Invasion of Grenada

Conflict	Grenada Invasion
Partof	the Cold War
Caption	A U.S. Marine Corps Sikorsky CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter hovers above the ground near a Soviet ZU-23 anti-aircraft weapon during the invasion
Date	October 25 – December 15, 1983
Place	Grenada
Result	Decisive United States/CPF victory
Combatant1	CPF:
Combatant2
Commander1	Admiral Joseph Metcalf III H. Norman Schwarzkopf
Commander2	Hudson Austin Pedro Tórtolo
Strength1	United States:7,300infantry,Marines,special forcesCPF: 353infantry,Marines
Strength2	Grenada:~1,500 infantry,militiaCuba:722special forces,engineers
Casualties1	United States:19 killed,116 wounded
Casualties2	Grenada:45 killed,358 woundedCuba:25 killed,59 wounded,638 captured
Notes	Civilian Casualties:24 killed

The Invasion of Grenada, codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, was a 1983 U.S.-led invasion of Grenada, a Caribbean island nation with a population of just over 100,000 located north of Venezuela. It was triggered by a military coup which ousted a brief revolutionary government. The successful invasion led to a change of government but was controversial due to charges of American imperialism, Cold War politics, the involvement of Cuba, the unstable state of the Grenadian government, and Grenada's status as a Commonwealth realm.

Grenada gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1974. Left wing rebels seized power in a coup in 1979. After a 1983 internal power struggle ended with the deposition and murder of revolutionary Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, the invasion began on October 25, 1983. A combined force of about 7,600 troops from the United States, Jamaica and members of the Regional Security System (RSS) defeated Grenadian resistance and the military government of Hudson Austin was deposed.

The invasion was criticized by the United Kingdom, Canada and the United Nations General Assembly, which condemned it as "a flagrant violation of international law". It enjoyed broad public support in the United States as well as in some sectors in Grenada who viewed the post-coup regime as illegitimate. October 25 is a national holiday in Grenada, called Thanksgiving Day, to commemorate this event. Additionally, on 29 May 2009, the Point Salines International Airport was officially renamed in honour of the slain pre-coup leader Maurice Bishop by the Government of Grenada.

Background

Sir Eric Gairy had led Grenada to independence from the United Kingdom in 1974. His term in office coincided with civil strife in Grenada. The political environment was highly charged and although Gairy – head of the Grenada United Labour Party – claimed victory in the general election of 1976, the opposition did not accept the result as legitimate. The civil strife took the form of street violence between government supporters and gangs organized by the New Jewel Movement (NJM). In the late 1970s, the NJM began planning to overthrow the government. Party members began to receive military training outside of Grenada. On March 13, 1979 while Gairy was out of the country, the NJM – led by Maurice Bishop – launched an armed revolution and overthrew the government, establishing the People's Revolutionary Government.

On October 13, 1983, a party faction led by Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard seized power. Bishop was placed under house arrest. Mass protests against the action led to Bishop escaping detention and reasserting his authority as the head of the government. Bishop was eventually captured and murdered along with several government officials loyal to him. The army under Hudson Austin then stepped in and formed a military council to rule the country. The Governor-General of Grenada, Paul Scoon, was placed under house arrest. The army announced a four-day total curfew where anyone seen on the streets would be subject to summary execution.

After the United States invaded, Cuba released a series of official documents to the press. According to these documents, when the murder of Maurice Bishop was reported on October 20, the government of Cuba declared that it was "deeply embittered" by the murder and rendered "deep tribute" to the assassinated leader. The same official statement reported instructions to Cubans in Grenada that "they should abstain absolutely from any involvement in the internal affairs of the Party and of Grenada," while attempting to maintain the "technical and economic collaboration that could affect essential services and vital economic assistance for the Grenadian people."

The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), then chaired by Eugenia Charles, the Prime Minister of Dominica; as well as the nations of Barbados, and Jamaica appealed to the United States for assistance. According to a reporter for The New York Times, this formal appeal was at the behest of the U.S. government, which had already decided to take military action. U.S. officials cited the murder of Bishop and general political instability in a country near U.S. borders, as well as the presence of U.S. medical students at St. George's University on Grenada, as reasons for military action. Sivapalan also claimed that the latter reason was cited in order to gain public support.

On October 22, 1983, Fidel Castro sent a public message to "Cuban workers" in Grenada, stressing that they should take no action in the event of a U.S. invasion unless they were "directly attacked." Referring to the Point Salines International Airport, the message ordered, if U.S. forces "land on the runway section near the university or on its surroundings to evacuate their citizens," Cubans were "to fully refrain from interfering." armored personnel carrier destroyed by Army Rangers on the afternoon of October 25, 1983 at the True Blue campus of the St. George's School of Medicine]]

On October 26, Alma Guillermoprieto reported in The Washington Post that at a "post-midnight news conference" with "almost 100 foreign and local journalists," Castro "released texts of what he said were diplomatic communications among Cuba, Grenada and the United States," giving the essential facts. U.S. sources "confirmed the exchange of messages," she added, but said they could not respond to Cuba at once because the telephone lines of the U.S. interest section in Havana were down from the evening of October 23 to late at night on October 24.

Reagan administration spokesman, Larry Speakes, said that "the U.S. disregarded Cuban and Grenadian assurances that U.S. citizens in Grenada would be safe because, 'it was a floating craps game and we didn't know who was in charge'." The same issue was reported by Alan Berger in The Boston Globe on the same day.

Airport

The Bishop government began constructing the Point Salines International Airport with the help of Britain, Cuba, Libya, Algeria, and other nations.

The airport had been first proposed by the British government in 1954, when Grenada was still a British colony. It had been designed by Canadians, underwritten by the British government, and partly built by a London firm. The U.S. government accused Grenada of constructing facilities to aid a Soviet-Cuban military build-up in the Caribbean, and to assist the Soviet and Cuban transportation of weapons to Central American insurgents. Bishop’s government claimed that the airport was built to accommodate commercial aircraft carrying tourists, pointing out that such jets could not land at the existing airport on the island’s north. Neither could the existing airport, itself, be expanded as its runway abutted a mountain.

In 1983, then-Member of the United States House of Representatives Ron Dellums, traveled to Grenada on a fact-finding mission, having been invited by the country's Prime Minister. Dellums described his findings before Congress:

...based on my personal observations, discussion and analysis of the new international airport under construction in Grenada, it is my conclusion that this project is specifically now and has always been for the purpose of economic development and is not for military use.... It is my thought that it is absurd, patronizing and totally unwarranted for the United States Government to charge that this airport poses a military threat to the United States’ national security.

In March 1983, Ronald Reagan began issuing warnings about the threat posed to the United States and the Caribbean by the "Soviet-Cuban militarization" as evidenced by the excessively long airplane runway being built as well as intelligence sources. He said that the runway and the oil storage tanks were unnecessary for commercial flights, and that evidence pointed that the airport was to become a Cuban-Soviet military airbase.

The invasion

firing its cannon.]] The invasion, which commenced at 05:00 on October 25, 1983, was the first major operation conducted by the U.S. military since the Vietnam War. Vice Admiral Joseph Metcalf, III, Commander Second Fleet, was the overall commander of the U.S. forces, designated Joint Task Force 120, which included elements of each military service and multiple special operations units. Fighting continued for several days and the total number of U.S. troops reached some 7,000 along with 300 troops from the OECS. The invading forces encountered about 1,500 Grenadian soldiers and about 700 Cubans. Also present were 60 advisors from the Soviet Union, North Korea, East Germany, Bulgaria, and Libya.According to journalist Bob Woodward in his book "Veil", the supposed captured "military advisers" from the aforementioned countries were actually accredited diplomats and included their dependents. None took any actual part in the fighting. Some of the "construction workers" were actually a detachment of Cuban Military Special Forces and combat engineers.

Official U.S. sources state that the defenders were well-prepared, well-positioned and put up stubborn resistance, to the extent that the U.S. called in two battalions of reinforcements on the evening of October 26. The total naval and air superiority of the coalition forces — including helicopter gunships and naval gunfire support — overwhelmed the Communist forces.

Nearly eight thousand soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines had participated in URGENT FURY along with 353 Caribbean allies of the CPF. U.S. forces had sustained 19 killed and 116 wounded; Cuban forces sustained 25 killed, 59 wounded and 638 combatants captured. Grenadian forces casualties were 45 killed and 358 wounded; at least 24 civilians were killed.

Reaction in the United States

A month after the invasion, Time magazine described it as having "broad popular support." A congressional study group concluded that the invasion had been justified, as most members felt that U.S. students at the university near a contested runway could have been taken hostage as U.S. diplomats in Iran had been four years previously. The group's report caused House Speaker Tip O'Neill to change his position on the issue from opposition to support.

International opposition and criticism

By a vote of 108 in favor to 9 (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, El Salvador, Israel, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, and the United States voting against) with 27 abstentions, the United Nations General Assembly adopted General Assembly Resolution 38/7 which "deeply deplores the armed intervention in Grenada, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of that State".

A similar resolution was discussed in the United Nations Security Council and although receiving widespread support it was ultimately vetoed by the United States. The then president of the United States Ronald Reagan, when asked if he was concerned by the lopsided 108-9 vote in the UN General Assembly said "it didn't upset my breakfast at all"

Grenada is part of the Commonwealth of Nations and, following the invasion, it requested help from other Commonwealth members. The invasion was opposed by the United Kingdom, Trinidad and Tobago, and Canada, among others. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher personally opposed the U.S. invasion, and her Foreign Secretary, Geoffrey Howe, announced to the British House of Commons on the day before the invasion that he had no knowledge of any possible U.S. intervention. Ronald Reagan, President of the United States, assured Thatcher that an invasion was not contemplated. Reagan later said, "She was very adamant and continued to insist that we cancel our landings on Grenada. I couldn't tell her that it had already begun."

After the invasion, Prime Minister Thatcher wrote to President Reagan: This action will be seen as intervention by a Western country in the internal affairs of a small independent nation, however unattractive its regime. I ask you to consider this in the context of our wider East-West relations and of the fact that we will be having in the next few days to present to our Parliament and people the siting of Cruise missiles in this country...I cannot conceal that I am deeply disturbed by your latest communication. The full text remains classified.

Aftermath

A-7E from USS Independence over Port Salines airfield.]] Following the U.S. victory, Grenada's Governor-General Paul Scoon formed a government. U.S. forces remained in Grenada after combat operations finished in December as part of Operation Island Breeze. Elements remaining, including military police, special forces, and a specialized intelligence detachment, performed security missions and assisted members of the Caribbean Peacekeeping Force and the Royal Grenadian Police Force. .

The invasion showed problems with the U.S. government's "information apparatus," which Time described as still being in "some disarray" three weeks after the invasion. For example, the U.S. State Department falsely claimed that a mass grave had been discovered that held 100 bodies of islanders who had been killed by Communist forces.

A heavily fictionalized account of the invasion from a U.S. military perspective is shown in the 1986 Clint Eastwood movie, Heartbreak Ridge.

Order of battle

U.S. land forces

22nd Marine Amphibious Unit

82nd Airborne Division - large contingent

548th Engineer Battalion

27th Engineer Battalion

21st Tactical Air Support Squadron - jump qualified FACs deployed with 82nd Airborne

U.S. Air National Guard - provided A-7D Corsair II ground-attack aircraft for close air support

437th Military Airlift Wing - provided airlift support with C-141 Starlifters

16th Special Operations Wing - flew AC-130H Spectre gunships

33rd Tactical Fighter Wing - provided air superiority cover for allied forces with F-15 Eagles

75th Ranger Regiment - 1st and 2nd Battalions

Navy SEALs: SEAL Team FOUR and SEAL Team SIX

1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta

E co 3/60th Inf Reg (later designated: E co 109th MI Battalion 9th ID LRSC (1984)

160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne)

5th Weather Squadron, 5th Weather Wing (MAC) - Jump qualified Combat Weathermen who deployed with the 82nd

317th Military Airlift Wing - provided airlift support with Lockheed C-130 Hercules (Pope AFB NC)

63rd Military Airlift Wing - 63rd security police squadron provided air field security support with 44 man air base ground defense team - (Norton AFB CA)

U.S. naval forces

Amphibious Squadron Four , , , ,

Independence Task Group , , , , , , with the Invasion Tactical Planning and Hands On Operational Control conducted by the Air Staff of the USS Independence

In addition, the following ships supported naval operations: , , , , , , , , , , , and

Caribbean Peace Force (CPF)

Notes

USS KIDD DDG-993 was relieved by the two PHMS 3 & 4 not sure why Kidd keeps getting cut out.

Further reading

External links

Operation: Urgent Fury, Grenada

The 1983 Invasion of Grenada, Operation: Urgent Fury

A history of the operation from the U.S. perspective as written by naval historians.

Grenada - a 1984 comic book about the invasion written by the CIA.

NBC Nightly News report on day of Invasion of Grenada

Category:Caribbean – United States relations Category:Conflicts in 1983 Category:1983 in the United States Category:1983 in Grenada Category:History of Grenada Category:Military expeditions of the United States Category:Operations involving American special forces Category:History of the United States (1980–1991) Category:United States Army Rangers Category:United States Marine Corps in the 20th century Category:Invasions by the United States Category:Wars involving Antigua and Barbuda Category:Wars involving Barbados Category:Wars involving Cuba Category:Wars involving Dominica Category:Wars involving Grenada Category:Wars involving Jamaica Category:Wars involving Saint Lucia Category:Wars involving Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Category:Wars involving the United States Category:Reagan administration controversies