Word: antiaircraft
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Another mistake resulted in a Corsair strafing a group of U.S. paratroopers. The airborne unit "was trying to rout Cuban soldiers in their well-fortified Calivigny barracks when it called for Navy air help. Their position was close to an abandoned Cuban antiaircraft gun that still pointed toward the sky. From the air it looked like the intended target. "All of a sudden the world blew up," said Lieut. Scott Schafer, who was hit by shrapnel when the Corsair fired. Twelve paratroopers were wounded. As the plane banked for another strike, a ground officer reached the pilot by radio...
...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...
Awakened by the explosions, the American students at the True Blue campus of St. George's University School of Medicine did not know who was shooting at whom. "There was antiaircraft fire coming from the Cubans around the airport," said Harold Harvey, 22, of Beckley, W. Va. "Then I saw the paratroopers jumping. It was really thrilling to see, kind of like an old John Wayne movie, but I knew people were going to get killed." Student Stephen Renae of Point Pleasant, N.J., saw "planes diving and strafing at ground targets we couldn't see. The worst thing...
...quay in St. George's had been secured by the attackers and Fort Rupert taken. U.S. ships were still visible at sea, as were the gaping holes in the green roof of the fort, which has guarded the picturesque blue-water harbor since the 18th century. Two antiaircraft guns on the ramparts were unmanned, and the harborfront seemed deserted...
...Marines spread out in firing positions alongside tanks and personnel carriers, while Grenadians sat looking back from their front steps on the opposite hillside. A U.S. tank sprang into life, firing into a hill with thick green vegetation, making a direct hit on an ammo dump and an antiaircraft position. One young man who sat watching the scene admitted that he too was once for the revolution. Now, reluctantly, he welcomed the invaders. "It's a sad solution, but there seemed to have been no other way," he said. "The military would have ended us all, they would never...