The Government House operation also provided a few dicey moments with the SEALs having to undergo a siege for nearly a day. They were eventually able to secure the facility the following morning having suffered no injuries to the team members.
The same could not be said for the prison raid where all hell was breaking loose and nothing was going as planned. For starters, the location of the prison and the terrain surrounding it was not as briefed. The prison had been constructed on the spine of a high ridge with vertical slopes covered with dense foliage. Walls at least twenty feet high and topped with barbed wire and watchtowers encircled the compound. The only way into the prison was for the Black Hawks to hover over it and allow the Rangers to fast-rope in.
Unfortunately, there was one unanticipated dilemma that made such an approach exceptionally dangerous. Unknown until their arrival at the prison, there was a fort, Fort Frederick, which sat on a ridge only 300 meters across the valley to the east. The ridge was higher and the fort dominated the prison below it by at least 150 feet. And, in actuality, it was not the fort itself but the two antiaircraft guns within it that would make life for the airmen, Rangers, and Delta miserable. The prison, itself, was a tough enough objective to get into without the overwatching...and unanticipated...heavy weapons.
Flying in low over the valley, looking for anywhere safe to put the ground forces down, the Black Hawks were easy targets as the fort's guns fired either level or from above the aircraft. Unescorted and with Spectre AC-130H gunships engaged elsewhere with the commencement of the invasion, the small force was on its own. As the pilots attempted to evade the fires and locate a place to put the force down, bullet holes appeared through the aircraft's fuselage, striking both troops and crew, splattering blood and bone everywhere. After the first run through the valley, the flying machines were holding up better than the wounded men they carried inside.
On the second run, the pilot of the fourth Black Hawk, Captain Lucas, who had already suffered a wound to the right arm on the first go-around, was killed when five rounds fired from above smashed through the windshield and struck him in the head and chest. Though suffering a grazing wound himself, the copilot, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Paul Price, was able to maintain control of the seriously damaged and burning aircraft.
The assault aircraft scattered with many of the UH-60s heavily damaged and full of wounded men. Price flew south towards Point Salines, escorted by a second Black Hawk, as he struggled to keep the battered helicopter airborne, realizing that to crash-land at sea would probably mean death for many of those seriously wounded in the rear. Unable to maneuver, Price was forced to fly over the PRA base at Frequente. Hit again, the Black Hawk quickly began to lose altitude as the controls locked. The UH-60 crashed around 0640 just on top of Amber Belair Hill with such force that the helicopter broke in half and the main rotor blades fell over the cliff in the water and rocks below.
Moments later, the aircraft burst into flames. Despite the intensity of the flames, the severity of the impact, and the number of machinegun rounds that had passed through it, all but Lucas survived. Price and the remainder of the crew, Warrant Officer 1 Jon Ecker, Sergeant Gary Minerve, and Specialist 4 Loren Richards, were able to escape the inferno, as were the wounded Rangers in the back.
Concerned for the welfare of approximately 230 American medical students and faculty still unsecured at Grand Anse the next day, the 2nd Battalion (Ranger) was assigned the mission along with Marine helicopters. Nineteen helicopters departed around 1600 to make the short six-kilometer flight. Though there were Marine aviation issues that created difficulties and damaged some helicopters, the Rangers were able to safely extract the American non-combatants.
The final mission left for the Rangers was Calivigny, which they were directed to secure by the evening of the 27th. Intelligence estimates placed the garrison strength at 600. Preplanned naval, close air support, and artillery fires raked the camp before four flights of Black Hawks, each loaded with approximately fifteen Rangers, roared in across the waves and settled for the objective. Pilot error, however, would result in three UH-60s being destroyed within twenty seconds and without a shot being fired. Worse yet was the fact that three exposed Rangers from one of the flights were killed and another four seriously wounded.
Despite the death and destruction about them, the first lift of Rangers regrouped and continued their mission as the remaining lifts of Rangers safely touched down to conduct theirs. A sweep of the camp resulted in the discovery of no enemy bodies or wounded. The travesty of it all was that the mission had been all for naught.
The two Ranger battalions redeployed to their home stations on 28 October.
