The soldiers at the airstrip moved out and captured the Cuban positions around their work camp. At one point the Rangers’ advance stalled under the fire of a single recoil-less rifle. Pausing to smash the enemy with an overwhelming display of technology, they called in an air strike but were bedeviled by the miscommunication that was quickly proving to be endemic. Four Marine Cobra gunships, and small two-man helicopters raced in but could not contact the army or air force planes to confirm their targets. Two of the Cobras were finally able to contact a ground air controller but then discovered they had different maps. They finally pinpointed the enemy rifle by a ground soldier using a broad-spectrum photon beacon deflector, known as a shaving mirror in non-military parlance. Unfortunately for the invaders, the parade of ineptitude was just getting started.
In the south, two battalions of the Eighty-second Airborne, the main invasion force of about one thousand troops, finally landed in the afternoon. Meanwhile, marine amphibious units landed in the north, capturing the small, undefended airfield there. But coordination between these groups and the Rangers at Point Salines never materialized. The Rangers found themselves cut off from the commanders on the USS Guam as well as the Marine units in the north. Why? Because in the rush to deploy, they had left behind their vehicles containing long-range radios. The radio-free Rangers lingered, reduced to waiting for orders to arrive by telepathy.
Later in the afternoon, the Grenadans boldly counterattacked at the eastern end of the runway in three APCs. Without any air or artillery support, the Rangers easily beat back the attack. American commanders, still lacking firm intelligence on the size of the enemy, worried that many more attacks awaited them.
By the end of the day, when the invasion was supposed to be wrapping up, the radio-free Rangers and Eighty-second still struggled to break out from their positions around the air strip, bogged down by their commander’s lethargy. The Grand Anse campus, only a couple of miles away, still contained students-who-could-easily-be-hostages. Assessing his troops deployment before his tiny enemy, the commander of the Eighty-second came to a worried conclusion: he needed more overkill. He sent his sweat-stained word up the chain of command: “Keep sending battalions until I tell you to stop.”
The war saw the emergence of the U.S. Army’s newest weapon, the Black Hawk helicopter. Offering a significant upgrade over its predecessor, the Black Hawk allowed the army to transport an entire eleven-man squad right into the fighting, while also pulling out the wounded. And as it proved in Grenada, the chopper can take multiple hits from enemy fire and keep operating. It features an armor-plated cockpit and a cabin that can withstand crashes. Because it’s so tough, pilots are not reluctant to fly it into places others would never consider. It even features twin engines in case one is knocked out. This ruggedness has turned the Black Hawk into an international star, and it is the standard helicopter for much of the world’s military.
The other attacks on the first day all shared disturbing signs of nonsuccess. The invaders had three crucial D-Day targets, excluding the newly discovered students not living at the True Blue campus. All these targets were handed to the Special Forces, the cream of the crop of the mighty technological superpower.
The first target was a radio station near the capital. A crack team of Navy SEALs successfully occupied it. But they were quickly counterattacked, by one solitary APC. The SEALs desperately needed an infusion of a massive technological advantage, but unfortunately no air support was assigned to them. The outgunned SEALs, products of some of the most arduous training in the military world, designed to hone them to the hardest edge of military steel, blew retreat and scampered back to the beach to hide. That night, under cover of darkness, the retreating SEALs redeployed farther afield by swimming out to a ship to snuggle under the safety of naval armor. The navy tossed its biggest five-inch shells at the transmitting tower but missed. It didn’t matter anyway. The Grenadans were transmitting from their old radio station closer to town.
The second target was the rescue of Sir Paul Scoon, the island’s governor general, a well-tanned and glorified ambassador who served as an official representative of the Queen of England. A different team of Navy SEALs was sent to rescue him at the Government House on the outskirts of St. George’s. Facing intense ground fire, the brand-new Black Hawk helicopters withstood a baptism of fire but could not land. On the second try they lowered twenty-five soldiers down ropes onto the roof of Government House. The SEALs also found themselves quickly outgunned by more frisky Grenadan soldiers in an APC. Fortunately the SEALs had a Spectre gun-ship on call, a massively armed cargo plane, which held the APCs at bay. The soldiers, however, could not escape like their brethren. A rescue plan was cobbled together featuring troops still bogged down at the airstrip. What was supposed to be a lightning raid turned into a long siege. At noon the SEALs were still pinned down, the governor general huddled under a table without any relief in sight.
The third target was the Richmond Hill prison, perched atop one of the innumerable hilltops on the island. A tag team of army Delta Force and Rangers was sent to capture the prison and free the political prisoners — without adequate intelligence, planning, or preparation. Once they located the target, five Black Hawk helicopters zoomed into the small mountainous valley to drop the soldiers into the prison until they realized, belatedly, that no landing areas existed. Worse, the ridge right next to the prison was actually higher, topped by Fort Frederick (where the RMC leadership was hiding in their communications-free tunnels) and dotted with anti-aircraft guns, which had clean, level shots at the helicopters.
If people didn’t take what was happening in Grenada seriously for a while, the fault probably lies in Bishop’s predecessor, Eric Gairy. During his term as head of Grenada, Gairy turned quite weird and became exceptionally enamored with UFOs. He tried to declare 1978 the year of the UFO, even though Close Encounters of the Third Kind premiered in 1977. In fact, while Gairy visited the UN in 1979 to arrange for an international panel to investigate UFOs, Bishop launched his slightly bloody coup for his mini-Marxist party. After twelve years in charge, Gairy was out of work, becoming perhaps the only person actually harmed by UFOs. In 1984 he returned to Grenada and became a perennial election loser. He died on Grenada in 1997.
The Black Hawks became sitting ducks for every gun at the fort and in the valley. The Grenadans blasted away. The fire brought down one of the choppers, while the others withstood numerous hits. One of the unfortunate pilots who crawled out of the wreckage waving his hat in surrender was gunned down by a Grenadan gunner. Later in the day the navy bombers finally plastered Fort Frederick but failed to dislodge the RMC leaders hiding in the basement tunnels. They did, however, manage to blast a mental hospital next door to the fort, killing seventeen patients and releasing many others to wander the streets.
Back at Government House, the SEALs remained trapped. As the radio communication problems reached a crescendo, a soldier reportedly made a call from the Government House to the Pentagon in order to reach the commanders on the USS Guam. In any event, a distinct sense of urgency that the invasion was not up to snuff was now starting to sweep through the U.S. commanders.
They slapped together a quick plan to rescue the rescuers at Government House. The plan featured one company of marines heading over from a north beach landing zone, while another company of marine choppers flew in, without any advance intelligence, of course. The amphibious landing was made at 7:00 that evening; the marines quickly headed out in the darkness with tanks and amphibious assault vehicles crunching down the single-lane roads toward the governor general. They left without their battalion commander, who in the haste wasn’t informed his troops had been deployed. He spent most of the night helicoptering around in a desperate bid to find his men.