No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy by Jim Proser

Author:Jim Proser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

0515 Hours—25 February 1991

The Iraqi counterattack begins from the west with a feint against Mattis and the 1/7 on the left flank of Task Force Ripper, followed by large-scale assaults against the right flank and center of both Task Forces Ripper and Shepherd. By 0620, Ripper’s Third Tank Battalion is in an intense firefight with twenty vehicles and an unknown number of infantry. The tanks knock down the first wave of the attack. Dense fog has rolled in with the drizzle and oil smoke, cutting visibility to less than three hundred feet.

Successive waves can’t coordinate their attacks in the low visibility, so instead of massing against a point of attack, they disperse across the front, some of them drifting into Task Force Papa Bear’s sector, which guards the right rear flank of the division. Some Iraqi units collide, while some slip through the lines, penetrating to the headquarters company at the center of Papa Bear. At that moment, Papa Bear is engaged in the largest tank battle in Marine Corps history, with a large armored force attacking from the west.

At 0800 Colonel Richard Hodory, commander of Papa Bear, and his staff are in their headquarters vehicles as an Iraqi T-55 tank and three armored personnel carriers emerge from the fog and halt about fifty yards away. The tank sits motionless, its gun sighted exactly on Hodory’s command vehicle. But instead of firing, the Iraqi commander gets out of his armored vehicle and surrenders.

The Iraqi commander says he is part of the brigade that attacked the right flank earlier. Within minutes, the rest of the commander’s force also finds Hodory but attacks the command post. Major John H. Turner reports, “We had main gun rounds, machine gun tracers and even 5.56-millimeter fire [from India Company 3/9, friendly fire] coming through the CP [command post]. I remember hitting the deck for the first time during the war and I saw tracers going through the CP from east to west at knee height.16

The headquarters company counters with grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, and antitank weapons. They kill one enemy tank and several armored personnel carriers. The remaining Iraqis retreat into the fog.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.