The New Port facility was the coastal staging point where an improvised multinational force assembled for a nighttime rescue mission in Mogadishu. In the rush to organize a convoy for the two crash sites, the facility became a place of urgency and friction: vehicles, troops, maps, and plans had to be brought together despite language barriers, unfamiliar equipment, and the fear left by an earlier failed attempt.

Setting and Role

The New Port facility lay a few miles up the coast from Task Force Ranger’s base. It was here that Bill David’s rescue force gathered after an earlier convoy, including Charlie Company, had been turned back at K-4 Circle while trying to reach the southern crash site. The new force was assembled to move toward both crash sites, making the facility the point where a renewed rescue effort took shape.

The scene was chaotic. United States Army Rangers were eager to get moving and frustrated by delays, but the force was a patchwork of American, Malaysian, and Pakistani personnel and vehicles. The gathering place mattered not as a permanent base described in detail, but as the crowded staging ground where urgent intentions had to be converted into a workable column.

Planning a Multinational Convoy

Bill David’s force included four Pakistani tanks, 28 Malaysian armored personnel carriers, his own men, 150 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division’s Alpha Company, Ranger volunteers, and the still-ambulatory remnants of the lost convoy. The scale of the force did not make coordination simple. Most Malaysian and Pakistani commanders spoke English, but their soldiers did not, slowing the passage of decisions from officers to the men who had to carry them out.

Around David’s map, soldiers held up flashlights so he could explain the arrangement. He wanted to use the Malaysian vehicles while putting his own better-trained soldiers aboard the armored personnel carriers, with tanks at the head of the column. The plan was to move to a position midway between the crash sites and then send one company to each. At the New Port facility, this was not yet an operation in motion but a proposal that had to be reconciled with the participating forces’ limits and instructions.

The Pakistani commander said his tanks had been ordered not to lead the convoy. David therefore worked out a compromise: the tanks would escort the column through the first few miles, where ambushes or roadblocks were expected, and then withdraw so Alpha Company could lead in the armored personnel carriers. The negotiation illustrates how the convoy’s formation depended on accommodations as much as on the intended plan.

Drivers, Fear, and Delay

The force also needed drivers capable of handling five-ton trucks while wearing night optical devices. Company armorer Peter Squeglia had ridden a motorcycle with such equipment, so a lieutenant asked him to drive a truck. Squeglia agreed, while making clear he had never driven one before; the lieutenant then went to find someone else. The brief exchange captures the improvised nature of preparations at the facility, where a limited piece of relevant experience could prompt an urgent request but could not substitute for the skill the job required.

Fear shaped how the soldiers positioned themselves as well as whether they volunteered. Squeglia felt deflated and guilty after the lieutenant moved on. Some men hurried toward the front of the column; others looked for a way not to go. Having seen what had happened to the previous convoy, he thought the mission could amount to suicide, yet believed it had to be attempted. He waited until most of the others had climbed aboard, then chose a place near the rear and wedged himself behind the spare tire and muffler, which he considered the safest spot.

Departure and Consequence

The delays lasted until 11:20 p.m., when the force was finally ready to leave the gate. The convoy moved according to the negotiated arrangement, with the tanks escorting it initially and the American formation set to take the lead afterward. As it approached the Black Sea neighborhood, a stronghold of Mohamed Farrah Aidid, Somali forces launched vicious ambushes. The New Port facility’s hurried assembly had thus ended not in a resolved rescue, but in the transition from planning into renewed danger on the road.