THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 20, 1994 TAG: 9409200339
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ABOARD THE MOUNT WHITNEY LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines
Like gnats on the Port-au-Prince skyline, sortie after sortie of helicopter flights from the aircraft carrier Eisenhower moved troops and supplies ashore in a peaceful first day of U.S. occupation.
The procession of Black Hawk helicopters, some slinging supplies under their bellies, will continue day and night this week until an estimated 15,000 U.S. troops have arrived ashore in Haiti. About 5,800 of them are coming from the Eisenhower and three other Norfolk-based Navy ships, with the bulk arriving by transport plane.
The mission - paving the way for the return of Haiti's elected president - appeared to be going smoothly Monday.
A Pentagon official credited Adm. Paul David Miller of Norfolk and his staff at the U.S. Atlantic Command.
In nine hours, they converted plans for a massive invasion that would have put 7,000 troops on the ground, almost simultaneously, to the measured, peaceful entry Americans watched on TV.
Speaking with reporters aboard the command ship Mount Whitney, the commander of all American forces in Haiti - Army Lt. Gen. Hugh Shelton of the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, N.C. - said he is relieved to be directing a landing instead of an invasion.
Still, the Tarboro., N.C., native said his troops would have made quick work of the poorly equipped Haitian forces.
Just before he was ordered to call off the invasion Sunday night, Shelton said, he told himself, ``We were ready. It is OK. We know exactly what we are doing, exactly what we are doing. We are trained to execute this mission. It is time to go.''
``The biggest concern all of us . . . had was the possibility of fratricide of our own troops,'' he said, ``the safety, with 200 aircraft in the air at one time, with lots of ships, lots of moving pieces.''
Even after word came Sunday night that invasion was averted by diplomacy, there were some tense moments off shore. On the Mount Whitney, the crew was called to general quarters Monday morning, manning deck-mounted machine guns in case canoes and small sailing vessels decided to cause trouble. Those concerns soon disappeared.
Nearby, the Eisenhower was jumping with members of the Army's 10th Mountain division emptying their bunks and humping 90-pound backpacks up several deck levels to the flight deck, where airmen readied and refueled one Black Hawk after another for them.
All were in high spirits despite heat and humidity that left some of the weighted-down soldiers suffering from dehydration once they were ashore.
On the island's north side, off Cap Haitien, 1,800 Marines aboard the amphibious ships Wasp and Nashville were still awaiting orders to go ashore. Port-au-Prince was the focus of the deployment Monday, plus there was an added element of danger in the north: About 250 members of one of Haiti's top military units had donned civilian clothes and scattered in groups of four to five, a senior U.S. military official said at a Pentagon briefing.
U.S. officials were trying to persuade outgoing military leader Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras to get the soldiers back in uniform.
Reports Monday night said the troops would land this morning.
``Cedras realizes this is not a force that can be fooled,'' one official said. ``This is not a Harlan County expedition we're talking about.''
The Norfolk-based tank-landing ship Harlan County was turned back by a threatening crowd last October when it tried to land engineers and others at Port-au-Prince harbor for a peacekeeping mission.
On Monday, a force of about 25 ships lay off Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haitien, most of them from Norfolk. Aboard the Eisenhower, there was speculation that the 2,000-member crew would weigh anchor and head home as soon as it finished its unusual assignment of ferrying Army troops to a potential battle zone.
The Navy is eager to free up the Eisenhower so it can reclaim its Navy fighters, bombers and other aircraft and resume final preparations for normal operations: a six-month deployment to the Mediterranean Sea scheduled to begin Oct. 20.
If the Eisenhower turned around today and headed home, it would have less than the four weeks in port usually scheduled to allow the crew members time with their families. The carrier was pulled away from routine training off the East Coast so it could be loaded with Army troops and helicopters and sent to Haiti. MEMO: Staff writer Dale Eisman contributed to this story.
ILLUSTRATION: Color ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
A U.S. Army soldier is greeted by Haitians at the port area in
Port-au-Prince, shortly after coming ashore, Monday. American
soldiers received a warm welcome and met no resistance as they began
their mission to restore the country's elected leadership.
Color REUTER photo
U.S. troops arrive Monday at Haitian military headquarters, where
just a day earlier negotiations had been conducted.
Photo by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN
A make-shift sailboat sails past the stern of the Mount Whitney on
Monday morning, one of the ships stationed off the coast of Haiti
this week. An estimated 15,000 U.S. troops are due to arrive in
Haiti over the course of this week.
KEYWORDS: HAITI by CNB