Home > Gulf War Diary > The Road March from Hell
At 1530 hours, January 13, 1991, I had just gotten ready to go to sleep, when I heard "march order". I thought, "What the hell are they talking about, we just got here." I immediately went up to see the battalion commander, who already had the other battery commanders and primary staff officers with him.
LTC Knight, the battalion commander, told us that the weather in the area was so bad that CENTCOM was unable to see what the Iraqis were doing. Consequently, LTG Franks, the VII Corps commander, was very concerned that they might be up to something, specifically that they might make a grab for KKMC. Because of the weather, our air force was grounded, making this was an ideal time for an Iraqi attack. At the time, the 1st Cav was the ARCENT reserve, and most of VII Corps was still either enroute from Germany, at the port of Dammam downloading ships, or moving vehicles to their TAAs from the port. They were not combat capable at that time, so LTG Franks went to the ARCENT commander, LTG Yeosock, and asked to get the 1st Cav sliced to VII Corps. LTG Yeosock agreed.
Our mission was to execute OPLAN 91-1 (the Defense of KKMC). We had to defend from BP Duke NLT 0300 hours local time, 14 January 1991. BP Duke was located just south of the Tapline road, between Hafar Al Batin and Qaysumah. Our plan was to depart here at 1700 hours, hit the SP (the "start point" of the tactical march, which just happened to be the same location as the HET download site next to KKMC) at 1900 hours, close on BP Duke, and be ready to fire NLT 0300 hours. I thought, "I'm in trouble. I just got here, I've been awake for 33 straight hours, I don't know the plan, I haven't reconned the route, I have only 6 of my howitzers, only 50% of my people, I can't man all of my howitzers." I brought that up to the battalion commander, and he directed A & B batteries to give me 8 people each. They complied, but of course they did not exactly give me their best people. My gut tightened up; the war's about to start, and I am all screwed up.
We packed everything up and got ready to leave as quickly as possible. We packed up only mission essential equipment, and left tents, cots, and connexes in place. We did not have any room to move any "luxury" items. At 1700 hours, we moved out. The order of march for the battalion was A-B-C-CBT Trains. The field trains and the firing battery trains were to follow up the next morning. I left 1SG Pape behind to take charge of the firing battery trains. As we were moving out, I could see French soldiers from the 6e Division Legere watching us, virtually licking their chops. I figured that they would probably rob us blind of equipment we had to leave behind, which is, as it turned out, exactly what happened.
As is usually the case for an unrehearsed, poorly reconned, night march on unfamiliar terrain, things started to come unglued. At 1730 hours, CPT Batschelet (The Alfa Battery commander who was acting as the convoy commander for the entire battalion) got his vehicle caught in concertina wire. CPT Larsen (the B Battery commander) moved forward and took control of the convoy. Rain was steadily falling down, the moon was not out, and there was virtually no visibility. It was dark as hell, even with NVGs on.
At 1800 hours, CPT Larsen, his PADs vehicle, and the A Battery FDC and one howitzer section get stuck in a sabka. A sabka is a patch of desert with a particularly high water table. When it rains, it becomes a marsh. The problem is that there is no way of being able to tell the difference between a sabka and normal desert until you get stuck. In any event, CPT Larsen called me to take control of the convoy. I went to the front of the convoy and promptly became stuck myself. The battalion commander, who was forward with the brigade commander, was not happy when he heard the news. His reaction was, "Just f***ing great. We're going to war, and my three firing battery commanders are all screwed up," or words to that effect.
At 1900 hours, I finally got unstuck, and took the rest of the convoy forward to the SP. I hit the SP about one and a half hours late. Then, if things were not going bad enough, my radio went suddenly and mysteriously dead. Of course, since I was the convoy commander, people were trying to contact me right and left, to no avail. Having been awake for about 40 straight hours, I was virtually hallucinating from fatigue, so it did not occur to me how unusual it was that my driver and I were not hearing any traffic on a normally busy radio net. The battalion S-3, MAJ Johnson, finally flagged me down, absolutely livid. "WHAT IN THE F*** ARE YOU DOING? The whole world's trying to contact you! Why aren't you answering your f***ing radio?!!" That outburst shook me out of my lethargy, I took a look at my radio, saw that it was fried, and informed the S-3. At that point, MAJ Johnson took over the convoy, and I fell back in with my battery.
We continued moving forward through the driving rain. Of course, MAJ Johnson, the new convoy commander, did not fair much better than the previous three. His problem was with his LORAN receiver; it wasn't giving a valid solution (we found out later that the Saudis had taken down the LORAN station at Ar Ruqi to prevent the Iraqis from seizing it), so he had to "dead reckon" with a dashboard compass and his vehicle's odometer, an extremely difficult proposition at best. After a few hours of wandering around the desert, we finally got to the Wadi Al Batin. Normally a dry river bed, the Wadi had become a raging river because of the torrential rainfall. "Just great," I thought, "now we get to do an unrehearsed, zero visibility river crossing." After about 30 minutes of looking, we found a fording spot, but several tracked vehicles "threw track" crossing the Wadi, and had to be recovered. SFC Wright, one of my platoon sergeants, did a great job recovering many vehicles, to include pulling my vehicle out twice with his "war wagon." If that was not enough, vehicles that had been run all night started running out of gas. It was about 0400 hours by the time we had crossed the Wadi Al Batin. We were still about 50 kilometers from our battle position.
After crossing the Wadi, we continued to head northeast toward the "Ruqi Road", the hardball road that paralleled the Wadi Al Batin from the border town of Ruqi, through Hafar Al Batin, to Riyadh (the Saudi capital city). When we got to the Ruqi Road, we were met by the battalion XO, MAJ Currid, who arrived from AA Horse with the rest of my battery. Of course, with Murphy's Law in full effect that night, a car with fleeing Saudis came down Ruqi road from Hafar Al Batin, going like hell, with no headlights on. The car hit the troop carrying bus going about 70 mph. Of course, the Saudis were not wearing seat belts (they very rarely do), and they went through the windshield, dying instantly. Their corpses had the consistency of bean bags.
CPT Anderle, the HHB commander, had set up a refuel site across the road. We
crossed the road, refueled, re-formed our convoy, and consolidated back into
battery sets. After refueling, my battery departed at 0600 hours, and drove the
remaining 45 kilometers to battle position Duke, arriving, ready to fire, at
0900 hours, six hours late. After being awake for 52 straight hours (and going
through what was henceforth known as the "Road March from Hell"), I
collapsed. The Road March From Hell was finally over.
