1993, FBIS-EEU (11 January

1993), 31; “Met With Turkish Officer,” Ankara TRT Television Network, 8

January 1993, FBIS-EEU (11 January 1993), 31; “Turajlic Buried in

Sarajevo,” Paris AFP, 9 January 1993, FBIS-EEU (4 January 1993), 31-32;

“Government Issues Communique,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Hercegovina

Network, 9 January 1993, FBIS-EEU (11 January 1993), 32; “Government

Holds UNPROFOR Responsible,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Hercegovina

Network, 8 January 1993, FBIS-EEU (11 January 1993), 32; “Ganiæ Orders

Halt to Talks,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Hercegovina Network, 9 January

1993, FBIS-EEU (11 January 1993), 33; “Serbs Issue Statement,” Belgrade

TANJUG Domestic Service, 9 January 1993, FBIS-EEU (11 January 1993),

33; “Serb Army Blames UNPROFOR,” Belgrade TANJUG Domestic

Service, 10 January 1993, FBIS-EEU (11 January 1993), 33-34; “Morillon

Reacts to Shooting,” Paris France-2 Television Network, 9 January 1993,

FBIS-EEU (11 January 1993), 34-35; and David Rieff, Slaughterhouse:

Bosnia and the Failure of the West (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 150-51.

Rieff is particularly critical of the French commander, Colonel Patrice Sartre,

of the UN column escorting Turajlic.

44. Silber and Little, 276-90, and Susan Woodward, Balkan Tragedy:

Chaos and Dissolution After the Cold War (Washington, DC: The Brookings

Institution, 1995), 242-44 and 307-308. David Owen, Balkan Odyssey (NY:

Harcourt, Brace, & Co., 1995), 94-159, covers the details of the plan; 160-97

cover the ultimate rejection of the plan. These three works offer interesting

variations on the Vance-Owen plan. Silber and Little see the plan as an honest,

but misguided, attempt at peace—an example of Western efforts that failed to

understand the complexity of the Bosnian situation. They also point out the

cynical attitudes of the factions (particularly the Serbs) who feigned support of

281
the plan but never expected it to be implemented. Owen, not surprisingly,

views the plan favorably. He is more critical of the American role in the

struggle, which he sees as undermining the peace efforts with constant threats

of air strikes but an unwillingness to commit ground troops. Woodward is one

of the most vociferous critics of Western efforts at peace, but her book has

surprisingly little detail on the Vance-Owen plan.

45. O’Ballance, 184-90; “Bosnian Army Prepared to Repel Attacks on

Sarajevo,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Hercegovina Network, 14 July 1993,

FBIS-EEU (15 July 1993), 36; “Serbs Respond to Attack on Ilida,” Belgrade

Radio, Belgrade Network, 19 July 1993, FBIS-EEU (20 July 1993), 25;

“‘Considerable’ Serb Losses Reported on Mt. Igman,” Sarajevo Radio,

Bosnia-Hercegovina Network, 19 July 1993, FBIS-EEU (20 July 1993),

25-26; “Muslims Continue to Repel Serbs,” Sarajevo Radio,

Bosnia-Hercegovina Network, 19 July 1993, FBIS-EEU (20 July 1993), 26;

“Muslim Offensive ‘Continuing Unabated,’” Belgrade TANJUG, 20 July

1993, FBIS-EEU (20 July 1993), 26; “‘Considerable’ Muslim Losses,”

Belgrade TANJUG Domestic Service, 20 July 1993, FBIS-EEU (21 July

1993), 29; “Muslim Counteroffensive,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Hercegovina

Network, 20 July 1993, FBIS-EEU (21 July 1993), 29; “Serbs Continue

Attacks,” Zagreb Radio, Croatia Network, 20 July 1993, FBIS-EEU (21 July

1993), 29; “Muslims Continue Attack,” Belgrade Radio, Belgrade Network,

20 July 1993, FBIS-EEU (21 July 1993), 30; “‘Unusually Intense’ Shelling,”

Paris AFP, 22 July 1993, FBIS-EEU (22 July 1993), 49; “Muslim Attacks

Repelled,” Belgrade TANJUG, 22 July 1993, FBIS-EEU (23 July 1993), 34;

“Serb Shelling of Mt. Igman Continues,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Hercegovina

Network, 22 July 1993, FBIS-EEU (23 July 1993), 34; “Mt. Igman Front

Reactivated,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Hercegovina Network, 28 July 1993,

FBIS-EEU (29 July 1993), 30.

46. Alix Kroeger, “Sarajevo’s Tunnel of Hope,” BBC News Online, posted

16 April 2001, accessed 10 February 2002 at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/

english/world/europe/newsid_128000/1280328.stm> and the author’s visit to

the Tunnel Museum and personal conversations with Edis Kolar. Edis and

Bajro Kolar (and their father) are owners and proprietors of the museum,

which lies on the western end of the tunnel in Butmir. The Bosnian forces

selected the Kolar farm as its start point for the western terminus of the line

under the airport in January 1993. At the time, both Kolar brothers and the

father were serving in the BDF. Edis stated that his family was willing to lend

its farm to the cause, but he also admitted some trepidation over the fact that

their land would certainly come under heavy fire and be useless as farmland

for the duration of the war. On the other hand, his face lit up with unrestrained

pride when he described the time that he was given the honor of pushing a

282
special railcar with a chair that carried Izetbegoviæ safely into the city during

one occasion when the airport was closed.

47. O’Ballance, 194-98 and 202; “UNPROFOR Says Serbs Poised to

Capture Mt. Igman,” Paris AFP, 3 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (4 August 1993),

36; “Serbs Consolidating Positions,” Paris AFP, 4 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (4

August 1993), 37; “UNPROFOR Arrives on Mt. Bjelasnica,” Belgrade

TANJUG Domestic Service, 4 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (4 August 1993), 37;

“Serbs Continue Offensive on Mt. Igman Front,” Sarajevo Radio,

Bosnia-Hercegovina Network, 5 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (5 August 1993),

25; “Attacks on Igman, Bjelasnica Continue,” Sarajevo Radio,

Bosnia-Hercegovina Network, 4 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (5 August 1993),

25-26; “UN Officer, Mladiæ on ‘Fall of Igman,’” Paris AFP, 4 August 1993,

FBIS-EEU (5 August 1993), 26; “Serbs Invite UNPROFOR Observers to

Bjelasnica,” Belgrade TANJUG Domestic Service, 3 August 1993,

FBIS-EEU (4 August 1993), 28; “Gen Mladiæ: Army Will Not Take

Sarajevo,” Belgrade TANJUG, 6 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (6 August 1993),

39; “Agrees to ‘Framework of Withdrawal’ From Igman,” Paris AFP, 6

August 1993, FBIS-EEU (6 August 1993), 39; “Karadiæ: UN to be Allowed

on Igman,” Belgrade TANJUG, 6 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (6 August 1993),

40; “Muslims Say Serb Offensive Continuing,” Sarajevo Radio,

Bosnia-Hercegovina Network, 5 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (6 August 1993),

40-41; “Serbs Preparing New Strikes on Bjelasnica,” Sarajevo Radio,

Bosnia-Hercegovina Network, 6 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (6 August 1993),

41-42; “UNPROFOR Arrives on Peaks,” Belgrade TANJUG, 9 August 1993,

FBIS-EEU (10 August 1993), 31; “Military Leaders Sign Cease-Fire

Agreement,” Belgrade Radio, Belgrade Network, 11 August 1993, FBIS-EEU

(11 August 1993), 33; “Commanders on Agreement,” Belgrade TANJUG

Domestic Service, 11 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (11 August 1993), 33;

“Sarajevo Radio on Talks,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Hercegovina Network,

10 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (11 August 1993), 33-34; “UNPROFOR: Serbs

‘Not Budging,’” Paris AFP, 10 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (11 August 1993),

34; “Serbs Repel Muslim Infantry Attack on Mt. Igman,” Belgrade TANJUG

Domestic Service, 10 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (11 August 1993), 34;

“Mladiæ’s Serbs Continue Offensive,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Hercegovina

Network, 10 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (11 August 1993), 34-35;

“UNPROFOR Deployment Reported,” Belgrade TANJUG, 10 August 1993,

FBIS-EEU (11 August 1993), 35; “Sarajevo Radio Reports Withdrawal,”

Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Hercegovina Network, 11 August 1993, FBIS-EEU

(12 August 1993), 22; “Serb Army, UNPROFOR Chiefs Visit Mount Igman,”

Belgrade TANJUG Domestic Service, 13 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (13

August 1993), 39; “UN Commander on Withdrawal,” Belgrade TANJUG, 10

August 1993, FBIS-EEU (11 August 1993), 39-40; and “Last Serb Unit

283
Leaves,” Zagreb Radio, Croatia Network, 16 August 1993, FBIS-EEU (17

August 1993), 38.

48. O’Ballance, 222-25; “Presidency Arrests Commanders in Sarajevo,”

Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Hercegovina Network, 26 October 1993, FBIS-EEU

(26 October 1993), 22; “Commanders Held in ‘Isolation,’” Sarajevo Radio,

Bosnia-Hercegovina Network, 26 October 1993, FBIS-EEU (26 October

1993), 22; “Rebel Commanders Surrender, Topalovic Killed,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Hercegovina Network, 27 October 1993, FBIS-EEU (27 October

1993), 23; “TANJUG Reports Clashes,” Belgrade TANJUG Domestic Service, 27 October 1993, FBIS-EEU (27 October 1993), 23; “Delic, Alispahic

Discuss Sarajevo Crackdown,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Hercegovina Network, 27 October 1993, FBIS-EEU (28 October 1993), 33-34; and “Army Disbands Croatian Forces in Sarajevo,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Hercegovina

Network, 6 November 1993, FBIS-EEU (8 November 1993), 25.

49. O’Ballance, 234.

50. Ibid., 237-39; Silber and Little, 309-18; General Sir Michael Rose,

Fighting For Peace, Bosnia 1994 (London: The Harvill Press, 1998), 16-17

and 42-68. Silber and Little are highly critical of Rose, accusing him of

deliberately misleading the UN and NATO as to the extent (or lack) of Serbian

withdrawals of heavy guns around Sarajevo. Rose’s own account emphasizes

that air strikes would have placed the ground UNPROFOR troops in danger

with little benefit. Even though Rose does seem inclined to give the Bosnian

Serbs a bit too much credit for their efforts, he still concludes that the market

bomb was from a Bosnian Serb mortar, 43-44.

51. Silber and Little, 335-44.

52. Roger Cohen, Hearts Grown Brutal: Sagas of Sarajevo (NY:

Random House, 1998), xlvi-xlvii.

53. “Sarajevo Being Strangulated,” Sarajevo Radio, BosniaHerzegovina Network, 8 May 1995, FBIS-EEU (8 May 1995), accessed 26

February 2002 (note that in late 1994, the FBIS reports have been placed on the

Internet instead of on microfiche at <http://199.221.15.211>; all remaining

FBIS notes refer to this website); “1st Corps Reports Intensified Attacks on

Sarajevo,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Herzegovina Network, 10 May 1995,

FBIS-EEU (10 May 1995), accessed 26 February 2002; “Heaviest Fighting in

Sarajevo Since 1993,” Paris AFP, 10 May 1995, FBIS-EEU (10 May 1995),

accessed 26 February 2002; and Cohen, xlvii-xlviii.

54. “Army Reports on Military Situation in Sarajevo,” Sarajevo Radio,

Bosnia-Herzegovina Network, 3 August 1995, FBIS-EEU (3 August 1995),

accessed 26 February 2002; “Presidency Appoints 1st, 4th Corps Commanders,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Herzegovina Network, 16 August 1995,

FBIS-EEU (16 August 1995), accessed 26 February 2002; “Government Reports on Sarajevo Casualties,” Ljubljana OSLOBODJENJE, 17 August 1995,

284
FBIS-EEU (17 August 1995), accessed 26 February 2002; “Muslims Launch

‘All-Out’ Attack on Serb Sarajevo,” Belgrade TANJUG, 22 August 1995,

FBIS-EEU (22 August 1995), accessed 26 February 2002; and Stacy Sullivan,

“UN Pounds Serb Guns as Sarajevo is Shelled,” London Times (23 August

1995), 12. During the increased fighting in August, the Bosnian 1st (Sarajevo)

Corps commander, Vahid Karvelic, became the head of the Bosnian General

Staff’s operations and planning division. He was replaced by Brigadier General Nedzad Ajnadzic, the former 37th Division commander. This appears to

have been a normal rotation of duties for both men, not a comment on their performance.

55. Silber and Little, 364-65; “Sarajevo Shelled; 30 Casualties

Reported,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Herzegovina Network, 28 August 1995,

FBIS-EEU (28 August 1995), accessed 26 February 2002; “Sarajevo Shelled;

30 Casualties Reported; Serbs Deny Responsibility,” Belgrade SRNA, 28

August 1995, FBIS-EEU (28 August 1995), accessed 26 February 2002;

“Sarajevo Shelled; 30 Casualties Reported; UN ‘in Contact With’ NATO,”

Paris AFP, 28 August 1995, FBIS-EEU (28 August 1995), accessed 26

February 2002; “Boutros-Ghali Condemns Massacre, Demands Action,”

Belgrade TANJUG, 28 August 1995, FBIS-EEU (28 August 1995), accessed

26 February 2002; “Izetbegoviæ Promises Retaliation for Shelling,” Sarajevo

Radio, Bosnia-Herzegovina Network, 28 August 1995,FBIS-EEU (28 August

1995), accessed 26 February 2002; “Bosnian Serbs Reject UN Statement on

Sarajevo Mladiæ Proposes Commission,” Belgrade TANJUG Domestic

Service, 28 August 1995, FBIS-EEU (28 August 1995), accessed 26 February

2002; “Motives of ‘Muslim Terrorists’ in Sarajevo Massacre,” Belgrade

SRNA, 28 August 1995, FBIS-EEU (28 August 1995), accessed 26 February

2002; “‘Overwhelming’ Evidence of Serb Attack; UN Considers Military

Response,” Paris AFP, 29 August 1995, FBIS-EEU (29 August 1995),

accessed 26 February 2002; “Serbs Resume Artillery, Tank Attacks on

Sarajevo,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Herzegovina Network, 29 August 1995,

FBIS-EEU (29 August 1995), accessed 26 February 2002; “Bosnian Serbs

Reject UN Statement on Sarajevo,” Paris AFP, 29 August 1995, FBIS-EEU

(29 August 1995), accessed 26 February 2002; “‘Ballistics Expert’ Says

Muslims Fired Shell,” Belgrade SRNA, 29 August 1995, FBIS-EEU (29

August 1995), accessed 26 February 2002; Stacy Sullivan, “Shell in Sarajevo

Market Kills 33,” London Times(29 August 1995), 1; and Michael Dynes and

Ian Brodie, “Germany Leads the Condemnation of Market Massacre,”

London Times (29 August 1995), 8.

56. Stacy Sullivan, James Bone, and Eve-Ann Prentice, “Nato Bombers

Attack Serbs Near Sarajevo,” London Times (30 August 1995), 1; Eve-Ann

Prentice, “West Fears Attack May Derail Balkan Deal,” London Times (30

August 1995), 7; Stacy Sullivan, Michael Evans, and James Bone, “NATO to

285
Press on With Attack,” London Times (31 August 1995), 1; Michael Evans,

“NATO Unleashes Full Air Power Against Bosnian Serb Guns,” London

Times(31 August 1995), 3; “Air Strikes Not ‘Declaration ofWar,’” Paris AFP,

30 August 1995, FBIS-EEU (30 August 1995), accessed 26 February 2002;

“UN Action Aimed to Eliminate ‘All Threats,’” Paris AFP, 30 August 1995,

FBIS-EEU (30 August 1995), accessed 26 February 2002; “Start of Joint

NATO, RRF Action Reported,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Network, 30 August 1995, FBIS-EEU (30 August 1995), accessed 26

February 2002; “Start of Joint NATO, RRF Action Reported RRF Fires Over

600 Shells,” Belgrade TANJUG, 30 August 1995, FBIS-EEU (30 August

1995), accessed 26 February 2002; “NATO Action ‘Far-Reaching,’” Sarajevo

Radio, Bosnia-Herzegovina Network, 30 August 1995,FBIS-EEU (30 August

1995), accessed 26 February 2002; “Air Strikes ‘a Success’; Serb Radio

‘Damage Immense,’” Banja Luka Srpski Radio Network, 30 August 1995,

FBIS-EEU (30 August 1995), accessed 26 February 2002; “Air Strikes ‘a

Success’ 1st Corps on Raid Damage,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Network, 30 August 1995, FBIS-EEU (30 August 1995), accessed 26

February 2002; “Air Strikes ‘a Success’; Radar Systems, Artillery Hit,”

Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Herzegovina Network, 30 August 1995, FBIS-EEU

(30 August 1995), accessed 26 February 2002; “Air Strikes ‘a Success’;

Ammunition Dumps in Lukavica Hit,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Network, 30 August 1995, FBIS-EEU (30 August 1995), accessed 26

February 2002; and “Serb Sources Report on NATO, RRF Strike Damage;

Sarajevo Damage Detailed,” Pale Srpski Radio-Televizija Studio Sarajevo, 30

August 1995, FBIS-EEU (30 August 1995), accessed 26 February 2002.

57. Silber and Little, 364-69; Michael Evans, “Military Chiefs Given

Free Rein,” London Times (31 August 1995), 2; Michael Evans, Eve-Ann

Prentice, and Susan Bell, “NATO Aircraft Renew Attack on the Serbs,”

London Times (1 September 1995), 1; Michael Evans, “NATO Commander

Hails Success of Precision Bombing,” London Times(1 September 1995), 13;

Stacy Sullivan, Sam Kiley, and Michael Evans, “NATO Suspends Raids on

Serbs,” London Times (2 September 1995), 1; Michael Evans and Stacy

Sullivan, “Serbs Facing Renewed Air Onslaught,” London Times (4

September 1995), 1; Michael Evans and Stacy Sullivan, “Mladiæ Risks New

Strikes by Defying NATO Ultimatum,” London Times(5 September 1995), 1;

Sam Kiley and Michael Evans, “NATO Bombers Strike Again as Serbs Keep

Shelling,” London Times(6 September 1995), 1, 9; Peter Capella and Michael

Evans, “Bosnia Deal Ends Greater Serbia Dream,” London Times (9

September 1995), 1; “No Serb Withdrawal of Heavy Weapons,” Paris

France-2 Television Network, 31 August 1995, FBIS-EEU (31 August 1995),

accessed 26 February 2002; “Izetbegoviæ on NATO Raid, Fate of Sarajevo,”

Paris LE MONDE, 1 September 1995, FBIS-EEU (1 September 1995),

286
accessed 26 February 2002; “Strikes to Continue Until Serbs Comply,”

Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Herzegovina Network, 5 September 1995,

FBIS-EEU (5 September 1995), accessed 26 February 2002; “Strikes ‘Rather

Successful’; Radar on Jahorina Under Attack,” Sarajevo Radio,

Bosnia-Herzegovina Network, 5 September 1995, FBIS-EEU (5 September

1995), accessed 26 February 2002; “NATO Air Strikes Target Serb

Communications Pale Telephone Links Cut Off,” Paris AFP, 5 September

1995, FBIS-EEU (5 September 1995), accessed 26 February 2002; “Serbs Fire

Artillery at Sarajevo in Retaliation,” Sarajevo Radio, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Network, 5 September 1995, FBIS-EEU (5 September 1995), accessed 26

February 2002; and “‘War Is Over’; U.S. Soldiers Coming,” Sarajevo Radio,

Bosnia-Herzegovina Network, 9 September 1995, FBIS-EEU (9 September

1995), accessed 26 February 2002.

287
Bibliography

Bennett, Christopher. Yugoslavia’s Bloody Collapse: Causes, Course, and

Consequences. London: Hurst and Co., 1995. Good summary of

Yugoslavia’s collapse after Tito’s death. Focus is on political issues,

not as much on the military.

Bladen, Mark, Corporal, Royal Air Force (RAF); Corporal Chris Stone, RAF;

and Corporal Gary Woodard, RAF. Sarajevo Battlefield Tour.

Prepared by the Multinational Division (Southwest) Liaison Team of

the Stabilization Force (SFOR) in August 1999. Small unpublished

pamphlet of principal wartime sites in Sarajevo from the author’s

personal collection.

Blank, Stephen J., Editor. Yugoslavia’s Wars: The Problem From Hell.

Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1995. Interesting

collection of essays addressing the international community’s role in

the Balkans, but with little on military actions.

Briquemont, Lieutenant General Francis. Do Something, General! Chronique

de Bosnie-Herzegovine 12 julliet 1993-24 janvier 1994. Brussels:

Collection La Noria, Editions Labor, 1997. Memoirs, in French, of the

Belgium UNPROFOR commander from July 1993 to January 1994.

Burg, Steven L. and Paul S. Shoup. The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Ethnic

Conflict and International Intervention. London: M.E. Sharpe, 1999.

Although generally focused on the international aspects of the war,

there is a large chapter on the war operations that is very useful.

Cohen, Roger. Hearts Grown Brutal: Sagas of Sarajevo. NY: Random House,

1998. Mainly a human account of the suffering through the eyes of

several families that are friends of Cohen.

Collinson, Christopher. “Bosnia This Winter—A Military Analysis.” Jane’s

Intelligence Review. December 1993. This article, like the others from

Jane’s, is an analysis of military forces in Bosnia by intelligence

experts that contains good information on units and equipment.

______ “Bosnian Army Tactics.” Jane’s Intelligence Review. January 1994.

Donia, Robert J. and John V.A. Fine, Jr. Bosnia and Hercegovina: A Tradition

Betrayed. London: Hurst and Co., 1994. Excellent work on the history

of Bosnia with a final chapter on the war; not much on military

operations but good background.

Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). Daily Reports: East Europe.

1992-1995.

288
Glenny, Misha. The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War. Third Revised

Edition. NY: Penguin Books, 1996. Detailed volume that focuses on

politics and international activity but lacks military detail.

Gow, Dr. James. “Settling Bosnia—The Balance of Forces.” Jane’s

Intelligence Review. April 1994.

Hoare, Quintin and Noel Malcolm, Editors. Books on Bosnia. London: The

Bosnian Institute, 1997. Very useful bibliography with extensive, if

sometimes harsh, annotations on each book.

Isby, David C. “War Returns to Europe: Military Aspects of the Conflicts in

Yugoslavia, 1991-93.” Command Magazine, Military History,

Strategy, and Analysis. July-August 1993. Article from a wargame

magazine that has some good information on unit composition and the

Total National Defense concept.

Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans. 2 Volumes. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1983. Classic work on the Balkans but concludes

before the 1992-1995 war; great for background.

Kaplan, Robert D.Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History. NY: St.Martin’s

Press, 1993. A personal account of travels through the Balkans with

strong opinions of the politics; not much on military operations.

Little, Allan and Laura Silber. The Death of Yugoslavia. London: Penguin

Group and BBC Worldwide Ltd., 1996. Excellent work on the entire

war heavily based on interviews with and actual television and video

transcripts of the participants.

London and Sunday Times. April 1992-December 1995.

MacKenzie, General Lewis. Peacekeeper: The Road to Sarajevo. Vancouver:

Douglas & McIntyre, 1993. Memoirs of the first UNPROFOR

commander in Sarajevo that are disarmingly honest in expressing his

frustrations.

Magas, Branka and Ivo Zanic, Editors. The War in Croatia and BosniaHerzegovina, 1991-1995. London: Frank Cass Publishers, 2001. An

excellent collection of essays. Divjak’s chapter is particularly useful.

Malcolm, Noel. Bosnia: A Short History. Revised Edition. London:

MacMillan Publishers Ltd., 1996. Superb overview of the nation but

too broad to include detail on operations in 1992-1995. Excellent

source to use for background.

Morillon, General Philippe. Croireet oser; chronique de Sarajevo. Paris:

Grasset, 1993. Memoirs of the most flamboyant UNPROFOR

289
commander. Not much information on Sarajevo because his efforts

were focused on Srebrenica.

O’Ballance, Edgar. Civil War in Bosnia, 1992-1994. NY: St. Martin’s Press,

1995. Sometimes flawed account of the war (some details are

incorrect), but it goes into the most detail on the military campaigns of

any English-language work.

Owen, David. Balkan Odyssey. NY: Harcourt, Brace, & Co., 1995. Owen’s

own account of the peace process; often critical of the United States’

role.

Ridgeway, James and Jasminka Udovicki. Editors. Burn This House: The

Making and Unmaking of Yugoslavia. Durham, NC: Duke University

Press, 2000. Covers the human aspects of the war, not much on the

military.

Rieff, David. Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West. NY: Simon

& Schuster, 1995. Highly critical volume of the West’s lack of resolve

on Bosnia; lacks in military detail.

Rogel, Carole. The Breakup of Yugoslavia and the War in Bosnia. Westport,

CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. Good overview of the political aspects of

Yugoslavia’s breakup but not much on military operations.

Rose, General Sir Michael. Fighting for Peace, Bosnia 1994. London: The

Harvill Press, 1998. Memoirs of the UNPROFOR commander’s time

in Bosnia; filled with frank, but perhaps biased, assessments.

Vego, Dr. Milan. “The Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Jane’s Intelligence

Review. February 1993.

______“The Croatian Forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Jane’s Intelligence

Review. March 1993.

______“The Yugoslav Ground Forces.” Jane’s Intelligence Review. June

1993.

West, Rebecca. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. NY: Viking Press, 1941. An

overview of the entire Balkans; good for background but not much

detail on the Bosnia war, 1992-1995.

Woodward, Susan. Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution After the Cold

War. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1995. A

pessimistic view of Balkan affairs with a focus on the international

community’s errors. Not much on military operations.

290
The Takedown of Kabul: An Effective

Coup de Main

Lester W. Grau

On 27 April 1978, Afghan officers who had trained in the Soviet Union conducted a military coup, bringing Communist power to Afghanistan. Nur M. Taraki, the new Soviet-backed president, announced

sweeping programs of distributing land, emancipating women, and destroying Afghanistan’s old social structure. Armed resistance immediately challenged the new government. The Army of the Democratic

Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) disintegrated as bloody purges swept

the officer ranks. In March 1979, the city of Herat rose in revolt. Most of

the Afghan 17th Infantry Division mutinied and joined the rebellion.

Forces loyal to President Taraki advanced and occupied the city while

the Afghan Air Force bombed the city and the 17th Division. More than

5,000 people, including Soviet citizens, died in the fighting.

Soldiers, units, even entire brigades deserted to the resistance, and

by the end of 1979, the Afghan army had fallen from about 90,000 to

about 40,000 soldiers. Over half the officer corps was purged, executed, or had deserted. In September 1979, Taraki’s prime minister,

Hafizullah Amin, seized power and secretly executed Taraki. Amin led

the Soviets to believe that Taraki was alive long after he had been killed.

But Amin’s rule proved no better than Taraki’s, and the Soviet Union

watched this new Communist state spin out of control and out of Moscow’s orbit. The Soviet politburo moved to stabilize the situation.

The Soviet Union had significant experience with stability operations in maintaining its socialist empire. Its experience subjugating the

Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (where the Soviet forces suffered tremendous losses) led to improved methods and techniques, so that in the

1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet army only lost 96 killed.2

By that point, the elements of its coup de main model now included the

preinvasion insertion of an in-country Soviet military and KGB element and the production of a cover or deception operation to divert attention away from the imminent attack. A General Staff group would

tour the country before the invasion, under some pretense, to assess and

fine-tune operational plans. When the invasion began, the in-country

Soviet military and KGB element would disarm or disable key nodes of

the national military forces. Airborne and Spetsnaz forces would spearhead the invasion and seize major airfields, transportation chokepoints,

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1
the capital city, key government buildings, and communications facilities.3 They would also seize or execute key government leaders. Soviet

ground forces would cross into the country, seize the major cities and

road networks, suppress any local military resistance, and occupy the

key population centers. A new government would then be installed,

supported by the armed might of the Soviet armed forces and officially

recognized by the Soviet government and its satellites.

This invasion model was used successfully in Afghanistan. Beginning in 1978, Soviet military and KGB advisers permeated the structure

of the Afghanistan armed forces and security forces down to battalion

level. In March 1979, eight Mi-8 helicopters, a transport squadron of

AN-12s, a signal center, and a paratroop battalion transferred to

Bagram air base in Afghanistan. The aircraft and all the crews were Soviet, yet the aircraft had Afghan markings and the personnel wore

Afghan uniforms. The paratroopers, who provided security, wore

Afghan flight suits.4 The squadron conducted extensive reconnaissance

of the country. In April 1979, General of the Army Aleksiy A.

Yepishev, the head of the Main Political Directorate, led a delegation of

several generals in a visit to Afghanistan to assess the situation.

Yepishev had made a similar visit to Czechoslovakia before the 1968

invasion.

In August 1979, General of the Army Ivan G. Pavlovski, commander

in chief (CINC) of the Soviet Ground Forces, led a group of some 60

officers on an extended reconnaissance tour of Afghanistan that lasted

for weeks. In 1968, he also had been involved in the Czech crisis as

commander of the invasion force. In November 1979, a Spetsnaz

battalion, clad in Afghan uniforms, deployed to Afghanistan and was

incorporated into the presidential security forces, guarding the outer

perimeter of Amin’s residence. This so-called Muslim battalion was

made up of Soviet Central Asian soldiers who spoke Pashtu, Dari (a

dialect of Farsi), Tadjik, or Uzbek. In December, two thirty-man

Spetsnaz groups, code-named “Grom” (Thunder) and “Zenit” (Zenith)

deployed to Kabul and began reconnaissance of the thirteen objectives

that they would have to take out in the coming assault.5 More members

of Zenith deployed later in the month.

The initial Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was based on the newly

reconstituted 40th Army. It consisted of the 5th and 108th Motorized

Rifle Divisions, the 103d Airborne Division, the 860th Separate

Motorized Rifle Regiment, the 56th Separate Air Assault Brigade, the

345th Separate Parachute Regiment, the 2d Air Defense Brigade, and

the 34th Composite Aviation Corps.6 Airborne elements would fly in

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and help the in-place Spetsnaz take the capital city of Kabul and the

main airfields. Ground elements would seize and occupy the eastern

and western corridors (see Map 1).7 President Amin helped the

planning process along greatly by continually requesting Soviet help

and Soviet troops to prop up his beleaguered regime. The Soviets were

happy to comply, only they were not coming to help Amin. The stage

was set to seize the country.

Welcome to Kabul

Kabul is an ancient city that Alexander the Great passed through in

330 B.C. while en route to India.8 The largest city in Afghanistan, its

population was 435,202 in 1969.9 Three major mountains push through

the city in various directions, and the Kabul River cuts the city in half.

Like other Central Asian cities, Kabul’s center is composed of ancient

adobe buildings set in a rabbit warren of narrow streets and narrower

passages. This tight, teeming bazaar is divided into separate sections

where large groups of specialists live in an Eastern version of the

medieval guild. Leather workers, jewelers, brass workers, and carpet

merchants all have their own time-honored section of the bazaar for

production and sales. Individual artisans and factories also produce

items for sale in the town bazaars and for export.

In 1979, government officials normally lived in the “new city”

where the ministries, foreign embassies, hotels, restaurants, and cafes are located. The “new city” is generally north and southwest of

the center. The “microrayon” is a region northeast of the city that

consists of Soviet-style prefabricated buildings that were produced

in a Soviet-constructed factory. At the time of the invasion, these

multiple-storied concrete buildings pierced the skyline, and new

restaurants, stores, supermarkets, and garages catered to the foreign

colony and the growing Afghan middle class. The city was electrified,

although power was unstable and problematic. Running water was not

potable, although the Japanese were constructing a water system for

Kabul. Modern plumbing was confined to the new sections of the

city.10 By regional standards, Kabul was a liberal, open city where

women in cosmopolitan miniskirts contrasted with those who were

completely covered and veiled, and discotheques blared Western and

Eastern music into the early hours.

On the eve of the Soviet invasion, it was winter in Afghanistan, and

the snow was belt-deep in parts of the capital. Far to the north, at 0700

on 25 December 1979, two Soviet pontoon bridge regiments began

293
294

Dushanbe

Taleqan

Panjaw

AFGHANISTAN

PAKISTAN

LEGEND

Soviet invasion

routes

Territory controlled

by Soviet forces

during the war in

Afghanistan

Soviet Union

Kabul

Puli-Khumri

Mahmud-e Eraqi

ABD HQ

Kulyab Termez

Kala

Peshawar Khost

Ghazni

Terin

Chaghcharan

Sagar

Bost

Zaranj

Kushka IRAN

Sep MR Bde

One MRR

Kunduz

Kandahar

Delaram

MRD HQ

Mazir-i Sharif

One MRR

Maymanah

Taghaz

Muqur

Two MRRs

MRD HQ Faisabad

Shindand

Air

bridge

Gereshk

Mary

Sep MR Bde

Jalalabad

Herat Robat-e

Farah

Map 1
guiding their floating bridges into position on the Amu Darya River in

the vicinity of Termez, a Soviet city on the Afghan border. Meanwhile,

the 40th Army commander, General Lieutenant Yuri Vladimirovich

Tukharinov, met with the chief of operations of the DRA General Staff,

General Baba Jan, in Kunduz, Afghanistan, to coordinate actions in the

deployment area.

By noon, the Soviet forces had received their orders from Soviet

Minister of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union Dmitri Fedorovich

Ustinov. These orders directed that the 40th Army and Soviet air force

planes would begin crossing the DRA’s borders at 1500 (Moscow time)

on 25 December. The Soviet forces began their incursion precisely at

the established time. The scouts and air assault battalion of Captain

L.V. Khabarov were the first to cross. They were tasked with seizing

the Salang pass, a crucial chokepoint on the road to Kabul (twelve

Soviet scouts would die in an ambush at the pass). The remainder of the

108th Motorized Rifle Division followed the troops across the pontoon

bridges.

Simultaneously, Soviet military transport aviation aircraft crossed

the border carrying elements of the 103d Airborne Division, commanded by General Major I.F. Ryabchenko, and the 345th Separate

Parachute Regiment to airfields in the capital and nearby Bagram. It

took a total of 343 flights and 47 hours to transport the paratroopers and

their vehicles and gear. The first aircraft touched down at 1615 on 25

December, and the last touched down at 1430 on the 27th. General Colonel I.D. Gaydaenko directed the military air transport operation. The

effort did not occur without casualties. At 1933 on the 25th, an IL-76

that Captain V.V. Golovchin piloted crashed into a mountain and

burned during its approach landing. All thirty-seven paratroopers and

seven crew members were killed.

On the 25th, the chief Soviet advisers to the Afghan military met in

Kabul. They were ordered to prevent any Afghan units, which were opposed to the Soviet presence, from approaching Kabul. Those military

advisers and technicians who worked with the DRA air defense forces

were directed to prevent actions against the paratroopers’ air movements by controlling all the air defense systems and their ammunition

storage bunkers. The advisers temporarily disabled some air defense

systems by removing the sights or by physically locking them. Consequently, the Soviet air armada flew into Afghanistan unopposed.11

For the coup de main to succeed, Amin had to be eliminated and

Kabul had to be taken quickly, which meant that the inbound airborne

and motorized rifle divisions would not be available for the mission.

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The primary strike force would be the Spetsnaz forces already in Kabul

and Bagram, advance units of the 345th Separate Parachute Regiment,

and Soviet military advisers serving in Kabul. The operation plan to

seize Kabul provided for the capture of thirteen key points: the

Tadzh-Bek palace, President Amin’s residence; the Central Committee

of the National Democratic Party of Afghanistan (NDPA), the Communist Party building; the Ministry of Defense (GRU); the Ministry of the

Interior; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Ministry of Communications; the General Staff; the headquarters of the Central Army Corps;

the military counterintelligence (KAM) building; the prison for political prisoners in Pul-e Charki; the radio and television center; the central

post office; and the central telegraph office (see Map 2).12 Simultaneously, the Soviets planned to block units of the DRA armed forces

deploying in the Afghan capital.13

The objectives were spread throughout the city, but the majority was

located north of the Kabul River in the newer section of town. Three of

the key objectives (Amin’s palace, the General Staff building, and the

GRU) were south of Kabul, well into the suburbs. The thirteen groups

tasked with taking these objectives were normally composite groups of

KGB Spetsnaz, GRU Spetsnaz, paratroopers, advisers, and a few

cooperative Afghans. The GRU Spetsnaz, paratroopers, and advisers

provided the vehicles for the assaults. The signal for the attack to begin

would be an explosion that would destroy “the shaft” that housed the

international telephone cables as well as those connecting the country’s

military units. The shaft was located next to the Central Telephone

Exchange. General Drozdov, the ranking KGB representative present

in the country, would determine the time of the assault. While the

overall planning was centralized, the execution was decentralized. The

assault commander for each objective did his own reconnaissance,

determined his own routes, and developed his own maneuver plan for

rapid execution.

Taking the Tadzh-Bek Palace

The purpose of the Soviet intervention was to replace President

Amin with Moscow’s candidate. The KGB had orders to kill Amin,

and since he lived in the Tadzh-Bek palace, the best place to kill him

was in the palace. The palace was situated on a terraced hill on the

southern outskirts of the city, and there was no high-speed approach.

Rather, a serpentine road wound around the hill to the palace entrance.

Amin’s personal bodyguard was drawn from his tribe, so most of the

bodyguards inside the palace had blood ties with the president. This

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297

Map 2
company-size group occupied positions inside the palace and immediately on the outside. Soviet military doctors provided Amin’s medical

care, and Soviet cooks prepared his meals. Soviet military advisers

were present within Amin’s security brigade, and KGB advisers were

present in his bodyguard.

The Soviet Muslim battalion held the eastern side of the external perimeter. The battalion’s official designation was the 154th Separate

Spetsnaz Detachment. It included 520 officers and soldiers plus equipment. This detachment/battalion was a unique organization that served

as a pattern for the eight GRU Spetsnaz battalions that would eventually

deploy to Afghanistan. In addition to the command and staff group, the

detachment had four companies. The 1st Company was mounted on

tracked BMP-1s, and the 2d and 3d companies were mounted on

wheeled BTR-60PBs.14 The 4th Company was a weapons company

with an AGS-17 automatic grenade launcher platoon, a “Lynx” RPO

flamethrower platoon, and a platoon of sappers. The detachment also

included three separate platoons: signal, ZSU 23-4 “Shilka,” and an automotive and materiel support platoon.15 A mobile field dressing station with a doctor-anesthesiologist and a surgeon was also assigned to

the battalion.

Every company had a translator—a cadet from the Military Institute

of Foreign Languages—assigned for duty. However, there was practically no problem with language training in the detachment since all the

Tajiks, about half of the Uzbeks, and some of the Turkmen knew Farsi,

one of the principal Afghan languages. Major Kh. Khalbaev commanded the battalion. It was billeted in some uncompleted barracks on

mountains overlooking the palace.16

Amin’s security brigade manned positions within the palace, machine gun positions outside the palace on the palace hill, the traffic control posts on the approach road, and an overwatch position on the

nearby mountain. The security brigade also maintained a ring of encircling positions around the palace. The security brigade headquarters

caserne was near the overwatch position. Three DRA tanks on the

overwatch position could fire on anyone crossing the open ground to attack the palace. A DRA antiaircraft regiment occupied high ground

overlooking the palace to protect it from air attack. The regiment’s

twelve 100-millimeter (mm) antiaircraft guns and sixteen dual-barreled

DShK heavy machine guns could also fire on ground targets on the palace approaches. There were a total of some 2,500 DRA personnel protecting the palace. In addition, there were two tank brigades garrisoned

near Kabul that could rapidly intervene.17

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Amin’s death had to be coordinated with achieving other important

objectives in the city. The first attempt to kill Amin would be by poison.

Should that fail, the palace would be taken by assault. The assault force

had to cross an expanse of open ground covered by carefully sited

fighting positions and tanks in overwatch; it then had to follow a

winding, channeled road up to the objective.18 This was a hazardous

route, and consequently, the Soviets considered a helicopter assault

using the Mi-8 helicopters of the covert Soviet unit at Bagram airfield to

airlift the assault force onto the palace roof. However, the Tadzh-Bek

palace’s roof was steep and probably icy. If the air assault went in at

night, the risk was unacceptable. Further, the antiaircraft regiment

would have to be neutralized before the assault at the risk of losing

tactical surprise. For these reasons, a ground assault was necessary.19

The Soviets decided to assault the palace using a combination of

three forces: the Muslim battalion Spetsnaz, which belonged to the

GRU, and Spetsnaz groups Thunder and Zenith, which both belonged

to the KGB. Thunder was an organized covert group masquerading as

professional athletes. Zenith was an ad hoc group composed of

Spetsnaz officers who were graduates of the Officer Professional Development Course in Balashikh and members of the Spetsnaz KGB reserve. The vehicles for the assault would come from the Muslim

battalion.

The most difficult and important objective in Kabul was the

Tadzh-Bek palace, and the Soviets devoted particular attention to its

capture. In a preliminary move to minimize resistance, the Muslim

battalion arranged a reception for the Afghan security brigade

commanders on 25 December. They prepared pilaf, although there

were difficulties getting alcoholic drinks. The embassy KGB personnel

helped out with a box full of “ambassadorial” vodka and cognac plus

various delicacies such as caviar and fish. The reception table was well

appointed.20 Since this was an Islamic country, the vodka and cognac

were served out of teapots to preserve the appearance of propriety.21

Fifteen Afghan security brigade personnel, led by its commander,

Major Dzhandad, and its political deputy, Ruzi, attended the reception.

During the reception, the Soviets engaged the Afghans in conversation

while they toasted Soviet-Afghan friendship and military cooperation.

Sometimes the Soviet soldiers, who were serving as waiters, poured

water instead of vodka into the Soviet officers’ glasses. The security

brigade’s political deputy became especially talkative and told Captain

Lebedev that President Taraki was suffocated under Amin’s orders.

This was important information and confirmed Soviet suspicions.

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Major Dzhandad immediately ordered the political deputy to leave the

room.22 The Soviets now knew that the Afghans had lied to them about

Taraki’s death.

Colonel Kozlov, the senior GRU representative in Kabul, planned

the assault on the palace (see Map 3). His first concern was the antiaircraft regiment. He determined that the engineer platoon, reinforced

with two AGS-17 automatic grenade launchers and their crews, would

take on the regiment. The AGS-17s would fire to cut off the antiaircraft

personnel from their weapon positions, while the engineers, under

AGS-17 covering fire, would move to the guns and machine guns and

blow them up. Lieutenant Colonel Shvets, Kozlov’s deputy, would

command this group.

The dug-in tanks were the next concern. Kozlov’s other assistant,

Captain Sakhatov, selected personnel to capture them. He chose three

tankers, four KGB Spetsnaz, two snipers, and two machine gunners.

They would ride on a GAZ-66 truck up to the third battalion position

and capture the three tanks.

The Muslim battalion’s 2d and 3d companies, along with a company

of paratroopers commanded by Senior Lieutenant Vostrotin, would

block and contain the DRA 2d and 3d battalions and the combined 1st

Battalion and tank battalion in their barracks area. The Soviet 1st

Company, commanded by V. Sharipov, would transport KGB Spetsnaz

Thunder and Zenith groups to the palace where they, along with two

groups from the 1st Company, would conduct the direct assault on the

palace.23

On the evening the reception was held, KGB General Drozdov held a

meeting with KGB Spetsnaz commanders. He assigned everyone’s

position for seizing the Tadzh-Bek palace. Everyone was ready. The

only thing missing was the plan of the palace. The next day, the Soviet

advisers to Amin’s security brigade, who were members of the KGB

9th Directorate, led some Spetsnaz personnel through the palace. They

looked at everything attentively. Subsequently, Drozdov later made a

floor-by-floor plan of Tadzh-Bek. However, the Soviet adviser to the

Afghan Security Brigade commander, Yuri Kutepov, refused to relay

Drozdov’s request that the palace guard be weakened because such a

request would heighten suspicion.

The commanders of Thunder and Zenith, KGB Majors M. Romanov

and Ya. Semenov, conducted a reconnaissance of the external area and

examined the firing positions and the nearby locale. Not far from the

palace, on the hill where the tanks were in overwatch, was a restaurant/

300
301

Map 3
casino where high-ranking officers of the Afghan army usually

gathered. Under the pretext of finding a place for their officers to gather

for a New Year’s celebration, the Spetsnaz commanders visited the

establishment. From there, the Tadzh-Bek was clearly visible, as were

the approaches to the palace and the outposts sited to protect it. The

commanders conducted a thorough reconnaissance and then started to

drive back to brief their findings. At the second outpost, a suspicious

Afghan officer stopped, disarmed, and held them for four hours.

Finally, after much tea drinking and conversation, the commanders

were released. It was a day before the assault, and the reconnaissance

was accomplished. The KGB Spetsnaz knew the approach routes; the

guard schedule; the total number of Amin’s guards and bodyguards; the

location of machine gun nests, armored vehicles, and tanks; the internal

arrangement of rooms and corridors in the palace; and the location of

radios and telephone equipment.

That night, the Aghan president to be, Babrak Karmal, and some

members of his entourage secretly flew into Kabul from the Soviet

Union with the 103d Airborne Division. They were whisked to the

Soviet embassy and late that night hidden in a truck convoy bound for

Bagram airfield. They were kept in the Muslim battalion base camp at

the airfield, guarded by KGB Spetsnaz.

The morning of 27 December dawned, and Soviet personnel prepared for the assault. The Spetsnaz commanders made another reconnaissance, and while they were scrutinizing the area through

binoculars, they saw Major Dzhandad and a group of his officers studying the Muslim battalion’s defenses. Lieutenant Colonel Shvets went

over to Dzhandad and invited him for dinner, ostensibly in honor of one

of the officer’s birthday. The Afghan brigade commander replied that

he and his men were conducting training, but they would come by that

evening. Then Shvets asked Dzhandad to release his Soviet advisers for

the dinner and took them away with him. This act saved many Soviet

lives. Reports of the Afghans’ reconnaissance was reported to KGB

Central, which sent back the message, “Begin the assault at 1500.”

At this time, President Amin, not suspecting the imminent coup, was

in a state of euphoria. He had achieved his goal of bringing Soviet

troops into Afghanistan. On the afternoon of 27 December, he held a

magnificent dinner, bringing several members of the Afghan politburo

and his ministries, along with their families, into his luxurious palace. It

was a formal occasion marking both the anniversary of the founding of

the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and the return of

the Secretary of the Central Committee of the PDPA, Pandsheri, from

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Moscow. This return assured Amin that the Soviet leadership was satisfied with his version of Taraki’s natural death and the change of leadership in the country. Pandsheri’s visit seemed to have strengthened the

new regime’s relationship with the Soviet Union and confirmed that the

Soviets would provide a broad range of military assistance. At the reception, Amin solemnly addressed those present. “The Soviet divisions

are already on the way here. Paratroopers have landed in Kabul. All is

going well. I am constantly on the telephone communicating with Comrade Gromiko, and we are discussing the best way to inform the world

about this Soviet military assistance.”24

At 1500, KGB General Drozdov transmitted a message from the Soviet embassy changing the time of the assault (H-hour) to 2200. He later

changed it again, this time to 2100. Still later on, other changes were

made until H-hour finally stood at 1930. Soviet cooks had prepared the

dinner, and Amin, his children, and his daughter-in-law, as well as

many guests, suddenly fell ill. Some, including Amin, lost consciousness. Amin’s wife quickly called the security brigade commander, Major Dzhandad, who called the Central Military Hospital and the Soviet

Embassy’s medical clinic to summon help. The food and pomegranate

juice were immediately sent to the hospital for examination. The cooks

were detained, and the guard was reinforced. However, the primary

perpetrators disappeared, and eventually the cooks were freed unharmed.

The Soviet surgeons who were stationed in Kabul, along with

Afghan Lieutenant Colonel Veloyat Habbi, chief of the Central Military Hospital, and Abdul Kayum Tutakhel, the chief surgeon, arrived at

the palace. They were there at the request of the Afghan chief of the

Main Political Directorate, M. Ekbabla Waziri, and the chief of the political department of the apparatus of the main armed forces in the DRA,

General Major S.P. Tutushkina.

When Colonel Anatoli Vladomirovich Alekseyev, commander of

the Soviet surgical group that was supplementing the hospital staff;

Colonel Viktor Petrovich Kuznechenkov, a doctor; and other medical

personnel approached the interior guard post, they handed in their

weapons as usual. However, they were subjected to a search, which had

not happened before. Further, they were addressed sharply. At the

entrance to the palace, their documents were checked much more

carefully than usual. Then they were searched again. They understood

why when they entered the lobby and saw people lying down or sitting

unnaturally in the lobby, on the stair steps, and in the rooms. Those who

had regained consciousness were writhing in pain. The doctors

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diagnosed the problem at once—widespread poisoning. They started to

help the suffering people, but Lieutenant Colonel Veloyat Habibi ran

up to them and took them with him to Amin. The head of state was in

serious condition. Amin lay in one of the rooms, undressed and looking

like a corpse with a slack jaw and rolling eyes. He was in a deep coma.

Was he dead? They took his pulse. There was a barely perceptible beat.

Colonels Kuznechenhov and Alekseyev did not consider that they

might be interfering with someone’s plan and began to save the chief

“friend of the USSR.” First they closed his jaw and then restored his

breathing. They put him in a bathroom, cleaned him up, and began administering liquids to force diuresis. After that, they again transferred

him to a bedroom. They gave him injections and more injections, then

intravenous (IV) drips. There were IV needles in both his hands. Their

work continued until 1800, during which time they managed to save

Amin’s life. But, feeling that disturbing events were afoot, Alekseyev

sent the women out of the palace and insisted that a laboratory analysis

be conducted to determine the source of the problem. A long time

passed until Amin regained consciousness and, expressing surprise,

asked, “Why did this happen in my house? Who did it? Was it an accident or sabotage?”

The incident greatly upset the Afghan security brigade officers.

They established additional security posts, including internal posts

manned by Afghan military personnel, and put a tank brigade on alert to

be ready to provide assistance. But help had no way to arrive. Soviet

paratroopers had completely isolated the Afghan military units garrisoned in Kabul. Soviet adviser V.G. Salkin described the events in

Kabul:

In the evening at approximately 1830, Captain Achmed Dzhana, the

brigade commander, received the order to move one battalion into the

city. At that time, Colonel Viktor Nikolaevich Pyasetskiy, the adviser

to the brigade commander, and I were colocated with the brigade

commander. The commander ordered that the first tank battalion be

brought to full combat alert. Movement orders would follow. Instantly

tank engines roared and the first battalion was ready for action.

Pyasetskiy looked at his watch from time to time, expecting new

orders from the security brigade. At 1900, Colonel Pyasetskiy himself

asked Captain Dzhana to contact his higher headquarters. However,

he was unable to call since the telephones were not working.

Colonel Pyasetskiy advised the commander to check on the integrity

of the telephone wire within the brigade’s territory. The signal platoon

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was quickly summoned and the soldiers began to check the

connections thoroughly. This lasted about thirty minutes.

Suddenly, a column of four BMDs knocked down the garrison gates

and quickly surrounded the brigade headquarters building. A Soviet

captain jumped down from the lead vehicle. He entered the building,

introduced himself, took Colonel Pyasetskiy aside and conversed with

him, then took out a flask of spirits and proposed a drink. The captain

addressed the commander of the brigade and stated that the city was

restless and that the presence of the tank brigade in the city would be

undesirable. After consultation, the brigade commander gave the

order to stand down the first battalion.25

Shortly before 1900, KGB Colonel Kozlov called General

Magomedov, the chief Soviet military adviser, and told him that due to

unforeseen circumstances, the time of the assault had changed and it

was necessary to start as soon as possible. After some fifteen minutes,

the twelve-man assault group led by Captain Sakhatov boarded its truck

and started to drive to the hill where the tanks were dug in. Their

mission was to seize the tanks and prevent their being used against the

assault groups. Further, they were to deceive the defending palace

guard, pretending that the members of the Afghan Security Brigade had

revolted and were attacking the palace. The Soviets had to create the

impression that the first volleys fired came from the security brigade

headquarters caserne. The 2d Company of the Muslim battalion lay in

wait at its designated position ready to support the movement of Group

Sakhatov by fire.26

As planned, Sakhatov’s group moved out fifteen minutes before the

beginning of the assault. As they drove through the Afghan 3d Battalion

area, they saw that the battalion was on alert. The battalion commander

and deputies were standing in the center of the parade ground while

weapons and ammunition were being issued to battalion personnel.

Quickly estimating the situation, Sakhatov decided to capture the 3d

Infantry Battalion’s command group. Moving at top speed, the truck

full of Spetsnaz suddenly braked by the Afghan officers, and within a

few seconds, the officers were lying on the floor of the truck. The

GAZ-66 jumped forward, leaving a cloud of dust behind.

During the first few minutes, the soldiers of the battalion did not

understand what had happened, but then they opened fire on the fleeing

vehicle. It was too late. The dust cloud hid the vehicle, and the firing

was ineffective. Sakhatov drove 200 meters and then, reaching

advantageous terrain, stopped the vehicle and unloaded his personnel.

The Spetsnaz immediately lay down and opened fire on the pursuing 3d

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Battalion soldiers. The leaderless Afghans bunched up, presenting a

fine target. The two machine guns and eight assault rifles from

Sakhatov’s group killed more than 200 personnel. In the meantime, the

snipers removed the guards by the tanks. When the vehicle holding

Group Sakhatov left the Afghan 3d Battalion’s position, Colonel

Kozlov heard the firing and quickly gave the commands “Fire” and

“Advance” to the officers and soldiers of the Muslim battalion,

paratroop company, and KGB Spetsnaz groups. Red rockets flew into

the air. Wristwatches showed 1915. Over the radio crackled the code

word to begin the assault, “Storm-333.”

Senior Lieutenant Vasiliy Praut opened the initial direct fire on the

palace using two ZSU Shilka 23-4 self-propelled air defense guns,

pouring out a stream of bullets. Two other ZSU-23-4s fired on the 2d

Battalion in support of Group Sakhatov. AGS-17 automatic grenade

launchers fired on the tank battalion position, preventing the crews

from reaching their tanks.

The Soviet 2d and 3d companies and the paratrooper company

moved out in their armored vehicles to block the security brigade’s battalions. Meanwhile, the 1st Company, together with the KGB Spetsnaz

groups, headed toward the palace. Most of Zenith was mounted on four

BTRs that were to lead out and drive to the western part of the hill.

There, dismounting, they would climb the stairs to the western facing of

Tadzh-Bek and then move around to the front of the building to link up

with Thunder. Five BMPs from the first company had most of KGB

Spetsnaz Group Thunder onboard. They were to drive to the front entrance of the palace and dismount.

Zenith moved out. The BTRs drove past the external outposts and

moved onto the single road that snaked up the mountain to the dismount

area in front of the palace. The road was well protected, and other

approaches were mined. Hardly had the first vehicle passed the first

turn when it was hit by heavy machine gun fire. The following BTR was

immediately hit and set on fire, causing the personnel inside to evacuate

the vehicle. Some were wounded. The vehicle commander was shot in

the groin with a bullet entering just below his flak jacket. It was

impossible to rescue him, and he bled profusely. The Zenith personnel

disembarking from the BTR had to lie down and return fire at the

windows of the palace and then begin to climb up the hill using assault

ladders.

At this time, subgroup Thunder began to move out. The lead vehicle

came under fire, and the driver stopped the vehicle, opened the hatch,

jumped out, and ran for cover. The vehicle was under fire from outpost

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1, which it had just passed. The BMP’s back doors swung open to dismount troops to deal with this outpost. The first two out were translators

who were immediately killed. All the BMPs then opened fire on the

outpost and subdued it. The lead vehicle’s driver reappeared, and the

column again moved out and began to climb the serpentine road. The

BMPs were firing their onboard machine guns and turret cannon furiously as they snaked around the palace. They ran out of ammunition before they reached the dismount point. Searchlights from the palace

picked up the assault groups, and fire sprayed the vehicles. Unable to

penetrate the thick palace walls, bullets from the ZSU-23-4s ricocheted

wildly against the armored vehicles and among the dismounting troops.

As the assault force continued to dismount, heavy defensive fire ripped

into it, killing or wounding many soldiers and destroying a BMP. Fortunately for the Soviets, the palace guard was armed with 9mm West German Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns that could not penetrate

the Soviet flak jackets. Still, the flak jackets did not stop bullets from

striking limbs and groins, and the ricocheting 23mm rounds and defenders’ heavy machine gun bullets ripped through the flak jackets.

The survivors from Zenith arrived at the front entrance of the palace

and, joining the survivors from Thunder, climbed through a window

into the building. One group began to clear the ground floor while

another charged up the stairs in a hail of fire. V. Grishin of the KGB

Spetsnaz recalls:

There were shots from everywhere. Lenya Gumenniy stood by a box

near the stair landing and gave me some ammunition while I reloaded

assault rifle magazines. There were other guys there. We began to

gather by the entrance door leading to the corridor that opens onto the

rooms on the second floor. We had to open the doors and rush the

corridor. We got ready and reloaded magazines. Then it became dark.

Before we rushed forward, we had to fire our assault rifles or throw

grenades, as we learned in training. We kicked open the door. Sergey

Aleksandrovich threw a grenade, but the door flew back so hard that it

rebounded off the wall and slammed shut. The grenade hit the door

and bounced back at us. Lenya and I managed to jump down off the

stair landing and lay flat. Everyone else instantly lay down as the

grenade exploded.27

The group picked itself up and rushed inside and down the corridor.

Intense fire filled the building. On both floors, the Spetsnaz began

clearing the rooms, throwing a grenade inside and then raking the room

with fire. They were worked into a killing frenzy, and their orders were

to leave no witnesses.

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Amin was upstairs wandering around in shorts and an Adidas

tee-shirt. He had IV drips in both arms and was dragging the IV stand

with him. His terrified five-year-old son clung to his leg. Amin ordered

his aide to notify his Soviet military advisers about the attack on the palace. Amin told him, “The Soviets will help us.” But his aide replied,

“The Soviets are doing the shooting.” These words upset the president,

and he picked up an ashtray and threw it at his aide, shouting, “You are

lying, it cannot be!” Then Amin, himself, tried to call the chief of the

General Staff, but communications were already cut. Amin quietly

said, “I suspected it. I was right.” He lay down on the counter of a large

wooden bar. He was still alive when the first Soviet assault troops

cleared the room. When they returned later, someone had killed Amin.

His body lay wrapped in a carpet. The assault force cleared the third

floor to complete the capture of the palace. The action lasted 45 minutes. They passed the word to KGB General Drozdov. Drozdov immediately contacted KGB Chief Yuri Andropov in Moscow and

confirmed that Amin was dead. A main goal had been achieved.28

Outside the palace, the Muslim battalion, supported by the captured

tanks and the ZSU-23-4 antiaircraft machine guns, smashed and

scattered the Afghan Security Brigade. The tanks and ZSU-23-4s were

moved in around the palace as the Muslim battalion and assault force

formed a perimeter defense on the frozen ground, anticipating an

Afghan tank attack that never came.

The Soviets began evacuating their dead and wounded. After the

fight, they counted casualties. In the KGB Spetsnaz group, five men, including overall palace assault commander Colonel Grigoriy

Boyarinov, were killed during the assault on the palace. Practically all

the thirty-six remaining Spetsnaz were wounded, but those who could

still hold a weapon continued to fight. Five Spetsnaz were also killed in

the Muslim battalion, and thirty-five were wounded. Of these,

twenty-three wounded men remained with the formation during the

fight. One of the Soviet doctors who treated Amin was also killed.

The Afghans suffered major losses. Although a significant number

of the security brigade soldiers surrendered, the fighting continued after

the palace was captured. The Muslim battalion fought the remainder of

the 3d Battalion for a full day, after which the Afghans fled into the

mountains. Most of the Afghan officers and soldiers were captured.

The entire antiaircraft regiment surrendered without a fight, and the

tank battalion did not offer any resistance. Amin’s personal bodyguard

had 300 men, of which half were captured and the rest killed, wounded,

or missing. His security brigade was shattered and scattered. Total

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Afghan prisoners numbered nearly 1,700 men. Amin’s five-year-old

and eight-year-old sons were killed, and his daughter was wounded.

Blowing Up the Shaft

At 1930, Kabul thundered with strong explosions. A ten-man KGB

subgroup from Zenith blew up the so-called shaft communications

juncture, disconnecting the Afghan capital from the outside world.

Aleksei Polyakov, a Spetsnaz commander recalls:

I received the order to conduct the sabotage. I conducted another

visual reconnaissance of the target and returned to the villa. ...I

gathered my group, briefed the time we would carry out the sabotage,

and assigned the mission to blow up the cable communications shaft at

1930.

At 1845, we left on three motor vehicles to carry out the mission of the

high command. I left one man behind at the villa and gave him the order that, in case our operation failed, he should close down everything

and leave our embassy, and go to the border guards company. Since I

did not have enough interpreters for my group, I requested that an interpreter be allocated to my detachment. As developments demonstrated, if my detachment had not had an interpreter, we could not have

carried out the operation bloodlessly.

When we arrived at the target area, I was with the subgroup which

would provide cover. We were in a UAZ 469 jeep which moved close

to a traffic regulators post. The second covering group was in a

‘Volga’ sedan which parked close to a hotel. Boris Pleshkunov’s subgroup had the interpreter, Khayatov, and was seated in a UAZ 450 jeep

which moved up to the ‘shaft.’ It was necessary to distract the communications center guard post while the cover to the ‘shaft’ was opened.

The interpreter trotted up to the guard, explained that there was going

to be a communications check, offered him a cigarette, and distracted

him with conversation.29

The hatch was locked, so the padlock had to be cut with bolt cutters.

Then the hatch was opened, and a rucksack loaded with two explosive

charges and timers was lowered to the bottom of the water-filled shaft.

A tear gas grenade was also tossed down the shaft to complicate repair.

The whole thing took a few seconds. The timers were set for 15

minutes. The group got back in their cars, leaving the interpreter to chat

with the guards. After several minutes they were back at their villa.30 At

1930, a strong explosion, the signal for the general assault on Kabul,

thundered.

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Taking Down the General Staff

The Afghan Army General Staff building was another difficult objective. While preparing for the mission, subgroup Zenith commander

KGB Major Valeriy Rozin accompanied Soviet adviser for combat

training General A. Vlasov on a visit inside the newly occupied General

Staff building. Until recently, the building had been a museum. Rozin

was only able to examine part of the building, but subsequently, he visited an architect who was able to draw up a complete floor plan of the

entire building, including the guard posts, based on Rozin’s reconnaissance. Rozin worked out a detailed plan of operation, assigning tasks to

each member and working out coordination.

At 1850 on 27 December, Rozin, two border guards, and fourteen

Spetsnaz from subgroup Zenith boarded vehicles and left the Soviet

Embassy heading to the General Staff building. Abdul Vakil’, an

Afghan accomplice, accompanied them. They arrived at the site about

1900. One group of Spetsnaz went up to the first floor in the left wing of

the building where the offices of the Afghan chief of staff were located.

The rest of the Spetsnaz stayed on the ground floor and in the lobby,

waiting for the appointed time.

Rozin noticed that the number of Afghans in the building—at the

external guard posts, the posts in the lobby and on both floors, plus the

number of civilians and officers present—was considerably more than

during his earlier reconnaissance. In the communications center, there

were three communications specialists on duty, plus about fifteen

Afghan soldiers with assault rifles. The two normal sentries were at the

building facings on the left and right side of the entrance, reinforced by

seven to ten other Afghan soldiers. Several soldiers were located in

ground floor rooms. Apparently some information about the operation

may have leaked out—possibly even the planned starting time. The

Afghans were watching the Soviets attentively. The “legend” or cover

that got the group inside the building was a scheduled meeting between

General I.F. Ryabchenko, commander of the 103d Airborne Division,

and General M. Yakub, chief of the Afghan General Staff.

About 1900, Ryabchenko, General P.G. Kostenko (the Soviet

adviser to the chief of the Afghan General Staff), General A.A. Vlasov,

Rozin (who had airborne coveralls over his Spetsnaz uniform and was

playing the role of Ryabchenko’s deputy for technical units), and A.

Pliev (the interpreter) entered the chief of staff’s office, depositing their

weapons at the reception desk. The Afghans searched them. An officer,

L. Lagoiskiy, and Spetsnaz personnel V. Irvanev and I. Vasil’ev

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accompanied Ryabchenko, who remained in the corridor during the

reception. General Yakub affably greeted his visitors and invited them

to sit at his table. The meeting began. General Vlasov introduced the

division commander to the chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces

of the DRA. They began to discuss questions of mutual cooperation.

Ryabchenko had not been briefed on the coming action, therefore he

behaved normally. As the time for the start of the action neared, Vlasov

and Kostenko left Yakub’s office under various pretexts.

At the same time, the Spetsnaz dispersed in the lobby and corridors

of the ground and first floor of the General Staff building. They covered

the majority of the Afghans located there. To distract the Afghans’

attention and achieve surprise, the Spetsnaz became acquainted with

the Afghans, offered them cigarettes, and talked with them about

accompanying the division commander and providing his protection.

At 1930, a strong explosion rocked the city. Yakub also heard the

noise but continued to speak. Obviously he had already guessed everything but did not lose his self-control. Then he rushed to the table where

a German 9mm MG-5 submachine gun lay. Major Rozin rushed to cut

him off. Hand-to-hand combat ensued. Yakub was physically very

powerful (he was under six feet tall and weighed over 250 pounds) and

was an agile and well-trained individual. He had graduated from the

Ryazan Airborne Academy, spoke Russian very well, and was a great

friend of the Soviet Union. It would not have gone easily for Rozin, but

at that moment, three Soviet soldiers and several Afghans burst into the

room. Ryabchenko, not understanding what was happening, remained

seated, but Pliev, the interpreter, joined the fight. In the cross-fire that

ensued, Yakub was wounded and one of his assistants was killed. The

chief of the General Staff quickly disappeared into a break room,

where, it turned out, there were some more well-equipped Afghan army

soldiers and also a deputy to the Minister of Internal Affairs. Pliev offered the Afghans in the break room the chance to surrender. They began to come out, one at a time, with their hands raised.

At this time, three Spetsnaz disarmed the sentry at the communications center in a short hand-to-hand fight, cut the telephone wires leading out of the building at the stairway, and suppressed the guards’

resistance with automatic weapons fire. Then the Spetsnaz smashed the

most vulnerable and important communications gear. This paralyzed

the command of the divisions and regiments located in Kabul and supported the success of all Soviet actions in the Afghan capital. Two Zenith officers blocked the ground floor entrance of the building’s right

wing, denying entry to Afghan guards. Two others similarly controlled

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the entry to the left wing. Simultaneously, they prevented the Afghan

soldiers from exiting the rooms. Meanwhile, I. Pestsov and two border

guards remained in the lobby and liquidated the guards at the front entrance.

After knocking out the communications center, V. Kudrik, V.

Stemilov, and A. Maskov ran upstairs to the first floor to help Yu. Titov

and Yu. Klimov with their fight. Hand-to-hand combat and gunfights in

the upstairs rooms of the first floor were long and fierce. The Soviets

moved into these rooms firing furiously. Part of the Afghan military

personnel sheltered on the second floor. The Spetsnaz did not assault

the second floor. The Afghans sheltering there could not leave since the

warriors of Zenith controlled all the exits.

In the meantime, the chief of the General Staff’s guards were tied up

and placed under guard. The wounded General Yakub lay down in the

break room. When the fight was over, Abdul Vakil’ came into the chief

of staff’s break room. He spoke with the wounded general for a long

time in Pashtu and then shot him with a pistol.

As Afghan resistance was suppressed in various parts of the building, the Spetsnaz collected about 100 prisoners in the large hall. Many

were in shock, and although they were all disarmed, they still represented a real threat to the handful of Spetsnaz. Major Rozin ordered that

all of them be tied up immediately. There was no rope, so they used

ripped-out telephone wire.

The fight had lasted more than an hour. When it began to calm down,

a company of paratroopers arrived at the General Staff building on

BMDs. They began firing at the windows with their machine guns and

assault rifles. The Spetsnaz had to lie down on the floor or find shelter to

avoid fratricide. Tracer bullets clawed into the walls of the rooms, burning with a red light and creating a unique show. Rozin began to shout to

the division commander to stop the firing. General Ryabchenko ordered one of his officers to contact the company commander immediately. Somewhat later, a signalman with an R-105 radio arrived, and the

division commander took command. The paratroopers quickly overcame the remaining pockets of resistance and captured the second floor.

The Afghans lost twenty men, and more than 100 officers and soldiers

were captured. In the assault group, two men were lightly wounded.31

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We Interrupt This Program to Bring You a Special

Announcement

The reconnaissance company of the 345th Separate Parachute

Regiment, reinforced by a ZSU-23-4 and nine Spetsnaz from Zenith,

was supposed to capture the radio and television center. For this reason,

the reconnaissance company moved from Bagram to Kabul on 21

December and deployed not far from the embassy communications

center. The company commander, Senior Lieutenant Aleksandr Popov,

and the commander of the Zenith group, KGB Major Anatoliy

Ryabinin, planned the upcoming mission. The paratroopers would

capture the center’s outside grounds and destroy the weapons deployed

there; the Spetsnaz would fight inside the buildings.

They understood that success in battle could be ensured only by

careful preparation; therefore, they prepared for this operation very

thoroughly. Major Ryabinin had earlier visited the site twice. Posing as

an automatic switching engineer, he found out where the radio and

television studios were, where the signals were sent into the ether,

where the switching terminals were, and where the primary and backup

power systems were.

Initially, Lieutenant Popov drove around the radio and television

center with some Spetsnaz from Zenith and determined its general

arrangement and the primary approaches to it. Then he changed into

civilian clothes and, along with his platoon leaders, conducted a

detailed reconnaissance of the approaches to the objectives, the

entrances and exits, and the location of the guard posts and weapons.

Popov determined the location of the guard posts, military equipment,

the caserne, and the distribution of personnel and weapons. Then the

platoon leaders calculated the driving time to the objective on various

routes. Using these data, they planned the assault.

The plan was to seize the radio and television center and surrounding

area using two axes. Two platoons, commanded by Deputy Company

Commander Senior Lieutenant S. Loktev would attack from the

vicinity of the American Embassy, cut off the tank crews from their

tanks, and then either destroy or capture them. The other attack would

be on the left axis using the reconnaissance platoon, the command

group, and the squad of Zenith Spetsnaz. This main attack would break

down the gate, seize the site, and support the capture group. Two

variants were also planned. One plan was to conduct the attack mounted

on BMDs. The other variant was a surprise night attack on foot without

fire preparation.

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In the middle of the day on 27 December, the company commander

received his combat mission from Colonel A. Kukushkin, the chief of

reconnaissance of the airborne forces. Lieutenant Popov relayed the order to his platoon leaders, and they, in turn, gave every paratrooper his

specific mission. The BMD drivers and vehicle commanders received

particular instructions. An Afghan accomplice, A.M. Vatandzhar, accompanied the Soviet soldiers. The order to begin the operation arrived

at 1830. It stipulated that the assault would begin at 1930. They would

seize the objective and then defend it. Major Ryabinin was in a BMD

with the company commander. The Spetsnaz group from Zenith was in

a BTR along with Vatandzhar.

At the appointed time, the combat vehicles began to move, but

unexpectedly, the march column was cut in two by a battalion of Soviet

paratroopers. The BTR with the Spetsnaz and Vatandzhar lagged

behind. A. Popov, recalling that time, stated, “We did not know that

there were other paratrooper regiments in Kabul, therefore we were

extremely surprised and did not understand where these paratroopers

came from.” The reconnaissance company arrived at the objective at

the designated time. The paratroopers attacked the objective on two

axes, knocked down the gate, and shot the sentries. They attacked with

RPG-18 hand-held antitank grenade launchers and destroyed three

tanks and a BMP. The paratroopers captured another tank and took the

crew captive. The rest of the tanks and BMPs—there were eleven tanks

and four BMPs on the objective—did not offer any resistance. Not one

Afghan tank fired its main gun, although all the weapons were loaded

and the crews had been on combat alert since 1700. They were not told

whom they were to fight against. They simply fired their machine guns,

then drove away from the objective and parked, waiting for something.

In the meantime, the Spetsnaz group rushed into the radio and

television buildings and took possession of them. The fight lasted about

40 minutes. After seizing the building, the Spetsnaz searched the

Afghan radio and television personnel and moved them under guard to

a single room. Vatandzhar provided major assistance to the group. He

arranged the surrender of the crews from the tanks that were standing

some distance away. He explained the situation to them and guaranteed

their safety with the change in regime. All the crews from seven tanks

and three BMPs surrendered. The Soviets collected weapons and 106

prisoners. Seven Afghans were killed and twenty-nine wounded. One

paratrooper was wounded in the leg.

Vatandzhar then addressed the radio and television center employees and, working with the Afghan experts, set up the transmission of a

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broadcast to the people by Babrak Karmal declaring the formation of a

new government. The paratroopers monitored the transmissions and

guarded the buildings. Subsequently, the radio and television center

was transferred to representatives of the new government of Afghanistan. Its guard force was changed to a company of the 103d Airborne

Division.32

Telegraphing the Blow

At 2020, Aleksandr Puntus led a platoon of paratroopers and nine

Spetsnaz from Zenith as they drove up to the telegraph building.

Finding the gate locked, Puntus and his interpreter got out of their

vehicle and began to explain to an Afghan officer who approached them

that they had come to reinforce the telegraph guard and asked him to let

them in. The officer replied that he had orders not to let anyone near the

site. The officer said that approximately an hour earlier there had been a

strong explosion near the telegraph building. As a result, there was a

large crater, and the building was damaged. Since none of the attempts

to persuade the Afghan officer worked, a peaceful entry into the

building was impossible.

After reporting the situation, the group was ordered to seize the

telegraph building by force. The operation began at 2100 when a BTR

knocked the gate down and drove into the courtyard. The group’s fire

neutralized the guards near the building and patrolling the premises.

Then the paratroopers and Spetsnaz rushed into the building and

quickly captured all three floors. The operation took 20 minutes and

was carried out successfully despite the initial resistance of the

thirty-two Afghan soldiers at the site.

The Afghan soldiers were disarmed and placed under guard in the

guard room. In addition to the soldiers, telegraph employees (twenty

men and twelve women) were on duty. They were all searched and held

in rooms on the third floor of the building. They offered no resistance.

The Soviets turned off the equipment with the help of Afghan experts.

The captives were fed, calmed down, and provided with a place to sleep

for the night. The next morning, they were all released to return to their

own houses. Neither side suffered casualties. After capturing the

telegraph building, the Soviets established outside guard posts to

control the building entrances.33

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Taking Down the Police Station and Ministry of Internal

Affairs

At 1930, two platoons of paratroopers and fourteen Spetsnaz from

Zenith led by Yuri Mel’nik began the assault on the Ministry of Internal

Affairs (MVD) building and the Sarandoy (National Armed Police)

headquarters, which were in the same compound. They worked quickly

and decisively. Three open-bed trucks approached the site and stopped

at the traffic control post (KPP). They hit the compound with a salvo of

seven hand-held RPG-18 antitank grenade launchers, creating

confusion among the 350-man security force. This allowed the

paratroopers to dash quickly from the KPP to the MVD building. When

the attackers were fired on from the building, the assault group

conducted a resolute attack and, in a few minutes, had driven the guard

from the ground floor and taken possession of it. Then the paratroopers,

using continuous fire and throwing grenades, ascended the stairs. It

took 15 minutes to seize the remaining floors. The Afghans, not

understanding what was happening, were demoralized, and the

resistance stopped.

During the gunfight, Captain Anatoliy Muranov of Zenith was shot

through both thighs. Major V. Sisin, the MVD adviser, attempted to

help him and took him to the embassy medical clinic where Muranov

died of trauma and loss of blood. A large number of Afghans were taken

captive. The Soviet MVD advisers assisted the paratroopers and

Spetsnaz.

Kosogorskiy, the MVD senior adviser, ordered the arrest of Minister

of Internal Affairs A. Sh. Payman, but he was not in the MVD building.

Payman, still in his underwear, ran to the residence of Soviet MVD

advisers where Major N. Nazarov discovered him. On the morning of

the following day, Payman was brought to the operations directing

staff. General B.S. Ivanov had him write a message to the Afghan

people appealing to them to preserve calm and order in the country. At

1400 on 28 December, his message was broadcast on the radio. On 29

December, new Minister of Internal Affairs S.M. Gulyabzoy and the

new commander of the Sarandoy, Lieutenant Colonel Asgar, arrived at

the MVD building and began work. They had been Amin’s prisoners in

the Pul-e Charki prison.34

Taking Down the Central Army Corps Headquarters

The headquarters of the Afghan Central Army Corps (CAC) and its

security subunit were situated in the building complex known as the

316
“House of the People.” In all, there were over 1,000 men with artillery,

BTRs, and small arms. A company of paratroopers, six Spetsnaz from

Zenith, and six Soviet military advisers were allocated for its capture.

Their mission included seizing the objective; taking over the CAC

staff’s command, control, and communications; identifying staff personnel who were sympathetic to the new government to screen out and

isolate Amin’s supporters; and using the staff to prevent Aghan military

actions against the Soviet forces.

The group was split into subgroups. At the start of the operation, the

first subgroup’s mission was to capture the caserne, the air defense battalion’s weapons, the artillery park located at the House of the People,

and the signal battalion’s caserne. The subgroup commander telephoned the senior Afghan officer, who was a division political officer,

and through an interpreter, advised him that Amin was overthrown. He

told him that a democratic government had come into power and that

Soviet forces were providing assistance in supporting order in Kabul at

the new government’s request. The Soviet commander gave a clear ultimatum and demanded that all conditions be met without bloodshed.

The Afghan officer accepted all the Soviet conditions with alacrity and,

together with the battalion chief of staff, carried them out. The military

adviser to the signal battalion commander convinced his counterpart

not to resist. By 2015, the subgroup completely controlled its assigned

sector.

A BTR and small arms fired on the other Soviet subgroup as it

entered the corps staff’s territory. The paratroopers and Spetsnaz

returned fire and quickly suppressed the resistance and destroyed the

BTR. The subgroup commander called an Afghan staff officer and,

through an interpreter, congratulated him on the victory of the

democratic forces of Afghanistan. Then he demanded that the Afghan

officer disarm the security company and the corps staff officers.

One of the captured Afghans volunteered that the corps commander,

General M. Dust, was in one of the staff rooms with ten soldiers and his

bodyguard. When the assault group rushed into the building and demanded that Dust surrender, the defending Afghans answered with

gunfire. As the fight was joined, the assault group suppressed the resistance with automatic fire and grenades and captured the corps staff, except for the corps commander and his security guards who escaped

across the roof of the military publishing house.

The subgroup commander, taking advantage of the lull, organized a

fire-fighting detail to extinguish a fire started during the gunfight. He

also directed the rescue of weapons and equipment from the fire. Parts

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of both details were Afghan officers and soldiers who proclaimed their

loyalty to the new regime. By the morning of 28 December, the fire in

the building was extinguished, and the signal center was back in

working order. All the combat vehicles of the group occupied defensive

positions around the objective. At the back of the building, two BMD

crews fired machine guns and automatic weapons to suppress centers of

Afghan resistance.

As dawn broke, the Soviets began combing the staff building and

surrounding area. They detained an Afghan soldier who stated that

General Dust was hiding in the military publishing house. The group

commander had the soldier convey a surrender demand to Dust after

explaining in detail the political situation to the soldier. When Dust was

convinced that the Soviet officers were speaking the truth, he

surrendered.

The group commander, together with the Soviet military advisers,

quickly began to use the corps commander to issue orders to the CAC

divisions and regiments. The orders recognized the new government

and directed resistance to cease. Dust issued orders to the following

units: the 88th Artillery Brigade; the 4th and 15th Tank Brigades; the

Pukhantun Military Academy; the 26th Parachute Regiment; the 37th

“Commando” Brigade; the 7th and 8th Infantry Divisions; the 190th

Artillery Regiment; the CAC reconnaissance battalion; the 9th

Mountain Infantry Division; the 41st Infantry Regiment; and separate

units and subunits located in Bamian, Wardak, Parwan, Kapisa, Kabul,

Logar, and Nangahar provinces.

On the morning of 28 December, the CAC staff intercepted a

telegram from the governor of Nangahar province that ordered an

infantry division and the 444th “Commando” Regiment to advance on

Kabul. The adviser to the CAC knew that Colonel Sabur, the division

commander, was the captive CAC signal battalion commander’s

brother. The Soviets convinced the captive commander to talk by phone

with his brother, explain the political situation to him, and convince him

to side with the new Afghan government. In this manner, the advance

on Kabul was broken up. Later that morning, joint Soviet-Afghan posts

provided CAC headquarters security. On the following day, the corps

staff returned to the House of the People and to work.35

Countering Counterintelligence

Capturing the Afghan Military Counterintelligence Building was

rather difficult. Two paratrooper platoons, twelve military advisers,

318
and six Zenith Spetsnaz were detailed to capture this objective. Rafael

Shafigulin headed the force that also included three BMDs, two

GAZ-66 trucks, and two air defense weapons. The group developed a

plan and coordinated it with the advisers. The attack would penetrate

the perimeter at three entry points. BMDs would conduct the breakthrough, approaching and then securing the main building. Dismounting personnel would disarm the outside guards, and the “capture

group” of twenty-one men would enter the main building, disarm the

personnel inside, and detain designated personnel. They decided not to

engage the security force but to cut it off from the objective using BMD

machine gun and air defense weapon cross-fire. They moved out at

1830.

During the breakthrough, one of the BMDs was damaged and lost

mobility. The group commander was in this vehicle, and he decided that

his part of the group would assault the closest door. Under the cover of

BMD machine gun fire, the group burst into the building and joined up

with Chuchukin, the Soviet adviser, who had been there since before

the start of the operation. The group then began to carry out its primary

mission and suppress the mounting fire. The Spetsnaz and paratroopers

of the second group burst through the building’s main entrance. The

combined group’s actions were quick and resolute. Enemy troops

inside the building decided not to resist and surrendered their weapons.

All the counterintelligence personnel on the Soviet capture list and

some members of the government were among the prisoners. The

Afghan security personnel who were cut off from the objective heard

the noise of battle and left. During the night, separate groups returned

and surrendered their weapons. There were about 150 captured

soldiers. The Afghan guards at the remaining buildings and soldiers

assigned to the site surrendered after hearing Soviet demands on a

megaphone.

The other objectives in the Afghan capital were captured without

significant problems. On the morning of the 28th, Babrak Karmal was

fully in power in Kabul, which was controlled by 103d Airborne

Division paratroopers. Soviet ground divisions pushed resolutely

southward to gain control of the main lines of communication and

airfields in the country. The capture of Kabul was a clear success. The

Soviets planned to hold it and other key points while the new DRA

president turned his army to fighting the Mujahideen resistance. This

was not to be. The DRA army was unable to defeat the Mujahideen, and

quickly the Soviet army was dragged into combat in the countryside.

The 201st Motorized Rifle Division and other units arrived to reinforce

319
the 40th Army. The Soviet army was now involved in a foreign civil

war on some of the toughest terrain on the planet. The brilliance of the

capture of Kabul was soon eclipsed by fruitless Soviet operations that

accomplished little. The Soviet army was stuck in Afghanistan for nine

bloody years.

Analysis

The coup de main is so different from the normal experience of

bloody, deliberate urban combat that this account may seem out of

place in this volume. However, that is the main point. Any military

professional who studies urban combat quickly concludes that it is not

the place to fight. But sometimes cities cannot be avoided. If a city has

to be taken, it is usually best taken with surprise and audacity.

The Soviet coup de main model was markedly successful in rapidly gaining control of Afghanistan and its main cities. This stands in

contrast to the disastrous October-November 1956 operation against Hungary in which the Soviets lost 669 killed in action (KIA), 1,540 wounded in

action (WIA), and 51 missing in action. In the August-October 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Soviets greatly improved and only

lost 11 KIA, 85 killed in accidents, and 87 WIA. The initial December

1979 incursion in Afghanistan resulted in Soviet losses of 24 KIA, 44

killed in accidents, and 74 WIA. In January 1990, the Soviets again

used this model in Azerbaijan, where they lost 29 KIA and 98 WIA.

When examining other methods and examples of combat in cities, the

well-planned coup de main is clearly the best, and least bloody, option.

In December 1994, the Russians ignored their own coup de main model

in Chechnya with calamitous results.

The main elements of the Soviet coup de main model follow:

• Place advisers and forces on the ground well beforehand.

• Identify key points and personnel that must be quickly taken or

neutralized.

• Conduct extensive General Staff reconnaissance.

• Use a cover or deception operation to divert attention away from

the main operation.

• Neutralize air defense and communications.

• Have combat air patrol coverage on call.

• Use Spetsnaz, advisers, and paratroopers to seize key points.

320
• Centralize planning and decentralize simultaneous execution.

• Follow up occupation with ground forces.

• Install a new government.

The invasion of Afghanistan was a military operation the KGB

supported, but the capture of Kabul was a KGB operation the military

supported. KGB officers were in charge of taking the various

objectives. KGB planning predominated. The KGB determined the

time to launch the assault. KGB head Yuri Andropov was the first one

in Moscow to learn of the mission’s success. The KGB tried to disguise

Amin’s overthrow as an internal Afghan matter with the Soviet Union

acting as a good neighbor to calm down the country and help protect the

government from internal and external enemies. There were some

Afghans who cooperated with the Soviets, but most, including Babrak

Karmal, were cooperating for the sake of their own agendas and

political advancement. Karmal promised 500 warriors to support the

coup; one showed up. Clearly, the KGB called the shots and made the

difference.

The KGB plan succeeded, sometimes despite the Soviet penchant

for secrecy. Soviet Ambassador to Afghanistan F.A. Tabeev was not

briefed on the operation, and as explosions and gunfire rocked Kabul,

he called his KGB adviser for an explanation. The KGB adviser told the

ambassador that he was busy, but he would give him a complete

briefing in the morning. The commander of the 103d Airborne

Division, the largest Soviet military force in Kabul, was not briefed and

blissfully entered the office of the Afghan chief of staff not realizing

that his escort was there to kill the chief of staff. Soviet military doctors

who looked out for President Amin and his family’s health were not

warned that their patients were going to be poisoned. The doctors

heroically saved Amin’s life and thwarted the initial plan. One of the

doctors paid for his dedication with his own life during the assault on

the palace. Soviet paratroopers fired on buildings containing Spetsnaz

because no one briefed them on what was happening. Secrecy was so

compartmented that even the most trusted KGB Spetsnaz were not

given the complete plan. This frustrated coordination among the

various objectives. Yet, despite the extreme secrecy, there are

indications that some of the Afghan personnel had an idea that a hostile

enterprise was afoot.

Another potential problem was that the Soviets violated unit

integrity throughout the fight and throughout the war. Ad hoc units of

321
KGB Spetsnaz, GRU Spetsnaz, paratroopers, border guards (part of the

KGB), and military advisers were quickly put together and had little

opportunity to train and rehearse together before the combat. That it

worked is a compliment to the professionalism of the officers involved.

Indeed, most of the KGB Spetsnaz were officers.

Fratricide was also a problem. In the assault on the Tadzh-Bek

Palace, personnel from the Muslim battalion and the KGB Spetsnaz

identified one another by the white armbands on their sleeves, the

challenge and password “Misha-Yasha,” and Russian cursing. But

everyone was dressed in Afghan uniforms and shooting, and grenade

throwing took place over a distance. Also, in the dark and confusion, it

was difficult to keep track of who had on white armbands and who did

not. When the Soviets began to take Afghan prisoners, they found that

some Afghans were also wearing white armbands on their sleeves.

Many of the Soviets were wounded by 7.62mm rounds. Amin’s

personal bodyguard was armed with 9mm submachine guns.

Many of the Soviets were armed with 7.62mm weapons, although

some had the new 5.45mm AK74 assault rifle. Ricocheting 23mm bullets from supporting ZSU-23-4 fire wounded many Soviets. The ZSU

fire was supposed to lift before the assault force dismounted. However,

during the assault, a BTR ran off the road into a ditch. The vehicle commander got on the radio and continually asked for assistance, thus

blocking the command net. No one else could communicate while he

was transmitting, and consequently, the commander could not radio the

ZSUs to cease fire. Finally, his messenger physically had to go to the

ZSUs to convey the order to cease fire.

The main requirements for a coup de main are planning, audacity,

and surprise. The Soviet effort depended on having personnel on the

ground well before the event. The assault force commanders had seen

the ground—they had physically driven the route, conducted reconnaissance at the objectives, and planned their assaults. The judicious

use of ZSU-23-4s and heavy machine guns aided fighting during the approach to the objective. The Soviet soldiers were elite, well-trained

forces in prime physical condition. The rapid destruction or capture of

key communications curtailed the Afghans’ ability to react. The Afghans simply were unable to react because the senior leadership was

quickly neutralized. It was a masterfully executed operation.

322
Notes

1. Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines a coup de main as a sudden

attack in force, whereas a coup d’etat is a violent overthrow of an existing government by a small group. In common use, coups d’etat are by internal forces,

whereas coups de main can be by internal or by external forces. Immediately

after the 1979 Soviet coup de main in Afghanistan, many articles described the

act. Over the years, more facts have emerged that strongly contrast with what

was originally published. This chapter incorporates new, original source material in the hope of more accurately describing this pivotal event.

2. Grif sekretnosti snyat: Poteri Vooruzhennykh Sil SSSR b voynakh,

boevykh deystviyakh i voennykh konfliktakh (Removing the Secret Seal:

Casualty Figures of the Armed Forces of the USSR in War, Combat Action,

and Military Conflicts), G.F. Krivosheev, ed. (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1993),

397-98.

3. Spetsnaz are “forces of special designation” or special troops. In

this chapter, they are highly trained reconnaissance forces trained for ranger

and commando-type actions. There were Spetsnaz forces belonging to the

KGB and to the Ministry of Defense in this operation. The Ministry of Defense

Spetsnaz were part of the General Staff Intelligence Directorate (GRU).

4. Victor Markovskiy, Zharkoe nebo Afghanistana (The Hot Skies of

Afghanistan) (Moscow: Tekhnika-Molodezhi, 2000), 68.

5. Aleksandr A. Lyakhovskiy, Tragediya i doblest’ Afgana (The

Tragedy and Valor of the Veteran of Afghanistan) (Moscow: Iskona, 1995),

82, 107, and 131.

6. Ibid., 134.

7. Map 1 is from The Russian General Staff, The Soviet-Afghan War:

How a Superpower Fought and Lost, Lester W. Grau and Michael Gress, eds.

(Lawrence, KS: Kansas University Press, 2001), 16.

8. Percy Sykes, A History of Afghanistan (London: Macmillan & Co.,

Ltd., 1940), 64.

9. Louis Dupree, Afghanistan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 1980), 161.

10. Ibid, 161-65.

11. Aleksandr A. Lyakhovskiy and Lester W. Grau, Russia’s Afghanistan

Tragedy, manuscript undergoing translation and preparation for publication.

Most of the material in this chapter is taken from this source, and if the source

is not specified, it is from this manuscript.

12. Map 2 created by author based on a map of Kabul produced by the

Sahab Geographic & Drafting Institute, Tehran, Iran.

323
13. “Spetsoperatsiya v Kabule!!!” (“Special Operations in Kabul!!!”),

Russkie kommandos (Russian Commandos) (Moscow: International Patriotic

Organization “Vimpel,” 1999), 54-55, and Lyakhovskiy and Grau.

14. Boevaya Mashina Pekhota (BMP), an infantry combat vehicle, is a

tracked armored infantry fighting vehicle mounting a 73mm cannon (BMP-1)

or 30mm automatic cannon (BMP-2), plus a 7.62mm machine gun and

antitank missile launcher. It carries a three-man crew and a squad of eight

soldiers. Bronetransporter (BTR), an armored personnel carrier, is an

eight-wheeled infantry transport that carries eleven personnel and mounts a

14.5mm machine gun and a 7.62 mm machine gun.

15. Zenitnaya Stanovka Upravlenie (ZSU) is a self-propelled air defense

system. The ZSU-23-4 is an armored tracked system with quadruple-mounted

23mm machine guns. It fires 4,000 rounds per minute.

16. S. Kozlov, “Kak byl vzyat dvorets Amina” (“How Amin’s Palace was

Captured”), Spetsnaz GRU: Pyat’desyat let istorii, dvadtsat’ let voyny (GRU

Spetsnaz: Fifty Years of History, Twenty Years of War) (Moscow: Russkaya

panorama, 2001), 101. During the takedown, Kozlov was using the code name

Kolesnik and is known in many histories only by this code name.

17. Ibid, 105.

18. Lyakhovskiy and Grau.

19. Markovskiy, 68.

20. Lyakhovskiy and Grau.

21. Kozlov, 104.

22. Lyakhovskiy and Grau.

23. Kozlov, 107. Map 3 is from page 109.

24. Lyakhovskiy and Grau.

25. Boevaya Mashina Desanta (BMD), an air assault combat vehicle, is

an air-droppable, tracked armored infantry fighting vehicle issued to

paratroop units. It carries up to nine men (normally a maximum of seven). The

BMD-1 has a 73mm cannon while the BMD-2 has a 30mm cannon. Both

mount three 7.62mm machine guns. See also Lyakhovskiy and Grau.

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid., based on Soviet interrogations of the surviving aide.

29. “Spetsoperatsiya v Kabule!!!” 43-44.

30. Ibid.

31. Lyakhovskiy and Grau.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid.

324
Operation JUST CAUSE in Panama

City, December 1989

Lawrence A. Yates

Operation JUST CAUSE, the U.S. invasion of Panama in December

1989, brought a quick and decisive end to the dictatorial regime of General Manuel Antonio Noriega, the country’s political strongman and

commander of the Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF). As official U.S.

briefings later proclaimed with only slight exaggeration, approximately 27,000 American troops hit twenty-seven targets in Panama on

20 December, achieving most of the stated combat objectives within

hours. Of these targets, many were located in Panama’s two principal

cities, Colón and Panama City, thereby providing the U.S. military its

first significant experience in urban operations (UO) since Vietnam.1

The following assessment will focus on UO in Panama City, the largest

of the two urban areas and the capital of the country (see Map 1).

Operation JUST CAUSE opened the climactic act in a drama that

had begun in mid-1987 as an internal crisis for the Noriega regime, but

which by early 1988 had escalated into a U.S.-Panamanian confrontation, especially after two federal grand juries in Florida indicted the dictator on drug trafficking charges.2 As the crisis unfolded, the U.S.

Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), established in 1963 to oversee

U.S. military activities in Central and South America, carefully monitored daily developments, particularly the PDF’s activities. This task

was facilitated by the fact that SOUTHCOM headquarters was located

in Panama, perched atop Ancon Hill at Quarry Heights, with a clear

view of downtown Panama City and several PDF installations in the

area.3

Before the crisis, SOUTHCOM and the forces assigned to it had

worked closely with the PDF. By early 1988, however, the mounting

tensions had strained that relationship, a result of the PDF’s increasing

harassment of American military personnel and incursions onto U.S.

military facilities. To enhance security for both people and property,

the commander in chief, SOUTHCOM (CINCSO), General Frederick

F. Woerner, Jr., augmented his forces by bringing several U.S.-based

units—mostly military police (MPs)—into Panama. Woerner also

considered it prudent to begin writing contingency plans for the crisis in

case the PDF’s behavior became more belligerent. The first of these

operation orders (OPORDs) appeared in March 1988 and described

325
326

600

Pacific Ocean

San Blas

Colon

Limon Bay Co ol n

P

a

n a m a

Bay of

Panama

Panama

City

Panama

Canal

La

Palma

Boundary representation

not necessarily authoritative

Caribbean Sea

Darien

COLOMBIA

9

77 79

77 79

Golfodelos

Mosquitos

Bocas del Toro COSTA

RICA

81 83

9

7

81 83

David

Penonome

Las

Tablas

Chitre

Santiago

Chiriqu

B o c a s d e l T o r o

Veraguas

Cocle

Los

Santos

Colon

International boundary

Provincial boundary

Panama City is conventional name for

capital of the country; divisions are

provinces except for SanBlas,which

is a territory.

Panama Canal

7

50 Kilometers 0 25

0 25 50 Miles

Herrera

Gulf of Panama

N

Map 1
defensive, offensive, and civil-military actions U.S. forces could take

in the event of hostilities.4 Nearly two years of continuous planning

followed, a process that was still ongoing when General Maxwell R.

Thurman took over as CINCSO on 30 September 1989, just days before

the PDF brutally crushed an in-house attempt by some disaffected

officers to overthrow Noriega. The abortive coup left Thurman and

others convinced that U.S. military intervention would be necessary to

remove the dictator from power. Accordingly, planners concentrated

their efforts on fine-tuning the OPORD, code-named BLUE SPOON,

for offensive operations in Panama.

As presented by Thurman to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), BLUE

SPOON called for the United States to employ overwhelming force in a

surprise assault on over two dozen targets in Panama. The “trigger

event” for this attack would be another coup attempt, the killing of a

U.S. citizen, or some other extreme provocation. H-hour was set at

0100 (as it had been throughout the planning process) to help achieve

surprise, limit civilian casualties, and take advantage of U.S.

night-fighting capabilities. The objectives of the operation would be to

protect American lives, property, and interests; capture Noriega and his

“accomplices”; neutralize and, if necessary, destroy the PDF; and engage in stability operations aimed at restoring law and order and assisting a new Panamanian government.5

Given these objectives, Panama City found itself at the “bull’s-eye”

of the combat plan.6 As the seat of government and home to several

PDF facilities, half a million Panamanians, and most of the thousands

of American civilians living in the country, the city could not be bypassed or besieged if the BLUE SPOON mission was to be accomplished in a timely way. Rather, U.S. forces would have to seize control

of the capital from the PDF and maintain order there afterward until a

new Panamanian government could begin functioning effectively.

This would be no simple undertaking. Panama City, which traced its

origins back to 1519, occupied in 1989 a broad strip of coastal territory

along an axis running eastward from the southern (that is, Pacific

Ocean) entrance of the Panama Canal (see Map 2).7 As the country’s

capital, the city housed key government buildings, foreign embassies,

and the Panama Canal Commission. It was also a center of economic

activity that emphasized manufacturing, banking, tourism, service

industries, and the retail market. Balboa Harbor was a major port area,

while Panama’s principal commercial airport, Torrijos International,

was adjacent to the Tocumen military airfield on the eastern outskirts of

the city. Another airport at Paitilla serviced small planes. Also located

327
throughout the capital were the various water, power, sanitation,

medical, communications, and government services critical to the

functioning of any major city. As with most urban areas that had

evolved over centuries, Panama City was a mixture of old and new,

with its varied landscape revealing high-rise apartments and business

buildings, more common one- to three-story commercial buildings and

private homes, upper- and middle-class residential neighborhoods,

working-class areas, slums, and historic sites. Only a few main avenues

crisscrossed the city, in contrast to the maze of narrow streets found in

the downtown area. Vehicular traffic was moderate to heavy, ensuring

some degree of congestion, especially downtown, throughout the day

and into the night.

Panama City was also home to a sizable portion of the PDF, the umbrella organization for virtually all the country’s uniformed personnel:

infantry, special operations forces (SOF), riot control units, highway

patrol and police, customs officers, and conservation officials. Of a

force totaling 15,000, approximately 3,500 PDF were regarded as combat troops, assigned mainly to infantry companies.8 In the capital, sev328

Fort Clayton

Swinging

Bridge

Albrook

Air Station

Fort

Amador Bridge of the

Americas

Howard

Air Force Base and

Fort Kobbe

Paitilla

Airport

Balboa DENI

Comandancia Compound

DNTT

Curundu Heights

Balboa

Harbor Quarry

Heights

Ancon DENI

Gaillard Highway

Map 2
eral of these units and organizations ringed Ancon Hill (see Map 3).

From Quarry Heights, SOUTHCOM personnel looked down to the

south upon the comandancia, the PDF main headquarters. Moving

clockwise from there brought into view the Balboa National Department of Investigations, or DENI, station to the west; the Department of

Traffic and Transportation, or DNTT, and the PDF engineer complex to

the north; and the Ancon DENI station to the east. South from the

comandancia, within clear sight across the Bay of Panama, was Fort

Amador where the PDF 5th Infantry Company had its barracks. From

the Amador causeway, one could also see Flamenco Island where elements of Noriega’s Antiterrorist Security Special Unit (UESAT) were

located. Farther away, between Ancon Hill and the northeasterly outskirts of the city, were a cavalry squadron at Panama Viejo, the 1st Infantry Company at Tinijitas, and the 2d Infantry Company and

Panamanian Air Force at the Tocumen military airfield. Well east of the

airport, but within striking distance of Panama City, was Battalion 2000

at Fort Cimarron. Besides these PDF units, the capital also accommodated the Dignity Battalions—club-wielding civilians and PDF sans

uniforms organized to intimidate Noriega’s opponents.

While the PDF had a significant presence within Panama City, the

adjacent Canal Area was crammed with U.S. military sites and

personnel. A short journey up the canal from its Pacific entrance passed

by Fort Kobbe, Howard Air Force Base (AFB), the Arraijan fuel depot,

and Rodman Naval Station and Ammunition Supply Point on the left

bank; Quarry Heights, Albrook Air Station, and Fort Clayton

(headquarters of U.S. Army South, or USARSO) on the right. The

troops and sailors located at these and other facilities nearby could

easily participate in military operations in and around the capital. Some

of the units and headquarters were permanently stationed in Panama,

belonging to SOUTHCOM or one of its components. USARSO’s 193d

Infantry Brigade fell into this category, as did the Special Operations

Command, South, with its joint mix of SOF. Also available were

elements brought into Panama over the course of the crisis to augment

the in-country forces. These included Task Force (TF) Hawk,

consisting of aviation assets from the 7th Infantry Division (Light); a

battalion from the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized); two U.S.

Marine companies, one with light amphibious vehicles (LAVs); and

several MP units (see Figure 1).9 Since most of SOUTHCOM’s forces

on the Pacific Ocean side of the isthmus abutted the western edge of

Panama City, they would not, in the event of hostilities, have to fight the

329
330

PANAMA CITY To

Gamboa

COLON

ALTOS DEL

CHASE

Albrook

Air Station

C

VILLA SOBERANIA

amino

at

de al Amis d

CARRESQUILLA

V ai Porras

CARRESQUILLA

COCO

DEL MER

Va. Balboa

Va. Central

Av. Nac oi nal

BALBOA

LOS RIOS

EL

BOSQUE

PUEBLO

NUEVO

Av. Ricardo J. Alfaro VILLA LUCRE SAN MIGUELITO

SAN

ANTONIO SANTA CLARA

VILLA

DEL SOL

REPARTO

CHANIS

V

t g ia J s

o ose u A gu in Aran

Via Domingo Diaz

Pacific

Ocean

COLONIAS

DEL PRADO

Tocumen

International

Airport

ToChepo

Not to Scale

Bah ai de Panama

ToPlaya Amador, IslasNaos, Perico & Flamenco

R i o Juan D i a z

SAN

FERNANDO

R i o A b a j o

To David

Paitilla

Airport

Via Transistmica

Via Espana

Av. Juan Pab ol II

Miraflores

Locks To

Colon

N

Map 3
PDF for the approaches to the capital; for all practical purposes, they

already controlled them.

A more pressing issue was whether SOUTHCOM had enough forces

in Panama to attack the PDF and, simultaneously, to defend the Canal

Area. In early 1988, CINCSO thought available forces would be

hard-pressed to do both, and the initial BLUE SPOON OPORDs limited the participation of in-country forces to securing U.S. facilities

within the Canal Area and isolating the battlefield in Panama City.

331

Stationed in Panama

U.S. Navy South

U.S. Air Force South

U.S. Marines South

U.S. Army South (USARSO)

193d Infantry Brigade

92d Military Police (MP) Battalion

228th Aviation Battalion

Special Operations Command, South

1988 Security Enhancement Augmentation

MP brigade

MP units

TF Hawk (7th Infantry Division [Light] aviation assets)

U.S. Marine company

1989 NIMROD DANCER Buildup

Brigade Headquarters, 7th Infantry Division (Light)

Battalion, 7th Infantry Division (Light)

Mechanized Battalion, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized)

U.S. Marine light armored infantry company

Battalion for Jungle Operations Training Center

1989 ELOQUENT BANQUET Insertions

AH-64 Apaches

OH-58 Kiowas

M551 Sheridans

Army 9,254

Total 13,171

U.S. Forces in Panama, December 1989

Figure 1
Taking down the critical PDF command and control elements in the

capital itself would fall to SOF strike forces deploying from the United

States.10 Planners modified this initial concept of operations, however,

once the continuing crisis saw additional U.S. troops deployed to Panama. By late 1989, in-country forces had acquired responsibility for

several offensive missions under BLUE SPOON, many in and around

Panama City.

While the city served as the bull’s-eye on the BLUE SPOON template covering H-hour targets throughout Panama, the bull’s-eye within

the capital itself was the comandancia compound. If Noriega hoped to

mount a coordinated response to an American attack, it would most

likely be directed from the PDF’s main headquarters. To neutralize the

facility and any troops defending it was the mission of TF Gator, led by

the mechanized battalion already in Panama. Moving outward from the

bull’s-eye, the first ring around it included Balboa Harbor, Fort

Amador, the Bridge of the Americas, Ancon Hill, and PDF positions

around the base of the hill. Within this area, U.S. Navy sea-air-land

forces (SEALs) were to disable specific vessels in the harbor while TF

Wildcat, led by a battalion from the 193d Infantry Brigade, was to secure Ancon Hill and neutralize the PDF sites around it. The 193d’s

other battalion, as the principal element of TF Black Devil, was to secure Fort Amador. Marines were to block the Bridge of the Americas

against possible reinforcements from PDF barracks at Rio Hato 60

miles to the west. (A U.S. Ranger battalion deploying from the United

States was responsible for neutralizing the Rio Hato complex, ideally

before any PDF troops there could move on Panama City.)

The outer ring in the target template covering the greater Panama

City area included the city’s three airports and the PDF units at Panama

Viejo, Tinijitas, and Fort Cimarron. The mission of securing Paitilla

Airport fell to Navy SEALs, while a second Ranger battalion from the

United States was to seize the Torrijos-Tocumen complex and secure

the runways for a brigade of the 82d Airborne Division, also deploying

from the States. Once the paratroopers were on the ground, they were to

mount air assaults on Fort Cimarron, Panama Viejo, and Tinijitas.

These operations were designed not just to neutralize the PDF but also

to isolate the main battle at the comandancia and the anticipated combat

around Ancon Hill and at Fort Amador.

The BLUE SPOON concept of joint operations, while simple

enough to explain in general, was in its details highly complex and

dependent upon efficient interaction between SOF and conventional

forces. To ensure unity of command, Thurman had formally named

332
Lieutenant General Carl Stiner, commander of the XVIII Airborne

Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, “my warfighter” (see Figure 2).

The corps was geared to contingency operations and, for that reason,

had been involved since early 1989 in the BLUE SPOON planning

effort. Under Thurman’s command and control arrangement, the

plan’s execution would require Stiner and his staff to deploy to

Panama and stand up Joint Task Force (JTF) South. Nearly all units

engaged in the operation would be under Stiner’s control. That

included TF Bayonet, the operational appellation of USARSO’s

193d Infantry Brigade, commanded by Colonel Mike Snell, which,

in turn, controlled the three conventional battalion TFs operating in

the comandancia-Ancon Hill-Fort Amador area. In a more unorthodox

arrangement, Stiner would also have under him the Joint Special

Operations Task Force (JSOTF) that controlled, among other assets,

the SOF elements assigned H-hour targets in and around Panama

City.11

Having achieved unity of command, Thurman and Stiner still had to

anticipate the fog and friction of war, although even their worst-case

scenarios excluded the possibility of an American defeat. Few if any

U.S. officers considered the PDF to be a formidable force. The combat

units were certainly well armed with Soviet-bloc weapons—AK-47s,

rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), cadillac-gauge vehicles, and the

like—but leadership was poor, the soldiers lacked discipline, and,

333

CINCSO

JTF South

TF

Semper Fi

TF

Bayonet

TF

Pacific

16th MP

Bde

TF

Aviation Navy Forces Air Force

Forces

TF

Atlantic JSOTF

Figure 2. Command and Control for JUST CAUSE
according to intelligence sources, morale in many units was low.

Noriega himself was exhibiting increasingly erratic behavior, appearing drunk and belligerent at public and private functions. In

SOUTHCOM’s best estimate, the U.S. advantage of surprise, darkness,

overwhelming force, and effective psychological operations (PSYOP)

would result in most of the PDF deserting their posts or surrendering,

perhaps after token resistance. Small PDF teams might be able to stage

ambushes or launch shoulder-held missiles at U.S. aircraft, but even if

successful, such limited measures would not turn Panama City into another Stalingrad. U.S. forces might have to clear several buildings, but

they would not have to fight their way through the city block by block.

With a U.S. victory preordained, the only question was, “At what price?”

In answering this, planners recognized that their calculations would

have to contain more than an estimate of the casualties U.S. forces

would suffer. As noted, BLUE SPOON also contained the mission of

protecting U.S. citizens in Panama—canal employees, businessmen,

retirees, family members, military dependents, and others—an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 of whom lived in the capital. There was a separate plan for evacuating American civilians—a noncombatant

evacuation operation (NEO) in military jargon—but by late 1989, as

Thurman concentrated on the BLUE SPOON option, doubts persisted

about the feasibility of executing both plans in tandem. To do a NEO

just before BLUE SPOON would deprive the incoming combat units of

the element of surprise, an essential ingredient in the invasion plan. To

conduct the two plans simultaneously—extracting thousands of Americans from Panama while bringing in and supporting thousands of

troops—would guarantee congestion and confusion, possibly resulting

in the kind of prolonged urban combat that the BLUE SPOON concept

sought to avoid. Besides, as one XVIII Airborne Corps planner made

clear, the tens of thousands of American citizens who had ignored official warnings to leave Panama had to have understood the risks involved in staying.12 U.S. forces would do what they could to protect

housing areas in which American citizens were concentrated, but there

was no way to guarantee in the midst of the fighting that some Americans would not fall victim to stray rounds, hostage-taking, or PDF vengeance. In the planners’ opinion, the best means for keeping the

civilians safe was to defeat the PDF quickly and decisively. Besides determining how best to fight the PDF and safeguard American citizens,

BLUE SPOON planners also had to address another aspect of the “end

state” sought by the Bush administration: a stable, democratic, and

friendly government in Panama that could exercise effective leadership

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soon after the old regime had been swept away. To help ensure that outcome, U.S. combat operations had to keep physical damage and civilian

casualties to a minimum. Planners considered most Panamanians to be

friendly or neutral toward the United States; every effort, therefore, had

to be made to avoid putting these people or their homes and belongings

at risk unnecessarily. Nor could Panama’s political, economic, and social infrastructure be destroyed, or even severely damaged, if Washington hoped to achieve its strategic objectives. Yet, SOUTHCOM

realized that combat in a congested urban area would inevitably entail

casualties among noncombatants, some destruction of private property,

and some disruption of law and order and basic services. Shelter, food,

and medical facilities had to be available to civilians who suddenly

found themselves refugees. Furthermore, any looting, rioting, or demonstrating had to be controlled quickly and without resort to excessive

force.

With these considerations in mind, the rules of engagement (ROE)

set forth in CINCSO’s BLUE SPOON OPORD directed that “To the

maximum extent possible, commanders should use the minimum force

necessary to accomplish the military objectives.” The supporting JTF

South OPORD preferred the imperative voice: “Conduct all operations

to minimize collateral damage to nonmilitary personnel and facilities,

and limit economic hardship to PANAMA.”13

The need to “minimize collateral damage” led to other restrictions,

particularly in the area of fire support. Field artillery was available, but

it was not to be used in Panama City if at all possible. A barrage simply

risked causing too much damage in a densely populated and, in places,

highly combustible urban area. Thus, any tactical unit requesting

artillery support in the city had to obtain authorization from a colonel or

higher. For similar reasons, BLUE SPOON made no provisions for an

air bombardment of the capital. At best, a few U.S. units were slated to

receive fire support from AC-130 gunships, each armed with a 105mm

howitzer and other destructive but very precise weapons. At the

comandancia, TF Gator would also have the supporting fires of four

LAVs and four M551 Sheridan armored reconnaissance vehicles. A

limited number of Cobra and Apache attack helicopters were also

available to hit selected targets, but most infantry units would have to

rely mainly on rifles, grenades, machine guns, mortars, antitank

weapons, and recoilless rifles for firepower.14

The assumption at SOUTHCOM was that the “trigger event” for

launching BLUE SPOON would occur sometime in January 1990. This

estimate meant that the OPORD, even after the JCS had approved it in

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November 1989, could not be shelved. In both Panama and the United

States, planners continued to amend the plan and to test it using Joint

Army Navy Uniform Simulations (JANUS). At the operational level,

there was the ongoing need to perfect the communications for a joint

undertaking and to ensure that the nighttime airspace over Panama

City, which would be crowded with a variety of U.S. military aircraft

during BLUE SPOON, was “deconflicted.” Beginning soon after the

October 1989 coup attempt, Thurman arranged for monthly planning

sessions in Panama between his officers, the XVIII Airborne Corps

staff, and other supporting headquarters. One of these meetings occurred during the week of Thanksgiving, at which time SOUTHCOM

received a warning that a Colombian drug cartel intended to detonate

car bombs against U.S. military targets in Panama. With Stiner and his

staff already in Panama, Thurman used the threat to stand up JTF South

for a trial run. The bomb scare turned out to be a hoax, but it provided

the key BLUE SPOON command element the opportunity to gain some

practical experience and to identify problems.15

As planners tweaked the OPORD almost daily, those tactical commanders—generally at division, brigade, and battalion levels—who

had been read into the plan and knew their units had been assigned targets in Panama City had to prepare the troops for UO. In this undertaking, U.S. forces already in Panama enjoyed some advantages. Since

May 1989, as a result of an escalation in the crisis, they had been engaged in a variety of exercises and operations designed to assert U.S.

treaty rights. That meant, among other things, switching the participating units’ mission essential task list from jungle warfare to what was

then called military operations in urbanized terrain, or MOUT, the tactical doctrine for which appeared in U.S. Army Field Manual 90-10. It

also meant that many of the exercises and operations could be geared to

BLUE SPOON missions, with platoon- and squad-size units unwittingly rehearsing the plan by moving to the proximity of what were, unbeknown to them, H-hour targets.16 The exercises accustomed the PDF

to the constant movement of American forces but also allowed

in-country U.S. commanders to establish a deceptive signature. For example, when airborne troops conducted air assault exercises onto Fort

Amador, they landed the helicopters in front of the PDF 5th Company

barracks, even though BLUE SPOON called for a flanking attack.17 In

addition to these troop maneuvers, the American military in Panama familiarized itself with the terrain and the enemy by conducting personal

reconnaissance together with more formal staff exercises, map exercises, jeep exercises, and tactical exercises without troops.18

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BLUE SPOON units based in the United States also enjoyed certain

advantages. Hundreds of miles from the PDF, they used existing

MOUT training sites or newly erected mockups of their assigned

targets to conduct elaborate rehearsals (one of which, by chance, was

completed just days before the invasion of Panama). Virtually all

affected units, whether located in Panama or not, had ample time to

develop battle books containing detailed information and photographic

images of the designated targets, conduct sand table exercises, and

engage in live-fire exercises, employing terrain that resembled or had

been improvised to resemble downtown Panama City. In one case,

troops turned their own barracks into a MOUT training area, learning to

clear rooms with rolled-up socks serving as grenades.

Since World War II, U.S. forces had been deployed in contingency

operations to Lebanon (1958, 1982), the Dominican Republic (1965),

and Grenada (1983), generally on short notice and without adequate

preparation. In contrast, the troops who would execute BLUE SPOON

in Panama were as primed to perform their missions as one could hope.

If they lacked anything, it was actual combat experience. Below

battalion level, there were few battle-hardened veterans. How the

others would take to their baptism of fire was problematic.

The answer came sooner than expected. On Saturday, 16 December,

a car carrying four U.S. Marines ran a PDF roadblock near the

comandancia. The PDF opened fire, killing one occupant, Lieutenant

Robert Paz. This proved to be the anticipated “trigger event.” On

Sunday afternoon, President George Bush received a briefing on the

incident and the status of BLUE SPOON. His decision: “Okay, let’s

go.” Soon thereafter, BLUE SPOON received a nobler sounding name,

JUST CAUSE. It would begin at 0100 Panama time, Wednesday, 20

December.19

Following the president’s directive, much had to be done. Fortuitously, Stiner and his staff were scheduled to arrive in Panama on

17-18 December for the monthly planning session. With some changes

in personnel, that group now showed up at Fort Clayton with orders to

go to war. They continued to modify the plan until the last minute, identifying “war stoppers” and reexamining known problem areas. On

Monday night, 18 December, some commanders were formally notified of the president’s decision; others received word the next day, in

time to give their troops a few hours to prepare for combat. Intelligence

reports revealed that some PDF officers knew the United States was on

the verge of taking military action, thus diminishing, but not eliminating, the element of surprise at the tactical level. Further complicating

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matters as H-hour approached, SOUTHCOM learned that an ice storm

had hit Pope AFB, adjacent to Fort Bragg, thus calling into question the

timely arrival of the brigade from the 82d Airborne Division slated for

operations around Panama City. Fortunately, other units concentrating

on the capital were ready to move out. To compensate somewhat for the

loss of complete surprise, Thurman approved launching the attack on

the comandancia fifteen minutes early. At 0045, specialized U.S. aircraft jammed Panamanian commercial broadcasting and PDF tactical

communications, and AC-130s began pounding the comandancia.

JUST CAUSE was under way and, with it, the battle for Panama City.

Designating 0045 as H-hour was, in this case, an operational convenience. In fact, well before that time, various U.S. units were en route to

their targets while others were already carrying out their assignments.

Among these units were several SOF elements working for the JSOTF

commander, Major General Wayne Downing. Downing had the

H-hour missions of capturing Noriega, rescuing an American citizen

from a Panamanian jail, and neutralizing various PDF capabilities, including Paitilla airfield, Balboa Harbor, and the Torrijos-Tocumen Airport complex in the Panama City area. Of these, only the Balboa Harbor

mission went off without a hitch.20 Intended to destroy any vessels that

could be used to disrupt U.S. operations or to help Noriega escape, the

operation fell to Navy SEALs identified as Task Unit (TU) Whiskey,

part of the JSOTF’s TF White. Well before H-hour, two SEAL swim

teams crossed the canal in combat rubber raider craft launched from

Rodman Naval Station. Once at the harbor, they swam to Pier 18, where

they attached their demolitions to a docked patrol boat. On schedule, at

0100, the boat blew up and sank. (Much later, during daylight, TU

Whiskey helped seize Noriega’s yacht, thus depriving the dictator of

one avenue of escape.)

In contrast to TU Whiskey’s nearly flawless success, the Navy

SEAL operation at Paitilla airfield resulted in a deadly firefight with the

PDF.21 Situated on Punta Paitilla, a strip of land jutting out from the

coastline a couple of miles east of the comandancia, the field’s one

runway served private planes and some commercial aircraft. One

hangar housed Noriega’s Learjet. That fact, together with the airfield’s

potential use by any PDF reinforcements flying into the capital, put the

facility squarely on the list of H-hour targets for JUST CAUSE. With

the southern end of the runway virtually touching the Bay of Panama,

the mission for infiltrating the airstrip fell to SEAL Team 4, also part of

TF White. As with many other units involved in JUST CAUSE, the

team had rehearsed the operation just a week before receiving the

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execution order. The plan, in brief, called for forty-eight SEALs in

three platoons, supported by an offshore command element and by an

Air Force combat control team that would coordinate with the AC-130

assigned to the mission, to run boats from the canal’s west bank up the

bay to a beach near the southeastern tip of the runway. From there, the

SEALs would move onto the airfield, secure the perimeter, destroy

Noriega’s jet, and obstruct the runway so as to make it unusable to the

PDF. Spotty intelligence reinforced by wishful thinking held that the

team would encounter only a few security guards.

At 2100 Tuesday, SEAL Team 4 began its more than three-hour

voyage to Punta Paitilla. Still planning to begin their assault at 0100, the

SEALs learned en route of the fifteen-minute change in H-hour at the

comandancia. The battle there began right after the team landed,

forcing it to hasten its approach to the hangars. As two platoons began

moving up the runway, they received some critical information—a

helicopter possibly carrying Noriega was heading to Paitilla. It was also

possible that a PDF column with V-300 armored vehicles was moving

toward them. (Some in the raiding party fell out to set up an ambush

position in case the latter report was true.) When the SEALs interpreted

another message to mean that they should disable, not destroy,

Noriega’s jet, confusion was added to their sense of urgency.

After subduing some private security guards at one hangar, elements

of the team ran into the PDF at another. A firefight erupted in which two

SEALs were killed instantly and two others died as the exchange of

gunfire intensified.22 In time, the PDF defenders were either killed or

routed, after which the SEALs secured the airfield, obstructed the runway, and disabled Noriega’s jet. They had accomplished their mission

but at a price: four killed and eight wounded, a very high number for a

small unit. Different assessments of the operation arrived at various

conclusions, with the SEALs’ misfortune being variously attributed to

last-minute changes in command arrangements, the designated H-hour,

and the presumed mission, as well as to tactical lapses on the ground,

conflicting intelligence, and poor communications between the SEALs

and the AC-130 overhead. For some critics, however, the Paitilla losses

were the result of a failure to use the right force for the mission. According to this view, Army Rangers, who train specifically for seizing airports, should have been employed, not Navy SEALs.

The Rangers did, in fact, draw an airfield mission, that of seizing and

securing the Torrijos-Tocumen complex on the eastern outskirts of the

city.23 TF Red-T was composed of the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment; a Ranger company from the regiment’s 3d Battalion; PSYOP and

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civil affairs teams; and an AC-130 gunship and two AH-6 Little Bird attack helicopters. The plan called for the Rangers, following preparatory

fires from the AC-130 and Little Birds, to parachute into the airport.

Their targets were the Panamanian air force and the PDF 2d Infantry

Company at Tocumen, and the International Terminal at Torrijos Airport. Seizing the air complex would prevent its use by the PDF and

would provide a base for follow-on operations, beginning with those

assigned to the brigade from the 82d Airborne Division scheduled to arrive at the airfield forty-five minutes after the Rangers began their assault. The timely arrival of the brigade was viewed as essential, lest

PDF units near the airport mount a counterattack against the Rangers

or, potentially even more disruptive, against U.S. units operating

around the comandancia.

Generally speaking, the Ranger operation mirrored the plan. At

0100, the original H-hour, the gunship and the attack helicopters

opened fire on the PDF barracks and other positions at Tocumen. Many

of the PDF had already fled, leaving as soon as they heard sounds of

fighting at the comandancia. Others were killed or wounded in the

barrage. Still others took cover. When the Rangers parachuted in at

0103, they met with little resistance from the infantry company, the air

force, and the security guards. Consequently, the battalion suffered

only one fatality, the result of sniper fire received while clearing PDF

positions. In a little over two hours, the TF had secured Tocumen, taken

prisoners, and captured almost all of the Panamanian air force intact.

Unexpected difficulties arose, however, when Company C, 3d

Ranger Battalion, moved to secure the terminal at the adjacent Torrijos

International Airport. One reason BLUE SPOON planners had chosen

0100 as H-hour was that there would be no commercial flights into

Torrijos at that time. But in the wee hours of 20 December, a

late-arriving Brazilian aircraft unloaded a few hundred civilian passengers into the terminal just before the Ranger assault began. As Company C approached the building, it confronted the risk of harming these

civilians or of encountering a hostage situation. The latter, in fact, did

occur on the first floor of the terminal, where, as Rangers were evacuating most of the civilians, nine PDF goaded by a Cuban diplomat seized

two American girls—one account says a woman and a baby—and used

them to hold a Ranger platoon at bay. After a standoff of over two hours,

the Ranger company commander arrived and simply threatened to kill

the hostage-takers if they did not surrender. Within minutes they did.

While the hostage situation was evolving, another platoon from

Company C, employing one squad per floor, was clearing the

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terminal’s second and third levels. From a restroom on the second floor,

a couple of PDF soldiers opened fire on the Rangers, wounding two.

The Rangers threw in grenades, but the stalls absorbed the fragments.

That left little choice but to enter the facility. In the fight that followed,

both defenders were killed.

As buildings at Torrijos-Tocumen were being cleared, the first

planeload of paratroopers from the 82d Airborne Division began

dropping in, a process that would drag on until 0430 because of delays

caused by the stateside ice storm. The brigade from Fort Bragg

experienced further problems when various elements and equipment

landed well off target, often in swamp or tall grass. Given the

cumulative effect of these delays, operations against Fort Cimarron,

Tinijitas, and Panama Viejo could not be mounted until after dawn.

Fortunately, most PDF units in those outlying areas had not intervened

in the battle for Panama City. The one unit that had tried was Battalion

2000 from Fort Cimarron. U.S. Special Forces and two AC-130s,

however, stopped its advance on the city.24

Along with the harbor and airports, Downing’s JSOTF had another

mission in Panama City, a highly sensitive one. Timed to coincide with

the attack on the comandancia, the operation involved elite assault

forces freeing an American citizen incarcerated in the carcel modelo, a

prison compound across the street from the PDF headquarters. As

executed, most of the rescue mission went according to plan: the assault

force “neutralized” the PDF guards and, after extracting the American

from his cell, placed him aboard an MH-6 helicopter on the roof of the

jail. As the chopper lifted off, it was hit by PDF fire and crashed into the

street below, injuring all aboard except the civilian. Quickly, three

M113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) arrived on the scene to scoop

up the men and rush them to safety.25

The M113s had been waiting nearby in case they were needed. They

belonged to TF Gator, the conventional force conducting the main

H-hour assault on the comandancia. The PDF headquarters, three stories high and made of concrete and reinforced steel, was the largest of

ten buildings within a walled compound and had always been viewed

by BLUE SPOON planners as Noriega’s most critical command, control, and communications node. One problem with mounting an attack

on the compound was that it was located in el chorrillo, a poor and

crowded barrio with narrow and erratic streets; buildings of various

sorts and sizes, including a sixteen-story high-rise right behind the

comandancia; and significant vehicular traffic even late at night.

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A subordinate element of TF Bayonet, TF Gator was led by Lieutenant Colonel James Reed, commander of the 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry

Regiment (Mechanized).26 It was no accident that the battalion, which

had rotated into Panama as part of the ongoing show of force President

Bush had initiated earlier in the year, belonged to the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized), a unit still equipped with the M113 APC. In the narrow streets and constricted terrain of downtown Panama City, U.S.

planners believed, the M113’s size held an advantage over that of its replacement in the Army’s inventory, the larger Bradley fighting vehicle.

Reed’s companies B and D formed the core of TF Gator. The plan

called for them to set up a series of squad- and platoon-size blocking positions around the carcel modelo and comandancia compounds, designated A and B, respectively, on Map 4. Meanwhile, Company C, 1st

Battalion, 508th Regiment (Airborne), a unit attached to TF Gator from

USARSO’s 193d Brigade, was to secure and clear the buildings behind

the PDF headquarters in the vicinity of the high-rise. From intelligence

reports, Reed knew that the ratio of American to PDF troops at the

comandancia would be at best 1:1 (350 U.S. to 390 PDF). Conventional wisdom, however, holds that to guarantee a successful assault,

the attacker-to-defender ratio should be at least 3:1 and preferably

higher, 4:1 or 5:1, in UO. To compensate for the manpower shortfall,

Reed had operational control of four LAVs and four Sheridans for fire

support. He could also count on two AC-130s overhead and AH-6 attack helicopters. Rounding out the TF were two MP platoons (for placing roadblocks around the combat zone), an engineer platoon broken

down into two- to three-man demolition teams, and a PSYOP team.

With this force, Reed planned to isolate and pound the PDF headquarters, after which U.S. troops could enter the compound to clear the

buildings. Because of the SOF-led rescue mission at the carcel modelo

across from the comandancia, TF Gator would begin its attack under

Downing’s operational control but with Reed directing the battle for the

PDF headquarters. The transfer of control from TF Bayonet to the

JSOTF took place on Monday, well before the operation.27

As a result of repositioning his units on the Saturday night

Lieutenant Paz was killed, Reed had both of his mechanized companies

on the canal’s east bank, the same side on which the comandancia was

located. Company D was at Fort Clayton, with Company B a few miles

to the south at Corozal. Shortly before the attack, Reed brought the

LAVs and Sheridans—labeled Team Armor—over to the east bank as

well. Last-minute preparations included hydrating the troops for

combat in a tropical clime, getting intelligence updates (which

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indicated the PDF knew the attack was coming), applying glint tape to

uniforms and equipment, and disseminating passwords. These latter

measures were designed to reduce the risk of friendly fire, an overriding

concern U.S. commanders shared throughout the theater of operations

but especially in the congested area of the comandancia.

The decision to move H-hour ahead by fifteen minutes caused some

adjustments but little disruption to TF Gator’s schedule as it set out toward the target. When Team Armor reached Ancon Hill, it moved out

of formation and took up firing positions on the hillside overlooking the

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B

A

Map 4
compound. Company B settled in briefly next to Quarry Heights and

waited for Company D to move into position around Balboa Avenue.

Once that was done, both companies advanced in M113s toward their

blocking positions. Meanwhile, Company C, 1/508, moved dismounted into the builtup area adjacent to the compound. The entire TF

was now committed to the attack, a fact that concerned Reed deeply. TF

Gator had no combat reserve. If additional forces were needed, they

would have to come from the reserve Colonel Snell controlled at brigade—that is, TF Bayonet—level.

As companies B and D set out, they immediately saw that the PDF

had put its advance knowledge of the invasion to good use. Well before

the two units reached their positions, they encountered roadblocks

covered by intense small-arms and RPG fire, especially from the

builtup area and high-rise apartment building. Reconnaissance by U.S.

Special Forces had discovered a couple of the roadblocks, but another

had gone undetected. The worst roadblock was one that stacked heavy

dump trucks two deep. In trying to negotiate the obstacles, both

columns stalled, with Company B suffering one fatality, a corporal who

was killed while providing suppressive fire against the PDF. Innocent

bystanders also paid a price, as M113s climbing over vehicles in their

way could not always distinguish between empty cars and those with

civilians inside.

As the columns approached the comandancia, the battle became

more heated. The AC-130s and AH-6s pounded the compound, and to

those watching, the 105mm howitzers of the Spectre gunships seemed

to pulverize the main headquarters building. In reality, the damage

inflicted, while extensive, was restricted largely to the top floor, as the

howitzer rounds failed to penetrate the second and first floors before

detonating.28 From Ancon Hill, Team Armor also opened fire, although

some of the vehicles found their line of sight to the comandancia

obscured either by trees on the hill or by the smoke, fire, and debris that

soon engulfed the target. Consequently, the team’s impact on the early

part of the battle was marginal. Once Reed realized this, he moved some

of the M551s off Ancon Hill and gave one each to the two companies

assaulting the PDF complex.29 From their new positions, the Sheridans

were much more effective against the compound’s walls and defenses.

All of the U.S. assault force initially encountered heavy firing from

the compound and the builtup area around it, especially from the

16-story high-rise. Restricted somewhat by ROE designed to limit

civilian casualties, the Americans generally showed remarkable

discipline in returning fire, although on occasion they unleashed

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indiscriminate suppressive fires on the apartment building, assuming

that, after a certain point, the civilians within had taken appropriate

cover.

It took an hour for Company B in the north to secure its positions and

an hour or so longer for Company D in the south. At one point in the

fighting, the PDF shot down an AH-6, which ended up landing inside

the comandancia compound. The pilot and copilot managed to get out

of the craft, hide out, make their way to a segment of the wall, climb

over, and scurry to the American lines, shouting something en route that

sounded more like profanity than the password. They both made it to

safety, narrowly escaping a tailor-made opportunity to become friendly

fire victims. One mechanized platoon, however, was not as fortunate.

As its APCs approached the compound, one of the AC-130s tracking

PDF V-300s changed the target acquisition system on the gunship to

obtain a better image. When the gunner reacquired the target, it was the

wrong one. It was not the V-300s but U.S. M113s. The AC-130 hit all

three of the platoon’s vehicles and wounded 21 of 26 of their occupants.

Reed had a fire support officer located with the JSOTF, and when it

became apparent what was happening, communication with the plane

ended the firing before it inflicted additional damage. Miraculously, no

one in the platoon was killed, but the unit was incapable of further

action. The preinvasion fears of a major friendly fire incident in a

congested urban area had been realized.30

While this was going on, Company C, 1/508, was waiting for word to

enter and clear the comandancia compound. But Reed never issued the

order. In the meantime, heavy sniper fire and grenades rained down on

the company, resulting in three soldiers’ deaths. After that, the unit

pulled back to a safer area.

Shortly before dawn, the shooting had been reduced to sporadic

sniper fire. At 0430, TF Bayonet resumed operational control of TF

Gator from the JSOTF. Remaining was the task of clearing the

buildings. Reed had not issued the order to Company C, 1/508, to start

the procedure because, after talking to Snell, he decided to await the

arrival of a Ranger company from the Torrijos-Tocumen operation to

lead the effort. Reed felt that the Rangers had more expertise and

experience in clearing rooms than did his mechanized troops, despite

their pre-JUST CAUSE UO training. The company arrived around

noon on 20 December. With the support of Apache helicopters Reed

had requested and a platoon of TF Gator troops providing covering fire

from the roof of a nearby gymnasium, the Rangers began clearing the

prison and other facilities in compound A and then moved on to

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buildings in compound B, which included the comandancia itself.

Company C, 1/508, joined in. By late afternoon on the 20th, the area

was secure. TF Gator had lost four soldiers killed in action (KIA) and

had several more wounded. PDF casualties were unknown but were

assumed to be substantial. The fact that few of the PDF fighting at the

comandancia wore uniforms hindered an accurate count.

Leaving a platoon to secure the PDF headquarters and its contents,

TF Gator engaged in several follow-on operations that included helping

Navy SEALs clear Flamenco Island and securing a Panamanian television station near the Ancon DENI. Potentially most challenging would

be securing the San Filipe DENI station without harming one of its occupants, a PDF colonel who was also a U.S. intelligence “asset.” Reed

wondered how he would extract the colonel if a firefight erupted while

the officer was still inside the DENI. His speculation ended, however,

when U.S. units arrived at the DENI to find that all PDF except the colonel had fled.

Looking back on the battle at the comandancia, Reed reached

several conclusions. One confirmed the value of the M113 APC in UO.

Planners had wanted the M113 because of its size and, in case civilians

needed to be evacuated from certain areas, its interior capacity. To these

attributes, Reed added the vehicle’s freewheeling .50-caliber machine

gun that could be trained on the upper stories of high-rise buildings and

used much more readily for suppressive fire than the Bradley’s more

precise 25mm cannon. He also noted that infantry in the M113 could

stand and fire from the troop compartment without obstruction, in

contrast with the Bradley, in which they could only do so when the

turret on top was pointed to the front.

While Reed praised the M113, he was lukewarm regarding the performance of Team Armor’s Sheridans and LAVs from their positions

on Ancon Hill. The noise and debris the Sheridans created did have a

psychological value at the outset of the fighting, he argued, and once the

clearing operations got under way that afternoon, both the Sheridans

and LAVs helped to suppress sniper fire. But neither of the vehicles had

created much physical damage from Ancon Hill during the night assault, although the Sheridans Reed pulled out of position to assign to

companies B and D proved very effective against the compound walls.

As for the AC-130s, he conceded that they were highly accurate and

could bring devastating supporting fires to bear, thus affording a tremendous asset when they hit the right target. That they did so most of

the time at the comandancia was offset by the one serious incident of

friendly fire.

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Other key observations TF Gator put forward dealt with a variety of

issues. Reed believed that U.S. snipers had been too constrained by the

ROE, thus limiting their effectiveness against the PDF snipers who

bedeviled the TF. The fact that few PDF soldiers fought in uniform also

created a dilemma for U.S. troops under strict orders to avoid civilian

casualties. What a legitimate target was and when to shoot at it were not

always clear, although no friendly KIAs could be attributed to any

indecision over when to use deadly force. During the battle, Reed also

realized that his medical station was too far away from the fighting, so

he approved setting up an intermediate one closer to the action. Finally,

TF Gator was not prepared to cope either with the large number of

refugees that appeared at dawn on 20 December or with the widespread

looting that afflicted Panama City soon thereafter.

The battle for the comandancia saw some of the fiercest fighting to

occur during Operation JUST CAUSE. With a 1:1 force-to-force ratio,

TF Gator could not afford to find itself outflanked by PDF

reinforcements. As Reed put it, “I had no ability within my own

resources to fight the deep battle . . . .” That being the case, the Rangers,

the 82d Airborne Brigade, Marines, and Special Forces were to block

any enemy forces coming in from distant locations. That left PDF

personnel in the immediate vicinity of Ancon Hill to worry about. To

make sure that none of these forces interfered in the battle downtown

was the responsibility of TF Wildcat, another task-organized unit

within TF Bayonet.31

Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel William Huff III, TF Wildcat

had at its core infantry companies A, B, and C from the 5th Battalion,

87th Infantry Regiment, 193d Brigade, headquartered at Fort Clayton.

Rounding out the force was Company A from Reed’s mechanized battalion, and a headquarters and headquarters company (HHC) with an

antitank (AT) platoon, a scout platoon, and a mortar platoon assigned to

it. In what was labeled a supporting attack for the comandancia, TF

Wildcat received the mission of isolating and fixing PDF targets in the

Ancon Hill area. Moving clockwise around the hill from its southwest

base in the Balboa section of Panama City, Company B was responsible

for all of Balboa, including the DENI station located along TF Gator’s

route to the comandancia and TF Black Devil’s route into Fort Amador.

Northward, Company C targeted the DNTT building and the Ancon

DENI station, the latter situated at a critical intersection where two

main avenues merged into Gaillard Highway. Company A picked up

the PDF engineer compound mainly because the company commander

lived near the target and knew the terrain. The attached mechanized

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company was to set up five roadblocks at critical intersections to block

any PDF reinforcements that might show up from Tinajitas, Panama

Viejo, and Fort Cimarron. MPs and an infantry platoon were to secure

Gorgas Army Hospital, the Panama Canal Commission, and several

power and communications buildings on Ancon Hill. Before all this,

the TF’s scout and AT platoons were to reconnoiter routes and targets;

once the operation began, they were to serve as Huff’s reserve.

The scouts pulled out the back gate of Fort Clayton about 0030 and

proceeded toward the target area. At that time, there was some shooting

between U.S. MPs and the PDF at Pier 18 in Balboa Harbor, an isolated

incident that “alerted a number of people that something was going on.”

Despite hearing the gunfire, Huff’s reconnaissance element imparted

the appearance of being on a routine exercise. That meant, among other

things, stopping for traffic lights. The scouts wore soft caps and kept

their weapons out of sight, a modicum of deception that, at one red light,

enabled them to avoid a firefight with ten PDF soldiers nearby who,

despite training their AK-47s on the U.S. vehicles, seemed confused as

to what was transpiring. “Again, it could have gone very bad very

quickly,” one officer later remarked, but it did not. The scouts went on

to fulfill their mission, reporting to headquarters the status of the targets

they had reconnoitered.

Soon after the scouts left, the word that H-hour had changed led Snell

to authorize TF Wildcat’s main elements to depart early. Companies B

and C and the one mechanized infantry company at Fort Clayton

departed for their objectives around 0045 while most of Company A

began moving out from nearby Curundu. Some of the units attracted

PDF fire, but only Company B encountered serious resistance before

reaching its objective. As the troops traveled down Gaillard Highway

toward Balboa, they were ambushed by PDF occupying a bus and two

squad cars in the vicinity of Albrook Air Station. In the ensuing

firefight, U.S. security police at Albrook joined in, much to the chagrin

of Company B’s officers who were apprehensive about friendly fire in

the confusing nighttime exchange. The shooting temporarily slowed

the company, but with only three soldiers wounded, it pushed the bus

aside and drove on to its targets. Soon thereafter, higher headquarters

learned that the short battle had resulted in the first American civilian

fatality: a schoolteacher who, in a car with her husband, had been riding

home.32

As Company B closed on Balboa, the mechanized company reached

4th of July Avenue and began setting up three of its five roadblocks, in

the process suffering the only fatality in the TF. Meanwhile, Company

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A, 5/87, infiltrated the area near the engineer compound, and Company

C began to fix its targets. Huff set up his jump tactical operations center

(TOC) in the vicinity of the Panama Canal Administration Building on

Ancon Hill, where with the help of retransmission stations, he enjoyed

good communications with each of his companies. He could also move

the jump TOC to either side of the hill to influence whatever target

required his immediate attention. As it turned out, once TF Wildcat

crossed its line of departure, each of its four targets went “hot.”

Initially, Huff regarded the engineer compound, given its location

and size (estimated at “a couple of football fields”) as the TF’s main

effort. The plan was to fix the compound; block the PDF’s escape

routes; alternate PSYOP with fire demonstrations to induce the

defenders to surrender; and then sweep the fourteen buildings, moving

from northwest to south. Once the operation commenced, hardly any

PDF gave up in response to broadcasts by the PSYOP loudspeaker team

attached to Company A. (The PSYOP results at the compound were so

disappointing that the team was sent to Balboa to assist Company B.)

Later, captured defenders said they were convinced the Americans

would kill them if they surrendered. Furthermore, during the first part

of the fight, their own officers were threatening to shoot them if they

tried to give up. At some point, Company A realized that it was not

fighting engineers but civilian-clad infantry teams and snipers

organized by UESAT and officers from other elite units for the purpose

of defending most of the PDF facilities in TF Wildcat’s area of

operations.

With the help of U.S. snipers and 90mm recoilless rifle fire from the

support platoon on a hill overlooking the compound, Company A began

systematically clearing the buildings around 0400, putting to good use

the concealment offered by the terrain around the compound. The

company commander, in keeping with the unit’s UO training,

employed a leapfrog method in which a platoon would clear a building,

then rest as another platoon cleared the next building. When the

objective was secure shortly after noon, five PDF were dead, about

twice that number wounded, and eighty-five were enemy prisoners of

war (EPWs), many of whom gave up after their officers had fled.

Company A suffered three casualties, two from ricochets and one from

broken glass.

As Company A was carrying out its mission at the engineer compound, Company C was moving against its two principal targets, the

Ancon DENI and the DNTT. The company commander encountered

communications problems between the two sites, primarily because of

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the obstructions houses and natural terrain posed, but once he moved

his jump TOC to another location on Ancon Hill, the problem was resolved. (On a more general level, TF Wildcat discovered that its

PRC-126 radios did not work that well inside or between buildings.)

From intelligence reports, Company C was hopeful that the defenders,

assumed to be policemen, would not fight at either objective. These

hopes, however, were quickly dashed. At both the DNTT and DENI

station, as at the engineer compound, ad hoc commando units formed

around a core of UESAT officers and troops were conducting the defense.

At the DNTT, the hastily mounted defense did not work entirely

against the U.S. force, as several barriers placed to keep American

troops out of the main building actually kept the PDF from escaping.

U.S. troops used bullhorns to encourage the PDF to surrender, but there

was some doubt as to whether the defenders could hear the offer. In any

case, they opened up on the assault force with small-arms fire, and the

battle commenced. At one point in the ensuing fight, an AC-130

became available, and TF Wildcat asked for fire support at the DNTT.

The request was canceled, however, when one of two marking rounds

from the plane exploded dangerously close to Company C’s 3d Platoon.

The attackers next called for fire support from the TF’s 81mm mortars

placed in an athletic field on Albrook Air Station, but when a mortar

base plate settled, causing a round to land behind friendly forces, that

request, too, was canceled. The next step was to fire the company’s

60mm mortars in a direct-fire mode, a decision that produced “good

results,” as did raking the building with .50-caliber machine gun fire

from a newly arrived M113. Once in the DNTT building, elements of

Company C engaged in room-clearing operations, with some PDF

defenders, especially the snipers, not giving up until U.S. troops were

right outside the door or, in one case, until a 90mm round had been fired

into their position.

As in the case of the engineer compound, UO training paid off at the

DNTT. But training cannot replicate all aspects of combat, especially

the psychological impact. After the battles, Huff made reference to the

movie, “Aliens,” a 1980s’ science-fiction thriller, in recounting the sensory experience his troops shared once they entered what one of his officers described as the “catacombs” of the building. The power had

been cut and the lights were out. With flashlights, the soldiers could see

steam escaping from pipes, and they could hear its hissing, an eerie

sound in the near dark. This was punctuated by the noise of materials

crashing to the floor in the combat-damaged building. As the soldiers

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moved from hallway to hallway, their flashlights cast bizarre shadows.

The cumulative effect of all this was a dark and surreal ambience, one

that elevated the troops’ fears and slowed them down. Still, they got the

job done, pushing their flashlights into a corner, a hallway, a room to

see if the light would draw fire. If it did, they lobbed grenades at the

source. Working from the ground up—not the top down, as called for in

doctrine—the men cleared the building.

At the company’s other objective, the Ancon DENI station, resistance was heavy, more so than at any other TF Wildcat objective, so the

company commander ordered the building riddled by a .50-caliber machine gun. Then, with his troops set to enter the structure, he ordered a

90mm round fired through the door. In this case, the proximity of a

housing area to the station precluded the use of mortars. As with the

DNTT, the station had to be cleared room by room. In that operation,

U.S. snipers proved very effective against several PDF soldiers who,

having fled into a business area across the street, were firing on the

Americans trying to secure the DENI. Of seven PDF the snipers engaged, all were killed.

As elements of TF Wildcat were seizing the DNTT, engineer compound, and Ancon DENI, two platoons from Company B secured Balboa, while a third platoon began neutralizing the DENI station there.

Many PDF soldiers escaped into an adjacent residential area, while

those who remained in the station ignored appeals to surrender. Subsequently, the U.S. troops who had the building surrounded demonstrated

their substantial firepower. That included the platoon’s 90mm recoilless rifle, one round from which became lodged under the building’s

roof and started a fire. The platoon had not intended to burn the station

to the ground, yet in the midst of the H-hour battles, their requests for a

firetruck went unanswered. Huff later remarked sardonically that the

fire was “very unfortunate.”

Once its four principal H-hour targets were secure, TF Wildcat still

had to deal with snipers, refugees, looters, and prisoners. The TF also

began follow-on operations, many of which took it into housing areas

around Ancon Hill. The sweeps sought to ferret out PDF troops trying

to evade capture, a task that under intense UO conditions could be

fraught with danger. Most of the remaining PDF, however, knew that it

was futile to resist. As U.S. troops combed the houses, Panamanian

males of military age had to prove that they were not in the PDF. If they

could not, they were taken to the EPW compound at Albrook Air

Station for questioning. The sweeps also uncovered weapon caches and

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PDF documents. Going into Friday, 22 December, TF Wildcat had

suffered only one KIA.

As with TF Gator, TF Wildcat later submitted a list of lessons

learned. One item praised the 90mm recoilless rifle and its impact on

the battle. Each platoon had a 90mm, and according to Huff, the weapon

was loud, better than AT-4s and light antitank weapons (LAWs) for

subjecting the enemy to psychological stress in a confined UO environment governed by restrictive ROE. Like TF Gator, however, TF Wildcat was skeptical of the AC-130’s utility over a congested urban target.

In another lesson, units at several sites commented that they needed to

“eliminate” street lights during the fighting. Also noted were the excessive manpower demands that looking after a significant number of

EPWs placed on the TF—a lesson that caused Huff to recommend developing methods for removing prisoners from the battlefield more expeditiously.

Huff’s subordinates also pointed out that they did not have the

personnel necessary to handle all the PDF documentation they captured

or to process information contained therein. “We could have used about

1,000 S-2s right at that moment,” Huff said with slight exaggeration,

“just to cover our battalion.” Another officer observed that each

company in TF Wildcat could have used an intelligence team, and that

information the battalion sent up the chain often took days to come back

as usable intelligence. Also noted were the problems that last-minute

changes in communications frequencies caused. Finally, Huff

observed that, in urban combat, glass, shards, and fragments made

gloves as well as elbow pads and kneepads essential.

In conjunction with TF Wildcat, TF Black Devil, the third TF under

Snell’s TF Bayonet, also had the mission of neutralizing a PDF target

near the comandancia, in this case the 5th Infantry Company at Fort

Amador.33 Lieutenant Colonel Billy Ray Fitzgerald commanded TF

Black Devil, the core of which consisted of the HHC and airborne

infantry Companies A and B, 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry Regiment

(Airborne), located at Fort Kobbe. Rounding out the TF were MPs and,

from the mechanized battalion, a platoon of scouts with ten vehicles. In

preparing for its mission, the 1/508 employed terrain models and UO

simulations that converted the barracks at Fort Kobbe into training

sites. It also conducted actual air assault exercises onto Amador as part

of the program to assert U.S. treaty rights. When the time came to

execute its BLUE SPOON mission, the principal complicating factor

for TF Black Devil was the presence at Fort Amador of a housing area

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for U.S. military dependents directly across an athletic field from the

5th Company barracks.

On the night of 19 December, Fitzgerald began infiltrating his HHC,

scout and AT platoons, and mortars onto Amador. They were in

position by 2200, three hours before H-hour. Around 0015, following

television announcements that indicated U.S. military action was

imminent, movement within the PDF barracks was detected. Around

0030, at the time the shooting at Pier 18 began, the 5th Company’s

activity increased. Fitzgerald, who was on the scene, spotted a PDF bus

that appeared to be getting ready to leave the fort. Consequently, he

asked and received permission right before H-hour to close the front

gate at Amador. As the troops sent to do so arrived at the gate, they saw

the bus approaching at high speed, with PDF soldiers hanging out the

windows firing at them. Having rehearsed just such a scenario, the U.S.

troops returned fire, causing the bus to swerve and hit a tree. As the

firefight continued, a Toyota Corolla appeared, with its PDF occupants

also trying to escape by shooting their way out the gate. In this, they

fared no better than their comrades on the bus.

As elements of TF Black Devil started to close the causeway at the

other end of the fort, members of the mortar platoon began knocking on

the back doors of the American-occupied houses, informing the

occupants of pending hostilities and offering to take them out, if they

insisted. The better course of action, the occupants were told, was to

take cover.34 Meanwhile, to retain some element of surprise, Fitzgerald

requested that the air assault be launched early. JTF South, however,

concerned about “deconflicting” the airspace over the southeastern part

of the city, denied the request. By that time, the battle at the

comandancia had started, with what Fitzgerald described as an

incredible number of rounds from that nearby fight landing on or near

Fort Amador.

At 0100, the first elements of the air assault began to arrive, with

Cobra attack helicopters covering the troop-carrying Black Hawks.

Once the first lift discharged the soldiers aboard, the second lift came

in, just as a PDF soldier hit an OH-58 Kiowa with small-arms fire. The

chopper crashed, killing the crew of two, the only KIAs in TF Black

Devil. As the assault force assembled, the PSYOP broadcasts began.

Fitzgerald allowed them to go on for over an hour because of rumors

that the 5th Company was about to surrender. When it became clear that

the PDF officers were only stalling, the attack began. At the outset, the

troops fired M60 and .50-caliber machine guns, AT-4s, and 90mm

recoilless rifle rounds at the PDF mess hall. The firing then extended to

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other buildings. When the PDF refused to surrender, Fitzgerald waited

until dawn and then ordered the barracks cleared. The process was slow

and methodical, with no U.S. casualties initially. Just as the troops were

becoming comfortable, however, perhaps to the point of letting their

guard down, the PDF in one building opened fire with RPGs, machine

guns, and sniper rounds. By 1800, the barracks were secured after a

battle that was later remembered for the use by U.S. troops of a 105mm

howitzer in a direct-fire mode. More important to TF Black Devil was

the fact that it had incurred no casualties on the ground and had inflicted

no unnecessary damage.

All the H-hour battles in Panama City encountered the fog and

friction of combat, yet all turned out pretty much the way the planners

and commanders had anticipated. The PDF put up heavier resistance

than expected in some locations, but in no single battle, except the

shootout at Paitilla airfield, did enemy forces inflict anywhere near an

unacceptable toll upon U.S. troops. The live-fire exercises, the training

events, the rehearsals, and the other forms of preparation had all paid

off, a point made in virtually every after-action report. Casualties for

the attacking force are supposed to be high in UO, but U.S. discipline,

training, and firepower, in conjunction with an inadequately trained

and generally poorly led enemy, negated most of the inherent

advantages the defending force should have enjoyed. Ammunition

expenditures in UO are also supposed to be high, and in some of the

H-hour battles in Panama City this proved to be true. But given the short

duration of the fighting, resupply was not a problem. By the evening of

20 December, all the H-hour objectives in Panama City had been taken.

The outcome had never really been in doubt.

There were, of course, unexpected developments en route to the

victory. For U.S. forces in the southeastern part of the city, one surprise

was having to deal with large numbers of civilians during and after the

H-hour battles. The planners knew that people concentrated in a major

urban area could create a variety of problems during a military

operation. Innocent bystanders could become hostages or, worse,

casualties. As anticipated, the PDF did take hostages, at Torrijos

International Airport and later at the Marriott Hotel in downtown

Panama City. There were other isolated cases as well. Yet, the worst

fears of several U.S. planners—a wholesale roundup of Americans

living in Panama—were not realized. Nor did Noriega’s supporters

attempt to capture key U.S. military and civilian personnel whose

names appeared on a PDF “hit list.”

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Ironically, the first fatality in an operation designed to protect U.S.

citizens in Panama was the American schoolteacher riding with her

husband. Another American civilian to die violently during JUST

CAUSE was a computer science teacher whom four PDF members

kidnapped two hours after the fighting began. He was shot in the back of

the head, execution style. A third U.S. citizen, a young college student

returning home from a late party, was killed when, possibly intoxicated,

he drove through one of TF Wildcat’s roadblocks.

Most civilian fatalities were Panamanian, an estimated 200 to 300.

Some were killed by the PDF, others inadvertently by U.S. troops.

More civilians almost certainly would have been killed or wounded had

it not been for the discipline of the American forces and their strict

ROE. In the end, the number of Panamanian dead was large enough to

stimulate debate over the need for an invasion to remove Noriega but

not large enough to generate a sense of outrage in Panama or abroad, or

to turn the Panamanian people against the U.S. intervention or the

nation-building program that followed it.35

Where the planners sorely underestimated a civilian problem was

with respect to refugees.36 People would be displaced by the fighting in

Panama City; that was to be expected. But it was also assumed that the

number of refugees would be manageable: the pinpoint accuracy of

U.S. weapons would minimize “collateral damage,” as would the

anticipated short duration of the planned attacks. This was not an

unreasonable assumption, but it did not foresee an entire neighborhood

going up in flames, which is exactly what happened to the barrio of el

chorrillo located next to the comandancia. Whether set off by stray

rounds from the fighting or ignited deliberately by the PDF in

retaliation for the neighborhood’s well-known anti-Noriega sentiment,

a fire engulfed the entire area before dawn on 20 December. Soon, both

TF Gator and TF Wildcat found thousands of homeless and frightened

Panamanians—not the much smaller number that was predicted—

crossing into their lines even as combat operations were still in

progress. As Huff recalled his reaction, “I could not believe it!” Reed

shared this amazement.

To remove the civilians from harm’s way and that of the engaged

U.S. troops, both commanders had refugees directed to nearby Balboa

High School, the site of TF Gator’s main medical station and its

logistical/administrative center. Consequently, the school had to be

converted into a refugee center immediately, an improvised process

that overtaxed the few U.S. officers and troops located there. By the end

of the day, thousands of Panamanians had situated themselves inside

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the building or outside on the athletic field. At its peak, the number of

refugees at the school was estimated at 10,000.

Quickly, toilets backed up. Food, sanitation, and hygiene became

serious concerns. So did the mix of people: families with children,

young toughs, criminals, even PDF soldiers all mingled together. Some

inside the camp had weapons; some had drugs. Once adequate rations

and water arrived to feed the refugees, the biggest need became diapers

and baby formula. Fortunately, during this chaotic period, the PDF did

not try to disrupt the activities of the refugee center by firing on it or by

attempting to subvert its efforts. Either course would have adversely

affected U.S. credibility and the well-being of the refugees.

Initially lacking the number of military personnel needed to secure

and run the camp, U.S. officers at the school decided to get the occupants themselves involved in those tasks. Committees were set up, each

with a function and responsibility. Within days, the makeshift center

was running more smoothly. Security had been beefed up, portable toilets brought in, many undesirables had been removed, and some of the

refugees had been able to return home or relocate to better accommodations. As combat operations subsided, screening procedures sought to

retain in camp only those refugees who had lost their homes. The others

were fed, treated medically if necessary, and released to return to their

residences. Despite these efforts, however, numerous Panamanians remained homeless after the invasion, the source of a scandal a year later

when many of them were still living in a “tin city” set up at Albrook Air

Station.

Looting posed another problem that planners had anticipated but not

on the scale that actually occurred. The temporary breakdown of law

and order triggered by the invasion and the subsequent destruction of

the PDF offered temptations in urban areas that many Panamanians,

particularly from poorer neighborhoods, could not resist. Not long after

JUST CAUSE began, looting in Panama City and in Colón on the Atlantic side had become endemic, and U.S. troops were initially spread

too thin to deal with the lawlessness. Once enough troops became available to deal with the problem, they restored order through the use of

minimum force: threats, apprehensions, flex-cuffs, and firing into the

air. Still, the spectacle of mobs running loose in downtown Panama

City had, as with the plight of the refugees, created a public relations

nightmare for SOUTHCOM and the Pentagon.

These episodes should not suggest that all encounters between U.S.

forces and the population of Panama City during JUST CAUSE were

negative or counterproductive. As polls would later show, most Pana356
manians supported the U.S. intervention. After Noriega sought safety

within the papal nunciature in Panama City, angry crowds gathered

outside to demonstrate. U.S. officers trying to negotiate the deposed

dictator’s surrender used the demonstrations to increase the pressure on

him. If he did not give up, Noriega was told, the crowds might get out of

control and storm the premises. His safety—his life—could not be

guaranteed. Negotiators invoked the example of Benito Mussolini, the

deposed Italian dictator lynched by a mob during World War II.

Noriega got the point and soon thereafter turned himself over to U.S.

drug enforcement agents.

Demonstrations against Noriega were only one means by which the

many Panamanians supporting the invasion sought to assist in putting

an end to the dictatorship. Within hours after hostilities began, people

accosted American troops and flooded official phone lines, offering a

variety of helpful information: the whereabouts of PDF soldiers trying

to evade capture, the location of arms caches, the best way to win the

war. Much of the information these Panamanians had to offer was

valuable, and some of it was put to good use. But much of it was

ignored: SOUTHCOM, JTF South, USARSO, and other headquarters

did not have the organization, procedures, or personnel at hand to deal

with this kind of fortuitous windfall.

Nor were there personnel and procedures in place to implement a

“guns for money” program once the fighting subsided. Weapons could

be picked up readily in some places of the city, and arms caches were

rumored to be numerous. In the transition to a new government and with

civilians appearing in the streets once the combat had subsided,

removing small arms from the populace assumed a high priority. One

way to achieve that goal was to pay Panamanians to turn in their

firearms and other weapons. Several U.S. units designated to carry out

the transaction, unfortunately, did not learn of the program until after it

had started, thus making life precarious for any well-intentioned citizen

approaching an American checkpoint with a weapon to sell. Another

difficulty early on was that the money was not available to pay out,

which led to the issuance of IOUs that unscrupulous elements could

easily duplicate. After some glitches, administering the program

became much smoother, with PYSOP officers providing leaflets from

which the populace could learn the procedures for turning in weapons.

But as in most programs of this sort, a very small percentage of the guns

in Panama City actually were removed from the streets.

For some soldiers in Panama City, the biggest postcombat

adjustment came when they learned that a new organization, essentially

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a police force, would replace the defunct PDF and that recruiting for

that force would begin on Friday, 22 December, just two days into the

invasion. To establish the new organization as quickly as possible, its

cadre would consist of PDF members who had been vetted to eliminate

those with records of flagrant abuses and misdeeds. With combat

operations still winding down, this decision, together with a plan to

begin U.S.-led patrols with the police force as soon as possible, did not

sit well with many American soldiers.

The initial recruitment took place in the parking lot of the DNTT

building, and it was here that the last significant armed resistance to

U.S. forces in JUST CAUSE took place.37 By late Friday morning, control of the DNTT was in the hands of a platoon from TF Wildcat’s Company C. In the parking lot, about 100 Panamanians, many of whom had

just shed their PDF uniforms, had shown up to be screened for the new

police force. Shortly after the process began, a group of 20 to 30 PDF

“rebels” in a warehouse next to the DNTT opened fire on the crowd

with small arms. The U.S. platoon responded with what firepower it

had, which was minimal. At almost the same time that the shooting began, a motorcade with one of Panama’s new vice presidents came

speeding down the road, the target of an ambush attempt along its route.

The U.S. troops at the DNTT almost fired on the vice president who,

once identified, was whisked to safety inside the building.

An hour into the firefight, rounds from 40mm grenades launched

from Ancon Hill landed in the parking lot. By then, wounded

Panamanians were being evacuated to nearby Gorgas Hospital, and

Company C’s commander was maneuvering his other two platoons to

deal with the hostile forces. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Huff got

the battalion AT platoon and AT sections from A and B companies to

form another assault force. Once in position, these units opened up on

the warehouse with LAWs, 90mm recoilless rifles, and the only two

TOWs fired during JUST CAUSE. Using high-explosive rounds had

the desired effect. A fire started in the warehouse, and the shooting

stopped. Several PDF bodies were later found on a slope running down

from the warehouse. In assessing the episode, some U.S. analysts

suggested that the recalcitrant PDF had used the area’s storm drains to

enter the warehouse undetected. Whatever the case, the defeat of this

“counterattack” on 22 December essentially ended the combat phase of

JUST CAUSE. Drive-by shootings and sniping would continue, but as

of Friday evening, the war in Panama City, and the country, was over.

Once the screening process at the DNTT produced the desired number of recruits, the newly installed government of Panama quickly

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stood up the new police force. The need to restore order and to acquaint

the population with its new constabulary dictated “joint” patrols in Panama City. That meant that former PDF members, now clad in hastily

procured police uniforms and sporting .38-caliber revolvers, took to the

streets accompanied by U.S. MPs or soldiers. Some U.S. infantrymen

who drew this assignment objected strenuously: they considered the

duty to be police work, not soldiering, and the patrols forced them to cooperate with men who just days before could have been trying to kill

them. Huff, for one, had sought to prepare his men for this eventuality.

The in-country U.S. forces, which included his battalion, were going to

have to live in a post-JUST CAUSE Panama for some years to come.

That meant, Huff told TF Wildcat shortly before it went into combat,

that once the fighting was over, “We’re going to have to pat these guys

[the PDF] on the back and say, ‘All is forgiven.’” Undoubtedly some in

his audience did not take this message to heart, but many others understood the reality he addressed. The troops stationed in Panama knew the

country, had friends among the Panamanian people, and held out some

hope for the country’s future. One can only speculate, however, how

the requirement for “joint” patrols was received by soldiers who had deployed from the United States, who regarded all PDF members as the

enemy, and who, upon redeployment, would evince little concern for

what happened in Panama.38

Caring for refugees, cracking down on looting, collecting weapons,

and establishing the new police force—U.S. planners had raised these

and other issues while discussing the stability operations an invasion of

Panama would necessitate. That U.S. combat units performing these

activities were often not prepared or trained to do so was to some degree

the result of what many considered to be the most conspicuous lapse in

the planning process: the failure to coordinate adequately the combat

operations called for in BLUE SPOON with the civil-military

operations (CMO) contained in an OPORD code-named BLIND

LOGIC.

In part, the failure to coordinate derived from the division of labor

among the planners. XVIII Airborne Corps was solely responsible for

drafting the JTF South version of BLUE SPOON, while

SOUTHCOM’s J5 shop was responsible for BLIND LOGIC. The two

staffs had some contact but no meaningful coordination. This, in turn,

was partly the result of how the relationship between the two OPORDs

had been conceptualized. From the outset of the planning process in

1988, the CMO OPORD had been labeled “postcombat” despite

historical evidence that CMO issues are likely to arise while combat

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operations are still in progress, not just afterward. Consequently, the

need to synchronize the two OPORDs never received the priority it

deserved. When the issue of coordination was finally placed on the

planners’ agenda for mid-December, it was too late.

There were also problems with BLIND LOGIC itself. Its basic

concept was sound: the United States would have to address CMO

issues in three phases. The first stage would focus on immediate,

life-threatening conditions concerning public safety, public health and

sanitation, and population control. The second stage would concentrate

on restoring essential services and transferring responsibility for

rebuilding Panama from the U.S. military to the American Embassy’s

country team and to Panamanian institutions. The last phase would

involve the United States working with a Panamanian government to

ensure a stable, democratic Panama.

Execution of this concept, however, was based on a number of

assumptions, two of which were outdated by December 1989. The first

was that a U.S. military government, with CINCSO as the military

governor, would run Panama for at least 30 days following BLUE

SPOON operations. That assumption fell by the wayside when a slate

of candidates opposing Noriega clearly won the May 1989 presidential

election in Panama, prompting the dictator to annul the results. By the

time of JUST CAUSE, the Bush administration had decided to install

these three men—the truly elected president and two vice

presidents—as the new government in Panama. Thus, there would be

no need for a U.S. military governor. The second outdated assumption

was that the U.S. president would call up 200,000 reservists to

participate in the CMO follow-up to BLUE SPOON. By December, it

was clear that President Bush had no intention of doing this. Early that

month, the SOUTHCOM J5 sent BLIND LOGIC to USARSO at Fort

Clayton for review, only to be informed that the OPORD needed

extensive changes. Last-minute efforts to revise BLIND LOGIC

collapsed for want of time. Once JUST CAUSE began, SOUTHCOM

forwarded a much-shortened version of the CMO plan to the JCS, who

approved execution of what senior Pentagon officials renamed

PROMOTE LIBERTY. In conducting CMO under the new OPORD,

annexes from BLIND LOGIC proved very helpful.

The belated review and rewriting of BLIND LOGIC, when

combined with the lack of coordination with BLUE SPOON, had

several ramifications. One has already been addressed: U.S. combat

units, principally from outside the country but not entirely so,

participated in CMO, humanitarian assistance, and police activities in

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Panama City for which, as “warriors,” they lacked adequate training.

Nor were they psychologically prepared to adjust within hours to the

much more restrictive ROE that these activities demanded. Another

consequence was the belated deployment of CMO volunteers. By the

time the volunteers arrived, they found their participation superfluous

or behind schedule. (On the Atlantic side, by the time two civil affairs

officers showed up in Colón, a battalion commander from the 7th

Infantry Division [Light] had the administration of the city so well in

hand that he essentially relegated the two men to clerical work.) The

last-minute attention to BLIND LOGIC/PROMOTE LIBERTY also

created organizational difficulties. As the U.S. Army’s 96th Civil

Affairs Battalion and volunteer reservists arrived in Panama, no fewer

than five organizations became engaged in CMO. Procedures hastily

drawn up to facilitate coordination among the groups were never able to

eliminate the duplication of effort, the insufficient sharing of

information, and the plague of having some important matters just “fall

through the cracks.”

The confusion surrounding the initial stages of PROMOTE

LIBERTY was most apparent in and around Panama City. That is

where the greatest number of the CMO activities took place, where the

various CMO-related organizations were headquartered, where the

new Panamanian government was seated, and where the U.S. and international news media were concentrated. It was also where General

James Lindsay, commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command

(USSOCOM), MacDill AFB, Florida, sent a staff officer to find a way

to rationalize the stability operations and nation-building efforts. Preoccupied with JUST CAUSE, General Thurman welcomed Lindsay’s

assistance, which resulted in USSOCOM putting forward two options,

both of which involved an umbrella organization that would handle the

midterm and long-range CMO. The first option harked back to the Vietnam war and a nation-building organization with the unwieldy title,

Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS).

CORDS had employed both civilian and military personnel, with many

of each serving in supervisory positions. The second option was based

on the Special Action Forces (SAF) of the 1960s, a strictly military organization that had been disbanded after Vietnam. Lindsay, an advocate of reviving the SAF, favored this approach in Panama, and

Thurman agreed.39 In January, USARSO began setting up the military

support group (MSG) at Fort Amador. While the new American ambassador to Panama was officially responsible for U.S. nation-building

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there, the military-staffed MSG provided him the organizational mechanism for implementing the program.

By the time the MSG was actually functioning, most of the JUST

CAUSE combat units that had deployed from outside Panama had returned to their home bases. That left Major General Marc Cisneros,

commander, JTF Panama, in charge of the MSG. As the midterm and

long-term stability operations got under way, Cisneros iterated one

overriding assumption: the “honeymoon” period during which the U.S.

military could be visibly involved in nation-building would be

short-lived. After a certain point, Panamanians would begin complaining about the inevitable imperfections of any program; if the United

States was still overtly engaged in nation-building, the criticism would

fall on Washington and U.S. forces in Panama. The rule of thumb,

therefore, was to transfer responsibility on a variety of matters to the

new Panamanian government and police force as soon as it was practicable to do so. Following this guidance, Colonel James Steele, who ran

the MSG for Cisneros, enjoyed significant success. In January 1991,

when PROMOTE LIBERTY came to a formal end, the MSG was disbanded.

The U.S. government hailed Operation JUST CAUSE as an unqualified military victory even before its official termination in January

1990. The United States had ousted a tyrannical dictator, destroyed the

military/police organization that supported him, provided security for

Americans living in Panama, and offered a new chance for the Panamanian people to live in a democratic society. JUST CAUSE had also

demonstrated force projection, the ability to have U.S. forces strike virtually anywhere in the world. It was this theme that the Army would

take with it into the post-Cold War 1990s.

Only toward the end of that decade did the Pentagon turn to another

theme, also present in JUST CAUSE but except for the after-action reports and a few articles, largely ignored: urban operations. Army doctrine at the time called for bypassing urban areas in any conventional

war. But events in the Balkans, the Russian battles in Grozny, America’s own experience in Mogadishu and Port-au-Prince, demographic

projections, and threat assessments concerning future conflicts all indicated that the U.S. military might find itself operating more and more

on urban terrain. This prediction led to a new focus on UO that, in turn,

led to a search for relevant case studies. There were several from which

to choose, including JUST CAUSE.

On a UO spectrum running from total war to peace and stability operations, JUST CAUSE would fall somewhere in the middle. It featured

362
urban combat, but, when compared with Stalingrad, Grozny, or Manila,

it was combat of a limited nature. The worst of the fighting was over in a

matter of hours, not days or weeks, and the cities involved (mainly Panama City and Colün) were left well intact with little damage to their infrastructure and basic services. Most of all, the high casualties and use

of resources usually associated with all-out urban warfare did not occur. The United States suffered 23 military personnel killed and 324

wounded; estimates of Panamanian casualties are placed around 600

dead, military and civilian, and several hundred wounded.

The reasons for the limited nature of UO in JUST CAUSE include

the nearly two years SOUTHCOM and others had to plan the operation,

the extensive MOUT training that U.S. units participated in shortly

before they executed the plan, and the skillful use of America’s

advantage in firepower combined with strict control over fire support

weapons. Most of all, however, the overwhelming success of JUST

CAUSE must be attributed to the fact that the PDF did not put up serious

or sustained resistance. Most fled their posts as the invasion got under

way, leaving some junior officers or hastily formed commando-type

units to fight U.S. troops. In places, the resistance was stiff but still

overcome in a matter of hours. Had the PDF been a more formidable

force, the outcome of JUST CAUSE would have been the same—an

American victory—but the cost of the invasion in both lives and

property would have been tremendously higher.

The greatest flaw in planning UO in Panama was the failure to

coordinate combat with stability operations, the latter of which would

take place primarily in the country’s two largest cities, Panama City and

Colón. Thurman, once he became CINCSO, gave little thought to the

BLIND LOGIC OPORD, while Stiner at Fort Bragg had been directed

to work only on BLUE SPOON. Attempts in December 1989 to revise

BLIND LOGIC and link it with the planning for BLUE SPOON came

too late to accomplish either goal. When PROMOTE LIBERTY began

on 20 December, the effort lacked synchronization and focus, in part

because key assumptions underpinning the original plan—for example,

a reservist callup—were no longer valid. Furthermore, the lack of

coordination meant that U.S. combat troops were unprepared for much

of the chaos they encountered aside from battle (the variety and

magnitude of civilian activities, for example) and the numerous

stability operations they were called on to perform during the first days

of JUST CAUSE. Several of the “disconnects” during this period,

especially as they affected the refugee issue, proved a source of some

363
friction between the U.S. military and the new Panamanian government

in the year after JUST CAUSE.

U.S. military operations in Panama City during JUST CAUSE and

PROMOTE LIBERTY provide a case study for UO that involves combat and stability operations in an urban environment in which most of

the population is regarded as friendly and every effort is made to limit

damage to the city and its inhabitants. The fact that the United States already had forces stationed in Panama should not detract from the value

of the case study. Something analogous could have developed or could

still develop in places where U.S. troops occupy urban areas for any

length of time. That being the case, JUST CAUSE stands as an instructive example of UO somewhere in the middle of a spectrum that includes Stalingrad and similar cases at one extreme and Port-au-Prince

and similar cases at the other.

364
Notes

1. One could argue that the first significant UO experience for the U.S.

military after Vietnam was that of the Marines in Beirut from 1982-84, but, in

fact, the Marine positions were located on the outskirts of the city, near the

international airport, not in the city itself.

2. For background and details of the crisis in Panama, see Kevin

Buckley, Panama: The Whole Story (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1991); and

Frederick Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator: America’s Bungled Affair with

Noriega (NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1990).

3. SOUTHCOM headquarters was located in what had been the old

Canal Zone and in what was still U.S. territory until 2000. At the beginning of

that year, according to treaties signed in the late 1970s, the Panama Canal and

U.S. property surrounding it would have been turned over to the government

of Panama. By 1989, some U.S. territory had already been transferred to the

Panamanian government, and SOUTHCOM was exploring ways to vacate the

country before the 2000 deadline.

4. Woerner sought authorization to write the contingency plans from

the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), Admiral William Crowe. Crowe

granted Woerner’s request in late February. Message, CJCS to USCINCSO,

28 February 1989. To date, the best overview of the planning process for the

crisis in Panama can be found in Ronald H. Cole, Operation Just Cause:

Panama (Washington, DC: Joint History Office, Office of the Chairman, Joint

Chiefs of Staff, 1995). The most thorough account of the planning for CMO is

John T. Fishel, The Fog of Peace (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies

Institute, 1992).

The initial OPORD the SOUTHCOM J3 staff produced was code-named

ELABORATE MAZE and, once fleshed out, contained five phases for

operations in Panama. The first three phases entailed defensive operations; the

fourth phase, combat; and the fifth phase, CMO. The plan was soon broken

down into a separate OPORD for each broad category: defensive, offensive,

and CMO. Together with an evacuation plan, the revised OPORDs were

collectively code-named the PRAYER BOOK. (The plans, it should be noted,

were deliberately drafted as OPORDs, not operation plans, in part because of

the possibility they might have to be executed soon after being completed.)

5. USCINCSO OPORD 1-90 (BLUE SPOON), 30 October 1989. A

sanitized copy of this OPORD has been declassified. The final version of

BLUE SPOON covered the contingency in which hostilities would begin with

“no notice” and would require the in-country forces to conduct the battle until

deploying units could arrive. It also covered the contingency in which the

United States would initiate hostilities and thus have time to prepare. Since the

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latter scenario is what actually occurred, it is what will be emphasized in this

chapter.

6. The “bull’s-eye” metaphor is from Captain Joseph M. Nemmers et

al., United States Army South Staff Ride: Operation JUST CAUSE, 20

December 1989-31 January 1990, updated reprint (Fort Clayton, Panama:

Historical Office, Headquarters, USARSO, 1998), 10.

7. The city was burned to the ground by privateer Henry Morgan in

1671 and rebuilt slightly west of its original site.

8. Nemmers et al., USARSO Staff Ride, 9.

9. There were two major buildups of U.S. forces in Panama during the

crisis. The first came with the security enhancement augmentation of 1988 and

included MP units, TF Hawk, and one Marine company. The second

augmentation occurred as a result of the violence surrounding the Panamanian

elections in early May 1989, elections that Noriega’s opponents clearly won,

but which the dictator nullified. This troop buildup, Operation NIMROD

DANCER, included the mechanized battalion; a brigade headquarters and a

battalion from the 7th Infantry Division (Light); and a second company of

Marines, the one with the LAVs.

10. The first CINCSO ELABORATE MAZE OPORD gave virtually all

offensive missions to SOF, most of whom would deploy from the United

States. These elements would be commanded by a JSOTF, located during the

planning phases at Fort Bragg, and answering directly to CINCSO. Woerner

also activated another organization, JTF Panama, commanded by his Army

component commander and headquartered at Fort Clayton to manage the

crisis day to day and to draft supporting plans for conventional operations.

Initially, as indicated, most of these operations were defensive.

11. Cole, Just Cause, 17, 22-23. For a variety of reasons, the Joint Staff in

late 1988 had named the XVIII Airborne Corps as the executive agency for

planning BLUE SPOON. The formal handoff of that responsibility, however,

JTF Panama did not occur until early 1989.

As for command and control arrangements, the JSOTF under Woerner’s

concept of BLUE SPOON reported directly to CINCSO, an arrangement that

Thurman believed violated the principle of unity of command. His solution of

placing the JSOTF under Stiner’s operational control risked angering SOF

commanders who were always concerned that a conventional commander

would misuse their assets. But Stiner’s extensive background in special

operations mitigated, if not negated, this concern.

12. Oral history interview, XVIII Airborne Corps staff officer, 20

December 1989, Fort Clayton, Panama, interviewed by the author.

13. USCINCSO OPORD 1-90 (BLUE SPOON), 30 October 1989; JTF

South OPORD 90-2 (BLUE SPOON), 3 November 1989.

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14. The four Sheridans and six Apaches were deployed secretly to

Panama in November.

15. According to journalist Bob Woodward, Thurman’s activation of

JTF South during the bomb scare caused some consternation in Washington,

as expressed to the CINC by the president’s national security adviser, Gen.

Colin Powell. In Powell’s view, Thurman did not have the authority to activate

JTF South on his own since it involved the XVIII Airborne Corps, a

headquarters over which CINCSO had no control until BLUE SPOON was

executed. Still, once Thurman had set up JTF South, Powell saw no reason to

deactivate it until the bomb scare was over. The Commanders (NY: Simon &

Schuster, 1991), 142-44.

16. Operations security dictated that most of the troops involved in the

various U.S. military exercises in Panama not know that they were rehearsing

a contingency plan. Those who did know were generally officers who had a

“need to know” and the requisite top secret security clearance. For the critical

attack on the comandancia, TF Gator officers down to platoon leaders were

aware of the plan. For most other targets, the inner circle excluded officers

below battalion or company commanders and staffs.

17. Oral history interview, Maj. Gen. Marc Cisneros, 1990, Fort Clayton,

Panama, interviewed by the author.

18. Preparations for MOUT in what would become Operation JUST

CAUSE are discussed in various oral history interviews, including Col.

Michael G. Snell, 1 January 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama; Lt. Col. James W.

Reed, 6 January 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama, interviewed by Maj. Robert K.

Wright; Ibid., 29 January 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama, interviewed by the

author; and Lt. Col. William Huff III, 29 January 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama,

interviewed by the author. In an e-mail to the author, Huff, commander, 5th

Battalion, 87th Regiment, 193d Infantry Brigade, noted: “We took the guys

over to the old coast artillery positions on the Atlantic side and used them for

the fundamental of room and building clearing from the leaders on down. . . .

The detailed mechanics of getting inside a room without killing yourself, but

insuring all the enemy was neutralized is pretty standard stuff today, but a few

years ago it wasn’t as well known outside the CT/SWAT community. Hints

like ‘make sure the grenade goes off before you enter the room. . .’ became

important later on.” E-mail, Huff to author, 6 February 2002.

19. Woodward, Commanders, 167-73.

20. The operation at Balboa Harbor is discussed in U.S. Special

Operations Command, USSOCOM History (MacDill AFB, FL: USSOCOM

History and Research Office, nd), 29; and Thomas Donnelly, Margaret Roth,

and Caleb Baker, Operation Just Cause: The Storming of Panama (NY:

Lexington Books, 1991), 120-21.

367
21. For the Paitilla airfield operation, see USSOCOM History, 28-29;

Donnelly et al., Just Cause, 113-20; and Malcolm McConnell, Just Cause

(NY: St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 1991), 51-78.

22. Accounts differ as to the beginning of the firefight. Some hold that

several PDF guards in the hangar opened up on the SEALs (see McConnell);

others state that only one PDF guard fired initially, killing the first two SEALs

and wounding six others (see Donnelly).

23. This account of the Rangers at Torrijos-Tocumen is based on

USSOCOM History, 22-24; and Donnelly et al., Just Cause, 188-213.

24. The travails of the brigade from the 82d Airborne Division did not

end at the Torrijos-Tocumen complex. Several paratroopers in the unit that air

assaulted into Panama Viejo landed in the mud flats there, becoming

immobilized as they sank into the mire. Helping to extract them from the mud

were Panamanian civilians, no doubt perplexed by the sight that confronted

them. The operations of the 82d Airborne units, together with the Special

Forces battle against Battalion 2000 at the Pacora River bridge, are covered in

Donnelly et al., Just Cause, 124-30. One additional aside: the 82d’s 1st

Brigade that deployed in JUST CAUSE was not the brigade that had rehearsed

the mission at the MOUT site at Fort Bragg. The 3d Brigade had conducted the

rehearsal but by 20 December had been replaced as the division ready brigade

by the 1st Brigade.

25. The rescue of civilian Kurt Muse has been recounted in several

books, articles, and television interviews and documentaries. See, for

example, Donnelly et al., Just Cause, 130-34. The PDF had arrested Muse for

his clandestine political activities before Panama’s presidential elections in

May 1989. The rumor circulated among U.S. forces in Panama that, should the

United States invade the country at any time, Muse’s guards had orders to kill

him. President Bush personally made Muse’s rescue a priority mission of

Operation JUST CAUSE.

26. Unless otherwise noted, the following account of TF Gator is based

on Nemmers et al., USARSO Staff Ride, 47-62; Donnelly et al., Just Cause,

135-60; Oral history interviews, Col. Michael G. Snell, 1 January 1990, Fort

Clayton, Panama; Lt. Col. James W. Reed, 6 January 1990, Fort Clayton,

Panama, interviewed by Maj. Robert K. Wright; and Ibid., 29 January 1990,

Fort Clayton, Panama, interviewed by the author.

27. From his assets, Reed also created two ad hoc squads. One was to put

in roadblocks along Balboa Avenue, the other—made up of mechanics and

“some people back there at our base camp”—to “decommission” a radio

antenna on Quarry Heights. On the issue of command and control, Reed was

not sure at what time on Monday TF Gator would go under the JSOTF. This

doubt created some confusion when he received conflicting orders from the

USARSO/JTF Panama commander, Maj. Gen. Cisneros, who wanted to

368
continue routine U.S. exercises in Panama so as not to signal the PDF an

invasion was imminent and from the JSOTF that worried that any such

exercises might set off the war prematurely. Oral history, Lt. Col. Reed, 29

January 1990.

28. The inability of the AC-130 rounds to penetrate beyond the top floor

was a problem the U.S. Air Force remedied after JUST CAUSE.

29. Reed also provided two LAVs, one Sheridan, and six M113s to the

JSOTF so that SOF elements would have a small TF to assist in extricating

American personnel from the U.S. Embassy. The problem for Reed, however,

was that once he relinquished the vehicles, he did not see them again for

several days.

30. Donnelly et al., Just Cause, 150-52; and Telephone interview, Lt.

Doug Rubin, 5-6 April 1990, interviewed by the author. Rubin was platoon

leader of the unit the AC-130 fired on.

31. Unless otherwise noted, the following account of TF Wildcat is

based on Nemmers, et al., USARSO Staff Ride, 22-36; Donnelly et al., Just

Cause, 153-55; Oral histories, Col. Michael G. Snell, 1 January 1990; Lt. Col.

William Huff III, 29 January 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama, interviewed by the

author; Ibid., 20 June 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama, interviewed by Capt. John

Hollins; and Lt. Col. William Huff III and senior officers of the 5/87th

Infantry, 193d Infantry Brigade, 5 January 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama,

interviewed by Maj. Bob Wright.

32. That only three U.S. soldiers were wounded in the “kill zone” outside

Albrook was attributed by Huff to “flukes.” “People just escape with their

lives by flukes,” he later commented. “Bullets impacting on swivels,

impacting on a front sight post, and bullets impacting on the stock of an M-16,

and also on a SAW [squad automatic weapon]. Just unbelievable.” Oral

history, Lt. Col. Huff, 5 January 1990.

33. Unless otherwise noted, the following account of TF Black Devil is

based on Nemmers et al., USARSO Staff Ride, 37-46; Donnelly et al., Just

Cause, 162-83; Oral histories, Col. Snell, 1 January 1990; Lt. Col. Billy Ray

Fitzgerald, 27 January 1990, Fort Kobbe, Panama, interviewed by the author;

and Ibid., 20 June 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama, interviewed by Capt. John

Hollins.

34. One critique of USARSO’s postcombat planning is that it did not

provide for marital counseling. Several families at Amador and in other areas

U.S. military dependents inhabited often had combat taking place right outside

their homes. Some spouses would later blame the military family member for

not revealing that an invasion was pending. The stress created by the feeling

that one family member had put the others at risk threatened some marriages

and required counseling for some families.

369
35. Regarding the deaths of the three American civilians, see Donnelly et

al., Just Cause, 233-34. See Ibid., 390, for Panamanian casualties. A few years

after JUST CAUSE, the American news media gave wide play to allegations

that U.S. troops had executed thousands of Panamanians and buried them in

mass graves. Investigation of the allegations showed them to be groundless.

While the exact number of Panamanian casualties could not be determined

precisely, the number of dead probably did not exceed 600, to include both

military and civilian. As for mass graves, several did exist but were hardly

meant to be a carefully guarded secret. The principal one in Panama City was

the subject of a third-page story in the Christian Science Monitor, 29

December 1989.

36. The problems created by the unexpected number of refugees are

discussed in oral histories by Lt. Col. Huff, 5 January 1990, 29 January 1990,

and 20 June 1990; Lt. Col. Reed, 6 January 1990 and 29 January 1990; Col.

William Connolly, 29 January 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama, interviewed by

the author; and Lt. Col. Les Knoblock, January 1990, Fort Clayton, Panama,

interviewed by the author.

37. For the creation of a new PDF and the “counterattack” at the DNTT,

see Fishel,Fog of Peace; Oral histories by Lt. Col. Huff (see previous note).

38. Ibid., and comments from various soldiers who conducted the

patrols.

39. Oral history interview with USSOCOM staff officer.

370
Bibliography

This brief account of Operation JUST CAUSE in Panama City relied

heavily on documents that I collected during and after the U.S.-Panamanian

crisis and that are in my possession at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. As the notes

make clear, I also relied heavily on oral history interviews that I, and others,

conducted with participants in the crisis. Without the candor of the interviewees, this chapter would have read much differently.

Buckley, Kevin. Panama: The Whole Story. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1991. An

engrossing account of the U.S.-Panamanian relationship focusing on

politics and personalities.

Cole, Ronald H. Operation Just Cause: Panama. Washington, DC: Joint

History Office, Office of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1995. A

declassified version of an official history, Cole’s work is a superb

overview of JUST CAUSE from the JCS perspective. The first half of

this monograph offers a thorough analysis of the planning process.

Donnelly, Thomas, Margaret Roth, and Caleb Baker. Operation Just Cause:

The Storming of Panama. NY: Lexington Books, 1991. As of this

writing, this is still the best comprehensive study of JUST CAUSE

available.

Fishel, John T. The Fog of Peace. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies

Institute, 1992. A detailed overview of the planning and execution of

Operation PROMOTE LIBERTY.

Kempe, Frederick. Divorcing the Dictator: America’s Bungled Affair with

Noriega. NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1990. One of the first accounts

after JUST CAUSE to detail the diplomacy of the Reagan

administration in its efforts to oust Noriega.

McConnell, Malcolm. Just Cause. NY: St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 1991. A very

good overview of JUST CAUSE, based in part on the input of various

participants.

Nemmers, Capt. Joseph, et al. United States Army South Staff Ride: Operation

JUST CAUSE, 20 December 1989-31 January 1990. Updated reprint.

Fort Clayton, Panama: Historical Office, Headquarters, USARSO,

1998. An excellent staff ride guide to Operation JUST CAUSE that

uses the operations logs and participants’ recollections to construct a

detailed account of TF Bayonet’s role in the operation.

U.S. Special Operations Command. USSOCOM History. MacDill AFB, FL:

USSOCOM History and Research Office, nd. This unclassified

371
history offers an overview of the role of special operations forces in

several operations, including JUST CAUSE.

Woodward, Bob. The Commanders. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1991. An

excellent and very accurate account of the Panama crisis from the

perspectives of the Bush administration, the JCS, and CINCSO.

372
Todo o Nada

Montoneros Versus the Army: Urban

Terrorism in Argentina

Lieutenant Colonel Alan C. Lowe, U.S. Army

Unlike the other chapters in this anthology on urban warfare, this entry highlights the asymmetrical (an overused term currently in vogue

with little clarity of meaning) nature of fighting within cities. This

chapter addresses the challenges that prolonged guerrilla warfare poses

within the context of an urban environment. Conventional forceon-force confrontations that characterized the nature of city fighting in

Stalingrad, Manila, and Aachen are absent in this unconventional urban

battlefield. This is a battlefield in which, using terror repeatedly, small

cells of revolutionaries ambushed a government in the very heart of a

nation—its capital city.

In general, this chapter explores how a government responded

militarily to an insurgent group that undermined its legitimate political

authority and threatened society overall. The specific case under

examination focuses on the Montoneros, an insurgent group of urban

guerrilla fighters who were active in Argentina from 1969 through

1977. The type of urban guerrilla warfare that the Montoneros practiced

can be considered as being representative of other urban insurgent

groups in Latin America that conducted a prolonged campaign of terror

in an attempt to bring about political and social change within a nation

through violent means.

In the course of examining asymmetrical or unconventional methods

of warfare, another unique feature emerges that distinguishes this chapter from the rest in this anthology: the problem of terminology. Unlike

conventional force-on-force operations where doctrinal terms and definitions are commonly addressed and understood through repetitive application and familiarity, unconventional warfare terminology, in

many cases, lacks the clarity of precise definitions. Terms such as

asymmetry, insurgents, and terrorism, to name a few, may be used commonly but often fall short of definitional agreement. Consider the case

of the Montoneros as an example. Although they used acts of terror routinely to achieve their goals, they would never have considered themselves to be terrorists; rather, they were revolutionaries. Likewise, the

Argentine military, when tasked to defeat insurgent groups, resorted to

acts of terror even more atrocious than their enemies, yet they did not

373
374

1

2 3

6

5 8 4

11

7

14

10

17

12

13

16

19

18

20

15

9

21

22

23

24

BUENOS AIRES

Rosario Ibicuy

La

Plata

Riop

Cuarto

Parana

Cordoba Santa

Fe

San

Luis

Rio

Bah a

Blanca

í

San

Juan

Mendoza

La

Rioja

Catamarca

Tucuman

Santiago

del Estero

Resistencia

Salta

Jujuy

Rio

Rio Parana

Paso de

los Libres

Corrientes Posadas

Bermejo

Rio

Salado

Formosa

Rio

Pilcomayo

Colorado

Rio

Negro

Santo

Rosa

Neuquen

Mar

del Plata

San Carios Viedma

de Bariloche

Rawson

Comodoro

Rivadavia

San

Julian

Rio Gailegos

Ushuaia

PROVINCIAS

BOUNDARY REPRESENTATION IS

NOT NECESSARILY AUTHORITATIVE

1. Jujuy

2. Salta

3. Formosa

4. Tucuman

5. Santiago del

6. Chaco

7. Misiones

8. Catamarca

9. La Rioja

10. Santa Fe

11. Corrientes

12. San Juan

13. Cordoba

14. Entre Rios

16. Mendoza

17. San Luis

18. La Pampa

19. Buenos Aires

20. Neuquen

21. Rio Negro

22. Chubut

23. Santa Cruz

TERRITORIO NACIONAL

24. Tierra del Fuego

CAPITAL FEDERAL

15. Buenos Aires (city)

lagoa

dosPatos

Antofagasta

SANTIAGO

Puerto Montt

Concepcion
consider themselves to be terrorists either. Numerous definitions

abound regarding terrorism and what constitutes an act of terror. For

this chapter, terrorism is defined as the indiscriminate “use of violence,

or the threat of violence, to create a climate of fear in a given population

. . . through the publicity and fear generated by their violence, they (terrorists) seek to effect political change.”1 This definition can be applied

to describe the methods and techniques that both the insurgent guerrillas and the armed forces eventually used during this era in Argentine

history.

Another dissimilarity to the other chapters is inherent in the nature of

the conflict being examined. Revolutionary war conducted by guerrilla

organizations on one side fighting government counterinsurgency

operations on the other, both coupled with an element of terror,

provides an example of political warfare in the extreme. As such,

historians who have written about this dark period in Argentina’s

history have focused on the political aspects of events. Consequently,

specific operational and tactical details on urban engagements between

forces have not been written, have been suppressed by government

authorities, or were not considered sufficiently pertinent to the

historical account as political events unfolded. While detailing selected

and somewhat spectacular urban tactical engagements, this chapter

really examines the larger issues and consequences to military forces

when confronted with a situation that the Montonero example provides.

In selecting an appropriate case study on urban terrorism in Latin

America to examine, many potential examples exist. The most oftencited cases include the activities of numerous leftist revolutionary

groups that operated in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina; over recent

years, Colombia could probably be added to the list with the emergence

of narcoterrorist groups. Because the insurgent war in Colombia is still

ongoing, the other potential examples provide the advantage of greater

historical perspective.

Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina possess many commonalities in that

all three countries consist of democratically elected governments and

most of their populations reside in cities. In the 1960s and 1970s, all

three countries experienced, in their major cities, the proliferation of

numerous insurgent groups that resorted to kidnappings, assassinations, raids, and bombings, all standard fare for terrorist movements

bent on overthrowing the established order. Within this backdrop, the

Montoneros were just one of many revolutionary groups of the period

that used terror as a political weapon.

375
Using the Montoneros as the primary case study for this chapter has

some advantages over an examination of either the Brazilian National

Liberating Action (ALN) or the better-known Tupamaros of Uruguay.

Although the ALN in Brazil operated in the large cities of Rio de

Janeiro, São Paulo, and Belo Horizonte, the movement lasted only

about four years. Throughout that period, the ALN never developed the

level of threat the Tupamaros or Montoneros attained and only

marginally influenced Brazilian politics at the time. The Tupamaros of

Uruguay, on the other hand, were significantly more successful than

their revolutionary brethren in Brazil. They were truly the first urban

insurgency in Latin America that was able to sustain its revolutionary

effort. Early on they were successful in their efforts to draw adherents to

their cause, executing some well-coordinated and successful

terror-type operations (mostly kidnappings and robberies). They also

gained minor victories in rallying popular support and in affecting

Uruguayan politics. However, the Tupamaros started organizing

almost as a conventional force by establishing fixed urban bases,

supply depots, and even hospitals, all of which eventually jeopardized

their mobility and security—critical tenets of guerrilla warfare. The

Tupamaros became overly professionalized, appearing more like the

military forces they were facing.2 Additionally, as the Tupamaros

gained some political clout, they attempted to change the system from

within, through the electoral process, while simultaneously

maintaining an armed terror campaign that isolated them from the

urban masses they claimed to represent. The inconsistency of this

policy ultimately contributed to their demise as popular support waned

and the government began a program of repressive measures.

Similarly, the Montoneros in Buenos Aires built upon the example

that the Tupamarosstarted just on the other side of the Rio de la Plata in

Montevideo. Although the Montoneros were not the only revolutionary

group active in Argentina, they lasted as a significant threat to

Argentine stability for about ten years. Throughout their life span, the

organization at times commanded widespread popular support and, for

a while, garnered significant allegiance from trade unions within

Argentina.3 Unlike the Tupamaros, Montonero operations occurred

more frequently, with attacks usually being well-coordinated and

planned as well as being a bit more daring in scope and spectacular in

execution. The Montonero example, better than other examples,

illustrates how it affected a nation as it dealt with a long-term struggle in

which violence on both sides tended toward escalation. Thus, the

Montonerosin Argentina provide greater opportunities to gain insights

376
into unconventional urban operations (UO) and into the themes,

considerations, and lessons that emerge for military forces engaged in

this type of conflict.

This examination of the Montoneros will underscore the

dissimilarities and challenges that a conventional military force faces in

an unconventional (or asymmetric) UO campaign. Simply stated, in

traditional force-on-force UO, conventional militaries usually fight in a

somewhat linear fashion from building to building, street to street, and

ultimately block to block. High casualty rates, increased lethality, and

usually the destruction of the urban terrain characterize this type of

combat. Conversely, guerrilla or unconventional combat operations are

conducted on a smaller scale with minimal physical destruction and are

usually infrequent occurrences. In fact, combat is almost absent from

the landscape, emerging only as an episodic event over a broader

expanse of time. As such, it becomes easy to reduce the problem to one

under the purview of specialized forces—law enforcement agencies,

special weapons and tactics teams, Special Forces, paramilitary, or

national guards. In truth, this type of warfare encompasses the

participation of all armed government organizations, including

conventional forces, that can and do play a significant role.

Although the focus of this chapter is to address the military

challenges to an urban terrorist threat, some general background on the

nature of revolutionary guerrilla groups in Latin America is necessary

to appreciate and understand Montonero motivations, methods,

actions, and goals. While this background is essential to understanding

insurgent groups of the period, it also will explain why these

movements gravitated to the cities and became urban terrorist groups.

This chapter will not explain the convoluted and confusing politics that

characterize perceptions of Latin America or Argentina, but some

political context is essential to help understand Montonero successes

and failures. Politics and revolutionary ideology cannot be avoided due

to the nature of this type of warfare. They are the “tangible” aspects of

the unconventional urban landscape, just as brick and mortar are for

conventional UO fighting. Insurgent guerrilla groups, by definition,

conduct political and ideological warfare more than they pose a

significant military threat, a fact that military forces tend to neglect.

When studying the course of political events in Latin American

countries, probably the most important shaping influence to recognize

is the role that tradition plays in Latin culture. Tradition in Latin culture

changes very slowly.4 At the risk of sounding too stereotypical, “one of

the keys to understanding the Latin American mind-set is the awareness

377
that, both in its communities and among individuals, there exists a

strong tradition of resorting to violent means in order to settle, suppress,

or challenge sociopolitical conflict.”5 Historically, since insurgent and

guerrilla activities overthrew Spanish colonial rule in the early

nineteenth century, political change in Latin America has often been

promoted through violence and subversion rather than through

democracy by means of the ballot box. The Mexican Revolution, La

Violencia in Colombia, and Argentina’s Guerra Sucia (Dirty War) are

three of the numerous chilling examples of the levels of ferocity that

can be achieved in Latin America. In this respect, the insurgent guerrilla

movements in Latin America of the post-World War II era did not

deviate from a long tradition of foisting political change through

violence.6

Over the last fifty years, many Latin American countries have had

insurgencies for a variety of reasons. These factors include extensive

political, economic, and social needs of a rapidly expanding but poor

population; the government’s actual or perceived ineffectiveness in

meeting those needs; and the potential for organized opposition to the

government and its security forces by dissatisfied segments of the

citizenry in response.7 Add to these factors a cultural proclivity for

violence with a strong sense of nationalism or the alluring promises of

an ideological component, and the potential for revolutionary action

increases significantly.

During the Cold War, most of the insurgent organizations in Latin

America shared some common characteristics. First, they were usually

driven by a leftist ideology. Generally, the ideological component was

Marxist-Leninist based, but rarely was it preached or practiced in its

pure form. Latin leftist ideologies could include elements of Trotskyist,

Maoist, Guevarist, and Castroist ideas mixed with nationalist, populist,

or even fascist underpinnings. Many groups that started out waving a

particular ideological banner often ended up subscribing to a different

theory. An indiscriminate mixing of leftist concepts usually occurred

and could result in ideological confusion and vague political agendas.

Second, regardless of the political or ideological differences between

insurgent groups, they all shared the common desire to overthrow the

established order and replace it with a Marxist-inspired state. Third,

they used violence to achieve their sociopolitical goals and were

committed to armed struggle. These groups could not conceive of

change without armed struggle. Political violence was seen as the way

to enlighten the masses to the contradictions in the existing system and

spark a popular uprising. The last common characteristic these groups

378
shared was their clandestine nature. They generally remained

underground for their entire existence or part of it, an indication of their

inability to survive as legitimate open organizations.8

As the Cold War progressed into the 1960s and 1970s, Latin

insurgent groups started operating more and more in cities for a variety

of reasons that will be discussed. For now, however, the point of

departure for the transition from rural insurgency to urban begins with

the revolution in Cuba in the 1950s. All Latin leftist insurgent groups

harked back to the triumph of the Cuban guerrilla fighters in 1959 as

their battle standard and inspiration. Fidel Castro’s success provided

the impetus for a revolutionary fire that spread along the mountains,

jungles, countryside, and cities in Mexico, Central America, and South

America in the coming years.9 It would be hard to underestimate the

impact the Cuban revolution had on these groups, not only

symbolically as a model for a successful Marxist revolution in a Latin

country but also in the support the Castro government would come to

provide to most groups in their own revolutionary struggle. It was with

the Cuban revolution that segments of the Latin American left really

began to consider armed struggle as a viable means of achieving

political objectives.10

Besides Castro, probably the most influential Latin theoretician and

practitioner on conducting rural guerrilla war to emerge from the Cuban experience was Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Che, along with his

French colleague, Regis Debray, worked on a version of revolutionary

war modeled after the Cuban example that could be easily exported.

Che and Debray based their theory on three basic assumptions. The first

assumption was that popular forces could always defeat a regular army

in guerrilla war. Second, the main area of operations for guerrillas

would be the countryside (although with the later move to cities, insurgents considered the countryside important but not primarily important

for a successful revolution). The last assumption asserted that the

preexistence of these conditions was not necessary for making a successful revolution; small cells, or focos, of professional revolutionary

cadres could either create the right conditions or simply do without

them. Che’sfoco theory on revolutionary war became the philosophical

touchstone for radical movements conducting insurgencies.11

By the mid to late 1960s, adherents of Castro and Che’s brand of

rural insurgency were active in many countries in the Western

Hemisphere. Among the most important places were Guatemala,

Colombia, Venezuela, and Peru. Additionally, Che led a direct Cuban

effort to export revolution regionally in Latin America through Bolivia.

379
Castro and Che envisioned making Bolivia the center of another

“Vietnam war” in the Americas with the ultimate goal of a continental

revolution spreading from Bolivia to neighboring countries.12

Beginning in 1967, the Cuban hemispheric efforts received some

serious setbacks, starting with Che’s death in October, thus ending the

grandiose plan for Bolivia. Domestically, Castro was faced with a

failing Cuban economy that diverted not only his attention but also his

support to external affairs. Finally, the exported rural focos began to

falter and would fail by the end of the decade. It soon became

increasingly obvious to insurgents throughout Latin America that rural

Castroism had failed despite some limited short-term successes. Now

several groups began to consider an alternative approach to

revolutionary armed struggle with a move to urban insurgencies.13

Another major reason for this fundamental change in revolutionary

strategy besides failures of rural movements was recognizing that most

of the people in Latin America no longer resided in the countryside. By

1967, at least half of the population of every South American state,

except Peru, lived in cities, with some, such as Uruguay and Argentina,

registering an urban population of well over 70 percent. The shift in

insurgent emphasis to cities was a logical, if not intuitively obvious,

step to foment revolution. Quite simply, a revolutionary movement

needing people to gain support and form an army logically should

locate to where the people are. The revolutionary strategy of the 1970s

would of necessity be urban and would include a relationship with the

working class.14

Urban guerrilla warfare was hardly a new concept, and Latin

revolutionaries had a number of contemporary examples from which to

draw. Urban terror methods had appeared to succeed in Cyprus with the

National Organization of Cypriot Fighters’ (EOKA) campaign against

the British in 1955 to 1959 and the Front de Liberation Nationale

against the French in Algeria from 1954 through 1962. What was new

for Latin American movements was the shift in primary emphasis from

the country to cities. Urban guerrilla warfare had been employed for

years as an ancillary to rural insurgency. This was primarily due to the

hard-line Castroist influence in which cities played an almost

insignificant role in a successful insurgency. Both Castro and Guevara

firmly believed in rural guerrilla warfare, and the city, as they saw it,

was the guerrilla’s grave.15

Cities, however, would provide advantages for the insurgent that the

countryside did not. Faceless dense crowds of mutual strangers populate large cities. Amid the daily rush and routine of city life, guerrillas

380
can pass unnoticed in a way they never could achieve fully in the countryside. Concentrations of large populations reside in areas that usually

have a high concentration of buildings as well. The sea of houses that

characterizes large cities provides the urban guerrilla with two of his

primary concerns for survival—sanctuary and anonymity. As potential

battlefields, cities also provide distinct advantages over rural landscapes. Dense concentrations of buildings make ideal areas from which

to conduct close ambushes of police or other government forces that

can be cut off from each other with relative ease. Intricate and intertwining roads can assist guerrilla actions by facilitating egress and dispersion after an operation. Cities also provide guerrilla fighters with

advantages in the area of support. Banks can be robbed to fund insurgent organizations and operations. Food and medical supplies can be

obtained with relative ease. Arms can be purchased or stolen. Intelligence can be collected quickly, and networks can be compartmented

and established secretly.16

The nerves of the modern city provide a heavy concentration of

lucrative targets for insurgent movements as well. Telecommunication

facilities that are critical to governments for information dissemination

and population control are potential guerrilla targets. Government

ineffectiveness can be illustrated to the masses through disrupting

essential services such as electric power and water plants. Foreign

embassies become potential sites for terror bombing. Diplomats and

business executives who live and work within the greater metropolitan

areas become targets for kidnapping and assassinations. If the city

happens to also be the capital, guerrilla attacks can literally threaten the

seat of government.17

City centers are also where the media conveys information to the rest

of the country and the world, providing potential instantaneous public

exposure for an insurgent organization to a mass audience. This

exposure can work to the guerrilla’s advantage by highlighting the

perceived impotence of government authorities and bureaucracy in

maintaining control and solving social problems. The underlying

assumption insurgent leaders made as they shifted their operations to

cities was the belief that society and the government could best be

paralyzed using guerrilla action in main population and commerce

centers.18

Despite all the advantages that cities promise for guerrilla forces,

there are some disadvantages to operating in cities. The factors of time

and space can work against guerrilla organizations. In the countryside,

the authorities are more distant and require a greater response time.

381
Government control of rural areas not only consumes time but also requires more troops covering areas that extend for tens or hundreds of

miles. Large urban areas are usually the locus of the national police apparatus as well as the ruling regime’s military might. As such, government response times to attacks or intelligence tips can be measured in

minutes and are usually limited to just a few miles.19

Regardless of the advantages or disadvantages that cities provide to

the insurgent fighter, a general analysis of urban guerrilla warfare

shows that it is not significantly different in application than rural guerrilla warfare. The same broad requirements for popular support, recruitment, security, intelligence, and materiel hold true for any insurgency,

regardless of the physical setting. The methods and techniques of fighting in cities require adjustments to the new urban environment.

As guerrilla organizations shifted their main efforts to metropolitan

areas, revolutionary leaders published guidelines internally on how to

specialize in urban insurgency. Uruguayan guerrilla leader Abraham

Guillén published his Strategy of the Urban Guerrilla in 1966. In it, he

called for a continental revolution a year before Guevara’s more

famous message did the same. Probably the most famous and widely

used document regarding urban insurgencies was Brazilian guerrilla

leader Carlos Marighella’s 1969 Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla.

This brief communiqué, written specifically for Marighella’s Brazilian

fighters, became the urban guerrilla’s “doctrine,” covering a variety of

tactics, techniques, and procedures for conducting armed revolutionary

warfare within cities.20

Although brief in size (a mere 44 pages), the scope of the

Minimanual is fairly comprehensive, articulating the uniqueness of the

city environment in relation to that of the countryside. Because it was

universally used by Latin American urban insurgent groups (including

the Montoneros) as a “how to fight and win” manual, it is helpful to

highlight a few areas of note. Marighella covered topics of critical importance for the urban guerrilla’s survival and success. He provided instructions on how to organize, lead, train, conduct offensive tactical

operations, obtain resources, recruit, gather intelligence, and enforce

operations security. Tactics were adjusted to the peculiar nature of

fighting in cities, such as the notion of remaining close to the enemy to

frustrate him in applying mass or heavy firepower, thus negating his

conventional tactics and weapon systems. Marighella stressed how to

maintain the advantage of the initiative in cities through the elements of

surprise, knowing the terrain, mobility and speed, and information. Another section addressed the qualities necessary for an urban guerrilla:

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bravery, decisiveness, imagination, initiative, flexibility, and determination. These qualities compensated for inferior numbers when confronting government forces. Other passages are devoted to individual

training and the skills in which all guerrillas need to be conversant as

well as a section on how to conduct organized action. Additionally, the

Minimanual listed fourteen specific offensive missions that urban guerrillas conduct, including assaults, ambushes, executions, kidnappings,

raids, and terrorism—all acts of violence. Of all the missions listed in

the guerrilla’s repertoire, it is interesting to note that terrorism is the

only activity “the revolutionary can never relinquish.”21

It was largely the political ideology, writings, and insurgent examples provided by revolutionaries such as Che, Guillén, and Marighella

that the Montoneros built upon to pursue their goals in Argentina. However, political theory and ideology have to be applied to be effective in a

revolution. Guerrilla leaders in each country still had practical matters

to consider in how best to link acts of terror to political and social revolution to the seizure of state power. Although political and social revolutions are inherently intertwined, they both require different

approaches and strategies in actual execution. “The seizure of state

power is itself the policy objective of political revolution, whereas it is

but a means to social transformation in the case of social revolution.”22

Social revolution must rely on and encourage greater mass participation than with the mere replacement of a government administration

through political revolution. Since governments and their armies do not

simply disappear, they must be destroyed. This is the role of the armed

segments of the insurgency—those that execute military operations.

The dilemma facing guerrilla leaders was balancing and coordinating

the efforts and relationship of the political and the military arms of the

organization. How much emphasis should be placed on rallying the

public at large for revolt? How much on implementing a military action

program to employ violence in the revolutionary process? These were

the practical questions insurgent leaders needed to address as they

planned operations. The revolutionaries’ application of violence had to

be measured, clear, precise, and tied to the political aim of undermining

the government by provoking repression without alienating the people

in the process. Ultimately, by soliciting a repressive response through

using violence, the guerrilla walks an indistinct line between garnering

public sympathy and causing public opposition. The guerrilla command structure becomes a crucial factor in blending the political and social facets of insurgent warfare together to maximize both efforts while

not allowing violence to become counterproductive to the cause.23

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Overall organization and command of urban insurgent groups

generally follow the pattern of small cellular networks, not unlike those

that partisans and resistance fighters have used throughout history. The

cell structure assists the overall guerilla organization in maintaining

secrecy and operational security. This is achieved through “compartmentalization,” which is essentially a matter of information as each cell

acts without knowing very much about other cells’ activities.

Operational capabilities are distributed throughout the organization so

that each cell can execute a wide range of missions and limit the amount

of damage caused by losing any one cell. Likewise, individual cell

members know only what is required to conduct their activities. Only a

select few members know the details of any particular action, while

only the central executive leadership knows the specifics of strategic

planning. This practice of tactical autonomy and strategic centralism

ensured that base units operated on their own initiative but within the

guidelines established at the top and with special regard for the central

command’s priority decisions. This type of arrangement can only work

effectively if all members understand the movement’s politics, overall

organization, and strategy.24

Argentina was ripe for exploitation by radical movements in the

1960s. It was during this decade that Latin America experienced a period of rapid economic modernization. Regionally, most South American countries experienced a surge in growth, expansion of capital cities,

and the gradual emergence of a modern socioeconomic middle class

that contributed to a sense of rising expectations by all segments of society. For most countries in South America, this process of development was uneven, causing new social, political, and economic demands

on governments. A climate of friction emerged that pitted old systems

against new, creating intense ideological competition. Argentina was

no exception to this phenomenon as the political system’s disillusionment and dissatisfaction affected a whole generation of young Argentines, with the largest concentration of the disenfranchised residing in

the slums and shantytowns of Buenos Aires.25

Buenos Aires is not only the capital of Argentina but also the largest

city and chief port. In addition to being the seat of government, the city

represents approximately 70 percent of the nation’s wealth. It is the hub

of Argentine commerce, transportation, energy, and industry and

comprises the greater part of the nation’s economy. Of Argentina’s 23

million inhabitants, about three-quarters are urbanites, with almost half

of the population concentrated in the city and province of Buenos

Aires.26

384
Radical movements of the period took advantage of the urban nature

of Argentine demography not only as sources of popular support but

also as an area that was ripe for exploitation. High inflation, unemployment, and a large concentration of a naturally rebellious, poor youthful

population characterized conditions in Argentina. The Montoneros arrived on the political scene during some of the stormiest years of social

conflict their country ever experienced. Within this overall context of

Buenos Aires, both as an actual and symbolic source of power and potential discontent, it is not surprising that urban guerrilla warfare prospered in Argentina.27

The Montoneros were just one of many unrelated guerrilla groups

that appeared in Argentina at this time. The groups that surfaced represented a wide range of political philosophies, including Nazi, Communist, and unique to Argentina, Peronist views.28 Two of the more active

and resilient movements that the Montoneros would periodically join

forces with in operations were the People’s Revolutionary Army

(ERP), a Communist guerrilla organization, and the Revolutionary

Armed Forces, a Marxist-Leninist-Peronist movement.29

The Montoneros were a leftist Peronist faction. Peronism, named

after former President Juan Domingo Perón, was a national popular

movement professing anti-imperialistic and antioligarchic tenets under

a banner of socialismo nacional. Peronism, as a matter of political

reality, was often vague, contradictory, and variously defined by Perón

and his supporters who found the message of ultranationalism highly

emotive and generically unifying. At the time of the emergence of the

Montonerosin the late 1960s, Perón was in the closing years of his exile

in Spain, maneuvering to return to Argentina. The Montoneros saw in

Perón a socialist leader in their own mold. The exiled Perón accepted

their support and endorsed the movement’s actions through published

statements advocating resistance and revolutionary war. Committed to

the goal of a socialist homeland, the Montoneros interpreted Perón’s

messages as providing carte blanche support to justify violent

measures. The Montoneros set out to fuse urban guerrilla warfare with

the popular struggles of the Peronist movement.30

Taking their name from the early nineteenth-century “wild

horsemen” who supported Argentina’s independence heroes in

liberating Spain’s colonial hold on their country, the Montoneros

viewed themselves as the modern version of the free Argentine gaucho,

or cowboy, liberating the country from oppressive rule. Their very

motto evoked a fierce resolution of purpose—“Todo o Nada” (All or

Nothing). Steeped in romantic symbolism, the movement’s founding

385
members, Fernando Abal Medina, Carlos Gustavo Ramus, and Mario

Eduardo Finnenich, began to prepare a program to wage armed

struggle.31

The Montonero leaders thrust themselves and their organization on

the Argentine political landscape in spectacular fashion by assassinating a former president. On the morning of 29 May 1970, two young men

wearing army officers’ uniforms presented themselves as bodyguards

to Argentina’s ex-president, retired Lieutenant General Pedro

Aramburu. After some polite conversation accompanied by coffee, one

of the guards flashed a submachine gun from under his military raincoat

and announced to Aramburu, “General, come with us.” The two men

escorted Aramburu to a waiting vehicle, thus initiating Operation

PINDAPOY, or the Aramburazo as it was more publicly called. They

drove through the city on a circuitous route designed to avoid known areas of congested traffic and police checkpoints, and along the way they

made several stops to change vehicles as an added security precaution.

Early in the evening hours, the kidnappers and hostage arrived at a

ranch house in the country. It was at this ranch house that Aramburu

was told that he had been “arrested” by a Peronist revolutionary

organization and that he would be placed on trial. The trial was

relatively brief with a foregone conclusion—Aramburu was found

guilty of 271 crimes against Perón and the people stemming from

actions he authorized as president in the mid-1950s. At dawn on 1 June,

Aramburu was informed of the guilty verdict and told that he would be

executed in half an hour. With a handkerchief placed over his mouth,

Aramburu was positioned near a wall in the basement of the house, and

the leader of the group unceremoniously fired several 9-millimeter

pistol rounds into the politician’s heart.32

Unpopular as Aramburu was for the severe government repression

of the immediate post-Perón years, the abduction and execution of so

prominent a leader served several political purposes. The kidnapping

and sentence demonstrated the organization’s use of military action to

make a political and ideological statement. Aramburu’s maneuvering

toward a return to power, a fact that was widely known but ineffectively

opposed, was destroyed with his death. The Aramburu incident also

was a significant act in escalating labor unrest and revolutionary

violence against the sitting administration of President Juan Carlos

Ongania and contributed to that regime’s downfall less than a month

later.33

At the time that Aramburu was assassinated, the Montoneros

numbered only twelve members, of which ten actively participated in

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the operation. The careful planning and daring of the act, followed

immediately by other impressive operations conducted in the aftermath

of Aramburu’s assassination, provided the Montoneros a notoriety that

was out of proportion to their numbers. With this dramatic beginning,

the Montoneros launched a program of terrorist actions that would last

about ten years. During the movement’s height in 1973-74, it would

expand to about 7,000 revolutionaries, with up to hundreds of

thousands of Argentine supporters rallying behind their banners.34

Regardless of how large the cadre of active revolutionaries became,

the movement adhered to the urban guerrilla organizational practice of

a cellular and compartmented structure for security reasons. The basic

fighting unit was the military command, the commandos, usually

named after individuals memorialized by the movement or in honor of

significant events. Cross-cutting this structure were the functional

subdivisions of the organization: the maintenance department,

responsible for acquiring vehicles and providing logistics support to

operations; a documents department, specializing in counterfeit

military and police papers; a war department that planned operations;

and a psychological action department that was in charge of public

declarations and announcements. This structure was remarkably

grandiose for a movement that numbered slightly more than twenty

members by the end of 1970.35

Likewise, Montonero operational tactics were typical of the type

most urban guerrilla groups conducted. As small elite bands of revolutionaries, the commandos would conduct operations consisting of—

. . . scattered surprise attacks by quick and mobile units superior in

arms and numbers at designated points but avoiding barricades in

order not to attract the enemy’s attention at one place. The units will

then attack with the greatest part of their strength the enemy’s least

fortified or weakest links in the city. The struggle would be

‘prolonged,’ consisting of many small victories which together will

render the final victory.36

However, victory would not be exclusively a military affair because

these armed tactics were designed to work in concert with and assist in

the popular political mobilization the movement hoped to instigate.

The Montoneros struck quickly and dispersed immediately following the Aramburazo, but they did not disappear. While 22,000 men

were mobilized to search for Aramburu’s body and the kidnappers, the

Montoneros launched a second dramatic blow to demonstrate that they

were capable of a sustained challenge to the regime. For two hours on 1

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July 1970, four Montonero units “occupied” La Calera, a town of about

5,000 located ten miles from the capital. In a coordinated effort, about

twenty-five guerrillas knocked out the town’s communications equipment and simultaneously took over the local bank, police station, and

town hall. During the course of the operation, about $26,000 was “liberated” from the bank, while guns and the dispatch radio were obtained

from the police station. During the humiliating ordeal, the policemen

were jailed and forced to sing the “Peronist March” at gunpoint.37

La Calera was chosen for this operation because it was near the

military base that was the home of an airmobile infantry regiment. The

assault was designed to illustrate that the Montoneros could strike with

impunity and to demonstrate the government’s inability to react rapidly

to the takeover and protect its citizenry. Through classic guerrilla

tactics of surprise and mobility, a force of twenty-five could occupy a

city and make the government appear weak and incompetent in the eyes

of the public, foreign investors, and international banking. To this end,

the operation was a huge success, but the withdrawal went wrong. Until

the raiders convoyed out of La Calera, led by an imitation police car

with its siren screaming, the operation had gone without a hitch.

Trouble began for the guerrillas when a car broke down outside the

city. The police caught up with the broken-down car and captured two

Montoneros. Information almost immediately extracted from the two

guerrillas, presumably through methods of torture, resulted in a dozen

arrests of Montonero suspects and the killing of the leader of the La

Calera operation, Emilio Maza, in a gun battle. Montonero losses were

significant; apart from the death ofComandante Maza, the organization

lost weaponry, safe houses, a contact list of 167 sympathizers, and

organizational security. The police now had a better idea of the

organization’s molecular structure. The movement was almost wiped

out as a result of further police manhunts and arrests. The few key

remaining Montoneros went underground for several months in safe

houses another Peronist guerrilla organization lent them.38

Meanwhile, on the national political scene, a military coup deposed

President Ongania just one week after the Aramburu execution.

General Roberto Marcello Levingston became the new head of state in

the aftermath of the coup. When the Montoneros reemerged from

hiding in September, acts of violence and terror escalated alarmingly.

Kidnappings, assassinations, bombings, bank robberies, and raids on

military posts for equipment and weapons became commonplace. The

government’s inability to handle the situation effectively resulted in

increased popular sympathy and support for the Montoneros, along

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with sounding the death knell for the Levingston administration after

only nine and one-half months in office.39

In March 1971, a three-man junta led by General Alejandro Agustin

Lanusse deposed Levingston in another military coup, and Lanusse

replaced him. During the Lanusse regime, the Montoneros tempered

their application of violence, not as a sign of support for Lanusse but,

rather, to garner and build popular support. The Montoneros began to

wage an effective propaganda campaign against the government.

Sympathetic responses to Montonero activities were carefully

cultivated by using extreme discrimination in selecting targets not only

for their political effect but also for their symbolism, a unifying aspect

to which all Peronist supporters could relate. For example, over 100

bombs went off on the twentieth anniversary of the death of Eva “Evita

Montonera” Perón, destroying many foreign businesses. The public

could not help but grasp the political significance of these explosions.

Likewise, other targets were selected because they were symbols of the

ruling class elites such as the numerous jockey clubs and luxurious

country clubs throughout Buenos Aires. These bombings were

executed with a sense of “revolutionary style” that also contributed to

the romantic aura of the Montoneros as Robin Hood-type protectors of

the less privileged, an image that the organization cultivated. While the

clubs of the wealthy were being bombed, approach roads were closed

off with signs reading “Danger! Dynamited Zone.”40

Economic problems, which had in part contributed to the end of

Levingston’s term, subsequently grew worse. The Argentine peso continued to be devalued while inflation spiraled up to 70 percent in 1972.

Government credit was almost nonexistent, and Argentina faced one of

the most serious economic crises of the century. By helping to create a

climate of insecurity and social disorder during this period of economic

emergency, Montonero guerrilla activity was a behind-the-scenes factor in other semi-insurrectional challenges that shook the government

such as strikes, demonstrations, and antigovernment rallies. After

nearly seven years of control, many military leaders were tired of trying

to solve Argentina’s political and economic mess. They were willing to

turn the country’s problems back to civilians. The time was right for

Juan Perón’s return to Argentina. While awaiting Perón’s arrival, the

Montoneros did not completely abandon their armed struggle. Violent

guerrilla actions continued but with less frequency, mostly to indicate

to the generals what they could expect if the scheduled 1973 elections

were canceled. For the most part, however, the Montoneros redirected

their energies toward mass political activity surrounding the Perón

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return and then in winning the general election campaign. Ultimately,

the Montoneros became a modest legitimate political force in their own

right by winning a few elected seats in the Perón-dominated

parliament.41

However, briefly stated, the time that Perón was in power was just as

tumultuous for Argentina as the preceding years had been. It did not see

an end to guerrilla activity or acts of terror. The honeymoon period

between Perón and the Peronist left was a brief one, shattered as an

ideological gulf appeared between the Montoneros and el Lider. As a

politician, Perón looked more to compromise as the means to deal with

all political factions in an attempt to get Argentina back to solvency and

stability. Whereas Perón emphasized class alliance, the Montoneros

still advocated class struggle as the answer to the problems that beset

society. In poor health, less aggressive, and content with his vindication

by the Argentine electorate, Perón was not inclined to promote any

dramatic social changes. Faced with mounting labor unrest;

commodity shortages, including food staples; and economic strife,

Perón antagonized the left with his conciliatory approaches. The

Montoneros became more and more critical of the government and lost

their naiveté concerning Perón, especially after he denounced the more

violent aspects of the left. In response, the radical left initiated a new

wave of terrorist attacks in Argentina’s main urban centers.

Collectively, the various movements conducted over 500 kidnappings

that netted ransoms in excess of $50 million in 1973. Assassinations

began anew as well but focused principally on the split between

right-wing and left-wing Peronists.42

With Perón’s death in July 1974, the situation in Argentina grew

worse. Perón had named his second wife, Isabel, as his running mate in

the 1973 election, and she inherited the presidency with Perón’s passing. A former nightclub actress with only six years of formal schooling,

Isabel’s background and education poorly equipped her to be vice president, much less president. Within two weeks of Isabel taking office,

the cities were swept again with a surge in violence. Assassinations reportedly averaged one every nineteen hours. In partial response to the

rampant lawlessness, the unofficial, yet government-sanctioned, infamous “Triple A” (Argentine Anticommunist Alliance) death squads

started cracking down on leftist movements.43

By September 1974, the Montoneros were underground and declared a “total popular war” on a government deemed “neither popular

nor Peronist.” In November, Isabel formally declared Argentina to be

in a state of siege, and the government imposed a “temporary” suspen390
sion of constitutional rights that remained in place for six years. In December, she petitioned congress for broad powers to call up the military

to combat subversion and assist in maintaining security. For the first

time since the military withdrew from power, the army was authorized

to join the police to fight against the guerrillas. They launched an all-out

offensive against the ERP in mid-February 1975. Meanwhile, in retribution, guerrillas staged some devastating attacks in or on the outlying

areas of Argentina’s largest cities, targeting army and navy installations, airports, and federal prisons. All told, by the end of 1975, over

1,700 people from all walks of life were reported to have been killed as

a result of political violence during the eighteen months Isabel was

president.44

The Montoneros’ return to clandestine activity was intended as a

defensive measure in response to an enemy offensive involving the

Triple A, police forces, and the military. Once the Montoneros could

successfully survive mounting offensive pressure, they looked to

regroup and conduct a counteroffensive. The primary objective of the

counteroffensive would be to “exhaust,” not “annihilate,” the enemy

forces because they could never hope to match the combined strength of

the government security forces. During the rebuilding phase, the

Montoneros relied on the biggest advantage the cities afforded to the

movement—the urban population. Thousands of activists and

supporters joined the Montonero ranks in reaction to the government’s

repressive actions.

With this groundswell of support, the leadership attempted to build a

Montonero army. A new organizational structure, along with a division

of functions, took place. Unlike the previous years, in which units were

trained in both political and military action, specialization became the

order of the day, with political and military functions segregated. Additionally, combat platoons (pelotones de combate) replaced the old commandos as the basic operational cell. The new “platoons” were

subordinate divisions of a far more elaborate military “column” structure. Military ranks were assigned to the members of the organization

as well. Accompanying this reorganization was a vast expansion of the

movement’s infrastructure. Logistics bases, “safe houses,” assembly

areas, printing equipment, “people’s prisons,” training facilities, and

munitions workshops were all formally established and organized. By

1974, these new changes enabled the Montoneros to mobilize 1,500

people nationally and conduct about 100 operaciones such as Molotov

cocktail attacks on targets of repressive affiliation, distributing leaflets,

raids, occupations, and mass demonstrations in any city they desired.

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During their peak year of 1975, the Montoneros were able to organize

the support of up to 5,000 revolutionaries for various actions, if

needed.45

Building a genuine guerrilla army required an abundant supply of

weapons and equipment. The Montoneros focused their efforts on obtaining the necessary funds to equip and train their army. Kidnapping

for ransom seemed like the best way for the Montonero leaders to acquire funds quickly on the scale required to underwrite their expansion

and future operations. Chief executives of the international corporation

of Bunge y Born were selected as targets. Juan and Jorge Born were the

director and general manager, respectively, of this business empire. As

the Born brothers rode in their chauffeured limousine from their home

in the plush Buenos Aires suburb of Beccar on 19 September 1974,

Montonero operatives followed them. At one point, the limousine was

directed to detour from the main road by “policemen.” Once off the

main road, about twenty to thirty “telephone repairmen” ambushed the

occupants of the car. With the chauffeur dead, the Born brothers were

whisked away to stand “trial” for acts against the workers, the people,

and national interests. Subsequently convicted of their crimes, the

brothers were sentenced to one year’s imprisonment in a “people’s

prison.” The Montoneros, in a communiqué, announced that they

would release the “criminals” if their demands were met. The demand,

a ransom of $60 million, was a world-record sum. Described as “bail,”

it was for the release of Juan and Jorge.46

Negotiations with Bunge y Born representatives became prolonged

as the company balked at paying such a large sum. To expedite

payment, the guerrillas applied additional pressure to the business

conglomerate by kidnapping another executive, later ransomed for half

a million dollars, and through intimidating other high-ranking partners

with numerous death threats. The pressure worked, and the company

finally gave in to the guerrillas’ demands nine months after the

kidnapping.47

The successful Bunge y Born operation not only provided the

Montoneros with a sizable financial base that exceeded one-third of the

national defense budget but also demonstrated the viability and

strength of their organization. Several months later, the Montoneros

followed the success of the Born brothers’ operation with the kidnapping of a Mercedes Benz executive that added another $5 million ransom to the insurgency’s coffers. With the payoffs from these

kidnappings and other operations totaling more than $70 million, the

Montoneros were guaranteed financial independence to purchase any392
thing the organization required. All this occurred at a time when the Argentine economy faced its worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

Inflation hit an annual rate of 200 percent, and unemployment reached

unprecedented levels. A former economic minister characterized the

condition as “the total destruction of its (national) economic order.”48

Financially secure, better armed, and more numerous, the Montoneros became ever more ambitious in operations against the government and its armed forces. Vengeance killings now became a staple of

Montonero justice. On top of the list was Federal Police Chief Alberto

Villar who had ties to the dreaded Triple A. Villar and his wife were

killed as they launched their small yacht from the Tigre boat dock, a recreational harbor up river from Buenos Aires. A powerful bomb had

been placed underneath the yacht’s floorboards near the engine. As the

craft began to maneuver from its mooring, the heat from the engine triggered the explosives and blew the boat apart. Three other former federal

police chiefs were killed shortly thereafter, along with other government officials who either collaborated with or were part of the Triple A

“death squads.” Violence for the sake of violence became the order of

the day as Montonero-conducted assassinations continued almost indiscriminately.49

This move to indiscriminate killing motivated by hate, revenge, and

a desire for blood ironically proved to contribute to the demise of the

Montoneros just at the time when they were the strongest militarily.

This surge in killing public officials, for the most part, was not met with

public outrage because many of the targets themselves were unpopular,

but there were just as many other killings whose significance was lost

on the general public. Public support and legitimacy as a “people’s

movement,” critical components for a revolutionary army’s survival,

began to wane as violence became divorced from political ends that the

public could understand. Everyone who worked for the government or

wore a police uniform became the enemy.50

The killing could partly be attributed to the increasing tendency

toward regular military warfare and a more conventional military

approach to achieving objectives through killing the enemy. The

Montoneros fell into the same trap of overprofessionalization that hurt

the Tupamarosin Uruguay. In one sense, the Montoneros became more

“symmetrical” in relation to the forces they faced. This move toward

greater militarism drew the movement into what they called the

dialectic of confrontation—“a reactive spiral of violence which

tempted Montoneros to increasingly respond to enemy moves rather

than seize and retain the initiative.”51

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Besides the campaign against the state security apparatus previously

mentioned and the propaganda efforts, the guerrillas launched two

other tactical military offensive campaigns in the period 1974-1976.

The first saw the initiation of genuine military and paramilitary activity

with major attacks primarily directed against the armed forces. The last

campaign, set in motion in 1976 on the eve of yet another coup, was

principally aimed against the police forces. In both campaigns, the

guerrillas selected targets in and around major urban areas to illustrate

to the public the government’s impotence in securing its own installations. The campaign against the military is the more noteworthy because it saw occasions where the Montonerosrampaged at will through

Argentina’s major cities and dealt significant blows to all three traditional military services: the army, navy, and air force.52

This campaign started in July 1975 and at first involved blocking

roads, temporarily occupying the city of Córdoba (twice) through

superbly synchronized raids, and attacking police stations. In addition

to the two attacks on Córdoba and a similar attack in Buenos Aires, nine

police stations, twenty stores, two press offices, three town halls, and an

artillery headquarters were bombed. What the Montoneros achieved by

these actions was to show that the police alone could not maintain order

despite introducing sand-bagged machine gun nests and strictly

controlling traffic around police stations and other likely targets. Police

casualties began mounting at least as rapidly as Montonero losses,

thereby prompting the army to demand the lead in the national

counterinsurgency effort.53

The army no longer limited its intervention against urban insurgent

groups to the times when the police seemed overwhelmed. The shift to a

military lead in this war signaled that matters of stability and order were

no longer primarily police matters. From the moment the army took

control of the counterinsurgency effort, the Montoneros considered

every uniformed man a representative of repressive institutions and

thus a potential terrorist target. The Montoneros next lashed out against

the military with great ferocity.54

Well-coordinated guerrilla operations illustrating a high degree of

technical planning and proficiency characterized the latter months of

1975. During this time, the Montoneros launched some of the largest

guerrilla operations ever undertaken in Argentina. The campaign began

when 100 Montonero bombs exploded throughout Argentine cities on

key revolutionary anniversary dates in August and September, almost

as the herald of a new phase in an armed struggle. After this opening

salvo of terror bombing, the campaign against the armed forces com394
menced with attacks on all three armed forces. These guerrilla operations were designed to administer serious psychological blows to the

military’s public image, if not a clear military defeat for government

counterinsurgency efforts.55

First, the navy was hit in a well-orchestrated attack. The Montoneros

blew up the navy’s prize possession, a newly acquired, and their first,

modern missile-carrying frigate, the 3,500-ton Santisima Trinidad. A

Montonero unit that studied underwater attacks from World War II meticulously planned this operation. Approaching at night in a collapsible

camouflaged boat, Montonero frogmen attached underwater demolition charges to the ship’s hull as it was lying in a naval shipyard protected by guards. Although the resulting explosion did not sink the ship,

it did knock out all the electronics aboard, setting operational deployment back by at least a year.56

The Montoneros then attacked the air force. This attack occurred at

an airport in the city of San Miguel de Tucuman. This operation, like the

one on the navy, also occurred in a guarded military zone, but the

Montoneros took advantage of slack security practices. A Montonero

platoon found an abandoned tunnel that ran under the runway at the

airport and packed explosives in a drainage pipe that ran perpendicular

from the tunnel and up to the runway. As a C-130 military transport

plane rolled down the runway for takeoff, the explosives were

detonated by remote control as the aircraft rolled over the drain’s

location. The explosion damaged the runway and destroyed the C-130.

The plane exploded with a military antiguerrilla unit on board. Five

people were killed and forty injured in this well-timed and planned

operation.57

The operation that had the honor of being the most elaborately

planned and audacious in scope was reserved for the army. It was early

October 1975 when the Montoneros attacked the garrison of the 29th

Regiment, Mounted Infantry (R29) in the Argentine city of Formosa,

located 930 kilometers north of Buenos Aires and close to the

Paraguayan border. This northern provincial capital was not a

Montonero stronghold, so consequently, combatants and equipment

had to be transported from a Montonero base in Rosario about 800

kilometers away. A total of sixty members composed the whole force,

made up of thirty-nine fighters in the assault element and twenty-one

support personnel pre-positioned in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, and

Formosa. Success depended on the synchronization of three separate

actions, the first being hijacking an Aerolineas Argentinas Boeing 739

en route from Buenos Aires to Corrientas. This task was entrusted to

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four guerrillas, including some doctors among the hijackers, who were

to force the pilot to land at the Formosa airport instead of its planned

destination. Next, nine guerrillas would take over the airport as the

plane was circling overhead. The third action, a convoy of six vehicles

consisting of twenty-six people (some in army uniforms), attempted to

head undetected to the R29 garrison to conduct the attack and demand

the post’s surrender.

The assault element achieved some initial success in approaching

the garrison undetected. This success can be attributed to the fact that

the military was not expecting an attack so far from Buenos Aires.

Additionally, the approaching convoy appeared routine to the camp’s

guards, and the guerrillas dressed in army uniforms were quite literally

“hiding in plain sight.” The garrison personnel only began to react once

the guerrillas approached near the compound gate and fired their

weapons. Once firing began, the assault element started taking heavy

machine gun fire from various guard towers. The guerrilla force was

only able to penetrate the R29 garrison as far as the camp armory where

they took some weapons, including a machine gun, that was put to

immediate use. The battle that ensued was brief but furious. The

Montoneros took high casualties, and five of the six vehicles were

immobilized. As army reinforcements began to arrive from nearby

residential quarters, eleven surviving guerrillas piled into the only

remaining vehicle, an F-350 truck. There was just enough room in the

truck for the attackers with their weapons to make a getaway. Another

four guerrillas ultimately reached the airport independently. Once at the

airport, the surviving fighters took off in the Boeing and a four-seater

Cessna 182. The wounded were provided with blood transfusions while

in flight. The hijackers forced the pilot of the Boeing to land in a field

outside Santa Fe where other guerrillas with ten vehicles awaited their

arrival. The guerrillas then vanished, preventing police pursuit by

simply scattering nails on the roads behind them.58

It is interesting to note that the attack on the infantry regiment in

Formosa was probably the Montoneros’ most important “military” operation, but it was also their last.59 It was these spectacular operations

against the armed forces that, in part, contributed to the military reasserting control over the Argentine government. After the attack on the

R29 base, the army demanded a larger role in dealing with subversive

threats to the military, society, and the nation overall. The army pressured the government to approve its proposal for a National Council of

Internal Security and a National Defense Council. The internal security

council served essentially as a rubber-stamp organization for all

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antisubversive actions deemed appropriate by the military; the defense

council would enforce the internal security council’s policies. Military

repression was now given official sanction and would be carried out

against all organizations in which subversion was believed to exist.

These included known rural and urban guerrilla organizations, combative trade unions, “factory guerrillas,” and university student groups. To

assist the military in this effort, the two councils gave the armed forces

the power to coordinate and centralize all of the nation’s agencies, including control over the federal police who could assist in repressing

anyone deemed subversive.60

Also, by late 1975 and into 1976, economic reverses continued; the

rate of inflation reached 350 percent, and the prolonged internal warfare brought Argentina to virtual anarchy. President Isabel Perón was

ineffective in bringing any economic or political stability to the national situation. Furthermore, when she was accused of mismanagement and corrupt practices, she was forced to relinquish her position as

head of state. The military, its position already strengthened politically

by its increased role under the charter of martial law as the central

agency controlling antisubversive policies, reasserted itself into the

government leadership role. General Jorge Rafael Videla took charge

in the aftermath of a military coup following Isabel’s removal from office and established a military dictatorship. The army took the lead in

running the government, but the navy and air force each shared a third

of all governmental responsibilities in an awkward division of power.61

Meanwhile, the Montoneros continued fighting through 1976

against the police and the military, but none of their subsequent actions

ever achieved the level of sophistication, scale, or drama as the ones

conducted in the latter part of 1975. As the military began an extreme

but effective program of eradicating insurgent groups in 1976,

Montonero operational capacity became limited to random acts of terrorism. The press, now suppressed by the dictatorship, robbed the

Montoneros of their last true political weapon—media publicity. Popular support to the movement all but evaporated as the public grew weary

from all the civil strife, and the government’s reign of terror, the “Dirty

War,” began. Instead of flocking to their ranks in the face of unbearable

repressive conditions as the Montoneros hoped, many potential recruits

came to regard guerrilla groups as being solely responsible for the repression that occurred nationwide, mostly in the cities but in the countryside as well. By 1977, the Montoneros were virtually decimated as a

fighting force due to the military’s antisubversive measures. Armed

resistance came to a complete halt in 1979 when an exiled group of

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guerrillas returned to conduct a counteroffensive and was almost annihilated. Although the Montoneros continued as a movement into 1980,

it was estimated that no more than 350 members remained. Although

the Montoneros never acknowledged defeat, by 1980, nonviolent methods became the rule. The Montonero watchword became “to resist is to

win,” a far cry from the inspirational todo o nada.

62

The military dictatorship after 1976 was no better equipped than its

predecessors to deal with the vexing social and economic questions that

had beset Argentina for so long. In true military fashion, the dictatorship focused on a problem it could solve—the issue of subversion and

security. Officially known as the “final resolution” but more popularly

known as the “Dirty War,” it included Nazi techniques of mass arrests,

imprisonment, unprecedented levels of torture, murder, and burial in

mass graves of anyone deemed politically undesirable. No one in Argentina was safe from the parallel clandestine state the military erected

in its zeal to “save” the nation. Between 1976 and 1983, upwards of

30,000 Argentines disappeared through the practices of political genocide. Ostensibly occupied with combating terrorism, the government’s

cure for subversion resulted in the intimidation of the entire population,

with no segment of society considered safe or totally secure.63

In one sense, the military became what it was fighting—terrorists.

What started as urban warfare between two asymmetrical forces—one

revolutionary and guerrilla, the other a professional conventional

military—during the course of prolonged and frustrating conflict

moved toward an unanticipated stage of symmetry. The insurgents

became more militarized as the professionals became more clandestine

and criminal.

One of the underlying assumptions of this chapter is the notion that a

study of past insurgencies or radical revolutionary movements can

provide insight into similar situations faced today or in the future. At

the tactical level, this brief examination of the Montoneros illustrates

that, modern refinements notwithstanding, almost everything radical

movements practice today has been used in the past. The specific

methods may differ, say crashing an airplane into a skyscraper, but the

tactical principles are the same. The efficacy of small mobile assault

groups operating “behind the lines” to harass the enemy, attacking his

symbols of national strength, and terrorizing the citizenry have not

fundamentally changed over time. In this type of warfare, though,

military tactics are employed and political objectives are sought.64

Military forces need to understand this and prepare to deal with the

challenges that the asymmetrical type of warfare poses. The fact that

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radical movements have been inseparably linked to ideological forces

hostile to the United States presents this issue in a more urgent light.

As a practical matter, militaries that operate in an unconventional

urban environment need to understand that technology and weapons

alone will not provide the solution to countering asymmetrical threats.

Unfortunately, state-of-the-art technology also increases the power of

radical movements since ideologically motivated insurgents or

terrorists can either construct or secure devices or weapon systems that,

for a short time, put them on a roughly equal footing with a country’s

constituted authority. This technological parity can be a disadvantage

to a conventional force, even if its equipment or troops are numerically

superior. The threat can “mass” at the critical point and time of its

choosing, knowing full well that even with superior numbers the

military cannot possibly be everywhere. This point becomes clearer as

one considers that the Montoneros, although labeled as urban

guerrillas, operated throughout the country in other cities, occasionally

in the countryside, and as far away as a remote border garrison near the

northeastern city of Formosa. They were “urban” in the sense that cities

provided a base for operations, safety, funding, logistics support, and

intelligence networks, but they could and did strike with impunity

anywhere they chose.

Probably the greatest challenge for conventional military forces that

engage in an unconventional operating environment is to understand

the different nature of the “combat” situation and adjust their traditional

battlefield frameworks accordingly. A template type of response to an

insurgent threat over a prolonged period of time often fails. Key terrain

in these types of operations becomes the symbolic and real centers of

government power. One only has to look to the recent examples of the

World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks to validate this point. The

battleground to be won is not city sectors or districts; it is a fight for

minds. This is especially true in a classic revolutionary struggle where

both sides are attempting to gain the population’s support.

Conventional force reliance on massed firepower and maneuver is not

only politically inappropriate but also, as a practical matter, very

difficult to execute against guerrillas operating in congested, complex

city terrain.

Military leaders and planners need to keep in mind that generally

these operations involve counterinsurgency and are not necessarily

combat operations. At the national level, effective government counterinsurgency programs should include both rewards and punishments.

Political and economic development programs must be integrated with

399
military operations designed to eliminate hostile opposition to maintain

a legitimate governing authority. It is also necessary to reduce the number of people seen as “the enemy” so we do not alienate public opinion

or stifle legitimate dissent.65

Another lesson for military professionals to consider when examining the legacy of urban guerrilla warfare is that effective counterinsurgency doctrine is for both specialized forces and conventional forces.

Conventional forces need to understand and train to perform counterinsurgency tasks. The potential always exists for U.S. forces assigned to a

peacekeeping mission to be tasked to provide support directly to a host

nation or in conjunction with a coalition to a region undergoing an insurgency. The U.S. Army found itself in this type of situation as it supported the UNISOM II mission in Somalia in the early 1990s.

Understanding the role that conventional forces play in these kinds of

operations can assist in maintaining peace. Conventional forces can

collect essential intelligence; sweep, clear, and hold areas; and provide

a rapid-reaction capability. According to scholars Georges Fauriol and

Andrew Hoehn, “in the end, both insurgent and counterinsurgent activities seek one objective; the maintenance and control of political

power.”66 In that regard, a military force engaged in these endeavors

needs to be prepared to exercise the full range of operations: offense,

defense, stability, and support.

The Argentine military response to threats to its society demonstrates an extreme example of how to provide domestic security. A

larger lesson that emerges from this case study is that no exclusively

military solution for urban violence exists. Urban terrorism is not peculiar to any specific form of society, and under certain conditions, terrorists can succeed in breaking down the fabric of the most resilient

democratic society. The measures and level of power the Argentine

military exercised may be a remote possibility in a society that has a

strong democratic tradition such as in the United States. The challenge

to our society, if faced with similar conditions, is to find another way to

resolve threats to stability and security without resorting to the Argentine model. This makes it important to consider the problems of national response in these situations. The first requirement is that the

government under attack, whether the attack is from an internal insurgent or external terrorist, must show both the resolution and the capacity to respond with necessary force. Just as important as the first

requirement is the ability to show restraint in applying force when appropriate. Last, effective UO of any kind require good, timely intelligence coordinated in conjunction with all components in the fight.67

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One other issue emerges for consideration as a result of this case

study on an asymmetrical threat—a cautionary note. To evaluate the

phenomenon of the Montoneros in Argentina merely from the standpoint of winners and losers overlooks more fundamental issues of concern for modern military professionals. It is true that the Montoneros

lost in their goal of initiating a popular uprising and replacing the existing regime. In most instances, however, they made a deep impression

well out of proportion to their numbers or the strength of their financial

and logistics resources. They caused a significant amount of the nation’s resources and energy to be applied to the threat they posed. Even

when they were able to mount an effective operational challenge in

1975, they were still ultimately defeated by efficient, though brutal,

counterinsurgency operations.68 The tragedy in all this is that the professional military, the defender of freedom and liberty, eventually

turned its energies inward, repressing the society it was supposed to

protect. In that sense, the Montoneros affected millions of lives as democracy was destroyed in the process. From a Clausewitzian perspective, this case study illustrates how a country is thrust into descent when

the factors of emotion and passion dominate rationality and control.

Unfortunately, the real losers in this situation were Argentina and its

people. Perhaps the greatest lesson the Montonero example provides is

one of caution for governments and societies that may face somewhat

similar situations. When a society gives up its core principles and values of governance in the name of greater state security, the society

loses.

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Notes

1. Microsoft Bookshelf ’98 Reference Library.

2. Richard Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron: Argentina’s Montoneros

(Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1982), 81-82.

3. For brief but excellent summaries about ALN activities in Brazil,

the Tupamarosin Uruguay, and the Montonerosin Argentina, see Liza Gross,

Handbook of Leftist Guerrilla Groups in Latin America and the Caribbean

(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 16-21, 29-32, 145-49.

4. William Columbus Davis, Warnings From the Far South:

Democracy versus Dictatorship in Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile (Westport,

CT: Praeger, 1995), 2-3.

5. Gross, 4.

6. Ibid.; Latin American Insurgencies, Georges Fauriol, ed. (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1985), 9. Fauriol also provides a

brief historical overview that concisely traces the development of insurgent

groups in Latin America after World War II. See 11-17.

7. Ibid., 163.

8. Gross, 3-4.

9. Ibid., 1.

10. Richard Gillespie, “The Urban Guerrilla in Latin America,”

Terrorism, Ideology & Revolution, Noel O’Sullivan, ed. (Boulder, CO:

Westview Press, 1986), 151.

11. Richard Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron: Argentina’s Montoneros (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, February 1986), 48. A footnote on page 48

briefly explainsfoco theory. For readers who may be unfamiliar with focoism,

the note is reproduced here: “The theory of the foco, or foquismo (subscribed

to by foquistas), though originally elaborated with rural warfare in mind, contends that revolutionaries should begin to wage armed struggle even if some of

the ‘conditions’ for a successful revolution are not yet present in their country;

that guerrilla activities help to create such conditions; and that, by exploiting

the classical guerrilla advantages of mobility, flexibility, and surprise, small

armed nuclei can develop into popular revolutionary armies, capable of defeating regular armies.” See also Regis Debray, Revolution in the Revolution

(Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1969); Ernesto Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare:

Che Guevara (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1969); and Brian Train,

“The Terror War” at <www.islandnet.com/~citizenx/Twbody.html>, 2-3.

12. Fauriol, 168-70; in Martin Edwin Andersen, Dossier Secreto

(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), Guevara saw as his mission to make

“one, two . . . many Vietnams” in the Americas, 57; Robert Moss, The War for

the Cities (NY: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1972), 148.

13. Fauriol, 170-71; Moss, 148.

402
14. Armed Forces & Modern Counter-Insurgency, Ian F.W. Beckett and

John Pimlott, eds. (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1985), 116; James Kohl and John

Litt, Urban Guerrilla Warfare in Latin America (Cambridge, MA: The MIT

Press, 1974), 324; and Davis, 28-29.

15. Walter Laqueur, The Guerrilla Reader: A Historical Anthology

(Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1977), 187, and Armed Forces &

Modern Counter-Insurgency, 116.

16. John D. Eliot, “Transitions of Contemporary Terrorism,” Military

Review (May 1977), 9; Train, 4-5; and Kohl and Litt, 18.

17. Eliot, 9.

18. Armed Forces & Modern Counter-Insurgency, 117, and Kohl and

Litt, 19.

19. Ibid., 18.

20. Fauriol, 172.

21. Carlos Marighella, Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla, 1969. No

publication data available. Copy in possession of the author.

22. Kohl and Litt, 15-16.

23. Ibid., 15-19, and Armed Forces & Modern Counter-Insurgency, 123.

24. Kohl and Litt, 20-23.

25. Fauriol, 4, and Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 60-63.

26. Davis, 74; Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 76; Laqueur, 231.

27. Armed Forces & Modern Counter-Insurgency, 116, and Gillespie,

Soldiers of Peron, 47.

28. Simply stated, “Peronist views” were based on three unifying

principles: political sovereignty, economic independence, and social justice.

Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 8.

29. Davis, 107, and Gross, 7, 14. In addition to the Montoneros, the ERP,

and the Revolutionary Armed Forces, Gross lists four other “leftist” guerrilla

movements prevalent during the 1960s and 1970s: the Guerrilla Army of the

People, a Marxist-Leninist-Guevarist group; the Armed Forces of Liberation,

a Marxist-Leninist movement with Maoist overtones; the Peronist Armed

Forces, a leftist-Peronist group; and the Uturuncos “Tiger-Men,” a

Peronist-Castroist movement, 7-22.

30. Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 17, 25, 40, 48; Gross, 17; and Davis, 89,

96.

31. Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 1, 57-60, and Gross, 17.

32. For detailed accounts on the Aramburu assassination, see Gillespie,

Soldiers of Peron, 89; Gross, 16; Kohl and Litt, 343; Andersen, 65; and

Terrorism in Argentina, 1979, no publication data available, 35-38. This book

is a compilation of news articles and communiqués published by the military

dictatorship that took over Argentina in the late 1970s and conducted the Dirty

War. Through brief introductory narratives followed by sensational

403
newspaper accounts depicting the horrors of guerrilla actions, the book is an

attempt to justify the ruling regime’s draconian measures to keep order and

security. Regarding the Aramburu assassination, pages 35-38 are interviews

with some of the Montonero members who conducted Operation PINDAPOY.

Of particular note are the extensive planning, preparations, and methods the

guerrillas used in gathering intelligence on Aramburu’s movements and

details of his apartment along with the ways they obtained military-type

uniforms, vehicles, and other support.

33. Kohl and Litt, 324-25, and Davis, 106-107.

34. Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 87, 90; Gross, 16-17; and Latin

American Insurgencies, 26-27.

35. Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 84-85. Commandos had the following

names: Eva Peron, a name that all units eagerly competed for; Comandante

Uturunco, nom de guerre of Argentina’s first modern rural guerrilla leader;

General Jose de San Martin, after the Independence hero; Felipe Vallese, the

first Peronist youth martyr; and 29 May, date of the Cordobazo. Later on,

Montonero units were christened predominately with the names of slain

combatants.

36. Ibid., 79.

37. Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 95-96, and Davis, 107.

38. Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 95-97. Although Gillespie does not

specifically state that torture was used to extract information from the two

Montoneros captured in the La Calera operation, the amount of intelligence

gained and the speed with which the police reacted suggests that this was the

case. Gillespie does state that after the Maza funeral, public sympathy for the

“Montoneros being tortured in prison” became evident.

39. Davis, 107. For a detailed chronology of all the significant guerrilla

and government events during Levingston’s short term in office, see Kohl and

Litt, 343-52.

40. Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 111.

41. Davis, 109-11, and Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 119.

42. Davis, 112-14, and Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 146-47, 150-51.

43. Davis, 114-16, and Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 163.

44. Davis, 115-16, and Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 163, 184.

45. Ibid., 174-79.

46. Ibid., 180-81. See also Lester A. Sobel, Argentina and Peron,

1970-1975, for additional information on the Born brothers’ kidnapping. The

specific charges the Born brothers had been “tried” on consisted of

exploitation of Argentine workers by Bunge and Born, and the corporation’s

support to the 1955 military coup that deposed President Peron. “In addition to

the $60 million (a figure Bunge & Born neither confirmed nor denied), the

404
company also distributed $1.2 million worth of food and clothing in poor

neighborhoods around the country,” 146.

47. Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 181.

48. Ibid., 181-82, and Davis, 116-17.

49. Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 183-84, 188, and Andersen, 120-21.

50. Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 186-92.

51. Ibid., 192.

52. Ibid., 193.

53. Ibid., 193-94.

54. Ibid., 201.

55. Ibid., 196.

56. Ibid., 196-97.

57. Ibid., 197.

58. Ibid., 197-200.

59. Anderson, 232.

60. Donald C. Hodges, Argentina, 1943-1976, The National Revolution

and Resistance (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1976),

178.

61. Hodges, 168-70, and Davis, 117-19.

62. Gillespie, Soldiers of Peron, 204-205; Gross, 20-21; Andersen,

12-13.

63. Donald C. Hodges, Argentina’s “Dirty War,” An Intellectual Biography (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1991), 19, 177; Patricia and William Marchak, God’s Assassins: State Terrorism in Argentina in the 1970s

(Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999), preface.

64. Fauriol, 1, 167-68, 191-92.

65. Moss, 240-41.

66. Fauriol, 191.

67. Moss, 240; Terrorism, Legitimacy, and Power, The Consequences of

Political Violence, Martha Crenshaw, ed. (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan

University Press, 1983), 6, 31-35.

68. Gross, 1-2, 5.

405

Humanitarian Operations in an

Urban Environment:

Hurricane Andrew, August-October

1992

Jerold E. Brown

In the early morning hours of 18 August 1992, a WC-130 of the U.S.

Air Force Reserve’s 815th Weather Flight, the “Storm Trackers,” took

off from Keesler Air Force Base (AFB), Mississippi, to gather data on

an as yet unnamed tropical storm in the mid-Atlantic 1,000 miles east of

the U.S. mainland. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) at Coral

Gables, Florida, requested the mission to learn more about a growing

storm then moving westward across longitude 55 degrees west.1 The

center named the storm, the first hurricane of the 1992 season,

“Andrew.” Hurricane Andrew became the most destructive and costly

natural phenomenon in U.S. history. The U.S. military response to

Andrew was the most extensive humanitarian and relief operation in a

long history of providing comfort and assistance to the American

people in times of need.

The Storm Trackers’ mission on that August morning was only the

first of more than two dozen missions into the eye of the storm. The

trackers flew continuous missions, twenty-four hours a day, watching

the storm grow in intensity and tracking Andrew’s progress from the

Lesser Antilles, across the southern tip of Florida, over the Gulf of

Mexico, until it finally made landfall on the Louisiana coast, not far

from Keesler AFB where the first mission originated. Each mission

lasted ten to thirteen hours. The 815th first established a forward

operating base on Antigua in the West Indies to be closer to the storm,

then moved to Charleston, South Carolina. Personnel from the 403d

Maintenance Squadron at Keesler struggled to keep the 815th aircraft

in the air, working twelve-hour shifts without a break while their

families in Biloxi prepared for the storm bearing down on their

community.2

The timely and accurate information the trackers provided allowed

authorities to make critical early decisions that undoubtedly saved

many lives. A full twenty-four hours before Andrew made landfall in

Dade County, just south of Miami, Florida’s governor declared an

emergency, initiated the first steps of an evacuation of the area in the

407
storm’s path, and called up the first contingent of Florida National

Guardsmen. Some of these 600 guardsmen would remain on duty for

weeks, dealing with the aftermath of Andrew’s rage.3 The Guard performed yeoman duty assisting civil authorities in a variety of tasks, but

most important, it performed a law enforcement role. The guardsmen

patrolled neighborhoods ravaged by Andrew’s 160-mile-per-hour

(mph) winds, detained looters and other suspected criminals, directed

traffic, and guided follow-on military units to critical locations. The

Florida National Guard’s training and knowledge were critical in dealing with the chaos Andrew created in more than half a dozen communities of south Dade County. The arriving Florida National Guard units,

however, were merely the first act of a massive U.S. military response

to the devastation Andrew left behind as it moved across south Florida.

Hurricane Andrew was the most destructive natural disaster ever to

strike the United States. Cutler Ridge, Perrine, Kendall, Old Cutler,

Country Walk, Homestead, and Florida City were in the 100-square-mile

area in south Dade County that Andrew completely leveled. Another

200 square miles, including the cities of Miami and Miami Beach, suffered significant damage. Two dozen south Floridians lost their lives,

and property damage rose to an estimated $1 billion, although the total

cost can never be accurately determined. Lost wages and earnings,

business income, tax collections, tourist trade, and personal assets are

incalculable. Perhaps more important, the psychological and spiritual

damage to the residents of the stricken area who lived through the terrifying hours of the storm and its aftermath will require years, if not decades,

to heal. Into this area of destruction where all public services had ceased

to exist, U.S. military forces deployed hundreds, then thousands, of

troops and vast quantities of equipment to deal with the crisis. The U.S.

military response in south Florida in the days and weeks after Hurricane

Andrew became the most extensive urban rescue and humanitarian operations in American history.

The primary responsibility for dealing with local crises and disasters

in the United States, whether natural or man-made, historically fell on

local authorities.4 In all too many instances, however, local governments were unequipped to deal with other than minor situations. Local

authorities were either too poorly organized, lacked adequate resources, or were simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster.

Thus, state and local governments frequently turned to the militia and,

later, the National Guard as the organizations most capable of handling

large-scale emergencies. On some occasions, however, disasters were

even beyond the National Guard’s resources and abilities to deal with

408
the loss of life and disrupted public services. On those occasions when

crises overwhelmed state Guard units, governors called upon the president to provide federal resources and manpower to assist local authorities or assume full responsibility for managing the crisis. Throughout

the nation’s history, the Regular U.S. Army troops responded to these

calls for assistance and contributed both directly and indirectly to operations involving rescue, relief, security, and restoration of public services.

On numerous occasions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,

the Regular Army answered the summons to assist or take control of humanitarian and disaster relief operations. For a number of reasons, military forces are better suited to deal with natural disasters and their

consequences than are other government agencies. Among these reasons are leadership, experience, organization, equipment, a trained and

disciplined force, and resources that are generally not available even to

government agencies specifically created to deal with both natural and

man-made disasters.

The Chicago Fire

Perhaps the best-known natural disasters in the last 150 years of

American history are the great Chicago fire of 1871, the Johnstown

flood of 1889, and the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. In each of

these cases, the government responded differently, depending on the

presence of military units in the area and local commanders’ leadership

initiatives. A brief look at each of the disasters will demonstrate the

absence of planning and preparations to deal with civil catastrophes.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, Chicago, with a population

of 300,000, was a major business, communications, meatpacking, and

manufacturing center. Ten railroads converged in Chicago, making it

one of the nation’s leading transportation hubs. Like most nineteenth-century American cities, Chicago’s dwellings and many public

buildings were wooden-frame, clapboard, shingle-roof construction.

The city’s fire department was barely adequate and struggled to keep up

with the growth of an expanding metropolitan area. The fire that broke

out on Sunday evening, 8 October 1871, in a cow shed behind a residence on Chicago’s DeKoven Street spread quickly in the tinder-dry

neighborhood of wood-frame buildings.5 Within hours, the flames

engulfed a vast area near the city’s center. Lieutenant General Philip

Sheridan, commander of the Division of the Missouri, whose headquarters, located across the street from Chicago’s courthouse, was

409
destroyed early in the conflagration, responded quickly. He ordered

troops at the local garrison to begin demolishing buildings in the fire’s

path to create a firebreak, keeping the fire to the north and saving the

area south of Harrison and Wabash streets. The Army’s work, however,

had just begun.

By Tuesday, the fire had destroyed three and a half square miles of

Chicago, killed several hundred residents, and left more than 100,000

people homeless and destitute. Thousands of hapless Chicagoans

roamed the devastated city looking for food, shelter, and anything of

value. Widespread looting and the near outbreak of riots prompted Chicago’s mayor, Roswell B. Mason, to proclaim martial law on Wednesday and ask Sheridan to take charge of reestablishing civil order.

Sheridan readily accepted the responsibility. He mustered a force of

Regulars and local militia, subsequently called “Sheridan Guards,” to

bring order to the city and begin providing relief for the thousands of

dispossessed. He ordered six infantry companies from Nebraska and

Kansas to Chicago to patrol the city and set up relief centers. When this

number proved inadequate, he ordered six more companies to the city,

some coming from as far away as Kentucky. Sherman also provided

hundreds of thousands of Army rations and thousands of tents and blankets to those in need of food and shelter.

Sheridan not only ordered his troops to arrest and detain looters and

cutthroats but also cracked down on profiteers and others attempting to

take advantage of the displaced population. Although martial law

ended in Chicago on 23 October, fifteen days after the fire started, the

Army continued to provide relief services for a considerable period

thereafter. Despite the fact that Sheridan had initially acted on his own

authority, his superiors, Commanding General of the Army William T.

Sherman and President Ulysses S. Grant, fully supported his actions

and authorized whatever military resources necessary to provide relief

for the inhabitants of the burned-out areas.

The Johnstown Flood

The story of the Johnstown flood offers a different perspective on the

military’s role in local disaster relief. On Thursday evening, 30 May

1889, a massive storm front moved eastward over the Allegheny

Mountains and began to dump huge quantities of rain on an area from

those mountains to New York City to the mouth of the Potomac in the

east to the southern boundary of Virginia. By Friday, an average of 6 to

8 inches of rain had fallen on this vast area. Not a single community or

410
acre of ground was spared. Central and western Pennsylvania received

the heaviest downpours. In some areas, the rain had fallen steadily at the

rate of an inch an hour. One source estimated that 4.32 billion tons of

water fell on 1,200 square miles of western Pennsylvania in less than

thirty-six hours. With such a quantity of water, local flooding was

predictable. As events were to prove, however, the consequence of so

much water was the most disastrous and devastating flood in U.S.

history.6

By Friday evening, many towns and villages along the Susquehanna

River’s tributaries, the West Branch, the Juniata, and the North Branch,

were already inundated. Clearfield, Renovo, Lock Haven, Williamsport, and Montgomery, to name just a few of the towns along the

Susquehanna system, measured high water above any previous flood

levels. By Saturday morning, 1 June, most towns along the upper

Susquehanna experienced flooding or effects of the rising water. Generally speaking, these towns and cities coped with the situation on their

own. Few outsiders came to help them.

To the west of the Allegheny divide, a number of small tributaries

converge to form the Allegheny River. The Allegheny flows westward

to meet the Monongahela at Pittsburgh where the two rivers form the

Ohio. Along the Allegheny’s upper tributaries, scores of small cities

and towns lie in the valleys and hug the steep riverbanks. The largest,

and perhaps the most important, of the urban centers on the

Conemaugh, one of three primary Allegheny tributaries, is the city of

Johnstown. Located at the mouth of Stony Creek, Johnstown is the

financial and cultural center of the area. At least a dozen other boroughs

and incorporated communities along the Conemaugh and Stony Creek,

including Cambria, Geistown, Millville, Prospect, Woodvale,

Moxham, and Morrellville, are generally identified as part of

Johnstown. In the 1880s, small factories, logging operations, mills, iron

works, and rail yards sustained the region’s population.

A half-century earlier the state of Pennsylvania had built a large

earthen dam 16 miles upstream from Johnstown on the South Fork,

another tributary of the Conemaugh, to supply water for the series of

canals then used to move natural resources and finished goods between

Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The South Fork dam was 931 feet long,

272 feet wide at its base, 72 feet high in the center, and 20 feet across at

the top. The dam compounded a reservoir of over 400 acres. In 1854,

the first train crossed the Alleghenies on the newly opened

Pennsylvania Railroad system between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Thereafter, the canal system declined, and the state increasingly

411
neglected to maintain the dam. The Pennsylvania Railroad purchased

the dam in 1857 but performed little maintenance on it. The dam broke

for the first time in 1862 but caused little damage downstream because

the reservoir was only half full at the time. The dam was repaired, and

the lake it formed served as a recreational area for summer visitors to

the area. Twenty-seven years later the tale would have a very different

end.

By noon on Friday, 31 May, several towns on the rail line along the

Conemaugh and South Fork were flooded, and water was in some

cellars and streets of Johnstown proper. The rain that was swamping

towns and communities east of the mountains was also soaking the

ridges and valleys to the west. The drainage into the South Fork

reservoir was quickly overwhelming the dam’s spillway, 9 feet below

the crest of the dam. In spite of the fact that 6,000 cubic feet of water

was going over the spillway every second, the water behind the dam

rose at a rate of 10 inches per hour. The pressure was too much. Just

before 1500, the center of the dam gave way, and 20 million tons of

water poured through a 430-foot-wide gap in the dam.

The distance from the South Fork dam to the Johnstown bridge is 16

miles, and the elevation drop over this distance is 400 feet. Down the

narrow valley of the South Fork into the Conemaugh, a massive wall of

water, estimated at 40 feet high, gathered speed and rushed headlong,

breaking up and carrying away every man-made and natural obstacle

that stood in its path. Trees, buildings, bridges, animals, locomotives,

and human beings were swept along in the unimaginable torrent. Entire

towns and villages disappeared. By the time the wall of water reached

Johnstown, it had been reduced to perhaps 20 feet high. Nevertheless,

the wave still contained enough energy that, as it washed through the

city, it carried nearly everything in its path with it. It left only death and

destruction behind.

Most of the 12,000 residents of Johnstown, completely disoriented

and in shock, spent Saturday and Sunday searching the debris for the

living and the dead, and trying to come to grips with the enormity of the

disaster. Not until Sunday evening, 2 June, did the local sheriff appeal

to the governor of Pennsylvania for troops. The next day, 3 June, the

14th Regiment, Pennsylvania National Guard, was ordered to

Johnstown. Five hundred fifty guardsmen of the 14th eventually

arrived in the Johnstown area. They provided security details to protect

property; set up tent villages for survivors; fed up to 30,000 people per

day (including thousands of civilian laborers who came into the area);

and supervised the clearing of streets, repair of public buildings, and

412
reopening of the railroads. The 14th Regiment remained in Johnstown

until 13 July when all but one company departed the area. The

remaining company stayed in Johnstown throughout the summer.

Unlike Chicago, no Regular U.S. military units were stationed near

Johnstown. Response to and relief of Johnstown arose largely from

local and state committees and agencies. Businesses and industries,

especially the railroads, that operated in the devastated area provided

most of the resources for clearing roads, streets, and the remaining

bridges and brought in food, clothing, and other necessary relief

supplies at their own expense. The federal government provided little

other than its good offices and offers of moral support to the relief

effort.

The San Francisco Earthquake

A third example of the U.S. Army’s response to an urban crisis was

the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. The Army’s role in the

San Francisco disaster left a legacy of controversy.7 To some, Brigadier

General Frederick Funston was a hero for his quick and timely reaction

to the geological upheaval that engulfed San Francisco a little after

0500 on Wednesday, 18 April 1906. During the following days,

Funston created a reputation among many Americans for decisive decisions and inexhaustible leadership under pressure that established him

as one of America’s leading soldiers. To others, Funston far exceeded

his position or authority and unleashed on the citizens of San Francisco

bands of undisciplined, untrained, poorly led troops who harassed and

murdered innocent people going about their legitimate tasks. The truth

may, perhaps, lie somewhere between these two positions, but the alternative to Funston’s action was inaction and chaos.

The city of San Francisco occupies one of the most beautiful pieces

of terrain in North America. Situated on the west littoral of San Francisco Bay, San Francisco was the largest U.S. city west of the Mississippi River in 1900. The San Andreas fault (actually not a single fault

line but a zone of faults) extends from the north-central California coast

about 200 miles north of San Francisco, through the San Francisco peninsula, southeast to the Gulf of California. Frequent activity (at least in

geological time) along the San Andreas line has shaped and reshaped

the California coastline for millions of years. In the early morning hours

of 18 April 1906, movement of the great plates hundreds of feet below

the surface of the earth sent a tremor of enormous magnitude racing

along the fault line from north to south at more than 7,000 mph. In the

413
few seconds the shock wave passed through San Francisco, scores of

buildings collapsed or were shaken from their foundations, and water

and gas mains under the city streets were wrenched apart, twisted, and

broken. Ten seconds later a second shock wave of nearly equal force

shook the foundations of the city again.

The unsuspecting city lay devastated. Thousands of terrified and

stunned citizens fled their homes for the safety of the streets. An

unknown number of men, women, and children died in their beds or

while trying to escape disintegrating structures. The city’s fire chief

was among the first casualties of the disaster. He was perhaps the only

man in San Francisco who had an idea how to fight a major fire in the

city. His loss was a catastrophe in itself. His knowledge and experience

were irreplaceable in the coming battle to save San Francisco.

The disruption of city utilities had two almost simultaneous

consequences. First, vast quantities of gas escaping from ruptured gas

mains turned a number of small fires into roaring conflagrations.

Second, the disruption of the water system left firefighters responding

to the emergency without their primary means of dealing with the

rapidly expanding sea of flames. Thus, as the fire grew in intensity by

the minute, the means to slow or stop the fire was quickly vanishing.

Surveying the extent of the damage and the spreading fires from his

residence on Nob Hill overlooking the city below, Funston quickly

determined that immediate action was necessary if the city was to be

saved. Funston, a war hero and Medal of Honor winner, was acting

commander of the Presidio garrison and several other military units in

the area. Within an hour of the first tremor and without informing his

superiors or receiving higher authorization, Funston ordered the troops

at Fort Mason and the Presidio to move. In less than two hours after the

shock wave left much of San Francisco in disarray, U.S. Army troops

were marching into the city. They would play a key, but controversial,

role in the battle to stop the fires and secure both public and private

property in the ravaged city over the next seventy-two hours.

Around 0800, with troops already in the city, Funston sent a hasty

telegram to Secretary of War William Howard Taft. The message

briefly outlined the situation in San Francisco and requested authorization for Funston to take whatever actions necessary to deal with the disaster. Of course, Funston had already initiated steps without authority,

and he would soon be issuing additional orders without waiting for a response to his telegram to Taft. After a short meeting with San Francisco’s mayor, Eugene Schmitz, and police chief, Jeremiah Dinan, at

which Funston agreed that the troops would work under Dinan’s “guid414
ance,” Funston ordered units from Fort Baker, Alcatraz Island, the Presidio at Monterey, and Vancouver Barracks (Portland, Oregon, more

than 500 miles to the north) to San Francisco. These units would arrive

over the next several days. The governor sent California National

Guard units, and Mayor Schmitz requested U.S. Marines and Navy vessels from Mare Island Naval Station. San Francisco was soon under de

facto martial law.

The troops now entering San Francisco were detailed to a number of

tasks. Patrols controlled access to the main thoroughfares into the fire

area and provided security against looters and rioters; medical units set

up hospitals to treat the injured and sick; support units set up tents and

shelters for the city’s refugees; and demolition squads with dynamite

proceeded to blow up buildings in an attempt to stop the fire’s spread by

depriving it of fuel. Funston lacked any legal basis for some of these

activities; other measures, such as the humanitarian activities, were

well intentioned, and higher authority would certainly approve them

eventually.

None of the officers or men detailed to the disaster areas had been

trained to deal with civil upheaval, and there was little opportunity for

adequate briefing for the assigned missions between the time Funston

alerted the units and their deployment. Reports circulated widely that

patrols shot suspected looters without appropriate warnings and, in at

least a few cases, held drumhead courts-martial and executed miscreants summarily. (A proclamation Mayor Schmitz issued authorizing

such actions was ill-advised and certainly unconstitutional.) Other soldiers were accused of looting or stealing private property, some were

seen to be drunk on duty (from pilfered liquor), and yet others abused

citizens who were doing nothing more than trying to protect or enter

their own property.

The demolition squads proceeded with little or no knowledge of or

experience with explosives. They destroyed numerous buildings that

were not in danger of combusting; they demolished some buildings

that, rather than denying fuel to the great fire, added to that fuel; and

they wasted valuable explosives by failing to bring down a number of

structures. No doubt the temporary housing, mess facilities, and

medical treatment provided for thousands of homeless and desperate

San Francisco citizens proved invaluable in the crisis, but whatever

good the military did during and after the earthquake and fire cannot

condone or excuse the indiscipline, poor leadership, lack of oversight,

and misuse of soldiers in jobs they were not qualified to perform.

Although his actions during the crisis added measurably to Funston’s

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reputation, the U.S. Army could hardly be proud of its overall

performance.8

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the U.S. Army was clearly

unprepared to step into civil relief-humanitarian operations, although it

had done so frequently during the nineteenth century. Whenever a civil

or natural disaster occurred, the Army’s response was always ad hoc.

The type of response and amount of assistance provided depended on

location, proximity of military units, resources readily available, and

local military commanders’ willingness to commit their troops and

resources. The Army had no standard procedures, no special training,

and no predetermined lines of authority to deal with natural or

man-made disasters. And, perhaps most important, the Army had no

institutional mechanism to document and capture the lessons learned in

these incidents. The Army was better prepared to respond to civil

disturbances such as riots and labor disputes, but the training and

procedures for those events hardly met the needs for assistance during

and after disasters.

Hurricanes

Hurricanes are the most awesome and destructive natural phenomena on earth.9 Only wars kill more people and destroy more property

than hurricanes. Some types of storms—tornadoes and microbursts, for

example—may release more energy in a given time period than a hurricane, but they are of very short duration compared with hurricanes. Although hurricanes originate in the tropical and subtropical waters of the

world’s oceans where they present a serious threat to shipping, most

hurricane damage occurs over land. Once hurricanes arrive over inhabited areas, they may persist, often for several days, and cover hundreds,

sometimes thousands, of miles. Hurricanes may move as far as 800

miles inland before their energy dissipates.

Hurricanes occur in all oceans, although they may be known by

different names. The storms we call hurricanes in the United States

originate in the mid-Atlantic and generally visit most of their

destructive power on the islands of the Caribbean and the south Atlantic

and Gulf coasts of the United States. Hurricanes are seasonal. As a rule,

Atlantic hurricanes occur in the late summer or early fall. In the Pacific,

west of the international date line, hurricane-type storms are known as

typhoons. Typhoons can occur anytime but most frequently develop in

the summer. In the Indian Ocean, these types of storms are called

tropical cyclones. Tropical cyclones generally occur during the

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monsoon season. In the Southern Hemisphere, similar storms occur

during the opposite seasons from those in the Northern Hemisphere.

Nevertheless, all of these great storms are related, and all of them result

in considerable loss of human life and cause tremendous damage to

property.

All hurricanes require certain specific conditions to form in

mid-ocean. These conditions include surface water temperature,

atmospheric pressure, wind shear, and the air’s moisture content.

Atlantic hurricanes normally develop in the area north of 5° N—they

rarely form on the equator. When conditions are favorable, vast

quantities of warm surface water (usually above 80 degrees Fahrenheit)

evaporate and rise quickly in the warm tropical air. The rising moist air

creates a low-pressure area at the surface that picks up even more

surface evaporation. The more moist air that rises, the greater the

low-pressure area formed beneath the developing storm. When there is

little wind shear (different wind speeds and directions at various

altitudes), the surrounding air is also drawn into the low-pressure area

and begins to move around it in a circular fashion. The more uniform

the winds around the core, the stronger the storm will become. The

storm’s core will become its “eye” (the area of lowest barometric

pressure) and continue to suck up ever greater quantities of warm

surface water. At first classified as a tropical depression, when the

winds around the eyethe “eyewall”reach 74 mph, it is reclassified

as a hurricane.

Hurricanes are tracked by the movement of their eyes. Most Atlantic

hurricanes move west, then north, or northwest, until they reach

landfall. The hurricane itself may have a diameter of as much as 250

miles, and the eye may have a diameter of 20 to 30 miles. Once it begins

to move, the hurricane’s rate of progress will be between 5 and 20 mph;

15 mph is normal. It may cover as much as 4,000 miles over a period of

two weeks or more before it dies out, and the path is unpredictable.

Some hurricanes proceed into the Gulf of Mexico where they may

actually pick up additional strength from the warm Gulf waters; others

move north along the U.S. Atlantic coast, causing destruction as far

north as Newfoundland. Predicting the movement of hurricanes is a

daunting task.

The NHC in Dade County, Florida, identifies and tracks hurricanes

that originate in the mid-Atlantic. Atlantic storms are named

alphabetically, beginning anew each hurricane season. The first storm,

for example, will begin with the letter A, the second with the letter B,

and so on. At one time, storms were assigned only female names, but

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bowing to protests of gender bias, the NHC began using male names as

well. Names may be used many times, but names associated with

particularly disastrous hurricanes, such as Hurricane Camille in 1969 or

Hurricane Fifi in 1974, will be retired and not used again.

Hurricane damage is caused by the effects of high winds, especially

the wind close to the eyewall; by heavy rain the hurricane drops, often

measured in feet, not inches; and by strong tidal floods along coastal areas that inundate land normally above the highest high tides. Inland,

flooding often causes more damage and takes more lives than the devastation the high winds cause. Hurricanes frequently spawn tornadoes

that add more destruction to already severely damaged communities.

Hurricanes are classified according to the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity.10 The scale is based on wind speed and storm surge or

the height of the sea level above normal high tide resulting from the

storm’s force (see the table). The first hurricane of the 1992 season, designated Hurricane Andrew, was a category 5 storm.

Hurricane Andrew

In the early morning hours of 24 August, Hurricane Andrew came

ashore along the south Florida coast. Over the next eight hours, the

storm tore a swath of destruction across south Florida. By early evening, the storm had moved across the Florida peninsula and into the

Gulf of Mexico. As the storm moved on, it left behind an area of Dade

County south of Miami that looked more like a vast salvage yard than a

thriving urban area with a vigorous population. Dade’s 1,945 square

miles (one-third of which is water) supports nearly 2 million people in

ninety cities and towns, many unincorporated or attached to larger urban communities.11 To the north lies Broward County, another heavily

populated county, with the cities of Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale.

With the Atlantic Ocean on the east and the sparsely populated

Everglades National Park to the west and south, Dade County is itself

virtually a peninsula on the Florida peninsula.

Dade County has a racially mixed population—white, 75 percent;

black, 20 percent; and Asian and Indian, 5 percent—with 45 percent of

it being foreign-born. More than 57 percent of Dade’s population

speaks a first language other than English, primarily Spanish, and 49

percent claim Hispanic ethnic heritage. Miami is the principal city in

Dade County, with one-quarter of the county’s population. Another

quarter of the population lives in communities in the southern third of

the county: Homestead, Florida City, Cutler Ridge, Perrine, and a host

418
419

75

41

27

95

27

75

1

Miami Beach

Naples

Boca Raton

Key West

West Palm Beach

Cape Sable

Miami Everglades

Fort Lauderdale

Charlotte

Harbor

Homestead

2300 HRS25 AUGUST

1700 HRS23 AUGUST

0400 HRS24 AUGUST

27
of smaller towns that share common boundaries. This is the area

Andrew hit hardest. The populations of these towns range from 27,000

for Homestead to a few hundred for the smallest named communities.

Generally speaking, the people of this area are middle- and lower

middle-class wage earners, with a higher percentage of whites than

north Dade County’s towns and cities. Unemployment in 1990 was 7.7

percent.

At the time Andrew struck, the homes and buildings of south Dade

County were typical of most suburban communities in the United

States. A large percentage of the population lived in single-family

dwellings, 51percent of which were owner occupied. Low-rise office

buildings and apartment houses were common, but there were few of

the high-rise structures seen farther north in Miami or Miami Beach.

Most of the single-family homes were frame construction, although

masonry, concrete, reinforced concrete, and concrete block were the

preferred construction materials for newer buildings. Like most

American cities, power, telephone, and cable lines were overhead, not

underground. These were the precise urban conditions most vulnerable

to a catastrophic storm.

Those who emerged from their shelters and destroyed houses just

before noon on 24 August could barely recognize what they beheld.

Many looked around in disbelief at the panorama of destruction,

wondering if they were really in some kind of bad dream.12 There was

little that anyone could do that first afternoon. Shock and bewilderment

prevailed.

Although many tens of thousands of south Floridians and tourists

who had been in the area moved north upon receiving the governor’s

general evacuation order, thousands of others either chose to stay in the

area or had no way to leave. For those who stayed, the night brought

fear, anxiety, and sheer terror. Each one has a story to tell, and each

story is different. One theme that runs through all of the stories,

however, is the increasing uncertainty that they would live through that

night. Some of them did not.

As Andrew grew in intensity, everything around the people in

Andrew’s path seemed to be coming apart. Even the best hurricane

preventive measures failed to provide protection against Andrew’s

fury. In 2000, Dade County building codes required residential

construction capable of withstanding 109- to 120-mph winds.13 Of

course, like all building codes, these standards applied only to new

construction. Older buildings were often of substantially poorer quality

construction and could not be brought up to code because of original

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designs or could only be upgraded incrementally. And few owners of

older properties had either the resources or the inclination to conform to

more recent codes.

Some property owners and residents of south Florida, however,

prepared for even more severe hurricane conditions than building codes

required. They constructed their dwellings and commercial buildings

with heavy beam trusses, concrete and cinder block walls, layered

sheathing under glued and nailed shingle or tile roofs, steel bolts, and

“hurricane strap” reinforcements of joints and corners. They installed

heavy steel doors, emergency lighting systems, and sump pumps. They

brought in emergency stores of food, water, fuel, and batteries and had

gasoline-powered generators on hand to provide electric power until

public service was restored. Nevertheless, all of these heroic measures

proved fruitless in the face of Andrew’s winds that exceeded 165 mph.

(The actual force at the eyewall may have been even stronger, but the

official wind gauge broke at 165 mph. At least one source estimated top

wind speed at 200 mph.)14 In a matter of hours, Andrew dismantled

homes whose owners had devoted years of preparation to resist just

such a storm.15

Some coastal residents who initially stayed in the area eventually

sought safety farther inland. Even a few miles inland and a few feet

higher above sea level seemed to offer some greater degree of security

as the winds increased and the surf crashed over the sea walls and

around buildings and houses along the shore. This trek inland, however,

in addition to being somewhat dangerous, proved to be of little value.

The wind did not discriminate as it moved across the Florida peninsula.

Buildings along the shore and those inland met identical fates as roofs

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Saffir-Simpson Scale of Hurricane Intensity

Hurricane Level Wind Speed Storm Surge Effects

Level 1 (weak) 74-95 mph 4-5 feet Minimal damage

Level 2 (moderate) 96-110 mph 6-8 feet Damage to trees and roofs

Level 3 (strong) 111-130 mph 9-12 feet Trees down; mobile

homes destroyed;

buildings damaged

Level 4 (very strong) 131-155 mph 13-18 feet Extensive damage to

buildings; flooding

Level 5 (devastating) 156 ≥ mph 19 feet Severe structural damage

to buildings; heavy

flooding
tore away and walls collapsed. The storm surge was sufficiently high

that as far as 5 miles inland buildings flooded or were washed off their

foundations. Thus, the seeming safety inland, like the hurricane-proof

construction techniques that offered a pseudo peace of mind to some

homeowners, turned out to be an illusion.

Perhaps no place in the path of Andrew was hit harder or was the

story of survival more dramatic than at Homestead AFB.16 Homestead

had been through hurricanes before, and each time had picked itself up,

rebuilt its facilities, and continued operating. But the base had never

sustained so much damage that its future would be in doubt. Andrew

would change all of that.

During the forty-eight hours before Andrew struck, most of the personnel, dependents, and aircraft of the 31st Fighter Wing at Homestead

were evacuated to Air Force facilities to the north. Colonel Stephen B.

Plummer, commander of the 31st, selected seventeen officers and airmen to remain with him at Homestead to look after base facilities and

two F-16s that could not be flown to safety. Plummer elected to ride out

the storm in the base’s “hurricane-proof” alert facility, a hardened

building that included crew quarters and bays for aircraft. The designation “hurricane-proof” turned out to be a misnomer.

The early morning hours of 24 August were as frightening and

terrifying as any the men in Plummer’s group, some of them combat

veterans from DESERT STORM, had ever experienced. By 0400, the

building was coming apart. The wind forced the great hangar doors off

their tracks, entered the bays, and picked up the F-16s, twisted them

around and smashed them into walls, and then began to disassemble the

interior of the alert facility. The airmen scrambled to secure loose items

of equipment and tie interior doors shut with bed sheets when a steel

hatch came open on the roof, creating a vacuum that threatened to

collapse the entire building. One of the airmen, Staff Sergeant Steve

Wilensky, volunteered to climb a ladder to close the hatch, thus saving

the building and the men inside. The only worry then was whether the

roof would remain on the building as it began to dip and sway under the

weight of the storm. Andrew did pass, however, and when the eighteen

men emerged from the battered alert facility in the morning light, they

saw that few other structures remained standing on the once active and

thriving base.

For the other military personnel in the storm area, mostly National

Guardsmen who had come to evacuate civilians earlier, the hours of

darkness were just as trying as for Colonel Plummer’s group. The

guardsmen sought shelter in a variety of locations. They not only had to

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cope with the storm raging around them but also were worried about

their own homes and families in surrounding communities.17 For a time

after the storm passed, these men shouldered the burden of rescuing

trapped and injured victims, recovering the dead, providing assistance

to survivors, identifying and opening roads and communications, and

supplementing local law enforcement agencies to secure property and

deal with looters. The arrival of fresh units with critically needed

supplies and equipment brought respite to these tired and weary men.

That Andrew was coming was not a surprisethe Air Force had

been tracking the storm for a week, and the Army Operations Center in

the Pentagon had already set up a special task force to coordinate anticipated requests for relief supplies. What was a surprise was just how

strong Andrew was and how much damage it caused. The aftermath of

Andrew’s rampage across southern Florida was unlike anything anyone in the United States had seen before. Hardly a single above-ground

structure had escaped damage. More than 135,000 homes were destroyed or significantly damaged, most beyond repair. The contents of

these buildings and homes were spread over 100 square miles. Hundreds of private boats had washed or been blown ashore from the numerous marinas that dotted the coast, and scores of small aircraft were

strewn about the landscape from airports in the area. Public services, including electric power, sewers, telephone communications, water, cable television, and police and fire protection, had generally ceased to

exist. An unknown number of dead lay among the wreckage. Most of

the deaths resulted from collapsed buildings or flooded areas where

victims had sought shelter.18 Little or no potable water or edible food

was available. Medical supplies were in critically short supply. The extent of the disaster was clearly beyond the ability of local and state

emergency facilities and resources. Nothing less than the resources of

the entire nation would be necessary to respond to a disaster of Andrew’s magnitude.

The agency responsible for coordinating the activities of all federal

agencies, including the Department of Defense (DOD), during a declared disaster is the Federal Emergency Management Administration

(FEMA), which President Jimmy Carter’s administration established

in 1979. FEMA’s purpose is to consolidate federal services during disasters, plan for national emergencies, train civil emergency workers,

and pay the federal share of relief operations. Upon declaration of a disaster, FEMA is to implement the Federal Response Plan and determine

how federal resources will be used to meet requirements each state

identifies. FEMA, like many federal agencies, works adequately in

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normal operations and even in most emergencies, but it is rarely put to

the extreme test. In the extreme test, however, all of the small faults and

imperfections in bureaucratic structures have a tendency to appear.

In the first hours after Andrew passed over south Florida and moved

into the Gulf of Mexico, FEMA’s response was rather lethargic.

FEMA’s slow action prompted some harsh criticisms. One source

claimed that FEMA was “brain dead,” and Senator Ernest Hollings of

South Carolina said that FEMA was “the sorriest bunch of bureaucratic

jackasses I’ve ever seen.”19 Aspersions aside, some valid reasons may

explain FEMA’s inability to step in more quickly and launch earlier

relief operations. For example, for the first 24 to 48 hours after Andrew,

there was general confusion about the true situation in the area. Even

the office of Florida’s governor, Lawton Chiles, could not provide

accurate information about the extent of physical damage or the

number of casualties in southern Dade County. Most of the early

estimates significantly understated the damage to private property and

the disruption to public services in the disaster area. Furthermore, the

Federal Response Plan, the blueprint for the federal government to

mobilize resources and conduct activities to support state and local

governments in major disasters, turned out to be almost totally

inadequate. While FEMA experienced some difficulties, just before

Andrew struck, it succeeded in activating its emergency operations

center and notified twenty-six other federal agencies and the American

Red Cross of the pending disaster. Although an analysis and critique of

FEMA is beyond the scope of this study, it is important to remember

that any DOD forces committed to disaster relief operations must work

under and coordinate with FEMA.

President George Bush arrived in Miami at 1800 on Monday

evening. After touring the area with Governor Chiles, Bush promised

that Homestead AFB would be rebuilt, and he ordered the commitment

of U.S. military forces to relief operations in south Florida. Bush’s first

promise was perhaps premature. Congress would eventually decide the

future of Homestead. His second promise, however, was quickly

translated into one of the largest humanitarian relief efforts in U.S.

history.

DOD passed the mission to the Department of the Army (DA), which

quickly charged the U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) to coordinate the deployment and employment of military forces and resources in the disaster area. FORSCOM subsequently directed

Lieutenant General Samuel E. Ebbesen, commanding general of the

Second Continental Army, to establish Joint Task Force Andrew

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(JTFA) to exercise operational control over all military forces involved

in relief operations in south Florida. JTFA, officially established on 28

August 1992, was a joint, multinational effort. Its mission was “to provide humanitarian support by establishing field feeding sites, storage/distribution warehousing, cargo transfer operations, local/line haul

transportation operations, and other logistical support to the local population.” Expanding on this mission statement, the JTFA commander

provided his intent and additional guidance:

Immediately begin to operate feeding and water facilities; priority to

the cities of Homestead and Florida City, and the Cutler Ridge area.

After a more detailed assessment, expand operations throughout the

affected area. Provide assistance to other Federal agencies, state and

local governments, and organizations in receipt, storage, and

distribution of supplies and equipment. DO NOT engage in law

enforcement actions or operations without approval of CG, JTFA.

End state is to get life support systems in place and relieve initial

hardships until non-DOD, State and local agencies can reestablish

normal operations throughout the AO.20

DOD committed more than 22,000 military personnel to JTFA.

Most were Army troops, including a brigade from the 82d Airborne

Division from Fort Bragg, North Carolina; a headquarters staff element

from the XVIII Airborne Corps; units from the 10th Mountain Division

from Fort Drum, New York; and elements of the 1st Corps Support

Command. U.S. Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine units and

Canadian Forces engineer units also participated in the Hurricane

Andrew relief effort in the coming weeks. Florida National Guardsmen

already in the area and additional Florida Guard units alerted to deploy

to the area remained under state control.21

There was, however, no headlong rush of military units into the disaster area. The deployment of military units to south Florida and assignment of specific missions required an estimate of needs and a

clearer picture of the general situation in the disaster area and close coordination with FEMA and other relief agencies. By statute, a defense

coordinating officer (DCO) serves as liaison between the DOD (JTF)

and FEMA. Second U.S. Army had earlier appointed a DCO and, on 23

August, the DCO and his team were in Tallahassee assessing the situation and working with his FEMA counterpart, the federal coordinating

officer (FCO). Thus, when JTFA officially came into being, much of

the structure was already in place, and the designated personnel were

working closely together.

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The spirit of cooperation established early between the DCO and

FCO set the general tone for cooperation down the chain of command.

To some extent, the degree and ease of cooperation depended on personalities, local circumstances, and the types of units. Medical units,

for instance, seem to have had more difficulty establishing good working relationships than other types of units. One of the most significant

problems that plagued the interface between civilian and military organizations was the mutual lack of familiarity and knowledge of respective capabilities, procedures, and equipment. The result was some loss

of time and friction. Nevertheless, for the most part, military units under JTFA worked exceptionally well with FEMA representatives and

other civilian organizations operating in the disaster area.22

Some units, of course, were already operating in south Florida before

JTFA stood up. In the immediate aftermath of Andrew, one of the most

important tasks was to search for living victims trapped in collapsed

buildings or under the rubble. Although large numbers of residents and

tourists complied with the governor’s evacuation order and moved

north, thus reducing the number of potential victims, an unknown

number of people remained in the area. The National Guardsmen

already in the disaster area were conducting some search and rescue

missions, but the task was clearly beyond their limited capabilities.

Help arrived. The 301st Rescue Squadron, an HH-60 helicopter reserve

unit located at Homestead AFB (and now without a home), established

a temporary operations center at Kendall-Tamiami Airport. Joined by

the 939th Rescue Wing, Portland, Oregon, the reservists set up a field

hospital to treat the injured and flew in pararescue teams with dogs to

search collapsed buildings for victims. Coast Guardsmen from the U.S.

Coast Guard Air Station at Miami also joined the search and rescue

effort. While it is impossible to count the precise number, the early

efforts of the Florida National Guard units in the area and the timely

arrival of trained and experienced search and rescue units certainly

saved numerous lives.23

Units alerted for deployment to the disaster area conducted their

planning and preparations with the same high level of efficiency

normally associated with deployments for other domestic and foreign

operations. Training, established procedures, and experience served

these units well. Staffs clarified specific unit missions, briefed senior

and subordinate commanders, and prepared orders. Reconnaissance

teams preceded the main elements to the disaster area to gather

firsthand information about local conditions, to identify access routes,

and to make initial arrangements for locating troop units. Military units

426
deploying to south Florida moved by air, road, and water. The lead

battalion of the 82d Airborne Division left Fort Bragg on Air Force

transports less than nine hours after being alerted. Within forty-eight

hours, the first elements of a Marine Corps task force departed Cherry

Point, North Carolina, by air, and a leadership group from the 10th

Mountain Division, Fort Drum, New York, left Griffiss AFB for south

Florida. Other units from the 82d Airborne Division moved southward

by road. Navy repair and supply vessels sailed from several Atlantic

coast ports for south Florida destinations with valuable relief supplies

and Seabee personnel.24

The tasks assigned to Regular Army units arriving in the first two

weeks (phase I) focused on the immediate needs of Andrew’s survivors

as the JTFA commander’s guidance designated (previously noted): to

provide food, water, and shelter; to distribute relief supplies such as

clothing, personal hygiene items, and health-related items; and to provide security. Once these services were established, Army units expanded their role (phase II) to assist in restoring public services (power,

sewage, and so forth), clearing and opening streets and roads, and

cleaning up and removing obstructing and dangerous debris. Until their

withdrawal (phase III), Army units continued to provide basic services,

assist in reestablishing public utilities, and strive to turn over to

non-DOD agencies—federal, state, and local governments—responsibility for reconstitution and reconstruction in the disaster area.

As units arrived in the disaster area, they immediately set up

operational bases and began to deal with the priority tasks. Other than

the search for victims, the most important need was to feed a population

that had no means of providing for itself. The Army had already

anticipated this need and began to move mobile kitchen trailers into the

disaster area during the first few hours after Andrew passed. Within

seven days, the Army was operating thirty mobile kitchen trailers at

twenty-four sites, serving more than 21,000 meals each day. Over the

succeeding two weeks, feeding operations expanded. Mess units

prepared meals around the clock and served 35,000 meals per day at the

height of the relief effort. The Army served more than one-half million

meals in the first thirty days and nearly 900,000 meals before the

operation ended.25 No other military activity directly affected more

people than the kitchens did.

Many of the displaced families found temporary shelter in “life

support centers,” or tent cities, the Army set up.26 The American Red

Cross administered the centers, provided operational guidance,

screened victims, and assigned housing space to families. The Army

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maintained the tents and provided the meals. The centers became more

than just living quarters; they became communities, points for

distributing all sorts of public and privately donated items, comfort

stations where one could get a hot shower and fresh drinking water, day

care centers for children, and administrative centers where people

could meet with assistance agencies and relief officials. The life

support centers were never intended as a permanent solution to the

displaced population’s problems; the objective was to move people into

more substantial quarters and to restore normal community activities,

such as schools, as quickly as possible.

Equally as important as providing for the population’s physical

needs was the need to provide security for both people and property in

the disaster area. A common problem in the wake of any urban disaster

is looting and pillaging. In the days after Hurricane Andrew, the

problem of dealing with looters was compounded by the activities of

Miami street gangs. The gangs roamed the devastated areas, taking

anything of value they could carry off and threatening residents, relief

workers, and military personnel. Many local residents took it upon

themselves to defend their property. Armed homeowners confronted

looters and forced them to leave the area empty-handed or made

citizens’ arrests until police could be summoned.

Some units reported incidents involving looters, gang members, and

other criminal elements, but such cases did not seriously affect the

troops’ ability to carry out their missions. Except for military police

(MP), regular U.S. Army troops were not issued live ammunition for

their weapons. MPs responded to some calls for assistance, and they

detained a number of suspects until they could be turned over to the

appropriate authorities. As a rule, however, the National Guard

assumed the law enforcement role and assisted local police agencies in

establishing security, patrolling the area, and dealing with looters and

other criminal elements while regular units concentrated on relief and

recovery missions. This division of responsibility is based in law and

organization. In the first place, the Posse Comitatus Act prohibits

regular military forces from participating in law enforcement

activities.27 Governors can endow their National Guard units with law

enforcement authority. And National Guard units receive considerably

more training in civil control than do regular units. Thus, by not

federalizing the Florida National Guard during the crisis, each force

was able to concentrate on separate but mutually supporting roles in the

Hurricane Andrew humanitarian operation.

428
Throughout the period of relief operations in south Florida, all

military personnel performed their duties to the highest professional

standards. Discipline problems were negligible, and complaints about

the long hours, the lack of personal comforts, and the extended

separation from families were rare. Perhaps this was because here was a

case of Americans helping Americans. Every serviceman could see for

himself how much the people of the area had lost and how much work

was necessary to put things back together. Nowhere, however, was the

dedication and professionalism of the military forces more evident than

at Homestead AFB. The men and women of Homestead contributed

significantly to the relief effort; they had to deal with their own losses as

well.

When Colonel Plummer and the seventeen officers and men who had

spent the harrowing night in the “hurricane-proof” alert facility at

Homestead emerged late on the morning of 24 August, they beheld a

scene of utter devastation.28 Almost nothing was standing as far as they

could see. Andrew hit the work areas and the living quarters at

Homestead equally hard. Fortunately, other than the small group with

Plummer, Homestead’s military personnel and dependents had been

evacuated earlier. Most of its civilian work force had also moved out of

the area along with the general evacuation to the north. Although the

Air Force at first announced that Homestead would reopen, the decision

on Homestead’s future would come later. Nevertheless, the landing

facilities at Homestead would play a critical role in the Andrew relief

operations, and it was imperative that the runways be made usable.

Even before Andrew came ashore, Air Force planners were

preparing for the crisis. The Air Combat Command, Langley AFB,

Virginia, directed the Air Force’s “total force effort” to deal with

Andrew’s aftermath. The Air Force focused on two primary missions.

The first priority was to make Homestead’s runways serviceable so that

airlifters could bring men, emergency equipment, and relief supplies

into the disaster area. Homestead was soon receiving aircraft. Within

the first nine days of the emergency, the Air Mobility Command, Scott

AFB, Illinois, flew 529 airlift missions into south Florida, delivering

more than 7,000 military and civilian passengers and nearly 11,500

tons of equipment and supplies. This was the largest domestic operation

in the Air Mobility Command’s history and rivaled the first ten days of

tonnage moved to the Persian Gulf in Operation DESERT SHIELD.

Moving large quantities of cargo into Homestead was relatively

easy, but Homestead was not designed as a logistics center. Offloading

the cargo with the few available forklifts, breaking it down into

429
movable loads by hand, and distributing the supplies to surrounding

communities in borrowed deuce-and-a-halfs was exhausting work.

Members of the 23d Air Support Group, Fort Bragg, arrived to assist the

airmen working around the clock. Teams of specialists in recovery and

salvage, and medical units from as far away as Grand Forks AFB, North

Dakota, and Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, deployed to Homestead. The

base itself, although severely damaged, was transformed into a major

logistics center for conducting the relief effort in the surrounding

communities.29

The second, but not secondary, mission for Homestead was to take

care of the thousands of officers, airmen, and their families who called

the base home, many of whom had already evacuated the area and had

lost virtually everything they owned. Although some of the airmen with

critical specialties stationed at Homestead were brought back to assist

in the relief effort, more than 2,300 officers and enlisted personnel were

reassigned to other AFBs. Special teams went to Homestead to collect

medical and financial records and to assess and compile damage reports

so that families could be compensated for their personal property loss.

A representative of the 1st Mission Support Squadron from Langley

arrived at Homestead with Air Force Aid Society funds to provide

money for both married and single airmen to purchase the necessary

health and hygiene items they lost in the storm. Within one month, the

Air Force Aid Society provided $860,000 in loans and grants to

Homestead’s airmen and their families. Family support centers at AFBs

around the United States collected nonperishable food, supplies,

clothing, and personal use items for displaced Homestead families.30

The Air Force’s response to the needs of its people at Homestead is an

outstanding example for other services to follow if similar disasters

occur in the future.

The military presence in the disaster area contributed substantially to

establishing a stable, safe environment and meeting the basic needs of

most of the residents remaining in or returning to the area. By the middle of September, three weeks after Hurricane Andrew struck south

Florida, more than 22,000 soldiers, airmen, marines, and sailors were

working for JTFA. The Air Force had brought in thousands of tons of

relief supplies, personnel, and equipment while soldiers and marines

were feeding and housing thousands of families. Florida National

Guardsmen had established a safe and reasonably secure environment

so residents could return to their home sites to recover what personal

possessions could be salvaged. Army engineers, joined by Navy

Seabees and a Canadian Forces engineer battalion, had moved in with

430
everything from chain saws to bulldozers to clear streets and roads, repair and reopen public buildings, and begin the monumental task of restoring power and communications. Army chaplains were performing

church services. Army medical teams were providing emergency and

routine medical care for anyone in need. Army psychologists were

working with civilian mental health teams to help Andrew’s victims

cope with the post-traumatic stress resulting from the disaster. Army

technicians set up and were operating a multilingual radio station to

keep residents informed and had distributed 15,000 battery-operated

radios throughout the area. Perhaps the single most important indicator

of JTFA’s success was that, on 14 September, all but 4 percent of the

278 primary, middle, and high schools in the affected area reopened for

classes.31

Two months after Hurricane Andrew swept through south Florida,

JTFA’s mission was nearly complete. By 25 October, most of the

military units assigned to JTFA had returned home, and the few

remaining units were packing up and loading their equipment for the

return home. FEMA, which had experienced some initial difficulties

during the first days of the disaster, was now fully functioning. FEMA

was bringing temporary modular housing units into the area and

moving families out of the tents. Public, private, and church-related

humanitarian organizations were busy providing every sort of

assistance to individuals and families still in need. The Army Corps of

Engineers was working with local and state government agencies to

rebuild infrastructure. A host of contractors, builders, and tradesmen

had swarmed into the area and were at work repairing or rebuilding

public buildings and private residences. The people of the area were

slowly resuming their lives. Nevertheless, years of hard work lay ahead

before the towns and communities south of Miami could return to their

normal existence.

Hurricane Andrew struck south Florida in the early morning hours of

24 August 1992 with unprecedented fury. Andrew left behind an unbelievable scene of destruction. When disasters of such magnitude

occurwhether the damage is the result of natural or man-made phenomenalocal and state resources will inevitably be overwhelmed.

This has been the case throughout the nation’s history. Even the federal

agencies and departments recently created to manage large-scale catastrophes do not possess the manpower, equipment, material, knowledge,

and experience to respond adequately in such crises. When overwhelming events befall communities and overwhelm local and state resources, only the military can quickly bring together the human and

431
material resources necessary to save lives, relieve suffering, and protect public and private property until civil authorities are prepared to resume their normal functions.

In many ways, the Army’s response to Hurricane Andrew was one

more instance of the Army answering the call for assistance from fellow

countrymen in need. Just as it responded quickly and unhesitatingly

during the Chicago fire and the San Francisco earthquake, the Army

moved quickly and deliberately to assist the people of south Florida after Andrew passed. As in previous disaster-relief operations, the Army

stayed until the immediate crisis was over and the local situation was

stable and under control. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,

however, commanders at or near the scene reacted, often without first

consulting their superiors, to the crisis; took whatever steps they perceived necessary; and employed locally available resources to save

lives, protect property, and restore public order. These commanders

then sought authority, approval, or confirmation for their actions as

communications and circumstances allowed.

Since World War II, the U.S. Army has participated in numerous

humanitarian relief operations. The Army’s response to Andrew,

however, was more than just a reprise of earlier humanitarian relief

operations. The Army’s involvement in recent relief operations, and

Andrew particularly, has clearly demonstrated that a modern,

well-trained, adequately equipped, disciplined military force not only

can respond quickly and appropriately to any type of crisis, foreign or

domestic, in war or peace, but also is the best-suited force for such

missions.

The response to Hurricane Andrew was a Total Army effort to which

Regular, Reserve, and National Guard units contributed. The qualities

that have led to U.S. Army successes in a variety of war and peace

operations around the world—excellent leadership at every level, a

wide range of highly developed skills, a positive attitude, dedication to

duty, and professionalism—are the very qualities that officers and

soldiers demonstrated during their service in the Andrew relief

operation. Even those Americans who are critical of or know little

about military values and ethics must admit that the men and women

who embrace those values and ethics served the nation admirably in the

Andrew relief effort. JTFA was also a joint and multinational military

effort that worked closely with a number of government and civilian

relief organizations. All of the units that made up JTFA were focused on

a common objective. Interservice differences and rivalries that plagued

432
many joint operations throughout much of our history played no part in

JTFA.

This is not to conclude that the response to Hurricane Andrew was

flawless. A number of problems plagued the relief effort. Perhaps the

most obvious problem was the unnecessary delay in moving equipment, supplies, and personnel into the most heavily damaged area in the

first seventy-two hours of the emergency. This failure was the result of

poor damage assessments and lack of an adequate Federal Response

Plan. Most participants in the relief effort, military and civilian, were

unfamiliar with other agencies’ equipment, procedures, and capabilities and with the Federal Response Plan. The Army lacked appropriate

doctrine for humanitarian relief operations and, except for Second

Army, commanders had relegated training for humanitarian operations

to the lowest priority. Mutual training and cooperative planning among

the various federal and state agencies responsible for disaster relief, including the U.S. Army, had been almost nonexistent.32 To avoid these

problems and be better prepared for future disasters will require extensive cooperation among all of the agencies involved.

Much of JTFA’s success can be attributed to the Army’s experience

in conducting humanitarian relief operations and the process of learning from those experiences. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,

field commanders wrote reports on military actions, and higher-level

commanders submitted official annual reports to the War Department

on their department and division activities. Most of these reports were

narratives whose purpose was to explain or justify a commander’s actions. The reports were often self-serving and were rarely critically reviewed for factual accuracy, tone, or content. Furthermore, the Army

had no established method to sift through, distill, and disseminate lessons that might be contained in reports. Such reports, therefore, had

limited value as instructional material for the Army as it planned and

trained for future operations. Thus, the Army learned little from the

Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the Johnstown flood of 1889, or the San

Francisco earthquake of 1906 that was useful to leaders other than those

who were directly involved.33

Over the past century, the Army has worked diligently to learn from

its experiences to improve leadership, doctrine, command and control,

equipment, and training procedures for future operations. With the creation of a General Staff and the establishment of the U.S. Army War

College in 1903, the Army carefully began to document and study its

own operations. This process has now matured. The current Joint Universal Lessons Learned System (JULLS) provides commanders,

433
planners, trainers, and doctrine writers with a solid pair of shoulders to

stand on when looking into the future. Perhaps the U.S. Army’s single

most important accomplishment of the twentieth century was developing an institutionalized system of critical self-analysisthe afteraction review.

JTFA has produced a wealth of studies, reports, and after-action reviews.34 Each of the units and headquarters that participated in JTFA,

including FORSCOM and the Second U.S. Army, conducted internal

reviews and completed reports. JTFA staff members then reviewed

these reports and included pertinent details and lessons from each in the

JTF after-action review. The reports and summaries of JTFA, available

from the Center for Army Lessons Learned, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas,

are a rich source of insights, ideas, recommendations, and guidance for

doctrine preparation, planning, training, and implementation of future

humanitarian operations in urban environments. JTFA stands as an example of how well JTFs can operate when the objectives are clear and

people and resources are focused.

The U.S. Army’s participation in Joint Task Force Andrew marks

one of the most successful chapters in the Army’s long history of urban

humanitarian operations. All of the military personnel returning home

from service in south Florida can be proud to have served their fellow

Americans in this critical time of need.

434
Notes

1. Josie Fernandez, “Looking Andrew in the ‘Eye,’” Citizen Airman

(October 1992), 21, and Chris King, “Eye to Eye: Viewing a Monster

First-hand,” Citizen Airman (October 1992), 25-26.

2. Robert Van Elsberg, “The Force Responds,” Citizen Airman

(October 1992), 21-22.

3. W.D. McGlasson, “To the Rescue,” National Guard (July 1993),

32-34.

4. According to current federal law, local authorities are still primarily

responsible for disaster relief. Only after local and state authorities have

declared the nature of the disaster and requested federal assistance can federal

agencies move into a disaster area. See Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and

Emergency Assistance Act (Disaster Relief Act of 1974): 88 Stat. 143 [Pub.

93-288, 22 May 1974], as amended in 1977, 1980, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1994,

1995, and 2001.

5. On the Chicago fire of 1871, see Herman Kogan and Robert

Cromie, The Great Fire: Chicago 1871 (NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971); Paul

Andrew Hutton, Phil Sheridan and His Army (Lincoln, NE: University of

Nebraska Press, 1985), 209-12; and Roy Morris, Jr., Sheridan: The Life and

Wars of General Phil Sheridan (NY: Crown Publishers, 1922), 334-39.

6. On the Johnstown flood, see Federal Writers’ Project, The Floods of

Johnstown (Johnstown, PA: Mayor’s Committee, 1939), and John Bach

McMaster, “The Johnstown Flood,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History

and Biography (1933), 209-43, 316-54.

7. On the San Francisco earthquake, see Gordon Thomas and Max

Morgan Witts, The San Francisco Earthquake (NY: Stein and Day, 1971).

8. Funston’s biographers agree that his reputation was greatly enhanced by his actions during the San Francisco earthquake, but they do not address the controversial nature of some of Funston’s decisions during the

emergency. See Thomas W. Crouch, A Yankee Guerrillero: Frederick

Funston and the Cuban Insurrection (Memphis, TN: Memphis State University Press, 1975), 4; John B.B. Trussell, Jr., “The Man Destiny Just Missed,”

Military Review (June 1973), 67-68.

9. On hurricanes, see David E. Fisher, The Scariest Place on Earth:

Eye to Eye With Hurricanes (NY: Random House, 1994), and Robert H.

Simpson and Herbert Riehl, The Hurricane and Its Impact (Baton Rouge, LA:

Louisiana State University Press, 1981).

10. Gary Barnes, “Hurricane,” The World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 9

(Chicago: World Book, 1999), 456.

11. For record-keeping purposes, the U.S. Bureau of the Census

designates Dade County as the Hialeah Metropolitan Statistical Area. See U.S.

435
Bureau of the Census, County and City Data Book: 1994 (Washington, DC:

U.S. Government Printing Office [GPO], 1994), and The Sourcebook of Zip

Code Demographics: Census Edition, Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: CACI, 1991).

12. Pictures describe the devastation Andrew left better than words. Two

excellent photo essays are The Big One: Hurricane Andrew: Photographs by

the Staff of the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald, Roman Lyskowski and

Steve Rice, eds. (Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel Publishing, November

1992), and Rick Gore, “Andrew Aftermath,” National Geographic (April

1993), 2-37.

13. See South Florida Building Code (Dade County Edition), Office of

Building Code Compliance, Dade County, Florida. In March 2002, Florida

promulgated a statewide building code that superseded all local codes. Among

the provisions in the new code were revised standards to calculate wind

pressure on masonry and wood supporting walls, engineering specifications

for roof trusses, requirements for pressure-resistant windows, and prohibition

of gambrel roofs. When one considers that Andrew damaged or destroyed

even the best constructed buildings in its path, the question arises whether any

building codes that are not cost prohibitive can be effective.

14. Gore, 15.

15. Bob Lamm, a resident of Redland, Florida, observed that it took

Andrew two hours to tear apart the house he spent five years constructing to

withstand a major hurricane. James LeMoyne, “In the Storm,” The New

Yorker (5 October 1992), 85.

16. See Michael J. Haggert, “Andrew’s Wrath . . . Wake of the Storm,”

Airman (November 1992), 2-7, and Doug Gillert, “Homestead Sagas,” Air

Force Times (14 September 1992), 12-15.

17. After the storm, about 100 Florida National Guardsmen were

released from duty to return home and take care of their families. W.D.

McGlasson, “To the Rescue,” National Guard (July 1993), 33. For an account

of a guardsman who moved into the area with his unit to find his home

destroyed, see John Daigle, Jr., Bob Hart, Maria LoVasco Jonkers, and Kristi

Moon, “Andrew’s Wrath Mobilizes the National Guard,” National Guard

(October 1992), 20-23.

18. The death toll was fifteen, relatively low considering the extensive

property damage. The dead included a 12-year-old child and a 78-year-old

man and ages in between. For accounts of victims as well as survivors’ stories,

see Gore, 23.

19. Tom Mathews et al., “What Went Wrong,” Newsweek (7 September

1992), 24.

20. Joint Task Force Andrew After-Action Review (AAR), Overview

Executive Summary, U.S. Army Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL),

hereafter JTFA AAR, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

436
21. Ibid., and Gordon R. Sullivan, “Hurricane Andrew: An After-Action

Report,” Army (January 1993), 16-22.

22. FEMA and Hurricane Andrew Disaster Relief: JULLS, CALL

Unclassified Restricted Database/Operations Other Than War—Domestic

fileroom: Fileroom Folder: HURRICANES, TORNADOS, TYPHOONS/

HURRICANE ANDREW, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and JTFA AAR.

23. “Reserve on Top of Storm,” The Officer (October 1992), 18-20.

24. Peter Madsen and Wayne Whiteman, “Responding to Hurricane

Andrew: 10th Mountain Deploys to Florida,” Engineer (February 1993), 2-4;

James T. Palmer and Charles R. Rash, “Operation Hurricane Andrew Relief:

Humanitarian Assistance, Redleg Style,” Field Artillery (October 1993),

31-35. The 1/7 Field Artillery (FA) and 2/7 FA deployed from a field training

exercise at Fort Drum to disaster relief in south Florida.

25. JTFA AAR and Sullivan.

26. FEMA and Hurricane Andrew Disaster Relief: JULLS.

27. 18 United States Code 1385.

28. Doug Gillert, “Hurricane: Homestead AFB is Just History Now,” Air

Force Times(7 September 1992), and Vickie M. Graham, “Two Years After a

Hurricane Demolished Homestead AFB, Airmen are Still Picking Up After

Andrew,” Airman (August 1994), 2-9.

29. “Reserve on Top of Storm,” The Officer (October 1992), 18-20, and

Haggert, 4-6.

30. Ibid., 6-7; Randy Newcomb, Janet Young, and Dan Cappabianca,

“Hurricane Andrew—Ridin’ the Storm Out,” The Air Force Comptroller

(January 1993), 17-19; and Doug Gillert, “Homestead Evacuees Got Early

Support, Help,” Air Force Times (12 October 1992), 30.

31. JTFA AAR; FEMA and Hurricane Andrew Disaster Relief: JULLS;

Sullivan; Keith Butler, “SOF Support for Hurricane Andrew Recovery,”

Special Warfare (July 1993), 12-17; and James Mauro, “Hurricane Andrew’s

Other Legacy,” Psychology Today (November/December 1992), 45.

32. JTFA AAR.

33. Neither General Sheridan nor Funston mentioned the disasters that

occurred in their respective departments in their annual reports. See Report of

Lieutenant General Sheridan in Report of the General of the Army, Report of

the Secretary of War, Vol. I (Washington, DC: GPO, 1871), 23-24; and Report

of the Department of California, Reports of Division and Department

Commanders, Annual Reports of the War Department for the Fiscal Year

Ending June 30, 1906, Vol. II (Washington, DC: GPO, 1906), 179-91.

34. A CALL search produced more than 450 AARs, JULLS, concept

plans, SMARTbooks, and other documents generated by units from battalion

to JTFA involved in JTFA. See CALL Database Fileroom: Operations Other

Than War—Domestic: Hurricanes, Tornados, Typhoons (filecabinet):

437
Hurricane Andrew: Joint Task Force—August 1992 (filedrawer), CALL, Fort

Leavenworth, Kansas.

438
Urban Warfare: Its History and Its

Future

Roger J. Spiller

Why should a modern army invest its professional energies in understanding urban warfare? Armies are optimized when they are used in

the open. Armies are not built to work best in cities. If one would wreck

an army, tradition argues, send it into a city. The functions armies serve,

their fundamental organizing principles, their modes of command and

control, their operational and tactical doctrines, and even the standards

by which they judge their success—all are tuned to the wide, open

spaces of the field of battle. In such spaces, armies have succeeded

more often and more decisively. So goes the argument.

But the origin of these prejudices is rather modern. Frequently, the

ancient classic Art of War by Sun Tzu is held up as the ultimate

argument against taking war into a city. But Sun Tzu’s often-quoted

strictures against cities should be interpreted as being in the nature of a

protest. Scholars tell us that in the ancient China of his day, the arts of

fortification and siegecraft were well developed precisely because

cities were important in war. Sun Tzu seems most interested in

rectifying what he sees as unimaginative tactics in attacking cities.

Although he regards attacking cities as the least preferable course of

action, his conception of war conduces perfectly with the quickest and

least costly way to capture a city—by chi’i; that is, by indirect means of

feints, espionage, disinformation, subversion, and betrayal. Nor did

Sun Tzu think that cities could be ignored. The general who left too

many towns and cities behind him as he advanced into the enemy’s

territory, Sun Tzu wrote, was courting danger.1

Once, and for the longest time, cities were integral to the conduct of

war. Heavily fortified, snug behind their bastioned walls, cities

embodied the strength of the state. Cities could be worth taking: a

successful siege—that is, one that was not ruinous to defender and

attacker alike—quite often concluded a war decisively. Field

engagements, however, did not hold out a promise of decisive victory;

one might conduct indecisive operations in disputed zones between one

strongpoint and another for years. Decisive field operations were

always more difficult than sieges to stage and always posed a sterner

test for the armies. Whole wars might pass without seeing a field

operation that produced any significant result for those engaged.

439
Campaigns might simply burn themselves out with no meaningful

conclusion at all.2

Fortresses and the style of war they represented began declining well

before the age of gunpowder hurried them along to obsolescence.

Fortresses usually were built at command by those who had the

resources to give them life. But cities were a collective enterprise, one

of the results of constantly redistributing humans and their labors,

usually over a course of centuries. From the Middle Ages onward, and

especially in Europe, populations were busily rearranging themselves

into towns and cities. Between the years 1100 and 1500, the number of

towns in Europe doubled.3 Most faced their enemies without permanent

protection. Even when they were not in the lee of a mighty castle, they

managed to survive by putting up fierce and prolonged resistance from

behind the crudest defenses. Proper sieges of well-prepared fortresses

rarely lasted more than a few months, and certain cities held out just as

long. One of the longest sieges recorded in that age was against the city

of Acre, which defended itself against Frankish Crusaders for almost

three years.4 While the age of the fortress declined, the modern age of

urban warfare was beginning. As Phillipe Contamine has observed, a

conqueror might now easily avoid a castle, but “it was absolutely vital

to control such centres of economic, administrative, and human

resources as were represented by towns.”5

Cities that were not protected by fortifications posed their own kinds

of problems for would-be attackers. An unfortified city, if it was to be

defended at all, might be more inclined to defend itself in depth, or

along a single avenue of approach, forcing an invader to spend itself

from building to building, each of which could be made into a redoubt,

until the attacker had dissipated its combat power—or its enthusiasm

for the fight. Nor were unfortified cities difficult simply because they

could be successfully defended. The very human composition of the

city could pose yet another set of difficulties. A city full of terrified

civilians or a city swollen with equally terrified refugees could produce

a corps’ worth of friction without ever firing a shot.

The redistribution of the European population was unprecedented

but not unique. The rest of the world matched Europe’s new patterns of

growth, million for million. In 150 AD, the world’s population stood at

about 300 million. Sixteen centuries of growth were required to double

this number.6 In 1750, the world’s population of 600 million began to

rise at a rate never before seen. Only fifty-four more years were to pass

before the world’s population nearly doubled again. By 1804, the

world’s population had reached 1 billion.7 The magnitude of this

440
demographic surge is so powerful that neither plagues nor wars nor

natural calamities have affected its velocity. During the two centuries

since reaching the first billion of population, the world has added 5

billion more.8 The rate of growth has not subsided, but it has changed

shape.

In 1804, London was unique among the world’s cities because it had

attained a population of 1 million, possibly the first city to do so since

ancient Rome. Only 100 years later, cities all over the world contained

more than a million inhabitants. Now, one estimate holds that the world

contains some 30,000 “urban centers,” not megalopolises so much as

very large cities. Some of these, such as El Alto, Bolivia, now over

500,000 people, are located close to much larger, better-known cities.9

By the year 2000, the world contained 387 cities with populations of a

million or more—sometimes, much more. The most populous urban

agglomeration in the world today is Tokyo, with a population of 26.5

million.10 Not including the city’s several contiguous suburbs, the

prefecture of Tokyo proper now covers more than 2,000 square

kilometers.11

According to a recent UN report, within the next five years, global

population will be equally divided between urban and rural inhabitants,

but virtually all population growth for the next generation is expected to

occur in urban areas. Most of these urban areas are in less-developed

regions of the world. During the past five years, urban growth in these

regions was six times greater than growth in the urban areas of

developed nations. In the more developed nations, 75 percent of the

population is already urban areas, a figure that, by current estimates,

will increase to 84 percent within the next generation. However, in the

world’s largest urban agglomerations, for reasons not explained,

populations tend to decline. Yet, Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Delhi, India,

both defied this trend during the past quarter-century, with populations

growing at a rate of 7 percent a year.12 No evidence suggests that there is

any fixed point of maximum urban expansion, a point beyond which a

city may no longer serve its purposes.13 Nor, as noted, is it inevitable

that a megacity, once embarked on dramatic expansion, will continue to

grow. Mexico City’s recent history demonstrates that population

surges can indeed abate or even reverse themselves for reasons that

have nothing to do with urban dysfunction. In this case, a reorientation

of national production and consumption was the proximate cause for

revising the city’s growth estimates downward.14

The world’s many cities are as varied as the societies that built them.

The standard, common, or normal city does not exist. Cities can be

441
broadly distinguished from one another, however. Geography can

impose its own kind of tyranny over how a city grows. Cities that are

sited on coastal plains like Tokyo, or those such as Lagos that occupy

coastal or estuarial islands, have only so much land available to them.

Cities dominated by a particular industry or activity often incorporate it

into their design. Capital cities usually fix their national institutions

near a ceremonial center where monuments are more numerous than

people. This seems to hold true whether the city was originally built for

that purpose or later adapted. Washington, DC, St. Petersburg, and

Brasilia are modern examples of the former. London, Paris, Berlin, and

Tokyo did not begin as capitals but eventually assumed the role. It is

possible, too, to distinguish between cities by how they respond to

certain social or technical developments. Los Angeles and the

automobile culture virtually grew up together, with the result that few

cities in the world are so highly integrated with this form of

transportation as is L.A. By contrast, modern Athens was required like

so many other ancient cities to transplant modern transport patterns

onto an urban structure that had not greatly changed in centuries.

Comparing cities by one feature or another can be interesting, but it is

perhaps not the most effective way to understand the uniqueness of a

given city. In this respect, a city is more like a book, to be read and

understood on its own terms.

Even so, the modern urbanographer and the modern military

professional are unlikely to see a city in the same way. Rio de Janeiro’s

764 favelas—poverty-ridden urban zones distinguished more by the

boundaries of the criminal gangs who operate in them than by any

division of orthodox government—may seem to the urban planner to be

a collection of political, economic, and, above all, social challenges.

The military planner may wonder how—if there is no choice—to move

large bodies of soldiers through this zone or whether it is even possible

for an army to wrest control from the “federation of gangs” that

dominates it.15 While population and urban experts can contend,

theoretically, with China’s “floating population” of 100 million

homeless agricultural workers displaced by rural modernization and

collecting in the nation’s cities (1 million in Beijing alone), what

theories can a commander and military planner draw upon to contend

with his mission in densely populated urban areas?16

The art of war clearly has not kept pace with the progressively more

complex global urban environment. As a consequence, the military

profession is ill equipped to meet the unique demands of modern urban

warfare. Unable to avoid operating in urban environments, traditional

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armed forces tend to regress, their tactics devolving to the lowest

common denominator, surrendering the initiative to better-prepared

adversaries. Forced to resort to expediencies and improvisations, trial

and error, and experiments in the face of the enemy, orthodox military

forces face the danger of escalation past the point their strategy can

sustain and costs they can endure.

But history has never waited for military theory to catch up, so it has

been to history that soldiers have turned to prepare themselves for the

battlefields of the future. Each of the twelve cases presented in this

volume has been the subject of earlier full-length studies. These larger

studies focus on the dramatic and unique characteristics of the events

they address. The value of studying these cases in a collective set,

however, is that they can be held up in the light of each other. By doing

so, one may begin to build a professionally useful body of knowledge

about this unique class of military operations.

Just how far urban operations diverge from orthodox military

operations can be seen in how differently they are planned and

conducted, the constraints under which they labor, how their progress is

judged, as well as the results they produce. Sometimes, urban

operations are so different from orthodoxy that they seem to belong to

another war altogether—as if what happened inside the city had little

reference to what happened beyond it. No one involved in the battle of

Aachen, on either the Allied or the German side, would have seen the

city as being important to a larger fabric of operations. The Germans did

not intend to hold the city, and the Allies only wanted to get around it.

As Christopher Gabel points out in his case study of the battle, the road

network would have accommodated the Allies’ original strategy quite

nicely. Half of the city had already been destroyed by Allied bombing,

although exactly why is unclear because it was not a vital industrial

center to begin with. In keeping with the lack of importance both sides

assigned to the city, neither side was prepared to fight inside the city.

But neither was Adolf Hitler’s direct intervention expected, an

intervention that had nothing to do with military necessity and

everything to do with misplaced sentimentalism. So the German army

did not after all withdraw from the city, the Allies could not leave them

there, and thus a city battle was fought for reasons of nostalgia as much

as any other. Furthermore, while the combat inside the city took on its

own character, the rest of the war moved on as before.

Among the cases collected here, the most extreme example of

politics and sentiment investing a city with importance is that of

Stalingrad. Although Stalingrad is now seen as the archetypical urban

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battle during World War II, it resembled Aachen in that neither side saw

the city as critical to its strategic or operational plans. Neither the

German General Staff nor the Soviet Stavka assigned much importance

to the place. The German army would very likely have passed through

Stalingrad on the way to greater prizes in the east had not Joseph Stalin

made an issue of the place. That done, Hitler complied enthusiastically.

Thus the stage was set for one of the most vicious battles of the

twentieth century. While the city might have been of negligible military

importance at first, the opposing national leaders ensured that it would

grow to strategic proportions.17

While neither of the battles for Aachen or Stalingrad could be said to

have been intentional and neither was the result of deliberate military

planning, the battle for Hue was a critical element in a much larger

strategic conception. As Vietnam’s old Imperial city, Hue was a

cultural icon as well as being politically important. Partly because of its

significance, all sides had treated Hue as something of an “open” city,

immune to the war that had engulfed the rest of the country. For two

years, North Vietnamese strategists planned the campaign known to

history as the Tet Offensive. Operational and tactical preparation for

the assault on the city itself began six months before the attack. The

North Vietnamese Army (NVA) worked to create complete surprise,

and its work paid off. For a time, Hue was under control of the NVA.18

South Vietnamese and American reinforcements to shore up defenses

and retake overrun districts were all deployed in the manner of a

military emergency—in other words, a think-as-you-go crisis

response, always the least acceptable, most expensive course of action.

For all the initial advantages the NVA enjoyed, they were

insufficient to guarantee success. The North Vietnamese intended the

battle for Hue to conclude promptly and decisively. When their plans

were disappointed, they were forced into a series of tactical

compromises, including an attempt to reinforce their battle from

beyond the city itself. Eventually, the South Vietnamese and the

Americans took the initiative away from the NVA. What began as a

coup de main ended as a kind of siege in reverse, from the inside out.

Coups de main are not always failures. Nor are coups de main cheap

operations, although the importance of subversion, preparation, and

speed sometimes may create false expectations of decisive action.

Also, unless these sorts of operations are supported properly, they all

too often reverse the attackers’ fortunes. The NVA’s preparations for

taking Hue followed the common practice of infiltrating the city well

before what the attackers expected would be their decisive blow. The

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same was true in two other cases here, the Soviet Union’s seizure of

Kabul and the American seizure of Panama City. In both cases, the

attackers enjoyed virtually overwhelming advantages, and both were

so planned.

The Soviets came very close to underestimating the regular forces

that would be required to consummate the seizure of Kabul. The

Americans, on the other hand, were in the peculiar position of invading

themselves, so long and well established was their presence throughout

Panama. In both cases, the lure of quick, decisive action was too great

for the planners to resist. The Americans’ concept for invading Panama

had a considerably larger scope than the Soviets’ concept for Kabul.

The Americans planned their invasion to attack many decisive targets

as nearly simultaneously as they could to interdict any possible

response, but what they wanted in the end was a decision in Panama

City. Panama City was the only place, in fact, where decision could be

found. The same was true of Kabul, but there the decision had a much

shorter life than the one in Panama. The attack on Kabul merely

initiated a decade of unrewarding counterinsurgency warfare from

which the Soviets had trouble extricating themselves.

Coups de main have never been quite as easy or quite as decisive as

they have seemed. But coups de main may be verging on a new

popularity if military thinkers can find ways to win a quick decision

with new combinations of specialized forces, precision weapons, and

cybernetic attack. Conceived in this manner, the coup de main seems a

very modern kind of operation, one that aims at only those elements and

functions of enemy power that contribute to his resistance. What is

more certain is that the very notion of attacking even moderately large

cities such as Grozny in the old-fashioned way—first isolating, then

dividing the whole into ever smaller areas, reducing the defenders to

their final redoubts—is absurd. Any attacking force that takes on an

urban population hoping for a soft, compliant target is risking the

dissipation of its combat power well before it meets its primary

objective.

The presence of civilians, sometimes in the midst of battle, is one

characteristic that makes urban warfare unique among all other forms

of war. People trapped in cities by war have persisted in the most inhospitable conditions imaginable. A modern urban population may react

stoically to the presence of foreign soldiers, but even noncombatant

populations must continue to function, no matter what. For an invading

army, even the most welcoming population constitutes a kind of resistant medium in which that army must continue to execute its mission. If

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the fight for a city is part of a larger campaign—such as in the battle for

Aachen—fighting elsewhere might drive a new population of refugees

into the city, replacing those who had evacuated earlier and arriving just

when city services had been wrecked.

All too often, combatant forces have found ways to use civilians to

their advantage. In Manila, Hue, Grozny, Beirut, and certainly

Sarajevo, civilian noncombatants became critical and, at times, decisive elements of the engagement. Most commonly, the influence of

noncombatants will work to the advantage of one side or another; they

are rarely a “neutral” force. In the battle for Hue, for instance, South

Vietnamese and American rules of engagement would not allow the

employment of certain weapons, but the NVA was bound by no such

tactical restrictions. Concern for noncombatant casualties in Beirut was

said to have prevented the Israelis from penetrating the city’s defenses

in 1983. In this instance, the Israeli Defense Forces had to contend with

the Palestinian refugee camps that worked as a human buffer for the

Palestine Liberation Organization defenders behind them in the city

proper. By contrast, the siege of Sarajevo was quite explicitly a siege

against the noncombatants of the city, inaugurated, as Curt King’s essay makes clear, when orthodox military operations failed to deliver the

desired result. Sarajevans were, in effect, made hostage to military operations elsewhere, far from the eyes of the international public.

The urban environment, considered in military terms, is a unique

environment, both in terms of its essential character and its behavior.

Faced with the complexities of this environment, military analysts have

resorted to explaining cities as a “system of systems,” as if cities were

only the product of architectural designs and engineers’ drawings.

Those would not be cities but monuments. The first, most elementary,

feature of any urban environment is that it is a place where people have

collected more or less permanently. It is therefore to the human

qualities of the urban environment the military planner must first look if

he hopes to understand how armies can function in such a place.

When a military force acts in an urban environment, its essential

humanness guarantees that the environment acts in return; that is, the

relationship between a force and a city is dynamic. The dynamic

interaction between cities and the military forces operating in them

redefines and reshapes those forces over time. Because of its dynamic

quality, the urban environment works as an important “third force,”

uniquely influencing the behavior of all sides engaged. This

fundamental interaction cannot be ignored by the armies engaged,

regardless of how long or how intensive their operations.

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Nor may we assume that the peculiarities of the urban environment

will redound to the benefit of one side or another. As Al Lowe has

observed in his essay on the long battle for Rio de Janeiro, early in the

Montoneros’ career as urban insurgents, they were happy to adopt the

style of the guerrillero, fighting a war of poverty against orthodox

Argentine forces. But as the war dragged on, both sides gravitated

toward each other’s methods. Unorthodox methods were increasingly

adopted by the state, which conducted its own version of guerrilla

operations against the Montoneros, including using extralegal death

squads. Meanwhile, the methods of the guerrilleros slowly became

more orthodox until, paradoxically, the movement’s appeal to its power

base among the urban poor gradually disappeared. Doubtless, neither

side expected the environment itself to exercise this kind of power over

its behavior.

The commander who enters a modern city unprepared will soon be

forced to acknowledge critical differences in how he must operate if he

is to accomplish his mission. The cost of everything will go up. He will

need more forces and perhaps different forces; more transport, not for

his troops but to evacuate noncombatants; or civil affairs specialists to

deal with a variety of political and social issues. The presence of

refugees and local noncombatants will mean that medical support will

be tugged in two directions, toward the rear as well as the front. And in

the fighting zones, casualties will begin to mount. Indeed, the historical

record consistently shows a rapid increase in the consumption rates of

all classes of military supply when a force engages in city combat.

These differences are so great that the commander might think he had

passed from one theater of operations to another. In a way, he has.

Perhaps the first difference the commander would notice is that his

mission had to assume a different shape and his force had to adopt

different methods. Time-honored combat formations designed for open

fighting would reorganize themselves into ever-smaller groups,

perhaps even without his intervention. Command and control would

not work as it had. The fluidity with which his force had originally

maneuvered would be impeded by the medium in which it now

attempted to move. Inconsiderable distances would become deliberate

advances under full protection. An attack across a boulevard would

take on the character of a river crossing. While the mission tempo

would subside, the tactical tempo would intensify. Smaller acts would

mean more. Tactical forces would combat smaller targets more

fiercely. Buildings would become campaigns, stairs would become

avenues of approach, and rooms would become fortresses. In just this

447
way, the worst urban battles of the twentieth century assumed their own

shapes and purposes. The battles for the tractor factory in Stalingrad,

for the Zoo Flak Tower in Berlin, for the fortress at Manila, and for the

Citadel at Hue all exploded the best laid plans of commanders on the

spot, forcing them to submit to the tactical demands of the moment.

Modern armies would be mistaken to assume that battles such as

these are impossible in the future. The first battle for Grozny that Timothy Thomas describes here, as well as succeeding battles for the city,

serves as a warning for those armies that underestimate the challenges

of modern urban warfare. Ill-prepared, poorly led, poorly supported,

and thrown recklessly against a determined defender whose military assets were modest, a ramshackled Russian army ignored its own history,

using firepower as a substitute for thought. Almost a decade after the

adversaries began fighting, neither side seems to recognize that fighting

is only a means, not an end, certainly not a way of life. So Grozny takes

its place alongside those urban battles that have devolved from purpose

to habit, where exhaustion rather than the military art offers the only

way out. No policy maker or professional soldier should be willing to

accept such a verdict.

Modern urban warfare is neither a completely new or completely old

military phenomenon; as usual, it is some of both. It is not a phenomenon beyond the reach of professional understanding, and in the past

several years, a reawakening of professional interest has occurred

around the military world. The professional soldier now has within

reach a substantial historical and contemporary literature from which

the foundation of new military doctrines and practices can be built. This

casebook has been written to contribute to that foundation.

448
Notes

1. By Sun Tzu’s reckoning, the general placed his army in “critical

terrain.” Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Samuel B. Griffith, trans. and ed., foreword

by B.H. Liddell Hart (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), 38-39, 78-79.

See also Sun-Tzu The Art of Warfare, Roger Ames, trans. (NY: Ballantine

Books, 1993), 111-12, 439.

2. Phillipe Contamine, The Art of War in the Middle Ages, Michael

Jones, trans. (London: Basil Blackwell, 1983), 219.

3. Spiro Kostof, The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meaning

Through History (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991; paperback, 1999),

108-110.

4. Contamine, 101.

5. Ibid.

6. Kostof, 108-110.

7. The Population Council, “Population,” in The Microsoft Encarta

Encyclopedia 99, 4 (CD-ROM).

8. United Nations (UN), “The World at Six Billion” (NY: UN

Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs,

1999), b-2, b-3 at <http://www.un.org/popin>, accessed 1999.

9. Eugene Linden, “The Exploding Cities of the Developing World,”

Foreign Affairs (January/February 1996), 54-55.

10. This figure includes all inhabitants within Tokyo’s urban agglomeration as calculated by the UN Population Division. The UN employs the

term “agglomeration” to designate only those urban areas that exceed a

population of 10 million. The UN employs the term “small cities” for urban

areas of 500,000 and less. See UN Population Division, “World Urbanization

Prospects: The 2001 Revision; Data Tables and Highlights” (NY: UN

Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 21

March 2002), 1-3, 172. Accessible at <http://www.un.org/popin>, accessed

November 2002, hereafter cited as “World Urbanization Prospects.”

11. Tokyo.gov, “The Official Tokyo Metro Website” at <http://www.

chijihonbu.metro.tokyo.jp>, accessed November 2002.

12. “World Urbanization Prospects,” 1-3.

13. This is not to say that once urban growth begins it cannot level off or

even reverse itself. Demographic estimates are not predictions of the future. In

1973, estimates of Mexico City’s population at century’s end ran higher than

30 million, but global and national markets changed radically in the meantime

and influenced how economic activity in Mexico was distributed. See Linden,

54.

14. Ibid.

449
15. David E. Kaplan, “The Law of the Jungle,” U.S. News and World

Report (14 October 2002), 35.

16. Linden, 54.

17. I have discussed the operational value of Stalingrad more extensively

in Sharp Corners: Urban Operations at Century’s End (Fort Leavenworth,

KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press, 2001), 59-60.

18. See Ronnie E. Ford, TET 1968: Understanding the Surprise

(London: Frank Cass, 1995), especially 66-86.

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About the Contributors

Jerold E. Brown is an Associate Professor of History and Fellow of the Combat Studies Institute (CSI), U.S. Army Command and

General Staff College (USACGSC), Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He received a B.A. and M.A. from Purdue University and a Ph.D. from Duke

University. He has written and edited several books on military planning and published frequently in military and historical journals, including The Historical Dictionary of the United States Army.

Louis DiMarco, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, is an Associate Professor of Military History at CSI, USACGSC. He received a B.S.

from the U.S. Military Academy (USMA), an M.M.A.S. from the

USACGSC, and an M.A. from Salve Regina University and is pursuing

a doctorate at Kansas State University. He was the lead author of the

U.S. Army’s urban operations doctrine manual, Field Manual 3-06.

Christopher R. Gabel has served since 1983 on the faculty of

USACGSC, where he teaches courses on general military history,

military innovation, the Civil War, and World War II. He received a

Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. His publications include studies

on the U.S. Army during the World War II period, railroad logistics in

the Civil War, and a staff ride handbook for the Vicksburg campaign.

George W. Gawrych is currently serving as a visiting professor

at the USMA, West Point, New York. He has been a faculty member

with CSI, USACGSC, since 1984. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Lester W. Grau, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired, is a

military analyst with the Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort

Leavenworth, Kansas. He has published more than ninety articles and

studies on Soviet and Russian tactical, operational, and geopolitical

subjects. He is the author of The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet

Combat Tactics in Afghanistan and The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost.

Thomas M. Huber is a veteran faculty member of CSI,

USACGSC, where he specializes in Napoleonic warfare and military

thought. He received a master’s degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. His forthcoming publication is Density of War: The Interplay of Siege,

451
Maneuver, and Guerrilla Warfare From Lexington and Concord to

“Olympic” and “Coronet.”

Curtis S. King is an associate professor on the Staff Ride Team

at CSI, USACGSC. He received a B.S. from the USMA and an M.A.

and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He spent a six-month

tour in Sarajevo, Bosnia, as a NATO historian.

S.J. Lewis was born in Northern California in 1948 and

received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from San Jose State University. He

received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in

1973. He has written extensively on modern European history.

Alan C. Lowe, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, is currently a

military history instructor with CSI, USACGSC. He received an

M.M.A.S. from the USACGSC and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in

U.S. history at the University of Kansas. He has held staff positions at

various command levels both as an infantry officer and in his functional

area of psychological operations.

William G. Robertson is the Combined Arms Center Historian

and the senior historian and chief of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command side of CSI, USACGSC. He received a Ph.D. in history

from the University of Virginia and is the author of Back Door to Richmond: The Bermuda Hundred Campaign, The Petersburg Campaign:

The Battle of Old Men and Young Boys, the Bull Run chapter in America’s First Battles, and Counterattack on the Naktong, 1950.

Roger J. Spiller is the George C. Marshall Professor of History

at the USACGSC. His most recent work is Sharp Corners: Urban Operations at Century’s End (Fort Leavenworth, KS: USACGSC Press,

2001).

Timothy L. Thomas, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired,

is an analyst at the Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth,

Kansas. He received a B.S. from the USMA and an M.A. from the University of Southern California. He is the assistant editor of the journal

European Security, an adjunct professor at the Eurasian Institute, and

an adjunct lecturer at the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School.

James H. Willbanks, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired,

is professor of joint and multinational operations at the USACGSC. He

is a graduate of Texas A&M University and holds a Ph.D. in U.S.

military and diplomatic history from the University of Kansas. He is the

452
author of Thiet Giap! The Battle of An Loc and numerous articles on the

Vietnam war.

Lawrence A. Yates is an instructor and researcher on the

Research and Publication Team, CSI, USACGSC. He received a B.A.

and an M.A. from the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a Ph.D.

in history from the University of Kansas. He is the author of several

articles on U.S. contingency operations since World War II, has written

a monograph on the U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic in

1965, and is completing book-length studies of U.S. military operations

in the Panama crisis, 1987-90 and Somalia, 1992-94.

The editors and authors would like to thank the following persons for

their invaluable contributions in preparing this volume: Alice King,

Combined Arms Research Library, for her expert assistance in the area

of copyrights; Edward J. Carr, Training Support Center, for his superb

work in providing standardized graphics and for laying out this book;

and Ann Barbuto and Patricia Whitten for applying their editorial skills.

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Appendix A. The Future

Our Soldiers, Their Cities

Ralph Peters

© 1996 Ralph Peters

Reprinted by permission from Parameters, Spring 1996.

The future of warfare lies in the streets, sewers, high-rise buildings,

industrial parks, and the sprawl of houses, shacks, and shelters that

form the broken cities of our world. We will fight elsewhere, but not so

often, rarely as reluctantly, and never so brutally. Our recent military

history is punctuated with city names—Tuzla, Mogadishu, Los Angeles, Beirut, Panama City, Hue, Saigon, Santo Domingo—but these

encounters have been but a prologue, with the real drama still to come.

We declare that only fools fight in cities and shut our eyes against the

future. But in the next century, in an uncontrollably urbanizing world,

we will not be able to avoid urban deployments short of war and even

full-scale city combat. Cities always have been centers of gravity, but

they are now more magnetic than ever before. Once the gatherers of

wealth, then the processors of wealth, cities and their satellite communities have become the ultimate creators of wealth. They concentrate

people and power, communications and control, knowledge and capability, rendering all else peripheral. They are also the post-modern

equivalent of jungles and mountains—citadels of the dispossessed and

irreconcilable. A military unprepared for urban operations across a

broad spectrum is unprepared for tomorrow.

The US military, otherwise magnificently capable, is an extremely

inefficient tool for combat in urban environments. We are not doctrinally, organizationally, or psychologically prepared, nor are we properly

trained or equipped, for a serious urban battle, and we must task organize radically even to conduct peacekeeping operations in cities. Romantic and spiritually reactionary, we long for gallant struggles in

green fields, while the likeliest “battlefields” are cityscapes where human waste goes undisposed, the air is appalling, and mankind is rotting.

Poor state or rich, disintegrating society or robust culture, a global

commonality is that more of the population, in absolute numbers and in

percentage, lives in cities. Control of cities always has been vital to

military success, practically and symbolically, but in our post-modern

environment, in which the wealth of poor regions as well as the defining

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capabilities of rich states are concentrated in capitals and clusters of

production-center cities, the relevance of non-urban terrain is diminising

in strategic,operational, and even tactical importance—except where the

countryside harbors critical natural resources. But even when warfare is

about resource control, as in America’s Gulf War, simply controlling the

oil fields satisfies neither side.

The relevant urban centers draw armies for a stew of reasons, from

providing legitimacy and infrastructural capabilities, to a magnetic attraction that is more instinctive than rational (perhaps even genetically

absorbed at this point in the history of mankind), and on to the fundamental need to control indigenous populations—which cannot be done

without mastering their urban centers. We may be entering a new age of

siege warfare, but one in which the military techniques would be

largely unrecognizable to Mehmet the Conqueror or Vauban, or even to

our own greatest soldiers and conquerors of cities, Ulysses S. Grant and

Winfield Scott.

Consider just a few of the potential trouble spots where US military

intervention or assistance could prove necessary in the next century:

Mexico, Egypt, the sub-continent with an expansionist India, the Arabian Peninsula, Brazil, or the urbanizing Pacific Rim. Even though each

of these states or regions contains tremendous rural, desert, or jungle

expanses, the key to each is control of an archipelago of cities. The largest of these cities have populations in excess of 20 million today—more

specific figures are generally unavailable as beleaguered governments

lose control of their own backyards. Confronted with an armed and hostile population in such an environment, the US Army as presently structured would find it difficult to muster the dismount strength necessary

to control a single center as simultaneously dense and sprawling as

Mexico City.

Step down from the level of strategic rhetoric about the future, where

anyone with self-confidence can make a convincing case for his or her

agenda. Survey instead the blunt, practical ways in which urban combat

in today’s major cities would differ from a sanitary anomaly such as

Desert Storm or the never-to-be-fought Third European Civil War in

the German countryside (where we pretended urban combat could be

avoided) for which so much of the equipment presently in our inventory

was designed.

At the broadest level, there is a profound spatial difference. “Conventional” warfare has been horizontal, with an increasing vertical dimension. In fully urbanized terrain, however, warfare becomes

profoundly vertical, reaching up into towers of steel and cement, and

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downward into sewers, subway lines, road tunnels, communications

tunnels, and the like. Even with the “emptying” of the modern battlefield, organizational behavior in the field strives for lateral contiguity

and organizational integrity. But the broken spatial qualities of urban

terrain fragments units and compartmentalizes encounters, engagements, and even battles. The leader’s span of control can easily collapse, and it is very, very hard to gain and maintain an accurate picture

of the multidimensional “battlefield.”

Noncombatants, without the least hostile intent, can overwhelm the

force, and there are multiple players beyond the purely military, from

criminal gangs to the media, vigilante and paramilitary factions within

militaries, and factions within those factions. The enemy knows the terrain better than the visiting army, and it can be debilitatingly difficult to

tell friend from foe from the disinterested. Local combat situations can

change with bewildering speed. Atrocity is close-up and commonplace,

whether intentional or incidental. The stresses on the soldier are incalculable. The urban combat environment is, above all, disintegrative.

The modern and post-modern trend in Western militaries has been to

increase the proportion of tasks executed by machines while reducing

the number of soldiers in our establishments. We seek to build

machines that enable us to win while protecting or distancing the

human operator from the effects of combat. At present, however, urban

combat remains extremely manpower intensive—and it is a casualty

producer. Although a redirection of research and development efforts

toward addressing the requirements of urban combat could eventually

raise our efficiency and reduce casualties, machines probably will not

dominate urban combat in our lifetimes and the soldier will remain the

supreme weapon. In any case, urban warfare will not require substantial

numbers of glamorous big-ticket systems but great multiples of small

durables and disposables whose production would offer less fungible

profit margins and whose relatively simple construction would open

acquisition to genuinely competitive bidding.

Casualties can soar in urban environments. Beyond those inflicted

by enemy action, urban operations result in broken bones, concussions,

traumatic-impact deaths and, with the appalling sanitation in many urban environments, in a broad range of septic threats. Given the untempered immune systems of many of our soldiers, even patrol operations

in sewer systems that did not encounter an enemy could produce debilitating, even fatal, illnesses. One of many potential items of soldier

equipment for urban warfare might be antiseptic bio-sheathing that

coats the soldier’s body and closes over cuts and abrasions, as well as

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wounds. Any means of boosting the soldier’s immune system could

prove a critical “weapon of war.”

Urban warfare differs even in how “minor” items such as medical

kits and litters should be structured. Soldiers need new forms of “armor”;

equipment as simple as layered-compound knee and elbow pads could

dramatically reduce the sort of injuries that, while not life-threatening,

can remove soldiers from combat for hours, days, weeks, or even

months. Eye protection is essential, given the splintering effects of

firefights in masonry and wood environments, and protective headgear

should focus as much on accidental blows from falls or collapsing

structures as on enemy fire, on preserving the body’s structural integrity as much as on ballistic threats.

Communications requirements differ, too. Soldiers need more

comms distributed to lower levels—down to the individual soldier in

some cases. Further, because of loss rates in the give and take of urban

combat, low-level comms gear should not be part of the encrypted command and control network. Radios or other means of communication do

not need extended range, but they must deal with terrible reception

anomalies. Even a “digitized” soldier, whose every movement can be

monitored, will require different display structures in the observing

command center. This is the classic three-dimensional chessboard at

the tactical level.

On the subject of command and control, the individual soldier must

be even better-trained than at present. He will face human and material

distractions everywhere—it will be hard to maintain concentration on

the core mission. Soldiers will die simply because they were looking

the wrong way, and even disciplined and morally sound soldiers

disinclined to rape can lose focus in the presence of female or other

civilians whom they feel obliged to protect or who merely add to the

human “noise level.” The leader-to-led ratio must increase in favor of

rigorously prepared low-level leaders. While higher-level command

structures may flatten, tactical units must become webs of pyramidal

cells capable of extended autonomous behavior in a combat

environment where multiple engagements can occur simultaneously

and in relative isolation in the same building. Nonsensical arguments

about the Wehrmacht making do without so many NCOs and officers

on the battlefield must be buried forever; not only is the German

military of the last European civil war ancient history, but it lost

decisively. Our challenge is to shape the US Army of the 21st century.

Personal weapons must be compact and robust, with a high rate of

fire and very lightweight ammunition, but there is also a place for

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shotgun-like weapons at the squad level. Overall, soldier loads must be

reduced dramatically at the edge of combat, since fighting in tall

buildings requires agility that a soldier unbalanced by a heavy pack

cannot attain; further, vertical fighting is utterly exhausting and

requires specialized mobility tools. Soldiers will need more upper body

strength and will generally need to be more fit—and this includes

support soldiers, as well.

Ideally, each infantry soldier would have a thermal or post-thermal

imaging capability—since systems that require ambient light are not

much good 30 meters below the surface of the earth. Also, an enhanced

ability to detect and define sounds could benefit the soldier—although

he would have to be very well-trained to be able to transcend the

distracting quality of such systems. Eventually, we may have

individual-soldier tactical equipment that can differentiate between

male and female body heat distributions and that will even be able to

register hostility and intent from smells and sweat. But such devices

will not be available for the next several interventions, and we shall

have to make do for a long time to come with soldiers who are smart,

tough, and disciplined.

The roles of traditional arms will shift. Field artillery, so valuable

elsewhere, will be of reduced utility—unless the US military were to

degenerate to the level of atrocity in which the Russians indulged

themselves in Grozniy. Until artillery further enhances accuracy,

innovates warheads, and overcomes the laws of ballistic trajectories, it

will not have a significant role in urban combat divisions. Because of

attack angles and the capabilities of precision munitions, air power will

prove much more valuable and will function as flying artillery.

Mortars, however, may often be of great use, given their steep

trajectories. More accurate and versatile next-generation mortars could

be a very powerful urban warfare tool.

The bulk of tactical firepower will need to come from large-caliber,

protected, direct-fire weapons. This means tanks, or future systems descended from the tank. While today’s tanks are death traps in urban

combat—as the Russians were recently reminded—the need for protected, pinpoint firepower is critical. Instead of concentrating entirely

on obsolescent rural warfare, armor officers should be asking themselves how the tank should evolve to fight in tomorrow’s premier military environment, the city. First, the “tank” will need more protection,

and that protection will need to be differently distributed—perhaps

evolving to tuned electronic armor that flows over the vehicle to the

threatened spot. Main guns will need to be large caliber, yet, ideally,

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would be able to fire reduced-caliber ammunition, as well, through a

“caliber-tailoring” system. Crew visibility will need to be greater. The

tank will not need to sustain high speeds, but will need a sprint capability. Further, the tank will need to be better integrated into local intelligence awareness.

While the need for plentiful dismounted infantry will endure, those

soldiers will intermittently need means for rapid, protected movement.

But this does not necessarily mean mechanized infantry—rather, it may

demand armored transport centralized at the division level on which the

infantry trains, but which does not rob the infantry of manpower in

peacetime or in combat.

Engineers will be absolutely critical to urban combat, but they, too,

will need evolved tools and skills. The vertical dimension is only part of

the challenge. Engineers will need to develop expanded skills, from

enabling movement in developed downtown areas to firefighting.

Demolition skills will be essential, but will be a long way from blowing

road craters. Tomorrow’s combat engineers may have to drop 20-story

buildings on minimal notice under fire while minimizing collateral

damage.

Aviation is vital to mobility, intelligence, and the delivery of focused

firepower in urban environments, but, as Mogadishu warned us, present

systems and tactics leave us highly vulnerable. Rotary-wing aviation

for urban combat does not need great range or speed, but demands a

richer defensive suite, great agility, and increased stealthiness.

Military intelligence must be profoundly reordered to cope with the

demands of urban combat. From mapping to target acquisition, from

collection to analysis, and from battle damage assessment to the

prediction of the enemy’s future intent, intelligence requirements in

urban environments are far tougher to meet than they are on traditional

battlefields. The utility of the systems that paid off so richly in Desert

Storm collapses in urban warfare, and the importance of human

intelligence (HUMINT) and regional expertise soars. From language

skills to a knowledge of urban planning (or the lack thereof), many of

the abilities essential to combat in cities are given low, if any, priority in

today’s intelligence architecture. While leaders are aware of these

shortfalls, military intelligence is perhaps more a prisoner of inherited

Cold War structures than is any other branch—although field artillery

and armor are competitive in their unpreparedness for the future.

Military intelligence is at a crossroads today and must decide

whether to continue doing the often-irrelevant things it does so well or

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to embrace a realistic future which will demand a better balance

between systems and soldiers in a branch particularly susceptible to the

lure of dazzling machines. Try templating a semi-regular enemy unit in

urban combat in the center of Lagos after 24 hours of contact. This does

not mean that high-tech gear and analytical methodologies are useless

in urban environments. On the contrary, innovative technologies and

organizational principles could make a profound difference in how

military intelligence supports urban combat operations. But we would

need to shift focus and explore radical departures from the systems we

currently embrace.

Military police and civil affairs troops will continue to play the

important roles they played in urban interventions during the 20th

century, but psychological operations (PSYOPS) units, long a

step-child, will surge in importance, and may ultimately merge fully

with military intelligence to enhance synergy and efficiency.

Especially given the potential for electronic population control systems

in the next century, PSYOPS may function as a combat arm, even if not

credited as such.

Even supply is different. While deliveries do not need to be made

over great distances, soft vehicles are extremely vulnerable in an

environment where it is hard to define a front line and where the enemy

can repeatedly emerge in the rear. All soldiers will be fighters, and force

and resource protection will be physically and psychologically

draining. Urban environments can upset traditional balances between

classes of supply. There may be less of a requirement for bulk fuel, but

an intervention force may find itself required to feed an urban

population, or to supply epidemic-control efforts. Artillery and ATGM

expenditures might be minimal, while main gun and infantry systems

ammunition consumption could be heated. Urban combat breaks

individual and crew-served weapons and gear, from rifles to radios, and

masonry buildings are even harder on uniforms than on human bones.

Soldiers will need replacement uniforms far more often than during

more traditional operations. Unfortunately, we also will need more

replacement soldiers, and all combat support and combat service

support troops are more apt to find themselves shooting back during an

urban battle than in any other combat environment.

Where do we begin to prepare for this immediate and growing challenge? There are two powerful steps we ought to take. First, the US

Army should designate two active and at least one of our National

Guard divisions as urban combat divisions and should begin variable

restructurings to get the right component mix. Rule one should be that

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the active divisions are not “experimental” in the sense of nondeployable, but remain subject to short-notice deployment to threatened

urban environments. This would put an incredible stress on the unit and,

especially, on the chain of command. But today’s US Army cannot afford to have any divisions “on ice,” and, further, this pressure would

drive competence. Two such divisions is the irreducible initial number,

since one urban combat division would be rapidly exhausted by the

pace of deployments.

Most of the divisional artillery would be shifted to corps-level, while

engineers at all levels would be increased and restructured—including

the addition of organic sapper platoons to infantry battalions.

Composite armor and mechanized elements would be added to light

forces at a ratio of one battalion (brigade) to four, with a longer-term

goal of developing more appropriate and readily deployable means of

delivering direct firepower and protecting the forward movement of

troops. Innovative protection of general transport would be another

goal. Military intelligence units would have to restructure radically,

and would need to develop habitual relationships with reserve

component linguists and area specialists. Aviation would work closely

with other arms to develop more survivable tactics, while each division

would gain an active-duty PSYOPS company. Signalers would need to

experiment with low-cost, off-the-shelf tools for communicating in

dense urban environments, and an overarching effort would need to be

made to create interdisciplinary maps, both paper and electronic, that

could better portray the complexity of urban warfare. The divisions’

experience would determine future acquisition requirements.

But none of the sample measures cited above is as important as

revolutionizing training for urban combat. The present approach,

though worthwhile on its own terms, trains soldiers to fight in villages

or small towns, not in cities. Building realistic “cities” in which to train

would be prohibitively expensive. The answer is innovation. Why build

that which already exists? In many of our own blighted cities, massive

housing projects have become uninhabitable and industrial plants

unusable. Yet they would be nearly ideal for combat-in-cities training.

While we could not engage in live-fire training (even if the locals do),

we could experiment and train in virtually every other regard.

Development costs would be a fraction of the price of building a “city”

from scratch, and city and state governments would likely compete to

gain a US Army (and Marine) presence, since it would bring money,

jobs, and development—as well as a measure of social discipline. A

mutually beneficial relationship could help at least one of our worst-off

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cities, while offering the military a realistic training environment. The

training center could be at least partially administered by the local

National Guard to bind it to the community. We genuinely need a

National Training Center for Urban Combat, and it cannot be another

half-measure. Such a facility would address the most glaring and

dangerous gap in our otherwise superb military training program. We

need to develop it soon.

In summary, an urbanizing world means combat in cities, whether

we like it or not. Any officer who states categorically that the US Army

will never let itself be drawn into urban warfare is indulging in wishful

thinking. Urban combat is conceptually and practically different from

other modes of warfare. Although mankind has engaged in urban

combat from the sack of Troy down to the siege of Sarajevo, Western

militaries currently resist the practical, emotional, moral, and ethical

challenges of city fighting. Additional contemporary players, such as

the media, and international and nongovernmental organizations,

further complicate contemporary urban combat. We do not want to

touch this problem. But we have no choice. The problem is already

touching us, with skeletal, infected fingers. The US military must stop

preparing for its dream war and get down to the reality of the fractured

and ugly world in which we live—a world that lives in cities. We must

begin judicious restructuring for urban combat in order to gain both

efficiency and maximum effectiveness—as well as to preserve the lives

of our soldiers. We must equip, train, and fight innovatively. We must

seize the future before the future seizes us.

Major Ralph Peters is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of

Staff for Intelligence, where he is responsible for evaluating emerging

threats. Prior to becoming a Foreign Area Officer for Eurasia, he served

exclusively at the tactical level. He is a graduate of the US Army

Command and General Staff College and holds a master’s degree in

international relations. Over the past several years, his professional and

personal research travels have taken Major Peters to Russia, Ukraine,

Georgia, Ossetia, Abkhazia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan,

Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria,

Romania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Pakistan, and Turkey,

as well as the countries of the Andean Ridge. He has published five

books and dozens of articles and essays on military and international

concerns. This is his sixth article for Parameters.

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