144. Black Hawk Down: The Bloodiest US Battle Since Vietnam (Ep 3)

18:00Gordon:You have these little bird helicopters that are making gun runs throughout the night to keep the militia at bay. And the reason, we should be clear, the reason that the Americans are not overrun, because you think, okay, well, 99 Americans, many of whom are grievously wounded, how could they actually hold a position against thousands of Somali militia and irregulars who have just taken up arms? The answer is that you have air superiority. I mean, throughout the night, these Little Bird helicopters are just going through the area, gunning down militia positions to keep them at bay. But inside these houses that are essentially the perimeter, the medical situation is getting increasingly desperate, right?

18:40Gordon:So there's dozens of wounded. What's striking, again, you read these accounts, you say wounded. Well, what does that mean? I mean, it means in many cases, it's like fingers are shot off. It's a mixture of stuff where in some cases, it's like, okay, I'm kind of cut up. In other cases, it's, oh, someone is going to die if they do not receive medical attention within a few hours. Now, the medics that are there are trained for kind of field stabilization, not to do surgery, right? So they can stop bleeding with tourniquets and these kind of, they have these, in one case, they have these kind of rubber pneumatic pants that they put on someone to apply pressure and stop the bleeding.

19:17Gordon:They can treat the shock with IV fluids, manage pain with morphine. And interestingly, the medics had also tried to train the rangers over the course of this deployment in how to do basic field dressing. And in some cases, it actually taken goats to the air base and shot the goats in order to have the rangers then essentially try to field dress the goat.

19:42David:Wow. Poor goats. I mean, that seems like there are other ways, surely, of learning your medical care without having to shoot a load of poor Somali goats. But there we go.

19:52Gordon:But they can't repair damaged organs. They can't transfuse blood, right? The medics have IV bags that have fluids, but they don't have blood. And throughout the entire evening, everybody's operating under the assumption that a ground convoy is coming to get them.

20:11David:Yeah. And meanwhile, you talked about it turning into evening. We're heading into evening and into dark now. And the city is alive around them. There's fires, burning tires for roadblocks. One of the interesting problems is it was supposed to be a one-hour mission, as we said at the start, just a quick one-hour mission in daylight. So they didn't bring their night observation devices, which you might have normally carried with you if you thought you were going out for longer, but they're heavy and difficult. So they hadn't, in many cases, brought them along, which is a potential advantage they might have had at night, is not going to be there for them.

20:48Gordon:It's also at this time that some strange things start to happen during the battle. So in one instance, a donkey pulls a cart through an intersection that is being riddled by gunfire, but it emerges unscathed. And I think you actually see this represented really accurately in the film Black Hawk Down. We should say we'll do a bonus episode on our take on the film for club members. We'll talk in part about that. Now, there's another instance where a gray dove nonchalantly lands in the middle of the firefight and kind of scratches at the dirt and then takes off. And I think it's interesting when you read the recollections of the soldiers who were there.

21:29Gordon:It's interesting to think about what happens to the human mind in combat, because this is a point in the battle where everyone has been out for hours. Everyone is thirsty. Everyone is exhausted physically. Many of them are severely wounded, and most have killed people. Pity is gone. And for many of the men, it's interesting, not all of them, but for many of them, fear kind of goes away, right? Many of them do recall still being afraid, but you see incredible courage. But some of them are so wired in that they don't even notice terrible injuries. I mean, in one case, the company clerk had a golf ball-sized piece of metal in his foot and he didn't know.

22:15Gordon:That's crazy, isn't it? Others get really jumpy and panicky. Others have remarkable moments of kind of mental clarity. One of the soldiers, one of the rangers recalls he's taking cover behind a rock and he's being shot at. And he decides, he remembers deciding right then as he's taking fire to re-enlist in the army for four more years. Like that was the point where he decided to do it. But others experience this kind of sensory overload because the sound, the smell, the smell of the blood and the gore is something that is brought up. And you see this in the rangers talking to the Netflix doco, like the coppery, stinky smell of the blood.

22:58Gordon:They're so overloaded by the battlefield that they just kind of mentally fog over as well.

23:05David:Yeah. And then as we do hit nightfall, another problem, as well as all the wounded, they're running out of ammunition, which is inevitable, I guess. I mean, I always wonder that when you watch these films, you look at how many rounds they're firing. I mean, you kind of think, how do you not run out? How is it possible to carry that many rounds? I think each ranger begins the mission with 730 round magazines. That's only 210 rounds. I mean, I just, I don't see how you wouldn't burn through that really quickly in a battle like this.

23:33Gordon:There were pockets of this group who were in a firefight. And then like 100 meters down the road, or even less, it could be quiet because the firing angles that the Somali militia had weren't able to reach you. Right. So there was this tremendous gap in experience of some people who would have fired off a tremendous amount of ammunition in a short period of time and then others who didn't.

24:01David:And so people will borrow from others. Exactly. So you get stories of people borrowing magazines from others when they're running low, I guess.

24:07Gordon:But the ammunition is a massive problem. I mean, a firefight with rifles lasting maybe 10 minutes could consume three to four magazines. A machine gunner operating a heavy machine gun during an attack could use a 200-round ammo can in less than a minute. And one of the rangers at that first crash site basically said that within the first hour, he had gone through eight 30 round magazines. And he's again, you know, taking ammunition from other people around him who weren't who weren't firing. Now, the resupply that's happening via other Blackhawks via those little birds is bringing in ammunition through the night, they're bringing in ammunition, they're bringing in water, they're bringing in IV bags.

24:49Gordon:I mean, interestingly, we talked about two Blackhawk helicopters down in this battle, there were another two that were essentially rendered inoperable. And in one case, basically crash landed at the ranger base because they were so shot up while doing these resupply runs.

25:07David:But the Little Bird pilots are doing these runs, but now you've got nighttime coming in. And I guess, I mean, this must be eerie because from the accounts, you start to hear the Somalis chanting in broken English, ranger die tonight, nobody coming for you, you die in Mogadishu, which is obviously the chance designed to really put the pressure in. Idid is able to bring in more and more fighters, isn't he, from across the city, now that you're stuck in this almost like a siege, a kind of chaotic siege without a clear perimeter at times, which means that you're getting more and more of these Somali teams trying to look for a way in past the firing lines that the Americans have set up.

25:48Gordon:Yeah, the Rangers are in rough condition. I mean, two of them are in particularly bad states. One will soon die. But again, there's no path for the ground convoy to reach them. And the commanders don't want to risk a medevac that might wind up getting another helicopter shot down. inside the positions on this perimeter, this kind of loose L-shaped perimeter south of the crash site, you have rooms where the wounded are essentially piling up, right? As the Somalis continue to probe these positions, as the Americans defend them. I mean, in some cases, you know, we talked about water being dropped in.

26:27Gordon:Water becomes so scarce in some parts of this perimeter that some of the rangers drink from the IV bags that the medics have just to get some liquid into their bodies. And I think the question on everyone's mind as this night wears on is where's the rescue? They're talking on the radios with that command and control helicopter. And at some point, the ETA for the convoy, the rescue convoy becomes a joke. And the ragers on the ground will just say, oh, they're on their way. And then they'll start almost darkly laughing because the convoy has not arrived.

27:05David:So there with that gallows humour of waiting for the convoy, but the ammunition running out and the night closing in and the chants from the Somalis about the Rangers going to die. Let's take a break. And when we come back, we'll see how that team fares under fire. Hey, sweetie, your mother showed me this Carvana thing for selling the car. I'm going to give it a try. Wish me luck. Me again. I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer. Unbelievable. Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car is gone. I'm holding a check.

27:47David:Anyway, Carvana, give it a whirl. Love ya. So good, you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.

28:02David:Well, welcome back. We're in nighttime now with the team under fire around that first crash site. American and UN commanders, though, at the airport are still trying to work out how to get to them, how to get a convoy to them. And I think it's quite interesting, isn't it? Because that also gets to one of the fundamental problems of the mission, which is the slightly confused command structure, particularly the relationship between the US and the UN, as well as within the US side between different teams. And that is going to be one of the challenges in terms of getting a rescue organized. The first attempted rescue,

28:42Gordon:which had been a purely American operation using Humvees and trucks, was scrubbed when the commanders realized to that point that they didn't have enough operational vehicles to actually manage the rescue. The ground convoy that returned that lost convoy that had circled around and eventually gone back to base, you could imagine those vehicles are not in great shape. Many of them are not usable for a rescue, right? Two of the vehicles actually never made it back, and those that remain are barely functional. So you're not taking these things back out. This is where the decision by the US Secretary of Defense, remember this in the first episode, that a request had been made by General Garrison, who's in charge of Task Force Ranger, for armored vehicles and for an AC-130 gunship.

29:30Gordon:And it had been denied, hadn't it? Both of those had been denied.

29:33David:Because of optics. That's right. Because it was supposed to be a humanitarian nation-building mission, not a kind of aggressive military task force. But it's turned into one, which is the mission creep problem.

29:45Gordon:So what do you do? Well, the Task Force Ranger commanders turn to the UN forces. specifically to the Malaysian contingent for armored personnel carriers and to the Pakistanis for tanks. This injects, let's say, some complexity into the rescue operation because the Malaysian commander needs to get permission from Kuala Lumpur, the Pakistani commander needs to request approval from Islamabad, the UN command structure that they're all under needs to approve and coordinate this. And you can imagine the number of phone calls and handoffs and consultations with some very high level officials in all of these capitals and at the UN Central that needs to happen to get this approved.

30:29David:Because it's, I mean, it must be a weird call to go to, for the national capital to get a call going, the Americans, you know, the greatest military in the world need bailing out, which on the one hand you go, well, things must be pretty bad if the Americans need bailing out and they want us to go in to help them. But they will get that approval. I think it'll finally come around midnight. But obviously, that takes some time.

30:51Gordon:Well, and new problems just keep emerging. The Malaysian and Pakistani forces have never trained with American forces. They need to figure out, well, will the drivers of these vehicles, will they speak English? Will we be able to communicate with each other? They use different radio frequencies. They use different tactical procedures. This is a complex urban rescue operation that's going to be conducted under heavy fire. And you have to coordinate all of these different facets of it. Who's in charge? Another question, right? Who commands it? Should it be an American officer, since Americans are being rescued, or a UN officer, since it's primarily UN forces conducting it?

31:29Gordon:Or is it the senior national commander of whichever nation is providing the vehicles, right? So there's time lost to this debate. Well, meanwhile, back at the super 6-1, quote unquote, perimeter, the medical situation is deteriorating. Soldiers who were stable through the night are beginning to crash from blood loss and shock and lack of proper treatment. There is one respite, though, as the night wears on. The volume and intensity of Somali fire does begin to decrease. And the kind of AK-47 fire becomes more sporadic. And seriously, it's because this cot, the stimulant - The drug, the stimulant drug that they chew - Is wearing off.

32:11Gordon:This is why so many of the raids up to this point, all of the raids up to this point, had taken place at night when militiamen were not hopped up on the drug. And there is a direct correlation between military-age males in Mokadishu chewing cot and being very trigger happy. So as that wears off, I mean, it's honestly, it's like a stimulant cycle, right? These militiamen are aggressive and fearless in the peak hours, and then they get sluggish as it's metabolized, and then they're recharged by morning. So you have pockets of silence in the night.

32:47David:But for the Americans, I mean, they've been awake for what, you know, 20 hours through the night. I mean, they must be exhausted. I mean, it almost gets harder, doesn't it? I mean, I think everyone knows this, when it does go quiet, because the possibility is to relax, but I guess you can't really do that. But at this point, they're kind of holding the perimeter, I guess. What I think is interesting, it's only around now, isn't it, that news gets to Washington about how big a battle is actually underway in the middle of Mogadishu. It's only now that they learn that something really big is going down in Somalia.

33:21Gordon:I was struck in really the the accounts of this. At the contrast between the pictures of President Obama and his senior advisors watching the Bin Laden raid, or Trump and his senior advisors watching the Maduro raid, with essentially official Washington having absolutely no idea what was going on.

33:44David:Yeah, they don't know what's going on. It's amazing, isn't it?

33:46Gordon:The National Security Advisor only gets the barest of outlines as Washington is waking up that morning. And importantly, the American government is distracted because something much bigger is going on in Russia, where former President Boris Yeltsin is fending off a kind of right-wing coup d 'etat attempt. So President Clinton has a morning press conference that day. He doesn't even mention Mokadishu. And then he flies off for a two-day speaking tour in San Francisco. So the contrast of just what's going on in Washington with the disaster on the ground couldn't be starker.

34:20David:And meanwhile, that convoy is assembling at last. And I think finally around 2am on October the 4th, the rescue force is going to depart. So it is going to be this really interesting multinational force, which is coalesced at the Pakistani base of the stadium. And there's over 70 vehicles. So it's a pretty significant force, isn't it? With four Pakistani M48 tanks, 28 Malaysian Condor armoured personnel carriers, also the American Humvees with heavy weapons. 500 men. I mean, they've pulled together all the remaining Rangers, Delta operators, SEALs, everyone they can get hold of to go and do this with Cobra gunships in support.

35:01So it's a pretty big team.

35:03David:But as we were saying before, that also is going to make the command structure a bit complex when you've got all these different UN and American forces. And you can see the kind of Americans are bound to say, well, this is a rescue mission for American forces, so we've got to be in charge of it. But actually, technically, it's now a UN force.

35:24Gordon:And within blocks of leaving the Pakistani stadium, it's taking fire, predictably. The Somali militias have expected this. They've primed the route. So there's burning tires, blocking intersections. There's disabled vehicles lining the narrow streets. They have rocket-propelled grenade RPG teams positioned in second-story windows that have great firing angles onto the vehicle roofs. And so the first Malaysian casualty, again, the Malaysians are driving the armored personnel carriers, occurs about 10 minutes in.

35:57David:Almost straight away, yeah.

35:58Gordon:Almost straight away. An RPG penetrates the side armor, and two Malaysian soldiers are killed instantly. Seven more are wounded. Now, that damaged armored personnel carrier blocks the street. The convoy needs to maneuver around it while under continuous fire. Other Malaysian APC drivers stop to evacuate casualties. This creates traffic jams that prevent everyone else from moving. Several more vehicles are hit during the pause. There's a theme here we've seen with all of the convoy action we've had that stopping is bad. You do not want to stop. You get hit when you stop. The Pakistani tanks, of course, are much more resistant.

36:36Gordon:They're armored, so they're much more resistant to RPG fire, but they're even vulnerable in certain areas. At the rear, the armor's thinner. One tank takes an RPG hit on the engine deck, it catches fire, and it needs to be abandoned. The crew has to evacuate. And I think it does bear mentioning, we usually don't mention the fact that this was actually a multinational rescue contingent that went in to evacuate these Americans.

37:04David:Yeah, I do find it interesting that a lot of the accounts, or at least even in your memory of what happened and how it's talked about, the fact that Pakistanis and Malaysians are killed at this point on the rescue mission for the Americans is often kind of glossed over as everyone focuses on the American side of the story. But let's go back to what's happening at the crash sites themselves, which the convoy is trying to get to. Well, one piece

37:29Gordon:of the convoy, which is led by a Delta operator, peels off and heads to the second crash site, the site where Michael Durant, hours earlier, had been carried off. Now, Durant's gone. The bodies of his crew and the two Delta operators who had fast roped in to protect Durant, Shugart and Gordon, they're gone too. There's blood, there's tattered clothing, there's tons of spent ammo everywhere. This group questions locals who are around there, you know, where have the Where are the Americans, right? And they don't get any useful information. They actually call out everybody's name, don't hear anything back.

38:05Gordon:And then this group sets thermite grenades on the downed Black Hawk to destroy it because there's sensitive avionics and gear on board that they don't want anyone else to have. And this goes up in a ball of white flame, and this crew then heads to the other site. Now, the main contingent gets to the crash site in the early morning hours of October 4th. and the Somalis, of course, have concentrated forces around the site, knowing that a rescue convoy would be coming and kind of, in some ways, being able to direct that convoy's route in by blocking certain entrances and exits to the area of the neighborhood where the Americans are pinned down.

38:47Gordon:The convoy now, though, is not just Humvees and kind of cargo trucks. We've got the tanks, and so the Pakistani tanks are, you know, they're firing their main guns at buildings where they're taking fire from. Walls are collapsing. Roofs are caving in. Fires are starting from the explosions. And when the convoy stops and the hatches begin to open and Americans begin to pour out, the accounts from the rangers who were there, I mean, it's like they can barely believe that the rescue has finally arrived. And now we have hundreds of Americans that are concentrated in just a few blocks of South Mogadishu.

39:27David:And the aim is to get as many, I guess, of the wounded into those armored personnel carriers. That's the first priority, is to get those wounded out. But there's so many wounded. I mean, it's a problem of just space, isn't there? And actually transporting them and moving them. The other priority,

39:47Gordon:which actually is going to be the thing that makes the waiting even worse, because the convoy will just wait and wait and wait for hours, is they're not going to leave anyone behind. And in the pilot's seat of that first downed Blackhawk is the body of Cliff Wolcott. And as we talked about in the first episode, when that Blackhawk crashed, the body of it essentially crumpled around him. Crumpled, yeah. So now you've got to get him out. It takes hours of ugly work with saws to cut the body loose from the crash site. They basically have to pull the instrument panel apart to get Wolcott out. The airframe is lined with Kevlar, eats through the saws, so they have to just go in and destroy this panel.

40:38Gordon:And the wait really begins to grate on many of the men who were there. Because now they're just, you know, here's the rescue convoy. And they're still just sitting there waiting to get Cliff Wolcott's body out, right? And the sun is about to come up. Everyone's fearful of the darkness setting in. But in a lot of ways, sunrise is going to be worse. Because it's going to be a lot easier for the militia to see you in daytime. time. As the sun starts to come up, the streets reveal how chaotic and bloody of a night this has been. Because the streets are littered with bodies. We mentioned that donkey that had crossed the street unscathed with his cart.

41:23Gordon:He did not, it's sad to say, make it through the night. The poor donkey was shot while tied up to his cart. But by sunrise, Cliff Wolcott's body is finally cut loose and they're ready to go. And then we have yet another exasperating setback because as all of the soldiers, and remember there are soldiers here from the UN contingent who are from the US Army's 10th Mountain Division. As these soldiers have reboarded the armored personnel carriers, some of the Malaysian drivers just, they're taking fire, of course, and they've been there for hours, just drive off, right? They just drive off, leaving a contingent of the Ranger and Delta Force stranded right where they'd been fighting the night before.

42:07Gordon:So 5.45 a.m., Monday the 4th of October, the sun is up, and there's maybe 60 or so remaining Rangers and Delta operators who are going to need to run this distance alone without the cover of the vehicles.

42:25David:It's extraordinary, isn't it? Because they've been waiting for that convoy. The convoys come, and then the convoy's gone without them and now they realize they've got to still get out on foot so let's stop there when we come back for the finale of this four-part series on Black Hawk Down we'll see how that long night turns into this you know run for their lives through the streets of Mogadishu for this group of Ranger and Delta operators and we'll also look I think at how what happened that night and over that battle cast such a long shadow over American decision making for the years to come. But a reminder, of course, you can listen to that last episode right now.

43:06David:You don't have to wait if you sign up for the Declassified Club at therestisclassified.com. You also get, as well as early access to episodes, you get bonus episodes. We're doing one on Black Cork Down, the film. You also get early access to tickets, all kinds of other great things. so do sign up but otherwise we will see you next time we'll see you next time