On 25 October 1983, the US launched Operation Urgent Fury with the objective of overthrowing the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) of the Caribbean island of Grenada. Earlier that month, Prime Minister Maurice Bishop had been killed by members of the People’s Revolutionary Army (PRA) in a coup instigated by Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard. The PRG had been in power since 1979 and had military support from Cuba, the Soviet Union, East Germany, North Korea and Syria.
The Navy SEALs were mobilised to provide reconnaissance ahead of the invasion and take part in raids on the island itself in conjunction with conventional land forces. However, the SEALs experience on the island would be fraught with problems. SEAL Team 6 attempted to get ashore on the southern tip of the island at Port Salines on the night of the 23rd. After a parachute jump directly into the sea from an MC-130 Combat Talon aircraft, the heavily laden SEALs soon got into trouble upon hitting the water and four men were lost. Other SEALs made it into their assault boats and linked up with USS Clifton Sprague; they tried again to go ashore the following night but were spotted by Grenadian patrols and abandoned their mission. The airborne troops they had meant to assist in capturing the airfield at the port did so with no prior reconnaissance being made.
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Denne historien er fra Issue 119-utgaven av History of War.
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NAUMACHIA TRUTH BEHIND ROME'S GLADIATOR SEA BATTLES
In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes
OPERATION MANNA
In late April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were starving as Nazi retribution for the failed Operation Market Garden cut off supplies. eet as In response, Allied bombers launched a risky mission to air-drop food
GASSING HITLER
Just a month before the end of WWI, the future Fuhrer was blinded by a British shell and invalided away from the frontline. Over a century later, has the artillery brigade that launched the fateful attack finally been identified?
SALAMANCA
After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia
HUMBERT 'ROCKY'VERSACE
Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive
LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN
One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength
MAD DAWN
How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day
BRUSHES WITH ARMAGEDDON
Humanity came close to self-annihilation with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Broken Arrows’ and other nuclear near misses
THE DEADLY RACE
How the road to peace led to an arms contest between the USA and USSR, with prototypes, proliferation and the world’s biggest bomb
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Einstein, Oppenheimer and the race to beat Hitler to the bomb. How a science project in the desert helped win a war
