cmh_70-117-1

Night Attack by Mario AcevedoFarther to the south, the British 1st Armoured Division attackedeastward through the 48th Infantry and 52d Armored Divisions andremnants of other Iraqi units trying to withdraw north. This attack markedthe start of nearly two days of continuous combat for the British, someof the toughest fighting of the war. In the largest of this series of runningbattles, the British destroyed forty tanks and captured an Iraqi divisioncommander.To the east, the Marine advance resumed on the twenty-sixth withthe two Marine divisions diverging from their parallel course of thefirst two days. The 2d Marine Division and the Army’s Tiger Brigade,the 1st Brigade of the 2d Armored Division, continued driving directlynorth while the 1st Marine Division turned northeast toward KuwaitInternational Airport. The army tankers headed toward Mutla Ridge, anextended fold in the ground about twenty-five feet high. The locationnext to the juncture of two multilane highways in the town of Al Jahrah,a suburb of Kuwait City, rather than the elevation, had caught GeneralBoomer’s attention weeks earlier. By occupying the ridge, the brigadecould seal a major crossroads and slam the door on Iraqi columns escapingnorth to Baghdad.55