MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- Editor's note: Second in a series. Information for this story was gleaned entirely from command chronologies and interviews with Marines who fought the battles. Refueled and ready to fight, 8,000 vehicles passed over bridges east and west of An Nasariyah on March 23, 2003. Within 12 hours, I MEF forces were poised for the next operational maneuver toward Baghdad.
As the Marines attack north along the unfinished highway, Twentynine Palms-based 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, fronting the 1st Marine Division, was ambushed by Fedayeen fighters with tanks, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and machine guns.
Company B was on the leading edge of 3rd LARs effort — with the entire battalion squaring off against a brigade-sized Iraqi force.
"You could see tracers and RPGs flying in between (the vehicles)," remembered Gunnery Sgt. Michael E. Fincher, an LAV platoon commander for Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd LAR.
They called for close-air support from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, Fincher said.
Good timing, he said — because that's about when they noticed three enemy T-72 tanks less than two miles to the east.
The LAVs' 25mm chain guns weren't powerful enough to repel tanks, he said.
But the attack helicopters were up to the task and "took out" the tanks, he said.
The Iraqis attempted to counter 3rd LARs advanced with 37mm anti-aircraft guns pointed straight ahead.
But they were largely unsuccessful.
Third LAR suffered only one wounded Marine, Fincher said.
With the 3rd MAW's help from above, 3rd LAR squashed the threat. With Regimental Combat Team 5 (mostly 5th Marine Regiment) as the lead element, RCTs 5 and 7 (7th Marines) attacked north along Highway 1 in the vicinity of Ad Diwaniyah.
The teams encountered hasty defenses and ambushes that proved ineffective against the Marine forces.
The lead unit for RCT-5, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, made heavy contact with an enemy unit slightly smaller than a battalion at an airfield near Ad Diwaniyah.
A severe sandstorm held up the rest of the regiment as 3/5 engaged the enemy.
"The sandstorm was so bad that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face," said Sgt. Chad P. Shevlin, squad leader for 2nd Platoon, Company B, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. "But if they needed us, we would have pushed through."
The battle lasted for almost two hours before the battalion secured the airfield.
Meanwhile, RCT-1 (mostly 1st Marines) began its attack through Fedayeen — or regime loyalist — territory and the vicinity of Al Gharraf. Like other units, they met with hasty defenses and sniper fire as they sped their way through towns.
"We called it running the gauntlet," said 1st Sgt. Wayne A. Hertz, company gunnery sergeant for Company L, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines.
On March 25, RCT-1 received word while outside of An Nasariyah that Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines had gone in to Nasariyah and taken heavy casualties. Third Battalion, 1st Marines was ordered in to open the road for the rest of the combat team to pass through.
"We peeled in one track at a time and faced to the west side of town, with rear security to the east," said Gunnery Sgt. David A. Wilson, 3rd Platoon sergeant for Company L, 3/1.
The battalion moved in to form a line the entire length of the town along the west side of the road with tanks, amphibious assault vehicles and Marines.
The Marines met with sporadic fire as they rolled into town.
" As we moved in I saw an RPG fly right over the top of the tank in front of us. Then a few more RPGs were fired off, but none hit," Wilson said.
Asthe Marines dismounted the vehicles they were greeted with the green tracers of enemy fire coming from windows and alleyways.
"They would run across the alleyways firing, or just pop up in windows. As soon as they did we would light them up. I must have dropped 300 rounds that night," said Cpl. Andrew T. Bowling, SAW gunner for 3rd Platoon, Company L, 3/1.
Although the battalion received mortar, machine-gun and small-arms fire, not a single Marine was killed.
"There wasn't any good, accurate fire from their side at all," Bowling said. "It was like they were just running scared."
After the remainder of RCT-1 moved past the "fence," 3rd Battalion packed up and re-attached to the team.
Most of the rest of the division encountered only light resistance and sporadic hit-and-run ambushes in central Iraq — with the bulk of Saddam Hussein's military forces arrayed around Baghdad and its outskirts much farther up the road.
Meanwhile, the 15th Marine Expeditionary, poised at the ports of Umm Qasr, pushed into the city. The Marines received small-arms and sniper fire, but met with no heavy resistance. Umm Qasr was the first location to display Iraqi irregular tactics and violations of the laws of war, said Capt. Jay Delarosa, a former artillery officer who now serves as the MEU's public affairs officer.
"The Marines would see groups of Iraqi's holding white flags and send out a combined anti-armor team to gather them up," Delarosa recounted. "As the team advanced in hard-topped hummers, the Iraqis opened up at them, mostly with small-arms fire."
Marines with the MEU's Battalion Landing Team 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines ended one such skirmish by unleashing a Javelin missile system — with MSNBC broadcasting live as part of an extraordinary embedded media report. The first missile missed its mark, but the second destroyed the building where enemy fighters were holed up.
Millions of Americans saw the second missile hit its mark, followed by 2/1 Marines erupting in celebration after eliminating the threat.
The 15th MEU secured Umm Qasr with three infantry companies, a light-armored reconnaissance company, a platoon of tanks and a Maritime Special Purpose Force, which consists of a force reconnaissance platoon and a trailer platoon.
Only eight days after entering Iraq, U.S. Marines had advanced nearly 90 miles into the country — about one-third of the way to Baghdad.
Over a four-day stretch through March 26, 23 U.S. Marines were killed, bringing the total to 35 dead since OIF began March 19.
Next week: Diwaniyah, Nasiriyah and closing in on Baghdad.
E-mail Pfc. Robbins at RobbinsPA@pendleton.usmc.mil.