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Industry: Email Alert RSS Feed544th Engineer Team - Dive - Army Diver Missions in Iraq
Engineer: The Professional Bulletin for Army Engineers, July-Sept, 2003 by Christopher F. West
The 544th arrived in Kuwait on 30 March 2003 and moved north into Baghdad to link up with the 565th Engineer Battalion at Logistics Support Area (LSA) Bushmaster on 4 April.
9-13 April
We received our first mission from the 130th Engineer Brigade to help with the search and recovery of a shot-down F-18 and its pilot. At the crash site, we were notified that a Navy explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) team and a Marine expeditionary force reconnaissance team were also on-site. The Navy EOD team gave us the locations of the plane wreck and where the Air Force pararescuemen, or parajumpers (PJs), had found the pilot's parachute.
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Both the 544th and the Marine team performed a hasty search using a side-scan sonar system. (See note on page 31.) We developed a plan and calculated a search area to look for the body of the pilot. We divided the area so the Marines would work from the south and move north and the 544th would do the opposite. When we recognized an object as a potential priority (such as the pilot, ejection seat, parachute, or cockpit), by means of the side-scan sonar system that parallels the shore in an attempt to locate foreign objects, the 544th would dive and verify each of these potential sites. We pulled out smaller wreckage pieces and brought them to shore. After several days of searching, something that looked like a body was spotted from a helicopter. Divers from both the Marines and the 544th verified that it was the pilot, and a medical evacuation aircraft flew the body back to Tallil Air Base. Later, Navy EOD personnel destroyed the F-18 using C-4, and the 544th disposed of the wreckage it had brought to shore.
14 April
The 814th Engineer Company tasked the 544th to link up with the 565th Engineer Battalion to conduct a deliberate river reconnaissance of a potential assault bridge site at Objective Peach. A seven-man element collected shore and water data and took digital pictures of the near and far shores. The end state was a hydrographic survey with DA Form 7398, River Reconnaissance Report, and digital photos attached to it.
18 April
The 544th received a mission from the 565th Engineer Battalion to help the 101st Airborne Division recover sensitive items dropped in a canal north of the Karbala Gap. Eight soldiers had fallen into the 30-foot-deep water, following a light medium tactical vehicle (LMTV) crash, and had lost sensitive items. Surface swimmers looked for these objects, but after recovering only four weapons and a Kevlar[R] suit during the first hour, the team decided to put scuba divers in the water. By the end of the diving day, we had recovered equipment totaling more than $100,000.
23 April
A six-man reconnaissance team traveled with the 565th Engineer Battalion to Tikrit to conduct hydrographic surveys of the largest-ever military river-crossing site. While in Tikrit, the 544th pulled debris out of the work area for the bridge companies and helped the 74th Engineer Team (Dive) render hydrographic surveys.
27-28 April
A 13-diver team spent two days at Engagement Area Chamberlain, cutting four steel I beams with the underwater torch. The team also conducted salvage operations on the new pontoons emplaced by the 671st Engineer Company. A hole in one of the pontoons caused it to sink, and the weight of the sunken pontoon forced another pontoon to sink also. The 671st developed a patch that could be used on the pontoons so they could pump out the water. Once the pontoons were floating, the divers plugged the hole in the one pontoon with a bolt. The entire area was cleared to allow bridging to continue.
4 May
Divers from the 544th met with Iraqi water treatment plant workers to determine the location of potential sea mines to the east of the bridge at Objective Peach. The workers, who spoke fluent English, believed that there were 40- to 500-pound sea mines on the shore but that there were none in the water. The divers used the side-scan sonar to search the area but did not find any mines.
4-9 May
Six divers supported the LSA Anaconda EOD team responsible for ridding the base of all unexploded ordnance (UXO) and munitions. The mission included lifting, moving, and hauling crates of ammunition to bunkers to completely backfill them.
8-12 May
The 544th began pumping water out of the canal just outside the fence of LSA Anaconda to help the 864th Engineer Battalion fill holes in the airfield with concrete and extend the landing strip. The divers were on call 24 hours a day to support this effort and used their new 180-gallons-per-minute pumps to conduct the mission. The trucks needed to be filled an average of six times a day to satisfy the requirement for concrete.
The 544th was tasked to find an area for conducting dive training in the vicinity of LSA Anaconda. A lake in AdDuval was only 15 kilometers away and seemed fairly large, so a team of divers went to determine the feasibility of diving and helocasting operations there. Upon arrival, the divers noticed a large cache of used, unused, unexploded, and exploded ordnance and munitions, which indicated that this was not a good place to dive. However, the team completed a hydrographic survey and determined the average depth of the water to be about 8 feet.
