Struecker convoy's rescue attempt toward Super 64

Struecker convoy's rescue attempt toward Super 64 was a failed effort to reach Michael Durant’s downed Black Hawk helicopter through a city where American forces were already taking heavy casualties. Its defining reversal came at K-4 Circle: a fresh column sent to save Durant encountered the wrecked remnants of an earlier convoy, and the vehicles that might have pressed on instead gathered around the wounded and withdrew from the route to the crash site.

A second rescue attempt

The attempt began after a larger convoy, already moving through Mogadishu, had been ordered to reach Cliff Wolcott’s crash site and then continue roughly a mile south to Durant’s. That force became lost under fire and sustained severe casualties. A separate column was hastily assembled at the airport base for Durant, less than two miles away. Led by Staff Sgt. Jeff Struecker, it consisted of four humvees and three five-ton flatbed trucks. Its members included volunteers and support personnel as well as fighting troops, leaving the unarmored trucks especially exposed as they left the compound.

The danger announced itself almost immediately. Struecker’s humvee had traveled only about 80 yards beyond the rear gate when gunfire erupted. A rocket-propelled grenade scraped across the vehicle and exploded against a concrete wall, lifting the broad-bodied humvee onto two wheels. The force of the attack was concentrated on the lead vehicle, but the trucks behind it carried vulnerable personnel. Struecker judged that continuing forward risked turning the column into a line of targets. He ordered his driver to reverse; vehicles behind them collided in the confined space before the rest of the column understood the maneuver and backed up as well.

Routes, barriers, and delayed information

The convoy tried another way out and met a substantial roadblock made of dirt, scrap, concrete, and wire. Beyond it lay a concrete wall around a dense settlement of huts and narrow walking paths, the area into which Super 64 had crashed. The humvees might have been able to cross the roadblock, but the five-ton trucks could not safely follow, and the wall offered no passage through to Durant. The obstacle was not simply a matter of finding the right turn: the vehicles needed to stay together, and the trucks could not go where the smaller vehicles might.

Struecker asked the airborne guide for another route. The only alternative, he was told, was to circle around the city and approach from the back. He accepted that option. Turning the heavy trucks around on the narrow street took time; as they maneuvered, Rangers stood outside to guard the column in every direction. The trucks scraped and rammed walls as they reversed. A bullet clipped a side mirror, and Peter Squeglia, a company armorer who had volunteered for the convoy, fired his rifle across the truck cab.

The confusion reflected a wider breakdown in how information reached the vehicles. Navy aviators observing from aircraft could see gunmen moving alongside the convoy and could try to guide it around firing positions, but they were not permitted to speak directly to the drivers. Their instructions went first to the Joint Operations Center and then back to the column. By the time a direction such as a left turn arrived, the convoy might already have passed the intended intersection. Commanders watching video screens also lacked the immediate sound and physical force of gunfire and grenades; the images made the movement appear more orderly than it was. On the ground, the lead vehicles stopped unpredictably at intersections, exposing those behind them to crossfire. McKnight had not briefed the drivers on their destinations, leaving other team members without a clear route if the lead vehicle was hit. Radio instructions could also refer to the second crash site while McKnight’s convoy was still searching for the first.

The crash site in sight, but out of reach

After circling southwest around the city, the column briefly saw Durant’s crash site from a rise. It lay less than a quarter of a mile away, down in a valley amid a squalid settlement of huts, but there was no way to drive closer from that position. The convoy continued along its roundabout route toward K-4 Circle, one of southern Mogadishu’s major intersections. From the air, Durant heard the .50-caliber gun on Struecker’s humvee and understood that a rescue column was approaching. The convoy was still unable to reach him; his site was overrun and he was captured minutes later.

At K-4, Struecker’s fresh vehicles encountered McKnight’s battered column. Its lead humvee was smoking and had four flat tires; the following vehicles were in comparably poor condition. They carried dead and wounded Rangers. The sight made the cost of the earlier rescue effort immediate for the men who had just arrived: the first column had not merely failed to find its way through, but had come back damaged and loaded with casualties.

Convergence and withdrawal

The fresh convoy formed a perimeter around the disabled vehicles while casualties were transferred to vehicles still able to move. Struecker’s men were less than a mile from both the base and Durant, but proximity did not make the route passable. Looking at the wounded, the battered vehicles, and the roadblocks ahead, the men recognized that humvees and flatbed trucks were not enough to force a way through. The two convoys then headed in the opposite direction from Durant’s crash site, even as an airborne command helicopter continued telling the Delta soldiers defending the site that help was only minutes away.

For the men limping through flaming barricades on Via Lenin, the meeting at K-4 had first looked like a grim encounter with another fight. Instead, they saw Struecker’s approaching vehicles and troops and felt relief. Their disabled humvee could go no farther. The dead and wounded were moved elsewhere before the vehicle was burned to prevent its being looted. John Gay searched inside for the broken handle of the knife that had deflected a bullet and saved his life. Nearby, Squeglia saw his friend Casey Joyce being lifted from a vehicle, dead. The rescue attempt thus joined two distinct outcomes at the intersection: the fresh force could help move casualties, but it could not reach Durant. Its failure exposed the difference between seeing a crash site, being told that help was close, and having a route and vehicles capable of getting there.