ON THE USS BOXER IN THE ARABIAN GULF, 12 April 2003 — De-mining the waterways for humanitarian aid to enter the port city of Umm Qasr in southern Iraq was a blip on headline news at the beginning of the war. But the behind-the-scenes mine clearance efforts to ensure the safe passage of vessels to port have been complex.
A group of men on the USS Boxer volunteered for the secret mission to clear the Khor az-Zubyr River of mines.
Their assignment was to prevent the mining of the waterway and to ensure that the natural flow of river would not sweep mines into the operating area of the Gulf, where a large number of coalition warships are deployed. “It was very ‘hush-hush’, and on a need-to-know-basis-only,” said Lt. J.G. Michael Lipkin. “My department head approached me about it, and I thought it sounded interesting, so I volunteered.”
Lipkin, 24, said the other Boxer volunteers — two officers and seven crew members — secretly prepared onboard for the mission. Their tasks included special radio training, and guidance on hand-held GPS systems for navigating the waters.
“We also received training on ‘Return to Force Procedures’ because one of our major concerns was fratricide, or friendly fire. A lot of precautions were taken to ensure we could be easily identified as a friendly unit,” said Lt. J.G. James Chalupsky. “We learned verbal, auditory and visual signals — including different color flares and different boat maneuvers to prove we were friendly.”
The elements of the Anglo-American operation — British, Australian and American — consisted of a mother ship, Her Majesty’s Australian Ship the Kanimbla, search boats, trained boarding parties, and minesweepers.
“The initial tasking said we needed an RHIB (a 24-foot rigid hull inflatable boat), a boat crew, and equipment that essentially consisted of our personal gear and chemical, biological and radiological suits,” Chalupsky, 25, said. “Everything was pre-staged to allow us to leave at any moment.”
The officers said the only uncertainties were the living quarters: “They were very vague about our living conditions; so we didn’t know if we would stage off the Kanimbla or an Landing Craft Unit (LCU),” said Chalupsky.
“We were pretty certain it wasn’t going to be comfortable, we just weren’t certain in what way,” added Lipkin.
The men said that as the war in Iraq began “our big fear was that all the ships in Umm Qasr — the wooden dhows, fishing boats, steel hulled boats, and tug boats — would flood out of the river, and that while many of them would be legitimate vessels, there would also be boats that could eventually lay mines.”
As predicted, boats soon sailed out to escape danger. Each boat coming down the river had to be searched and cleared by one of the RHIB boarding parties.
Lipkin and Chalupsky said they were part of a RHIB boat crew of three people. Each RHIB carried a boarding party of 10 to 15 people, trained experts who would inspect and clear potential mine laying vessels or explosive-laden boats.
They were finally sent out with “very short notice” because another RHIB had broken down and had to be replaced. Chalupsky said they showed up during “half time.”
“By the time our boat got to the mouth of the river, the minesweepers and RHIBs had made good headway clearing out the river,” and had identified two tugs carrying mines, and located dozens of mines in the waters. A group of Iraqi soldiers were also discovered hiding on another boat and detained.
The Boxer’s men were told their job would be to provide additional support and finish up clearing out the river so humanitarian aid could safely reach Umm Qasr.
“Basically the RHIBs, with their crew and boarding teams, would zigzag back and forth across the river in sectors, advancing slowly up the river until the entire river had been cleared of mines and any other hazards. Any fishing boats or tug boats in these sectors were boarded by the boarding teams, searched and cleared,” said Lipkin.
“They boarded about 50 boats in about three weeks, and once cleared, they would escort them out of the river,” said Lipkin.
Tugs were found with mines on them, and one tug had two empty spots on the tug’s mine racks. “The big fear was that they had already laid those mines,” he said.
According to the Australian boarding team that searched the boat, the tugboat crew had been hired by the Iraqis to lay mines. “The Australian boarding leader told us he believed the mine-laying tug crew had been paid off, because they found large wads of cash — Iraqi dinars — on board,” said Lipkin, who said the Australians didn’t know what happened to the crew, who were arrested.
“We’ll never know if those were their mines, but two mines were later discovered in the river,” said Chalupsky.
“The Australians asked the tugboat crew if they liked Saddam Hussein, and one of the men on the tugboat, who spoke English, said they hated him,” said Lipkin.
The men said they weren’t afraid during their mission, but were caught off guard when the mines detonated. “Only once they told us in advance, but the other times it was a complete surprise. One of our guys said he was so startled he almost fell overboard when they detonated a mine,” said Lipkin.
Their hunch about sleeping quarters proved correct: “We didn’t sleep down in the Kanimbla because they feared if the ship hit a mine it could kill us because our berths were below the water line. So we slept on the floor in the hanger bay on the deck. There were 50 coalition personnel from different ships all over the Gulf, all sleeping on the deck with us,” said Lipkin.
“I’ve done similar types of missions,” said Petty Officer First Class Carlos Acevedo, 39, who also volunteered from the Boxer.
“I had previous small boat experience with Landing Craft Mechanized (LCM), when I was with an assault craft unit command based in Coronado, Ca. These are flat hulled boats you can run up on the beach, with a ramp that lowers on the bow, much like the boats that unloaded the troops in Normandy ... and probably just as old.”
“You have to put on your thinking cap and focus on what you’re doing,” he said. “You strap down your chinstrap because you never know what could happen. You’re maneuvering by GPS, and you could hit a mine at any moment, and in addition, the rain was blinding us.” He said it rained during most of the time they conducted the searches.
“We repaired our boat when needed, and helped other crafts that had broken down,” said Acevedo, who slept on deck of the LCM. “We slept outdoors on two-by-fours stacked together.”
The men said being on the Australian ship “was kind of different.”
Not only did they find the drinking water different, but also the food. The lamb chops “had a gamy taste,” and several times they ate “mystery meat.” But overall, they all said they enjoyed the experience.
“This kind of operation, involving so many different countries, has never really been done before. There was a lot of different verbiage, machinery, and communications devices we used; so we all had to learn really quickly how to operate together to be an effective team,” said Lipkin.
The day before the HMS Sir Galahad, a British ship stocked with humanitarian aid, docked at Umm Qasr, Chalupsky said the minesweepers came back down the river and located mine-like objects on the bottom of the riverbed. “The secondary explosion after the EOD (explosive ordinance disposal) team blew them up confirmed that mines had been laid on the bottom of the river.”
