Operation Northern Delay
| Operation Northern Delay | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Bashur Airfield, Erbil Governorate, Iraq | |
| Result | U.S. victory |
United States
United Kingdom
Iraq 1,000+ <40Operation Northern Delay occurred on 26 March 2003 as part of the
Background
On 26 March 2003, during the American invasion of Iraq,
Bashur is the epitome of a bare base. It was nothing more than a 7,000-foot runway in the middle of a green valley. It had no infrastructure - no water or sewage system and no electricity, buildings or paved roads.
Operation
On 26 March 2003, more than 950 paratroopers from the 173d Airborne Brigade commanded by COL Bill Mayville consisting of 1-508 (ABN) Infantry commanded by LTC Harry Tunnell and 2-503 (ABN) Infantry commanded by LTC Dominic Caraccilo jumped into Bashur, Iraq, to set the stage for a northern front. Two days later, the first soldier from the 501st Forward Support Company, 173d Airborne Brigade, Supply Support Activity (SSA) arrived at Bashur Airfield. The operation was classified as a combat jump by the Army, although the landing zone was secured by Kurdish and American forces, as is typical of combat jumps.[4] During the next two weeks at Bashur Airfield, all supplies arrived via the airlines of communication (ALOC) on C-17s and C-130s from Ramstein Air Base, Germany through Aviano AB Italy. During an average 24-hour day of operations, more than 40 Air Force 463L ALOC pallets would arrive. Each pallet then had to be downloaded from the plane, transported to the SSA, processed and finally issued either to storage or to customers.
Some of the C-17s carried huge M1-A Abrams tanks and weighed from 250,000 to 300,000 pounds when they landed. After two weeks of use by heavy cargo planes, parts of Bashur's 7,000-foot runway crumbled, forcing the closure of 2,300 feet.
Aftermath
As of April 2003, Delta Battery 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment remained in Bashur, and continued training the
A 20 April 2003 report in The New York Times asserted that "the U.S. is planning a long-term military relationship with the emerging government of Iraq, one that would grant the Pentagon access to military bases and project American influence into the heart of the unsettled region." The report, citing anonymous sources, referred to one base at Baghdad's international airport, another near Al-Nasiriyah in the south [presumably meaning Tallil AB], the third at the H-1 airstrip in the
Bashur Airbase is now known as
See also
- Task Force Viking - 'Joint Special Operations Task Force - North'
- 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team
References
- ^ "Airborne Operations - Recent". Retrieved 13 October 2017.
- ^ "History of the 173rd Airborne Brigade". skysoldiers.com. 21 August 2010. Archived from the original on 21 August 2010. Retrieved 7 October 2017.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - ISBN 978-0-9837226-3-2.
- ISBN 0-375-42262-5.
Bibliography
- Jump manifest at the Wayback Machine (archived 2022-10-14)
