U.S. Invades Grenada, Fights Cubans
Reagan Cites Protection of Americans 2 U.S. Fatalities Are Reported
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Oct. 25, 1983 — An invasion force of as many as 1,900 U.S. servicemen and 300 troops from six eastern Caribbean nations encountered sometimes fierce fighting with local militias and Cuban advisers as the force landed and advanced across Grenada today.
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Details from Grenada, 150 miles from here and 1,600 miles from the United States, were sketchy, but Pentagon officials reported tonight that two U.S. servicemen were killed and 23 were wounded. Reports from Grenadan radio, ham radio operators and officials here and in Washington suggested that casualties from the fighting among civilians and Grenadan forces and their advisers were low. Although U.S. officials said the invasion had been successful, there were reports throughout the day of resistance. Most of the fire directed at the U.S. forces was reported to be small-arms fire, including machine guns and mortars.
About 30 Soviet personnel and about 600 Cubans are reported to be on the island, according to U.S. officials. The attack follows a coup in Grenada last week when leftist prime minister Maurice Bishop was overthrown and killed by the military, led by Army Gen. Hudson Austin.
A naval amphibious task force heading for Lebanon was diverted toward Grenada, a 133-square-mile island in the strategic eastern Caribbean, after the coup because U.S. officials said they were concerned about the safety of the more than 1,000 Americans on the island. Most of the Americans are students at a medical college in the capital of St. George’s.
In Washington, Pentagon officials provided few details about the surprise operation. But in their announcement tonight, they said about 200 armed Cubans had been taken prisoner. There was no word on the other Cubans.
Pentagon sources said that whatever resistance there was to the invading force had come primarily in the south from the Cubans, who were constructing a large airfield there that has now fallen into U.S. hands. There is also a small group of Cuban military advisers on the island.
Although the Cubans have been described as construction workers, defense officials in Washington said they were more like engineering combat teams, had undoubtedly been armed since the revolutionary government in Grenada forecast an invasion and were putting up some resistance throughout the day that officials here described as “dogged, persistent and rugged.”
The Cuban news agency, Prensa Latina, reported today that the “head of Cuban construction workers in combat, Col. Pedro Tortola Comas,” who arrived in Grenada on a working visit Monday, “has assumed command of all Cuban personnel.” According to the report, Tortola sent a message to Havana saying that a group of “Yankee troops” in a jeep approached the workers with Cuban prisoners in front of them.
The U.S. troops demanded the surrender of Tortola’s forces and the colonel asked for instruction from Cuba, according to the dispatch. The answer from Cuban President Fidel Castro, according to the dispatch, was, “We congratulate you for your heroic resistance. Cubans are proud of you. Do not surrender under any circumstances. If the enemy sends someone to negotiate, listen to them and transmit immediately their point of view.”
Tortola responded, “We have complied with your orders and we will not surrender. Free country or death. We will be victorious.”
Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga said in interviews today that 12 Cuban and three civilians were killed during the fighting. U.S. officials said they could not confirm or deny the reports of the Cuban deaths.
Barbados’ Caribbean Broadcasting Corp. quoting sources on Grenada reported this afternoon that two U.S. helicopters were shot down and that at least one pilot was injured. Pentagon officials confirmed that one helicopter was on the ground near U.S. forces, but they declined to make clear whether it was disabled or had been shot down.
Western diplomatic sources here said the helicopter that was shot down was a transport and it had already dropped off its troops. The pilot was resuced, they said.
The first sign of the invasion came about 4:30 a.m. when students at the college, near Point Salines airport, said they had heard a plane circling overhead. A little over an hour later, according to The Associated Press, the students said gunfire could be heard at the airport.
Western diplomatic sources here said the fighting had also been reported at the waterfront at St. George’s and at Ft. Frederick, the Grenadan Army post.
About 500 marines from the naval task force were the initial landing party, according to defense official in Washington who briefed reporters on but insisted on not being named. They came in by helicopter from the carrier Guam, which is operating with the naval task force off the northeastern coast of Grenada. The marines landed by helicopter at Pearls Airport, on the northeast coast, and the U.S. Army Ranger parachuted in to the Point Salines airport, 12 miles away.
About 1,200 of the 1,800 marines on the naval task force are part of the Battalion Landing Team, the official said. But Pentagon officials later added that the numbers have fluctuated throughout the day.
According to information from Washington, the Army forces involved 700 men from two Ranger battalions, one from Ft. Lewis, Wash., and the other from Ft. Stewart, Ga. The first wave of these units was parachuted onto the region around the new Point Salines airfield at the extreme southwestern tip of the island from U.S. Air Force jet transports. The rest of the Rangers landed by plane, apparently on the same airstrip. The Air Force C141 transports operated both out of the United States and the nearby island of Barbados, Pentagon officials said.
Aside from quickly and “successfully” seizing the two airfields which were major military objectives, the Rangers also “secured” the main campus of the American medical school in the southern part of the island. About 650 American civilians on the island are said to be associated with the school, which was a main objective of the assault.
The U.S. forces initially ran into some antiaircraft fire, but it was promptly suppressed by a U.S. Air Force AC130 Hercules gunship. The troops eventually moved out from their landing zones and headed toward St. George’s, which is five miles north of Point Salines.
About 300 troops from six Caribbean nations–Antigua, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Dominica, Jamaica and Barbados–also were put ashore by U.S. transports a few hours after the U.S. troops. Some of these countries do not have armies and some of these troops are basically policemen from small islands. Pentagon officials said they would be assigned duties commensurate with their training and capabilities.
“People of Grenada, U.S. forces have intervened in Grenada at the request of your Caribbean neighbors to protect American citizens and other foreign nationals,” said an announcer on a radio station set up by the invasion force. Grenadans were warned to stay indoors “away from windows and doors” and then it began playing pop music, including hits by Hall and Oates and the Beach Boys.
The official Radio Free Grenada went off the air at 6:15 a.m., shortly after announcing the arrival of the invasion forces, United Press International reported. The broadcast, monitored in Barbados, said that “our revolutionary forces are engaging them in battle.”
It called on all people to report to militia offices and asked all doctors and nurses to report to work.
Caribbean Broadcasting Corp. said four Cuban construction workers had been killed when they fired on Marines taking over the jet airport under construction.
About 50 marines had been spotted in Barbados yesterday after flying to the island, but they quickly left the airport in a helicopter. Today, witnesses reported seeing 15 U.S. Army transport planes leave here apparently headed toward Grenada.
Students at the college reached by ham radio said that the U.S. helicopter gunships circled the school and drew fire from Grenadan snipers. A man who identified himself as Mark Baretella, of Ridgefield, N.J., in a dispatch monitored about 10:10 a.m., said, “Be advised there is gunfire directly outside of our campus . . . maybe not more than 100 or 200 feet away . . . . We are on the ground just waiting for some fire raids to stop. It sounds like it’s dying down . . . . There’s obviously snipers surrounding the entire campus . . . . Be it advised to let somebody know every time a gunship passes over there is quite a bit of fire. Maybe you can divert them to go around us some way instead of directly over.”
Baratella, who said he was a student also said, “At this point, things are okay. We are standing by awaiting emergency information in or out. The American students at our medical school are down here. Right now they’re just sitting out this invasion and worrying about the health and welfare of American citizens among other people. That is where we’re at.”
U.S. diplomatic officials in Barbados told the Los Angeles Times that between 200 and 300 Americans on Grenada told a consular official there during the weekend that they wanted to leave. But “they were prevented from doing so by the fact that the airport was never open to charter flights,” an official said.
Diplomats said that the U.S. Embassy in Barbados had made no attempt to arrange such a charter. “The individuals were free to do it on their own, but it just never happened,” said embassy spokesman Michael Morgan.
U.S. officials in Washington said there was no sign of any retaliatory military activity being aimed at Grenada from Cuba, which is several hundred miles northwest.
The U.S. officials, briefing reporters about midday today, said they hoped that combat resistance would be ended by midday Wednesday.
A spokesman for the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States said here an interim government would be formed under Governor General Paul Scoon, Queen Elizabeth’s II representative on Grenada, which is a member of the Commonwealth. AP reported from London that a Buckingham Palace spokesman said Scoon was ready to form a provisional government.
An aide to Eric Gairy, the prime minister deposed by Bishop in a coup in 1979, said Gairy was demanding the right to head a new government.
The Ranger units are rugged units lightly equipped with machine guns, mortars and jeeps for fast movement. The Marines carry similar equipment but also reportedly brought in some heavier equippment such as tanks and smaller tracked vehicles.
In addition to the Marine task force off shore, the aircraft carrier Independence, with some 70 jet warplanes aboard, was crusing off another part of the coast. All told, there were about 12 Navy warships involved in the operation under overall command of Vice Admiral Joseph Metcalf III, commander of the U.S. 2nd fleet based in Norfolk.
Aside from the Cuban units, Pentagon officials said the People’s Revolutionary Army of Grenada had about 1,200 regular Cuban-trained troops and an armed, but poorly trained, militia of 2,000 to 5,000 persons that had been called to duty in recent days as invasion fever gripped the island.
The overall military objective, the officials said, was to neutralize the Grenadan Army as a fighting force. One official said, “I do not visualize we will have a lengthy military occupation in Grenada.”
The Grenada Army is equipped with small arms and some Soviet-supplied artillery and mobile antiaircraft weapons.
Because there are small military centers scattered around the mountainous island, the defense officials said that even if fighting stops soon, it may take a while to fully neutralize the Grenada military and be confident that the situation is militarily stable.
Although Pentagon officials echoed the White House and State Department reasons for invading Grenada, they also acknowledged privately that the turmoil, political violence and recent coup within the Marxist government on the island had provided an opportunity to neutralize militarily an island that the Pentagon had openly feared would become a future base for Cuban or Soviet military activities in the Caribbean.
The Reagan administration had repeatedly claimed that the new 9,000-foot long runway at Point Salines was being built for use as a Soviet or Cuban airbase in a crisis or as a place for arms-laden aircraft from Libya and other aircraft to land and refuel enroute to Nicaragua. The Bishop government responded that the airport was needed to help develop the tourist industry in Grenada.
The Pentagon officials, noting that a Cuban ship was in port at Grenada, said they were hoping the Cubans there would get on it and go home.
The 30 Russians on the island, officials said, would be “treated with diplomatic courtesy and allowed to stay or leave as they wish.” He said there had been no contact with the Soviets and there was no attempt to in any way restrict their movements.
From a military standpoint, the operation raises some questions. Secretary of State George P. Shultz said yesterday that the U.S. troops will leave “as soon as they possibly can” and that the force of other countries “will be in the lead” in helping to establish law and order and some sort of provisional government.
The marines now in Grenada had left the U.S. East Coast on Oct. 17 bound for Lebanon but were diverted to the Caribbean. The new U.S. unit that was scheduled to replace them in Lebanon is already there. Thus, it is not clear whether the Marines in Grenada will continue on to Lebanon or return to the United States when their mission in the Caribbean is completed.
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