Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 9, 1995 TAG: 9506090107
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
Moments after they touched down, an exhausted and frightened-looking figure, flight helmet on and pistol in hand, darted from a stand of pine trees 40 yards away and jumped aboard.
``I'm ready to get the hell out of here,'' he shouted over the noise of the whirling blades.
As the choppers lifted, escorted by a phalanx of Marine Harrier jump jets and other warplanes, a euphoric message was relayed halfway around the world to the White House: Capt. Scott F. O'Grady was coming home.
For the 51/2 days since his F-16 jet was knocked out of the sky by a Bosnian Serb SA-6 missile, the 29-year-old Air Force pilot had hidden out in hostile territory.
Hours after the first confirmed radio contact, American commanders launched a daring daylight rescue mission that put into action some 40 aircraft, including Cobra helicopter gunships, Harrier jets for close air support, F-18 fighters high overhead, radar-jammers, and refueling tankers.
The audacious mission put American combat troops on the ground in Bosnia for the first time, albeit briefly, as the U.S. aircraft came under hostile Serb small-arms and anti-aircraft missile fire. It was the most dramatic American pilot rescue since the Persian Gulf War, when a downed F-16 pilot was picked up 100 miles inside Iraq and Iraqi troops were within a mile or so of finding him.
President Clinton, alerted that the rescue mission was under way, waited anxiously throughout Wednesday evening for some word. Finally, at 12:49 a.m., National Security Adviser Anthony Lake called. ``Got 'im,'' he said.
``That's great,'' the president replied, and the two men celebrated with post-midnight cigars on the Truman balcony of the White House, looking out at the Washington Monument.
Capturing the mood of relief, White House spokesman Mike McCurry greeted reporters Thursday with ``four words I thought I would never use in one sentence: Good news from Bosnia.''
By early accounts, O'Grady played it by the book: digging in by day to avoid detection by the Bosnian Serbs, and moving around only at night.
``He told me that he was on the ground between three and five minutes before armed people made it to his parachute ... three to five minutes to find a place to hide and begin this incredible odyssey that I'm sure someday will make a very great movie,'' Clinton said after talking by phone with the rescued airman.
Downed pilots are told to move some distance from the plane wreck to improve the odds of successfully hiding, and O'Grady was picked up a mile or so from where his plane went down.
Pilots also are told to make their way, as O'Grady did, to a nearby hilltop so their radio signal will travel farther.
O'Grady activated his radio early Thursday Bosnia time and, for the first time, made voice contact with a plane from his own squadron. The pilot recognized his voice and radio call sign - Basher 52 - and called for the rescue.
Aboard the command ship USS Kearsarge, 20 miles off the Bosnia coast in the Adriatic Sea, an elite 40-member Marine team got ready to go, darkening their faces with camouflage makeup and going over their rescue plan. Their destination: 65 miles inland in rugged, Bosnian Serb territory southeast of Bihac.
U.S. commanders would have preferred operating under the cover of darkness, since the U.S. forces have unmatched night-vision capabilities. But, with the sun now coming up, they didn't have that option.
``The risk was assessed, and they said, OK, let's go in and do it in daylight,'' Marine Gen. Terry Murray said at a Pentagon briefing.
Three hours after establishing contact with O'Grady, rescuers were airborne. As the Marine choppers headed inland, fighters took off from the NATO Aviano airbase in Northern Italy, where O'Grady is based, and the Navy launched EA-6B electronic jammers from the USS Teddy Roosevelt Carrier Battle Group in the Adriatic.
High overhead, a U.S. Air Force AWACS surveillance aircraft directed their airborne armada, with crews telling O'Grady the rescuers would be there in half an hour.
Tired and hungry, O'Grady set off a yellow smoke canister to guide them in. It was perhaps his most vulnerable moment since being shot down: If the Americans saw it, so might the Serbs.
First, the Cobras swept over the clearing, then hovered nearby about 100 feet off the ground, ready to lay down heavy machine gun fire if there was any threat from the ground.
As the rescue choppers landed, 20 Marines fanned out from one of them to secure the area. But the ramp on the second helicopter would not open, jammed against a tree stump or log. Then O'Grady, with six-days growth of beard on his face, emerged from hiding into the arms of a waiting Marine.
They were airborne again within two minutes, though the danger wasn't past.
During the 45-minute flight over the Serb-held territory, they were fired at with small weapons and, military officials believe, three shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. The rotor blade of the chopper carrying O'Grady was hit by small arms fire, but the aircraft continued on to the Kearsarge.
Clinton telephoned O'Grady, calling him ``an American hero.'' O'Grady reportedly told the president that his rescuers ``were the real heroes.''
by CNB