The first day was almost over. Nearly all the objectives still remained unachieved. Along with rescuing all the students, saving the British governor general had been a top priority — for no other reason than he was British. Neither happened. In addition, Camp Calivigny, the main Grenadan army camp to the east of the airport, hadn’t been assaulted. The Grenadan and Cuban soldiers were still shooting back, and somewhere Coard and his Caribo-Stalinists remained unaccounted for. At the end of the day the score was Tiny Tourist Nation 1, Superpower 0.
The score was largely kept secret from the American public. For the first time in American history, journalists had been barred from an invasion. Unbeknownst to the commanders, however, seven journalists snuck into St. George’s harbor by blithely sailing in on a boat, where locals greeted them casually. Seven scruffy reporters had succeeded where the entire U.S. military had failed.
The second day of the rescue mission, October 26, dawned with the Grenadans having pretty much given up. It took a while for the Americans to realize it.
The marines finally rescued the governor general in the early morning after the noise of their vehicles frightened away the defenders. They walked into Government House and relieved the SEALs with no casualties. As originally planned by Oliver North, the governor general signed the backdated letter requesting the invasion. The Pentagon’s lawyers rested easy.
Early that morning at Fort Frederick, the leaders of the RMC figured out that the gig was up and gave the order to the PRA soldiers to melt into the populace. The leaders also slipped away, hoping to escape the islands and justice. The marines who showed up to attack the fort walked in unopposed.
South of St. George’s the Eighty-second Airborne finally started moving out from the airstrip. They attacked the remaining Cuban positions north of the airfield in the morning with some of the Cubans escaping by scurrying into the Russian embassy. Now they were in position to rescue the students at the Grand Anse campus. The soldiers, finally getting the hang of the screwy invasion, telephoned the students at the Grand Anse campus from the True Blue campus to gather intelligence on the enemy’s strength. A medical student who was a ham radio operator at Grand Anse turned out to have one of the most reliable connections to the commanders on the Guam. This student turned into a nexus of communication for the invaders.
The first rescue plan was to have Rangers go in and return the students to the airstrip in trucks. But Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who had been hastily attached to the invasion as army liaison, came down on the side of overkill. He wanted the Eighty-second sent in on marine helicopters. Grenadan army positions were to be bombarded beforehand for ten minutes. The students were told over the phone to hit the deck while the dormitories were softened up for the assault. Even though unopposed, the United States still managed to sustain casualties as two choppers crashed into aggressively growing palm trees. It had taken approximately thirty-three hours, but almost all of the students were finally rescued.
Camp Calivigny, home of the Grenadan army, to the east of the airport, out past True Blue campus, still loomed as a threat. It was supposed to have been attacked on the first day, but yet it still stood, untouched. Intelligence estimates surmised that 600 Cuban soldiers and maybe some Russian advisors were in the camp. Russians! Probably with guns! It was an embarrassment to the generals in Washington. They would have to be taken out.
Situated at the tip of a narrow peninsula on the southern side of the island and perched atop a rocky plateau rising one hundred feet above the sea, Camp Calivigny was unapproachable from the water. Only one road ran into the fort from the town, making that approach unworkable. It would have to be assaulted by helicopter. The Special Forces girded themselves for a suicide mission.
The commander of the operation helicoptered over the camp before the jury-rigged attack to reconnoiter. He saw no activity but felt no reason to cancel the assault. The commander ordered up a one-hour bombardment from army and marine artillery, naval guns, air force bombers, and C-130 gunships. This crescendo of interagency cooperation, fueled by years of multibillion-dollar Pentagon budgets, would blast the obstinate Grenadans out of their little fort. Then the helicopter-borne Rangers could touch down and mop up. Only the Coast Guard was denied a role in this extravaganza.
The attack began when the 105-mm artillery shells from the army at Point Salines airport missed the mark and fell into the sea. The commander, watching from his helicopter, couldn’t adjust the fire because the artillery spotter was not sitting beside him, and the artillery gunners had left their aiming circles back in the States. Then the fight was turned over to the navy. Its guns opened up but were soon silenced by the commander who realized they might hit aircraft flying in the area. So they turned to the air force gunships and navy bombers. Finally, the buildings were blown up and the rubble bounced. The Black Hawks cruised in. One landed in a ditch, shredding a rotor blade, killing three soldiers and badly wounding four others. The Rangers stormed in. Success. But they found an empty camp. The Grenadans had been out fighting the war for the last two days. The Rangers didn’t even fire their weapons.
Day three, Operation Overkill rumbled on. A lone Grenadan sniper took a shot at some U.S. soldiers. They happened to be a CCT able to call in air strikes. Normal procedure required them to check with battalion HQ about new targets. They lacked the right radio codes to contact the HQ. But hey, they figured, why not call in the strike anyway. Navy planes screeched through the sky and smashed their target. Whoops. It was a U.S. Army command post, and three American soldiers were injured in the strike.
Even this gaffe didn’t kill Operation Overkill. The generals in Washington realized that only half of the hoped-for 1,100 Cubans on the island had been captured. The other half must be hiding in the hills! Patrols were sent up the long, hot, winding roads into the island’s jungle interior. The American troops, overloaded with equipment, suffered badly. Dozens dropped from heat stroke as they sweated in their polyester fatigues. The Cubans proved to be phantoms.
In Fort Frederick the Americans captured Coard along with his wife and family, all of whom had been in hiding since the day after shooting Bishop. The invasion staggered to the finish line. The United States conquered Grenada. The toll was approximately sixty-seven Grenadan dead, twenty-four Cubans. American forces announced nineteen deaths, more than half from accidents, with over one hundred wounded. Special Forces casualties remain secret, except to their pride, which they suffered in public. The medical students returned to school the next semester. Some of the off-campus students had never left.
After it was all over, the Pentagon broke out the one weapon it hadn’t fired. It handed out over 30,000 shiny new medals to the victorious American soldiers.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER
When the last of the troops returned home just days before Christmas, Reagan declared the U.S. military as once again “standing tall.” Imagine his pride if the United States had defeated someone really tough, like Barbados. But the invasion did boost the public’s mood as people felt good the country had asserted itself and almost killed some Russians. This upbeat mood continued, helping to propel Reagan to a landslide victory in 1984.