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Crossing the Intersection Of Crossing the Intersection of DeathBy Peter Grier 50 AIR FORCE Magazine / October 2013 TSgt. Timothy Wilkinson broke cover three separate times to aid severely wounded Rangers and Special Forces troops. His dashes across a wide in- tersection under an unceasing barrage of small-arms fire and rocket propelled grenades saved many lives. t was a firebox hot Sunday afternoon in a US attempt to snatch local warlords. The aircraft Somalia, Oct. 3, 1993. Air Force TSgt. had spun down and crashed in bad guy territory. Timothy A. Wilkinson was sitting on an Wilkinson was a PJ, an Air Force pararescue ammo can in a US Army Black Hawk jumper. Finding and saving personnel in harm’s helicopter circling above the ruined city way is what PJs do for a living. Immediately, Intersection Iof Mogadishu. The call came in about 4:30 p.m.: Wilkinson and fellow members of his combat search A rocket propelled grenade had struck the tail of and rescue team began preparing for insertion to Super 61, another Black Hawk that was supporting the crash site. Another call came in: There were TSgt. Tim Wilkinson earned the Air Force Cross for his heroism during 1993’s harrowing Battle of Mogadishu. AIR FORCE Magazine / October 2013 51 eight US personnel on Super 61, not warren of stone walls and buildings that day. We were decisively engaged four. RPGs were fl ying through the near the Bakaara Market, epicenter right from the start,” said Wilkinson in airspace below, more than Wilkinson of the area of influence for warlord an oral history published in The Battle had ever seen on previous missions. Mohammed Farah Aidid and his Habr of Mogadishu: Firsthand Accounts Fast-rope was clearly the best way Gedir clan. From the Men of Task Force Ranger. in. Their pilot came in hard, banked, Wilkinson moved to a wall on the Somalia in 1993 was the defi nition and then fl ared up the nose of the Black west side of the street. He was sweating of a failed nation. It had been split by Hawk to about 30 degrees to slow the and could not see anything. He had no sectarian and ethnic warfare since the helicopter. Downwash from the rotors idea how to find the crash site of Super collapse of the government of Moham- kicked up Somali dust and created a 61. Then he saw some members of his med Siad Barre in 1991. Drought and brownout. Thick ropes dangled from team on the other side of the street, fi ghting over food stocks and relief both open doors. moving south to a corner about 130 supplies had caused widespread famine feet away. in the country in 1992, leading the US Heat, Dust, and AK-47 Rounds Wilkinson grabbed his medical bags to begin a food airlift. Violence con- Wilkinson was the last man on the and hustled after them as automatic tinued to hamper aid distribution, so in right side. He kicked out some medi- weapons fi re kicked up dirt in the December 1992, President George H. cal supply bags forgotten in the rush, street. He rounded the corner and W. Bush ordered in US military forces. then grasped the rope with his heavy blinked: Crammed in a narrow alley, “Their mission was to ensure that leather fast-rope gloves and slid off the wrecked Black Hawk seemed huge. relief supplies reached the people who into the dust. It was like descending It was sitting on its left side, tail boom needed them and thus to ‘break the a flexible fireman’s pole as fast as cracked, rotors missing. cycle’ of starvation and save lives,” ac- possible. Rangers and Special Forces at the cording to the publication “The United The second he cleared the door, site had established a command post States Army in Somalia: 1992-1994” by the Black Hawk took an RPG in its and casualty collection point about the US Army Center of Military History. main rotor. The pilots didn’t flee. 15 feet down the alley. Wilkinson Offi cially, the US military was oper- They waited until Wilkinson and his extracted some litters from his bags ating under the umbrella of the United fellow rescue team members were on and got them ready to load wounded. Nations Operations in Somalia, or the ground. Then they struggled away, He figured that a ground convoy of UNOSOM. During the course of the trailing smoke, with no oil pressure. Army personnel would arrive shortly Somali operation, 23 nations, including They would make it back to the air- and he had to be ready. He also fig- Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, port—barely. ured that they had a half-hour or so Italy, Malaysia, Morocco, and Pakistan The ground was a chaos of heat, until Aidid’s fighters could organize provided troops. dust, and snapping AK-47 rounds. themselves for a concerted attack. But US fi repower, intelligence, and Wilkinson was standing on Marehan That surmise was incorrect. The PJ logistics capabilities were the backbone Road, a narrow thoroughfare in a had just landed in a battle that would of the effort. Within a few months, aid stretch into the next day and be immor- was fl owing relatively freely to the talized in the book and movie “Black desperate Somali people. Hawk Down.” Wilkinson would earn Little violence occurred between an Air Force Cross for his actions. February and May of 1993. Markets “I was wrong about how much time reopened, travel within the country we had, as I was about everything else became possible, and some offi cials AP photo by Dominique Mollard DOD photo by PHCMTerry Mitchell A gunner on a US Army Black Hawk covers the fl ight of a Cobra gunship US marines stand guard while others load ammunition and weapons seized in a during a patrol over Mogadishu, Soma- raid at the Bakaara Market in Mogadishu. US forces were originally in Somalia to lia, in October 1993. ensure that relief supplies reached the needy. 52 AIR FORCE Magazine / October 2013 began talking of reinstituting a Somali national police force to enforce the shaky calm. “However, clan rivalry and US reluc- tance to engage in long-term ‘nation- building’ operations soon doomed the effort,” concludes the US Army Center Corbis photo by Chris Rainier of Military History. May was the turning point. The US, eager to bring troops home, turned control of the mission completely over to the UN. The military situation then began to unravel. Warlord Aidid seemed to have little respect for the UN or the new UNOSOM II forces. On June 5, his fi ghters ambushed and killed 24 Pakistani UNOSOM II soldiers. In response, US AC-130 gunships began hammering Aidid’s weapons depots, radio station, and A soldier for one of the warring factions struggling for control of Somalia hefts a related facilities. rocket launcher through Mogadishu in 1993. The UN issued a warrant for Aidid’s arrest. In August, Aidid’s men detonated Aidid’s forces slammed TF Ranger ner and crew chief was still strapped a mine under a UNOSOM II vehicle, with heavier fi re than in previous raids. in his seat—and alive. The PJ dug at killing four US military policemen. As Another Black Hawk went down a mile the junk that covered the gunner and the security situation worsened, UN south of the fi rst destroyed helicopter. began to cut his seat straps. A Special Secretary-General Boutros Boutros- Forces medic dropped in to help. The Ghali asked new US President Bill Inside the Snow Globe gunner, freed, began to stand up. At Clinton to help catch Aidid. The Battle of Mogadishu was on. that moment the interior of the Black The answer to this request was Task The two-day fi refi ght would develop Hawk lit up with enemy fi re. Force Ranger. An assault force composed into the fi ercest engagement for the US “It looked like the inside of one of of Delta Force special operators, Army military since the Vietnam War. those little snow globes that you shake Rangers, Air Force pararescuemen and At the Super 61 crash site Wilkinson and watch the fl akes swirl about,” said combat controllers, Navy SEALs, and found more US personnel than had Wilkinson in his Battle of Mogadishu a special operations aviation element, roped in with his team. Some of the fi rsthand account. TF Ranger was in Somalia by Aug. 28. Rangers and Special Forces personnel All three men were hit by shrapnel. Over the next few weeks it staged six involved in the nearby snatch-and-grab Wilkinson was wounded in the face and raids into Mogadishu from its base at had moved in to lend support. arm while the gunner lost two fi ngertips. the airport on the outskirts of the city. One of the helicopter crew chiefs They began ripping up the Kevlar fl oor TF Ranger snatched one of Aidid’s key was walking about dazed, still stunned panels of the helicopter and leaning lieutenants. It limited Aidid’s mobility from the crash. A Special Forces sniper them against the sides to provide some to areas of the city under his more-or- was trying to lift the copilot out of the protection against bullets. After they less direct control. But resistance was top right side of the wreckage. The slid the gunner outside, Wilkinson and stiffening. Aidid’s men seemed more copilot was dead. The sniper said the the Special Forces medic handed out the and more willing to engage US forces pilot was dead, too.
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