Word: airstrip
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...first, the North American visitors ignored the uncompleted airstrip, but they certainly took advantage of one of Grenada's many scenic beaches. A group of U.S. Navy Seals, trained in special seaborne operations, slipped silently ashore under the cover of darkness. Weapons in hand, they crept up the hill overlooking the quaint 18th century city of St. George's. They rushed toward Government House, where Sir Paul Scoon, the island's British-appointed Governor-General, had been held under virtual house arrest by Grenada's revolutionary Marxist military leaders. Driven back at first by gunfire from...
...assault began in two main strikes. At 5:36 a.m. on Tuesday, some 400 Marines aboard troop helicopters from the amphibious assault ship Guam roared into Pearls airport, the island's only functioning airstrip. Thirty-six minutes later, hundreds of U.S. Rangers, the Army's elite special forces, parachuted onto the barricaded, uncompleted 10,000-ft. strip at Point Salines on Grenada's southeastern tip. They had been dispatched from a staging airfield in Barbados, just 160 miles, or 45 minutes, away. Grenada, the once sleepy tourist haven, barely 80 miles off Venezuela in the Caribbean...
...Rangers, however, ran into unexpectedly heavy antiaircraft fire as their choppers approached Point Salines. Much of the flak came from the barracks area where Cuban workers building the airstrip were housed. The Pentagon had expected to find about 500 Cubans on the island, including 350 workers and a small military advisory group. Instead, they were facing more than 600 wellarmed, professionally trained soldiers...
...Rangers drifted toward the airstrip in their chutes, the Cubans met them with AK-47 automatic-rifle fire. Armored personnel carriers, filled with either Cuban troops or ammunition, suddenly appeared within 400 yds. of the Ranger landing sites. They aimed mortars at the invaders' positions. The Rangers took cover and returned small-arms fire. U.S. gunships protectively sprayed the resisting forces. "They were waiting for us," recalled First Lieut. Michael Menu, who was wounded in the initial attack. "We could hear the shooting and the bombs, but we could not see anything," said Sergeant Terry Guinn, who lay wounded...
...Point Salines airstrip, the Rangers managed to clear the runway of pipes, boulders and vehicles, which had been placed there by Grenadians and Cubans. The Rangers could now fly onto the field in C-130s. By 7:15 a.m. the airstrip was secure. Hundreds of Cubans had thrown down their weapons and surrendered to the superior U.S. firepower...