1st Cavalry Division
"First Team"
1990-1991
In August 1990, the 1st Cavalry Division was alerted for deployment to southwest Asia as part of the joint forces participating in Operation Desert Shield. The focus at that time was the defense of Saudi Arabia against potential Iraqi attack. During August 1990, the Division trained on a massive scale, firing all weapons, preparing equipment and people for overseas movement, and planning surface, sea, and air movement. The actual deployment to Saudi Arabia began in September 1990, extending into mid-October 1990. Equipment was moved by convoy and rail to ports in Texas and then by ships to the port of Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
First Team soldiers flew from Robert Gray Army Airfield to Dhahran International Airport in Saudi Arabia. There, they settled into warehouses and tents to await the arrival of their equipment. As soon as their equipment had arrived they moved to an assembly area in the desert 160 miles west of the port.
Between October and December 1990, the Division drew new equipment, trained, and planned defensive operations. By the end of December 1990, the 1st Cavalry Division was one of the most modern and powerfully equipped divisions in the Army. The Division's tankers drew, trained on and fired the M1A1 Abrams main battle tank armed with an 120mm smooth bore gun and one of the most sophisticated automotive and fire control systems in the world. First Team infantrymen received the newest version of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the up-armored M2A2, which like the new Abrams proved its worth in combat. Both vehicles were reliable, survivable and deadly during Desert Storm operations.
The first glimpse of that performance came in December 1990 on the Division's Pegasus Range, a full gunnery training facility built up from the sands of the Saudi desert. Every tank and Bradley crew fired their new weapons on Pegasus range as part of new equipment transition training. Throughout this period, the Division's leaders were planning and rehearsing the First Team's role as the theater counterattack force, the force that would defeat any Iraqi attack into Saudi Arabia.
Before hostilities, the First Team gained valuable experience in combined operations through coordination with French, Egyptian and Syrian forces. With the First Team's 2nd Brigade and the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) under its tactical control, the 1st Cavalry Division conducted a complex light force/heavy force defense of critical theater logistics bases.
In January 1991, the Division was attached to US VII Corps and the focus of the First Team clearly began to shift toward offensive action. The Division moved early 500 kilometers to another assembly area near King Khalid Military City (KKMC) in northern Saudi Arabia. This put the Division in a key strategic location covering the historic Wadi al Batin approach into Saudi Arabia and threatening Iraq along the same avenue into western Kuwait.
The time spent near KKMC was short, and the Division once again packed up its 17,000 soldiers now accustomed to "jumping." The Division moved north toward the juncture of the Saudi, Iraq and Kuwait borders through a series of defensive positions designed to thwart any preemptive attack along the Wadi. First Team deterrence was successful and no attack came. Meanwhile, the air war began and other Allied ground forces began to reposition for the offense.
While other ground forces prepared for war, the First Team began a calculated war of deception along the Saudi border. The goal was to lure Saddam Hussein into believing the Allied attack would come from this direction, and trick him into emplacing additional forces there. While the Division's 8th Engineer Battalion improved positions and conducted "Berm Buster" missions to destroy Iraqi obstacles, the Division's 1-7th Cavalry, screened well forward, clashing with Iraqi forces. The First Team began its secret fight to deceive Iraq long before the world would come to know that "ground-war fighting" had already begun.
The First Team's Multiple Launched Rocket Systems repeatedly lit the night sky, battering deep enemy targets, while its sister cannon batteries fired Copperhead rounds, rocket-assisted projectiles, and thousands of high explosive and improved conventional munitions into Iraq. The Aviation Brigade flew obstacle reduction and aerial reconnaissance missions and designated targets for destruction by the Division's artillery. The enemy responded. Iraqi divisions focused forces toward the coalition threat in the Wadi, and the First Team froze them. Hussein's flanks were left thinned, allowing the other Allied Forces to attack virtually unopposed. The deception had worked.
On 20 February 1991, in Operation Desert Storm's first major mounted ground engagement, the Division's 2nd Brigade attacked 10 miles into Iraq, confirming and destroying enemy positions. Success exacted its price. During this engagement, the Blackjack Brigade suffered the agony of the first 3 Army soldiers to be killed in action.
On the opening of the ground war, the 2nd Brigade supported by the Aviation Brigade Apaches, moved into Iraq on a reconnaissance-in-force. The Brigade broke contact after penetrating enemy obstacles, taking fire and causing the enemy to light fire trenches. They withdrew south to join the Division for its final attack.
On 26 February 1991, the Commander of the Allied Forces, General Norman Schwarzkopf directed, "send in the First Team. Destroy the Republican Guard. Let's go home." The Division charged west pausing only to refuel before passing through breeches in the enemy obstacle belt. Racing north, then east, the Division moved in a vast armada of armor, stretching from horizon to horizon. Within 24 hours, the First Team had gone 300 kilometers, slicing deep into the enemy's rear. As the Division prepared to destroy a Republican Guard division, the cease fire halted it.
1st Cavalry Division units setup defensive positions where the cease fire had stopped their attack, then expanded north to Highway 8, clearing bunkers and looking for enemy equipment and soldiers. The 1st Brigade stretched through the historic Euphrates River Valley. Within 2 weeks the 1st Cavalry Division moved south into Saudi Arabia and its new Assembly Area Killeen. There on the plain of the Wadi al Batin, the 1st Cavalry Division began to prepare for redeployment home.
During Operation Desert Storm, the First Team had several firsts: First to defend along the Saudi-Iraq border, first to fire Copperhead artillery rounds in combat, first to conduct intensive MLRS artillery raids, and in its pre-G-Day attacks the First Team was first to conduct mounted combat in Iraq. Unprecedented logistical and communications requirements were met consistently by the Division Support Command and the 13th Signal Battalion with its Mobile Subscriber Equipment. Addressing the Division in Assembly Area Killeen on Palm Sunday, 1991 US VII Corps Commander Lieutenant General Frederick Franks emphasized the Division's major role in the allied victory. "You were leading the corps - you were the major combat power VII Corps had. You were the First Team. You led us into combat. You began the fight, you led the way..."
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