The Air War
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Photograph courtesy of BGen Granville Amos
The OV-10 Bronco’s last combat service with the Marine Corps was in the Gulf War. Two Bronco squadrons deployed to the Gulf, and each squadron had one of its aircraft shot down during the conflict.
combat mission of the war in an OV-10 Bronco over Kuwait, Lieutenant Colonel Clifford M. Acree, squadron commander of Marine Observation Squadron 2, and his aerial observer, Chief Warrant Officer-4 Guy L. Hunter Jr., were looking for Iraqi artillery when they spotted a rocket launcher battery. As they banked above the Iraqis, Colonel Acree saw “a horrifying sight: glinting metal followed by an incredibly fast gray-white vapor trail snaking toward us. A heatseeking surface-to-air missile had locked on to our aircraft and was tracking us. The missile, pointed right at my face, was coming fast to blow us out of the sky. With less than 6,000 feet of altitude, I had no more than a second warning to dodge the missile streaking toward us. . . . It’s the same feeling you get in a car crash when you’ve hit the brakes hard and so has the other guy. You know the impact is coming all the same.”22 Initially, the aircrew was believed to have been killed. As Colonel Bioty remembered, “We did not know that they were alive until we saw them on TV. . . . [The aircraft going down] was really a shocker and that squadron took a real significant
hard swallow, . . . because there was a lot of leadership and experience in that airplane and here it got hit on the second day of the war.” Acree and Hunter were captured by the Iraqis, the first of five Marines eventually taken prisoner. Like the others they would be beaten, mistreated, and used as human shields until after the war.23
19 to 27 January The third day of the air campaign, 19 January, marked the end of the preplanned, initial air tasking order. The 3d Marine Aircraft Wing flew two successful major missions to complete the preplanned missions: one against bridges at Basrah and the other against Republican Guard units. Other Hornets and Intruders joined the wing’s Harriers in attacking Iraqi units in Kuwait, continuing to concentrate on artillery.24 Now Marine air began to focus more heavily on targets in Kuwait of concern to the Marines, steadily flying fewer joint missions each day. Each morning Major General Royal Moore held a 0600 breakfast meeting with the four Marines who commanded
