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

176 The Road to Safwan
sion and working on little sleep for the last several days, Cherrie,
as he admitted later, simply “forgot to tell them (1st Infantry
Division) to start again.” 42
After Burdan departed for the highway, the first thing the
TOC did was to erect the large RC-292 antenna so that contact
could be made with the division. By approximately 1845 hours
contact was established with the 2nd Brigade. The brigade’s
duty officer informed Wimbish that the corps commander had
halted the division’s attack due to confusion in graphics with
the 1st UK Armoured Division to the south. Since the attack
had been halted, the squadron was not only the sole controller
of the highway in this area but also the easternmost unit in the
VII Corps. When the squadron staff got the locations of the division’s
major units plotted on the map, it became apparent that
the squadron was twenty to thirty kilometers east of the remainder
of the division and out of range of any supporting artillery
except for perhaps the MLRS, an area suppression
weapon. The squadron’s leadership realized the precarious situation
they were in, beyond the range of friendly artillery and
no relief heading their way until dawn. 43 Realizing they could
be out-gunned in any serious fight, Wilson directed Burdan to
ask the 2nd Brigade for reinforcements. Within a short time,
Moreno called back and said that he was not allowed to move
any of his units. 44 Of course, if the squadron came under major
attack, they could count on support from the division’s attack
helicopter battalion, if they could get there in time.
Staff problems in the Big Red One had further complicated
the squadron’s situation. Rhame’s fire support officer told the
1st Infantry Division’s tactical command post about the cavalry
cutting the Basra Highway around 1830 hours. For some reason,
the duty officer changed the reported location in his staff
journal, the official record of such communications, from the
correct location to one ten kilometers to the south. 45 To further
confuse the issue, at 1905 hours, the 1st Infantry’s command
post told the corps staff that Wilson’s unit was twenty-three
kilometers southwest of where they actually were. 46 Even late as
0130 hours the next morning, when the corps’s headquarters
identified from various reports an American unit astride the
Basra Highway, the division headquarters continued to deny it