Al-Wafrah Forest and Faylakah Island

Marine Corps History Division Reference Branch photo files Marines of Company D prepare to enter a residential area on Faylakah Island, Kuwait, on 3 March 1991. The Marines secured the island without resistance from its Iraqi garrison.

crippled on the roadside, their wheels torn off, doors missing, glass shattered. Stores had been completely emptied. I walked, in shock, past a shoe store that held nothing but a seven-foot pile of empty shoeboxes. Oddly enough—and in a revealing statement on the attackers—the bookstore next door was left largely untouched, its rows of textbooks still neatly aligned on the shelves.”

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Other Marines tried the same thing. First Lieutenant Sean T. Coughlin of Marine Wing Support Group 37 acquired a humvee and drove with two other Marines from King Abdul Aziz Naval Base to Kuwait City and back again. The entire trip took seven hours each way, with the Marines driving past journalists and Arab forces on the roads. Inside Kuwait City they found similar scenes of destruction and jubilation.

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Captain Thompson recorded a vivid description of what the Marines found in Kuwait City and how it helped many of them put their labors in the desert into perspective:

The spectacle before us was the reason we had come to this country. Huge Kuwaiti flags draped out nearly every apartment building and welcomed us in the gentle breeze. All the anger and frustration of the previous six months began melting away in the hundreds of smiles I now saw. “Thank you for saving our country!”

“We love U.S. Marines!”

“We love USA!”

We heard it over and over. I could only smile and nod. I was afraid to speak. Somewhere along the line, someone gave me a ragged, soot-covered Kuwaiti flag, which I still have.

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The battlefield was littered with unexploded ordinance; mines; destroyed Iraqi vehicles; and, sadly, many Iraqi dead. The explosive ordinance disposal teams and engineers were soon busy working to defuse or safely detonate the live ordinance, while the 1st Force Service Support Group graves registration teams worked to handle the Iraqi dead properly. Information on the Iraqi dead was recorded, and the bodies were transferred to Saudi Arabian authorities, who ensured that proper Islamic burials were provided. There were fewer Iraqi dead than might be expected, as vast numbers had surrendered and even more had fled back to Iraq.

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Although a cease-fire had been declared, not all Iraqi units abided by it (nor were all aware of it, as Iraqi communications were sporadic). On 2 March,

the 17th Brigade of the Republican Guard’s Hammurabi Division opened fire on the U.S. Army’s 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) just west of Basrah and was mauled in return. Along with occasional small-arms fire and poor communications between Iraqi units—some of which did not know of the cease-fire—clearing operations remained dangerous even beyond the myriad bits of unexploded ordinance and mines scattered about the battlefield.

The 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade was given the task of clearing the bypassed regions of the alWafrah Forest as it transited from Kuwait back to al-Mishab to rejoin its amphibious squadron. It began to clear al-Wafrah on 1 March. The process was slow and methodical, and it began with helicopters flying over the forest, their loudspeakers announcing the cease-fire and calling on the Iraqis to surrender. During the clearing, the brigade came under sporadic fire from isolated pockets of Iraqi soldiers, and each time the Marines responded in kind and called in Cobra air strikes. One Marine was wounded by an Iraqi booby trap on the morning of 3 March, the last day of the forest clearing operation, but none of the Iraqis in the forest surrendered. On 4 March, the brigade’s infantry battalions traveled south via helilift and ground convoy, returning to the ships of Amphibious Group 3.

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Also on 3 March, the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) cleared the other major piece of Kuwaiti territory still held by Iraqi troops, Faylakah Island. It was held by the Iraqi 440th Naval Infantry Brigade, comprising just over 1,400 troops. On 2 March, two UH-lNs from Marine Light Helicopter Squadron 767 flew over Faylakah, broadcasting the surrender message on loudspeakers to the Iraqi troops. They were not fired on. The next morning, helicopters flying over the island saw white flags, and the Iraqis gathered in a communications compound. The Marine assault element landed at 0800 and began securing the island. Colonel John Rhodes, commander of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, accepted the surrender of Brigadier General Abbud Gambar Hasen Almiki, the Iraqi commander, at a formal ceremony at 1430.

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The Iraqi naval troops were evacuated from the island via helicopter to the USS Ogden. They were searched for weapons, provided with food, and screened for medical care. Meanwhile, Marine intelligence officers examined the defenses on Faylakah, which had been bombed repeatedly during the aerial campaign. The Iraqis had suffered no serious casualties from these raids; they abandoned

Col John E. Rhodes, commanding officer of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), walks out to accept the surrender of the Iraqi 440th Naval Infantry Brigade from BGen Abbud Gambar Hasen Almiki on Faylakah Island.

Marine Corps History Division Reference Branch photo files