MDSU-1 returns from war
Hawai'i Navy News
Release Date: 5/23/2003
JO2 Tim Walsh Staff Writer
Divers from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One (MDSU 1) returned from Iraq May 5 after deploying in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom for more than two months.
Fifteen Sailors and officers from MDSU-1 left for Kuwait Feb. 25 and, at the time, were unsure if war was inevitable.
"We didn't know if we would have a job or not," explained Chief Warrant Officer Two Eric MacDonald. For nearly their first month deployed they waited in Kuwait. There they performed several small ship repairs and participated in chemical weapons drills.
By March 24, Marines pre-positioned along the Kuwaiti boarder had crossed into Iraq, and MDSU-1 headed to the Iraq port city Umm Qasr. Although the Marines had cleared the way, 'pockets of resistance' still existed throughout southern Iraq, and MDSU-1 had to move in a convoy to Umm Qasr, according to MacDonald.
Once there, MDSU-1 tackled numerous tasks given from Capt. Michael Tillotson, commander Task Force 56 and commodore of Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group One, but clearing out a channel of derelict vessels and disabling several mine laying ships were major projects.
Twenty-five small vessels and 17 larger vessels choked the waterway between Umm Qasr and Az Zubayr. British ships needed to get supplies through so British sailors, an Army tug and MDSU-1 worked together to make the channel passable. Many of the vessels were damaged from crashing into each other after being abandoned explained MacDonald.
Back in Umm Qasr, an Iraqi coast guard facility housed seven patrol boats that were converted as mine layers. Four of the ships had mines aboard and two had sunk. One of the sunken ships still had mines aboard.
According to MacDonald, members of MDSU-1 removed the mines and beached the ships.
"This is the first time since the Vietnam War that Navy divers did harbor clearance in a combat environment," said MacDonald who views it as validation of MDSU-1's training under the command of Cmdr. Rob Fink. "For the past two years we have been training and learning how to be expeditionary and how to operate with the Marines.
"We spent an incredible amount of time learning how to provide our own security. We used to believe that we would deploy to a hazardous area and we would be issued a platoon of Marines, but that is not true. The Marines are marching on to the capital city and we provided our own force protection."
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