IN STRIPED pyjamas and sandals, seven American prisoners of war limped to freedom in northern Iraq yesterday, after their captors had fled from US forces advancing on President Saddam Hussein’s home city of Tikrit.Posted on 04/13/2003 2:40:44 PM PDT by MadIvan
IN STRIPED pyjamas and sandals, seven American prisoners of war limped to freedom in northern Iraq yesterday, after their captors had fled from US forces advancing on President Saddam Hussein’s home city of Tikrit.
Blinking from the sunlight as they emerged from 22 days of captivity, the six men and one woman clung to their rescuers, barely believing that they had escaped with their lives.
News of the rescue, which included two Apache helicopter pilots shot down over Iraq on March 24, was greeted with jubilation by the soldiers’ families. Some wept with relief as they watched television pictures of their sons and daughters landing at a US Marine base 55 miles south of Baghdad, minutes before being airlifted to a US military hospital in Kuwait.
According to a Canadian journalist travelling with the Marine unit that rescued them, the seven were found by a “sheer stroke of luck”, as a US reconnaissance patrol moved down a side road to stop local traffic interfering with the advance of coalition forces toward Tikrit.
Five of the PoWs were part of the 15-member US Army maintenance company convoy that was ambushed after taking a wrong turn near the southern Iraqi town of al- Nasiriyah on March 23. Jessica Lynch, a fellow member of the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company also caught in the ambush, was rescued by US special forces on April 1 and spent her first night on US soil at a Washington military hospital on Saturday night.
A clearly elated President Bush, who was informed of the rescue at 7am at his Camp David retreat, said: “It’s a good way to start off the morning to be notified that seven of our fellow Americans will be coming home pretty soon.”
Matthew Fisher, a reporter with the National Post in Canada travelling with the US Marine’s 3rd Light Armoured Infantry Reconnaisance Division south of Tikrit, said that their orders had been to keep traffic from interfering with the main northward advance.
“We were approached by an Iraqi, I think it was a police officer, who said: ‘I have nothing do do with this, but I know where American prisoners are.’ He took (the Marine unit) to find the prisoners. They immediately broke into tears, there was incredible joy. The Marines formed a scrum around them. They said how good it was to speak to Americans again. It was an incredible stroke of luck.”
He said the Marines were not part of the main US force and had stopped in the area only briefly.
Captain Neil Murphy, a spokesman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, gave a slightly different version of events. He said that a group of Iraqi soldiers, abandoned by their commanding officers, had approached the Marines with the seven Americans.
“Realising it was the right thing to do, they brought these guys back,” Captain Murphy said.
General Tommy Franks, the commander of coalition troops, said: “The tip came from an Iraqi and I believe our guys picked them up on the road.” US Central Command said that the prisoners were found near Samarra, about 40 miles north of Baghdad.
The extent of injuries suffered by the group was unclear. Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, said that they were in good shape, although two had gunshot wounds. Hospital staff in Kuwait said later that all seven had been released from medical care.
After being paraded by their Iraqi captors on the day of their capture, concerns had grown for their safety. A week ago five bloody US uniforms were found at the al-Rashid airbase in southeast Baghdad, which US Central Command confirmed yesterday belonged to the five rescued 507th maintenance soldiers.
The seven were taken by Chinook helicopters to a field hospital. Five of them ran from one helicopter, one punching his fist into the air, but two, apparently injured, limped from the second helicopter.
One of the wounded, who had been shot in the ankle, was Shoshana Johnson, 30, of Fort Bliss, Texas, the only woman to have been captured apart from Private Lynch.
“We are ecstatic that not only is she safe, but that all the PoWs are in US hands,” Claude Johnson, her father, said.
Marine pilots who flew the group from Iraq said that a second prisoner, Specialist Edgar Hernandez, 21, had been shot in the elbow.
Along with Sergeant James Riley, 31, Army Specialist Joseph Hudson, 23, and Army Private First Class Patrick Miller, 23, they were all members of the ambushed unit captured on March 23.
The rescued Apache helicopter pilots were Chief Warrant Officer Ronald D. Young Jr, 26, and Chief Warrant Officer David S. Williams.
After the rescue, the former’s father, Ronald Young Sr, watched shaky video footage of his son on CNN at his home in Lithia Springs, Georgia. “It’s him, and I’m just so happy that I could kiss the world! It’s him! It’s definitely him. I can’t think of a happier day in my life, except when he was born.”
The pilot’s mother, Kaye Young, said: “He looks so good, he is just . . . I mean he’s running. I didn’t expect him to be running.”
The number of US troops officially missing in action was lowered to five yesterday. Nathan B. White, previously listed as missing, was confirmed by the US Navy as having been killed in action.
General Franks repeated his commitment to rescuing coalition prisoners, although he said that he did not think that all missing US soldiers could be recovered: “I don’t think we could predict that at all. I think it would be a true blessing if we were able to do that, and I don’t think we ... can count on it. But I can tell you this: even though we can’t count on it, we can work at them hard.”
Regards, Ivan
I heard one of the unit that was being visited in the hospital STRONGLY say that they DID NOT take a wrong turn ..
The U.S. and British military don't "limp" anywhere.
Those of us who having been praying hard for them know otherwise:-)
However, I have just one question....
I hope they did not lose track of this guy so that they can give him a nice cash bonus and a good job in the new Baghdad Police Department.
What class! What a great story!
Ivan, you should get a special award at the end of this war for keeping us so well informed. And thanks to the press of the United Kingdom for its timeliness and clear writing style.
Actually there was one other woman among the members of the 507th, Lori Piestewa, who was either killed in the ambush or died sometime after her capture.
I'm so thankful these seven were saved! I was so afraid that their captors might have fled, leaving the POWs locked in some hidden underground bunker, where they would starve to death before they could be found.
Early this morning, I watched the CNN journalists' convoy on the way to & in Tikrit, where they encountered gunfire. They must have passed right by where these POWs were located - missed a big story!
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