Baghdad Thunder Runs, 2003

The battle, stage by stage

1. 5 April 2003, 06:30

   Thunder Run I: 'Rogue' crosses the line

   Two days after the 3rd Infantry Division reached the edge of Baghdad, Col. David Perkins's 2nd Brigade sends one armoured task force on a raid through the city to test its defences. TF 1-64 Armor ('Rogue', Lt Col Rick Schwartz) — about 29 Abrams tanks and 14 Bradleys, with no thin-skinned trucks — crosses the line of departure at Objective SAINTS, the junction of Highways 1 and 8 about 15 km south of the city centre. A Company ('Wild Bunch') leads with an engineer platoon, then C/1-64 ('Rock'), with C/3-15 Infantry ('Cobra') at the rear. Perkins rides along. The plan: drive north up Highway 8, then loop west along the airport road to the 1st Brigade at Baghdad International Airport.

2. 5 April, about 07:00–08:00

   Highway 8

   Within minutes the column is under fire from both sides of the highway — from bunkers, rooftops, palm groves and positions under the overpasses — by Iraqi regulars, beret-wearing Special Republican Guard and Fedayeen, many firing RPGs from among civilian traffic. About 6 km in, at a key overpass, tank C12 is hit in the right rear and catches fire; after about 20 minutes the crew abandon it. About an hour into the run Staff Sgt. Stevon Booker, a tank commander, is killed by machine-gun fire; he was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Most of the radio traffic, Perkins later said, went on telling civilian vehicles from combatants.

3. 5 April, about 08:50

   Out to the airport

   At the MOE interchange the column swings west onto the airport road and fights its way out of the city, a lead platoon leader driving his tank over a concrete barrier across the highway. After about 2 hours 20 minutes the task force reaches Baghdad International Airport and links up with TF 2-7 Infantry of the 1st Brigade, many vehicles burning where RPGs had hit the gear stowed outside. Iraqi losses were heavy (U.S. estimates ran into the hundreds or more); the regime's information minister was still denying any American presence in Baghdad.

4. 7 April, 05:38–07:00

   Thunder Run II: the whole brigade

   On 7 April Perkins sends the whole brigade: if he can 'stay the night', he says, he can stay for good. Engineers clear a hasty minefield about 1 km north of SAINTS and the brigade rolls through at 06:00, bypassing overturned trucks and construction equipment. Tank C12 is knocked out again. TF 1-64 leads north up Highway 8; TF 4-64 ('Tusker') follows and at 07:00 turns east at MOE toward the palaces; TF 3-15 Infantry ('China', Lt Col Stephen Twitty) comes last, to seize and hold the three cloverleaf interchanges — CURLY, LARRY and MOE — so that fuel and ammunition can follow the tanks into the city.

5. 7 April, 07:00–08:00

   Into the government district

   By 07:20 A/4-64 ('Assassin') is at the Republican Palace (Objective WOODY WEST), cleared by 07:56, and C/4-64 ('Cyclone') blocks at the 14 July monument above the Tigris bridge. TF 1-64 takes the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Zawra Park and the zoo: Wild Bunch blocks the intersection beside the Al Rasheed Hotel, and Rock holds the parade ground and reviewing stand under the crossed-swords arches. At about 07:00, far to the rear, an Iraqi missile strikes the brigade's command post in a walled compound near SAINTS, killing three soldiers and two embedded journalists and wounding 17; Lt Col Eric Wesley re-establishes it about 300 m south within an hour. Perkins's driver, Cpl. Henry Brown, later dies of his burns.

6. 7 April, midday

   Holding Moe, Larry and Curly

   The fight now is for the road. Team Gator holds MOE, Team Rage LARRY, and the improvised Team Zan — mortarmen, engineers, one infantry platoon and Command Sgt. Maj. Robert Gallagher — CURLY, where it fights all round against Iraqi and Syrian fighters; Gallagher is wounded again. Capt. Ronny Johnson brings all of B/3-15 up from SAINTS. The rearm and refuel convoy is ambushed on the way north — the scout platoon sergeant and the battalion motor sergeant are killed — and at CURLY an RPG hits an ammunition truck, the fire spreading to four more. Downtown, Perkins has the tanks shut down their engines to save fuel while TF 3-15 keeps the road open.

7. 7 April, afternoon–night

   Staying the night

   At 10:16 the division sends TF 2-7 Infantry from the airport; its operations officer, Maj. Rod Coffey, arrives first and fights on badly wounded, and the main body reaches CURLY at about 16:00 and relieves Team Zan. The surviving trucks reach MOE, resupply Gator, and go on to the parade field. Gator fights for about 17 hours, nearly out of fuel and ammunition; its engineers' obstacles stop a car bomb about 60 m from the perimeter at last light. With the tanks refuelled, the brigade stays downtown overnight — the decision that, by most accounts, broke the regime's hold on the capital.

8. 8 April

   The bridges

   Before dawn Iraqi forces — uniformed Republican Guard troops, some in BMPs, men in civilian clothes, and boats on the river — attack from the east bank against TF 4-64. Assassin fights at the southern bridge with artillery, mortars and A-10s, and Cyclone seizes the northern bridge and blocks it with wrecked vehicles, sealing the district. Near MOE, TF 3-15 beats off a similar attack, and TF 2-7 takes over the supply line. On 9 April organised resistance in the city collapses. The two Thunder Runs cost the brigade six soldiers killed in Baghdad, by one count, and nearly 90 Purple Hearts; Iraqi military and civilian losses along the routes are not reliably known.