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

166 The Road to Safwan
erally trying to escape north, the Iraqi troops were gone. Nothing
was in the way of the squadron’s advance. 18
As Wilson’s troops continued to race across north-central
Kuwait in the late afternoon, they could see low-lying dark
clouds in the east, the result of Saddam Hussein igniting
Kuwait’s oil fields. The squadron’s speed of advance was very
quick, moving as a single unit, advancing across the desert almost
in column with its helicopters forward conducting a zone
reconnaissance. At around 1500, with its objective nearly in
sight, the squadron began to lose radio contact with the division’s
tactical command post. 19
Given the hilly terrain and the speed that the squadron was
moving, it was normal for communications to become intermittent.
In addition, for most of the advance, the headquarters’s radio
operators could hear radio messages over the division command
frequency, not suspecting they were actually losing their
ability to communicate themselves. Once they realized that
they had indeed lost contact with division, MAJ Wimbish had
the squadron command post report their situation through the
2nd Brigade’s command post, which was closer. However, no
one at 2nd Brigade told them of the division’s problems in the
Valley of the Boogers, or called the squadron and told them to
stop or slow down. Experiencing intermittent contact with his
commander, MAJ Bill Wimbish, the executive officer, decided
to move the squadron’s tactical operations center, consisting of
several command post vehicles, various support trucks, and a
lone Bradley Fighting Vehicle for security, toward Wilson’s location.
It left the 2nd Brigade area where it had been operating
and headed out along the route taken by B Troop. On the way,
it by-passed numerous bunkers and infantry positions, captured
three enemy tanks obviously no longer in the fight, and
disarmed ninety-three Iraqi soldiers. 20 On a slightly different
route, CPT Morrison moved his forward support element, consisting
of a small command post, medical teams, ammunition
vehicles, fuel vehicles, and maintenance crews, toward the
squadron. Fortunately, without any fighting power other than
his soldiers’ small arms, he had few incidents until his arrival at
the Basra Highway. 21
Soon the cavalry began losing communications with the