THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 9, 1995 TAG: 9506090529
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long : 142 lines
Starved, burned and unshaven, Basher 52 stood in the trees at dawn Thursday, clutching a pistol and awaiting his gigantic deliverers.
For six harrowing days he had eluded his enemies in the rainy wilds of northwestern Bosnia. They had found part of his wrecked plane. But not him.
Early Thursday, he had made his first radio contact with U.S. forces: ``This is Basher 52. I'm alive and I need help.''
Now, his yellow smoke flare marked his position for everyone to see - and he was most vulnerable.
Minutes ticked by, and the sky grew brighter. Then, at 6:49 a.m.: salvation.
It roared from the sky in two gray, 32-ton helicopters that pounded to earth amid rotor wash and bulky Marines spewing out the back doors.
Wringing wet, filthy and hungry, Basher 52 exploded in a run, waving his pistol. Someone hauled him aboard. Seconds later, word flashed across a continent: Basher 52 was heading home.
His first words to his rescuers: ``I'm good but I'm ready to get the hell out of here.''
Thus, in a two-minute hurricane of tension, noise and power, ended the six-day ordeal of Air Force Capt. Scott Francis O'Grady - call sign Basher 52 - whose F-16C fighter was shot down over Bosnia a week ago today.
It was an ordeal in which many top government officials, despite receiving cryptic electronic signals, had given O'Grady up for dead, but in which he applied his survival skills so well - eating bugs and drinking rain water - that the shiniest brass in the Pentagon expressed amazement.
O'Grady, 29, a bachelor from Spokane, Wash., was reported to be in good condition with minor shoulder burns that occurred when his jet was hit.
The Pentagon said Thursday that officers had not fully debriefed O'Grady, so they did not know exactly how he managed to elude the Serbians in the largely uninhabited area.
They did say, however, that the rugged, inhospitable terrain was probably ideal for hiding and that O'Grady in 1991 had been schooled in survival and evasion techniques at an Air Force survival school at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane.
Pentagon officials said he stayed in hiding by day, moved about evasively at night, and husbanded the batteries of his survival-kit radio.
``This is a tough hombre we're talking about,'' NATO's Southern Europe commander, Adm. Leighton Smith, said. ``Whatever else he had, he had a lot of guts to go with it. That's what he had - guts and training.''
O'Grady's Bosnia sojourn began last Friday afternoon when his F-16C was shot down by a rebel Serbian SA-6 anti-aircraft missile.
Initially, the situation looked bleak. No parachute was seen as the cockpit section went down through a cloud bank. The day after he was shot down, Serbian rebels broadcast television pictures of the wreckage of the rear section of his plane. There were rumors that he had been captured, but they were not borne out.
Days passed. Search planes were sent out, but had to work cautiously so as not to become missile victims. About Sunday, however, searchers began to receive electronic signals that they believed might have been coming from O'Grady.
The signals, which could have been transmitted by the equipment O'Grady carried, were received intermittently but in a pattern that indicated they might be from someone trying to send them covertly or trying to conserve a battery. The signals continued for about 20 hours and then stopped.
Then, at 2:08 a.m. Thursday, Bosnia time, an F-16 from O'Grady's squadron patrolling in the area of the shootdown heard Basher 52 come up on his radio.
It took about 12 minutes for procedures that positively identified O'Grady, and from there things moved rapidly.
The story of the morning rescue, reconstructed from narrative descriptions offered in official military briefings and interviews on both sides of the Atlantic, put the Norfolk-based Kearsarge at the heart of the operation.
The amphibious assault ship had moved closer to shore as 40 aircraft loitered in separate parts of the mission, apparently prepared to offer defensive fire in case of heavy resistance from the Bosnian Serbs.
After the first radio contact with O'Grady, American military officials needed less than five hours to plan and carry out the risky daylight rescue.
At 5 a.m, six minutes before dawn, the rescue team began lifting off the Kearsarge.
At 5:50, the rescue aircraft made their run: two CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters with two dozen hand-picked Marines under 1st Lt. Martin Wetterauer; escort Cobra AH1W helicopters under Maj. Scott Mkyleby, and above them a pair of Harrier jump jets led by Maj. Michael Ogden.
Land-based fighters from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization guarded from high above.
The Cobras found Basher 52 as they flew over dawn-lighted hills obscured by fog in the valleys between them.
The Cobras popped a yellow smoke grenade to mark a landing zone in an area of scrub pine on the rocky far side of a slope with no settlement anywhere near.
The two Sea Stallions went in.
One landed on an old fence, but could not get its back door open and had to reposition.
The Marines spilled out and headed for the tree line to hunt for O'Grady.
The rescue party would be on the ground for eight minutes: ``It seemed longer than it was,'' Col. Martin Berndt said.
O'Grady needed no invitation. Still wearing his helmet and flight suit, he came running, a 25-yard sprint from fear to hope that will remain with the men who came to get him.
``He was running so fast. I was surprised he had so much energy after being out there like that for so many days,'' said Pfc. Rashon Bennet of Newark, N.J.
``It won't be very soon that I'll forget the look on his face as he approached the helicopter this morning,'' said Berndt, who hauled the pilot onto his CH-53 Sea Stallion assault helicopter.
O'Grady's rescue, at 6:49 a.m in Bosnia (it was 12:49 a.m. in Washington), was instantly relayed to President Clinton by Anthony Lake, his national security adviser, who, White House officials said, tersely reported, ``Got 'im!''
Beyond the deliverance of the pilot, the operation was fraught with policy and strategic risks. At one point, an American officer fearful that the rescue craft would be fired on, requested permission to fire a missile at a Serbian radar installation tracking the mission from Serb-held territory in Croatia, according to U.S. officials.
Permission was denied, and the rescue proceeded safely to its a joyful conclusion on the Kearsarge.
The rescue party did come under fire as it pulled out. Bosnian Serbian gunners fired two surface-to-air missiles and lightly damaged one helicopter with automatic weapons fire.
But, to hear the Marines aboard the Kearsarge tell the story, that is about all that went wrong. The closest anybody got to getting hurt was when a bullet pinged harmlessly off a Marine's canteen on the return ride. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Air Force Capt. Scott F. O'Grady, left, on the deck of the
Norfolk-based Kearsarge in the Adriatic Sea on Thursday.
Graphic
Compiled by ROBERT D. VOROS; additional text by DENNIS JOYCE/Staff
A DARING OPERATION
SOURCES: Knight-Ridder Tribune; Associated Press; Andy Kelly, Center
for Strategic and International Studies; Defense Department
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: BOSNIA RESCUE U.S. AIR FORCE U.S.
NAVY U.S. MARINE CORPS by CNB