UNITED STATES NAVAL AVIATION 1910-1995
373
1991-Continued
S-3 Vikings fly over burning Kuwaiti oil fields.
24 February Operation Desert Sabre, the ground of-
fensive against Iraq, began. General Norman
Schwarzkopfs plan was based on the classic principles
of war: deception, concentration of force, and speed.
25 February Two Marine Corps aircraft were shot
down by Iraqi forces. Captain Scott Walsh was rescued
after his VMA-542 AV-8B was lost. Major Joseph Small
was captured and Captain David Spellacy was killed
when their OV-10A was shot down.
26 February A-6Es from Ranger's VA-155 bombed
Iraqi troops fleeing Kuwait City to Basra in "bumper to
bumper" convoys along two multi-lane highways.
Numerous tanks, armored vehicles, jeeps, cars, and
tractor-trailers were destroyed.
27 February At 9:00 p.m. EST, President George H.
W. Bush declared that Kuwait had been liberated and
that the Persian Gulf War over. At midnight EST, all
U.S. and coalition forces would suspend further offen-
sive combat operations.
27 February Forty Iraqi soldiers, thinking it was
manned, surrendered to battleship Wisconsin's (BB
64) RPV when it flew over their position.
27 February Captain Reginald Underwood, USMC
was killed when his VMA-331 AV-8B was shot down
by Iraqi forces.
3 March CH-46 helicopters with loudspeakers
rounded up surrendering Iraqi troops on Faylaka
Island. The enemy prisoners of war were ferried by
helicopter to Ogden (LPD 5) for further transport to
Saudi prisoner of war facilities.
4 March Iraq released POWs including the Navy's
Lieutenants Jeffrey Zaun, Robert Wetzel, and Lawrence
Slade. The prisoners of war were turned over to U.S.
officials by the International Committee of the Red
Cross near the Jordanian border station of Ruwayshid.
4 March America departed the Persian Gulf and re-
turned to the Red Sea after conducting 3,008 combat
sorties during the war.
6 March New Orleans, with a minecountermeasures
squadron on board and four mine-countermeasures
ships, led minesweeping activities.
6 March President George H. W. Bush reported to a
joint session of Congress, "Aggression is defeated. The
war is over."

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