Marines From Area Bases Awaiting Order for Assault

As the war to liberate Kuwait began with massive air strikes against strategic Iraqi targets, thousands of El Toro and Camp Pendleton Marines remained hunkered down in the Saudi-Arabian desert awaiting orders to go on the offensive once air superiority is achieved.

Military analysts said the opening air-war phase of Operation Desert Storm served two purposes: to destroy strategic Iraqi military and industrial targets while pounding Iraqi ground forces to weaken their resolve to fight.

There were no early indications that any Marine forces, either ground troops or aircraft, were involved in any phase of the early fighting.

Of the 75,000 Marines in the gulf, an estimated 30,000 are 1st Marine Division troops from Camp Pendleton and another 5,000 come from the El Toro-based 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing. The aircraft wing includes CH-46 Sea Knight and CH-53D Sea Stallion troop transport helicopters from the Tustin air station, F/A-18 Hornet jet fighters from El Toro and squadrons of the deadly Sea Cobra helicopter gunships from Camp Pendleton.

The 1st Marine Division’s mission is to launch a ground assault that would follow a massive air attack. The Marine pilots would provide air support for the ground troops.

As the air war rages over Iraq and Kuwait, the heaviest concentration of Marine troops from Camp Pendleton is deployed just south of the Kuwaiti border behind Syrian, French and allied Arab forces that are closest to the Iraqi positions. The Marine infantrymen are backed by new M-1 Abrams tanks, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, 155-millimeter howitzers and mobile 8-inch guns, and hundreds of the older M-60 tanks and amphibious assault vehicles.

Other Camp Pendleton Marines are attached to an amphibious assault force waiting on Navy ships in the Persian Gulf, poised to launch a sea-based offensive to retake Kuwait City once the skies are clear of Iraqi aircraft.

All Marine air power in the gulf comes under the command of Maj. Gen. Royal N. Moore Jr., the tough-talking commander of the El Toro Marine base who once vowed that given the opportunity, his Marines would deliver the Iraqis “the most violent three to five minutes they’ve ever seen. That’s all we want.”

Many of the Tustin-based helicopters have been dispersed to airfields in eastern Saudi Arabia, their offensive role limited to supporting a Marine ground attack by carrying ammunition, heavy equipment and troops into battle. Others are based on Navy ships in the gulf, ready to ferry Marines to a beachhead and bring out the wounded if an amphibious assault takes place.

Neither of these scenarios--a Marine ground assault or attack from the sea--have surfaced in the early reports of the fighting.

Marine aircraft like the F/A-18 Hornets from El Toro and the AV-8B Harrier jump jets are primarily used to support a Marine offensive, and under normal circumstances would not be employed in the kind of early air strikes that have been under way since President Bush gave the orders to attack.

While Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney called the early fighting “strictly an air operation,” the likely follow-up would be a massive ground assault involving hundreds of thousands of Army, Marine and allied troops against the heavily fortified Iraqi troop positions along the Kuwaiti border.

It will be then that the troops from Camp Pendleton, helicopters and jet fighters from El Toro and Tustin and sea-based Marine amphibious assault ships and troops may be thrown into the thick of the fighting.