The Road to Safwan: The 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry in the 1991 ...

Objective Norfolk 139
denly pulled out of line and inexplicably joined another unit’s
convoy. Of course, the driver had fallen asleep and woke up
convinced his unit was moving out without him. Johnson had
to spring back into his HMMWV and race after the confused
fifty-eight-ton tank retriever in the dark, try to get the driver’s
attention in the noise and darkness, and redirect it back to his
proper convoy. It took Johnson almost ninety minutes to finally
get everyone heading in the right direction. His section eventually
linked up with CPT Harmon and rest of the combat trains
in time to depart as a group. 11 As a result of all of this friction, it
took until the early morning hours for Wilson’s command to
travel the short distance to its attack positions.
At 0428 hours the squadron reported crossing the line of departure
as planned, approximately ninety minutes before the
rest of the division. Because of the darkness, a dearth of global
positioning systems, and an uncertain enemy situation, its pace
was slow. After the first half hour, the squadron had progressed
only a few kilometers over relatively open terrain. Wilson began
urging Captains Bills and Pope to pick up the pace, since he
knew that the remainder of the division would rapidly catch up
with the squadron and its value to MG Rhame as a reconnaissance
element would then be lost. Despite his urgings, the
squadron’s speed would not increase until after dawn. By 0611
hours, the division’s lead brigades had closed the gap and were
just in front of the squadron’s support trains. 12
Major Wimbish’s command post actually crossed the line of
departure with the advanced units from the 1st Brigade, a dangerous
situation as the lightly protected vehicles were in close
contact with the brigade’s heavy armor. As dawn broke, the
command post and CPT Harmon’s combat trains began to race
to get ahead of the brigade’s lead units and rejoin the squadron
farther forward. Wimbish later remembered thinking it a bit
strange for his unarmored support vehicles to be darting out
ahead of the 1st Infantry Division’s combat power. By 0900 his
column had passed the 1st Brigade’s lead scouts and was out in
the open. 13
The weather did not improve after the sun came up and a
dense fog developed, making visibility even worse. The aviation
scouts got into the sky for a short period, but the fog and