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or needy assault units were located. By approaching whatever vehiclescame into view and asking for unit identity, those leaders managed torefuel most of the division’s vehicles by midnight.Day Four: 27 February 1991On the morning of 27 February, the XVIII Airborne Corps preparedto continue its advance east toward Al Basrah. Before the assault couldresume, the 24th Infantry Division had to secure its positions in theEuphrates River valley by taking the two airfields toward which it hadbeen moving. Tallil Airfield lay about twenty miles south of the town ofAn Nasiriyah; Jalibah Airfield lay forty miles east by southeast, near thelake at Hawr al Malih. The task of taking the airfields went to the unitsthat had ended the previous day in positions closest to them. While the1st Brigade would conduct a fixing attack toward the Jalibah Airfield,the 2d Brigade planned to move east about twenty-five miles and turnnorth against the same objective. Moving north, the 197th Brigade wouldtake Tallil. (Map 7)Following a four-hour rest, the 2d Brigade attacked at midnight,seized a position just south of Jalibah by 0200 on the twenty-seventh,and stayed there while preparatory fires continued to fall on the airfield.At 0600, the 1st Brigade moved east toward the airfield, stopped short,and continued firing on Iraqi positions. At the same time, the 2d Brigaderesumed the attack with three infantry-armor task forces and crashedthrough a fence around the runways. Although the airfield had beenhit by air strikes for six weeks and a heavy artillery preparation byfive battalions of the XVIII Corps’ 212th Field Artillery Brigade, Iraqidefenders were still willing to fight. Most Iraqi fire was from ineffectualsmall arms; but armor-piercing rounds hit two Bradleys, killing two menof the 1st Battalion, 64th Armor, and wounding several others in the3d Battalion, 15th Infantry. As nearly two hundred American armoredvehicles moved across the airfield knocking out tanks, artillery pieces,and even aircraft, Iraqis began to surrender in large numbers. By 1000,the Jalibah Airfield was secure.At midday, heavy-artillery and rocket-launcher preparations, followedby twenty-eight close air sorties, were directed on Tallil Airfield.As the fires lifted, the 197th Brigade advanced across the crateredrunways and through weaker resistance than that at Jalibah. But, like the2d Brigade at Jalibah, the 197th killed both armored vehicles and aircrafton the ground and found large numbers of willing prisoners.As the 197th Brigade assaulted Tallil, General McCaffrey realignedhis other units to continue the attack east centering on Highway 8.57