cmh_70-117-1

To the surprise of all, the 24th Division had taken three major objectivesand hundreds of men in only nineteen hours while meeting weakresistance from isolated pockets of Iraqi soldiers from the 26th and 35thInfantry Divisions. By the end of the day, the XVIII Airborne Corps hadadvanced in all division sectors to take important objectives, establish afunctioning forward operating base, place brigade-size blocking forcesin the Euphrates River valley, and capture thousands of prisoners ofwar—at a cost of two killed in action and two missing.In the VII Corps, General Franks faced two problems on this secondday of ground operations. The British 1st Armoured Division, one of theunits he had to have when he met the Republican Guard armored force,had begun passage of the mine breach cut by the 1st Infantry Division at1200 on the twenty-fifth but would not be completely through for severalhours, possibly not until the next day. With the 1st and 3d ArmoredDivisions along the western edge of the corps sector and the British notyet inside Iraq, the 1st Infantry and 1st Cavalry Divisions lay vulnerableto an armored counterattack.A more troubling situation had developed along the VII Corps’ rightflank. The commitment of some coalition contingents had concernedGeneral Schwarzkopf months before the start of the ground war. Worriedabout postwar relations with Arab neighbors, some Arab members of thecoalition had expressed reluctance to attack Iraq or even enter Kuwait.If enough of their forces sat out the ground phase of the war, the entiremission of liberating Kuwait might fail. To prevent such a disaster,Schwarzkopf had put the 1st Cavalry Division next to coalition unitsand gave the division the limited mission of conducting holding attacksand standing by to reinforce allies on the other side of the Wadi al Batin.If Joint Forces Command–North performed well, the division would bemoved from the corps boundary and given an attack mission. Action onthe first day of the ground war bore out the wisdom of holding the unitready to reinforce allies to the east. Syrian and Egyptian forces had notmoved forward, and a huge gap had opened in the coalition line. U.S.Central Command notified the 2d ACR to prepare to assist the 1st CavalryDivision in taking over the advance east of the Wadi al Batin.But Franks could not freeze his advance indefinitely. The VII Corpshad to press the attack where possible, and that meant on the left flank.Maj. Gen. Ronald H. Griffith’s 1st Armored Division and Maj. Gen. PaulE. Funk’s 3d Armored Division resumed their advance north shortlyafter daybreak. Griffith’s troops made contact first, with outpost unitsof the Iraqi 26th Infantry Division. With the 1st Armored Division stillabout thirty-five to forty miles away from its objective, Griffith’s troops45