|
|
The US intervention in Somali is best known for the battle of Mogadishu, subject of the film ‘Black Hawk Down’. This book focuses on that battle, but also covers the original UN intervention, the US involvement, and earlier Ranger raids before moving onto the disasterous raid that led to the battle itself.
This book focuses on that battle, but also covers the wider picture. We thus get an introduction to Somali history, explaining just how the country fell into chaos. We then look at the UN intervention, originally a humanitarian effort to get food into Mogadishi, which gained a military element after some of the militia started to attack the food convoys. This brought the US into the country, as part of a wider UN effort.
We then move on to look at the general US military approach to the situation, which soon developed into an attack on General Aideed and his tribal group. A series of Special Forces raids were carried out in an attempt to capture Aideed and his key supporters, and it was one of these raids then led to the disasterous loss of two Black Hawk helicopters and the resulting siege of the isolated US forces.
The bulk of the book looks at the battle itself. We start with the original raid, aimed at capturing key Somali leaders. The key to the success of this raid was that it would have to be in and out very quickly. The Rangers and Delta Force operatives were to be dropped by helicopter around the target building, while a land convoy also headed towards the target. The building would be entered, the targets captured, and the entire force escape on the convoy. Parts of this worked fine – the building was entered, the targets captured and the land convoy reached the right area. However things were already going wrong. One soldier was badly injured during the initial helicopter insertion and had to be evacuated, taking three vehicles from the convoy. However the balance of the battle changed when one, and then a second, Black Hawk, were shot down. The first was close enough to the Ranger force for them to quickly reach the site and rescue the survivors, but the two pilots were killed and their bodies trapped in the aircraft. The US forces were unwilling to withdraw until they had been able to rescue the bodies, leading to the resulting battle. We follow the first rescue attempts, mounted at impressive speed, but with limited resources, and which failed to reach the site. The battle on the ground is covered in great detail.
The author takes a balanced approach to the wider topic. It is too common to blame political leaders for any shortcomings in this sort of military intervention, and there were clearly some issues here – the Clinton administration wanted to avoid mission creep, so was unwilling to send US tanks, which is understandable (and there were other US tanks in the city). However the Rangers were sent without all of the supporting equipment they were used to having, in particular the AC-130 Gunship. The conclusion looks at all of the lessons learnt from the battle, with the most significant being a failure to appreciate how vulnerable the large Black Hawk helicopters were over the city, and the use of the same basic mission plan far too many times. It was these two factors that combined to allow the Somalis to plan to bring down a US helicopter. It was downing of that helicopter that meant the Rangers and other US soldiers had to stay at the scene, allowing the Somalis to surround them. One other flaw that stands out, at least to me, was the lack of proper contingency planning – it took far too long to organise a proper armoured column to rescue the trapped US forces.
On the plus side we see how effective the leadership was on the ground, and how well the US soldiers involved fought – indeed what really stands out here is how such a small force was able to fight off the much larger Somali force that came against it.
This is an excellent study of this battle, and of the wider involvement in Mogadishi, completed by a very good analysis of what went wrong and what went right, and the lessons learnt by US Special Forces.
Chapters
1 - Gothic Serpent
2 - The First Six
3 - Lucy
4 - Big Sky, Small Bullet
5 - ‘We Are Their Only Hope’
6 - ‘Ranger, Ranger. You Die Somalia’
7 - The Long Night
8 - The Mogadishu Mile
9 - Maalintii Rangers
Author: Leigh Neville
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2018