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

Objective Norfolk 153
possibly a third berm hiding another tank. Iraqi soldiers were
also now visible in a number of fighting positions. Apparently,
the Iraqi crews could not see the command group but heard
them and were coming out of the bunkers. Obviously, there
were enemy vehicles in and around the squadron screen line. 57
Realizing that the command group did not have the firepower
to clear this gap, Wilson ordered CPT Bills to send over
a platoon in support. 2LT Adrian Lowndes’s 2nd Platoon
moved forward with two tanks and two Bradleys and his tanks
began to “surgically” remove vehicles that were behind the
squadron’s screen at short ranges of between only 50 to 400 meters.
58 Burdan and Wilson joined the fight also, destroying a
BMP, a T-55 tank, and suppressing the dismounted infantry in
the area. 59 Although the Iraqis could not identify the precise
source of the hostile shooting, they responded with inaccurate
but frightening artillery fire on both B Troop and the squadron’s
supply vehicles. Iraqi green and red star clusters caused momentary
concern as American crews, suspecting the use of poison
gas, put on their chemical protective masks. A Troop, upwind
from the potential strike, continued to monitor the
situation. After a few tests, it was obvious that there were no
chemicals, and Bills gave the “all clear.” 60
Lowndes’s Platoon and the Command Group destroyed
five tanks and a variety of other vehicles in that short fire-fight.
The troop’s other platoons contributed to the carnage, destroying
a number of tanks and infantry carriers. Meanwhile, both
troops reported other Iraqi vehicles moving both to the front
and rear of the squadron’s screen line. B Troop, for example,
ambushed a small convoy of troop-carrying trucks trying to
move over a small ridge to the east. 61
What the squadron did not know at the time was that they
were near the IPSA Pipeline and this line’s service road was the
fastest and most direct route between southeast Iraq and the
Iraqi forces aligned along the western Kuwaiti border. Because
the Iraqi high command used this route to support units in both
southern Iraq and Kuwait, supply depots, fuel tanks, ammunition
depots, and other logistics installations lined both sides of
the road. Unfortunately, this road did not appear on any of the
squadron’s maps. What the squadron faced that evening was a