In 2019 in Somalia the New Jersey National Guard’s Charlie Troop, 1st Squadron, 102nd Cavalry Regiment, would distinguish itself by defending Baledogle Military Airfield from a significant attack by al-Shabaab terrorists.
The battle received only a blip of coverage at the time and was quickly forgotten. The notable exception was a Connecting Vets article by Jack Murphy who conducted anonymous interviews with the Guardsmen. But now information regarding the battle and the outstanding work of the U.S. troops are finally receiving wider attention.
Preparing the base for the attack
Al-Shabaab’s goal was to destroy the aircraft and specifically the drones stationed at the Baledogle Military Airfield. Charged with defending the airfield were Charlie Troop commander Captain London Nagai, and 1SG Paul Greenberg. With the inclusion of fire elements, their troop had been augmented from 70 to 160 Soldiers before arriving in Somalia.
Nagai and Greenberg wanted to expand the base’s defensive zone and build rapport with the Somali people by engaging key local leaders.
“Nagai had devised a plan to expand their defensive posture outside the fence line,” said LTC Richard Karcher, the commander of Task Force Warrior.
“He was doing stuff right that you don’t see lieutenant colonels or colonels doing correctly,” Karcher added.
Nagai had his engineers construct an anti-tank ditch around the base’s perimeter. According to a recent press release by the New Jersey National Guard, “any vehicle smaller than a tank would get stuck in the ditch before it got to the fence line.”
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Nagai along with 1SG Greenberg came up with a base defense plan using the base control towers, entry points, and a Quick-Reaction Force (QRF). Nagai trained his men day and night, using live ammunition until their base defense plan became second nature to the troops. And their training paid off.
The al-Shabaab terrorists had been probing the base for some time, trying to find weaknesses in the defenses and assessing how the U.S. troops were responding.
“The hardest part for me was having to tell Soldiers we couldn’t fully engage the enemy when they would use recon by fire or other aggressive tactics,” said Nagai. “We didn’t want to show them how we would respond.”
Related: US air strikes kill 15 al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia
The attack at Baledogle Military Airfield begins
On September 30, 2019, the Guardsmen were preparing a vehicle convoy alongside Somali forces to meet local leaders 25 miles away.
The convoy was just loading up when dust was spotted north of the base. Immediately, recognizing that the base was about to be attacked, Nagai put his defense plan into action and moved aircraft and civilian workers to a safe location.
Nagai led from the operations center. He had the quick-reaction force race to the airfield, closed the entry points, and had the mortar crews quickly in position. Snipers were also placed all around the base, covering all avenues of approach.
Charlie Troop had done its homework and knew what route al-Shabaab would take to the base.
Ten minutes later, an up-armored truck broke away from the al-Shabaab convoy and raced to the fence line of the airfield, but the anti-tank ditch, dug just a week before, did its work. The truck was stuck in the ditch, the driver attempted to back out while Charlie Troop poured fire into the cab, killing him. Shortly after, al-Shabaab remotely detonated the vehicle-borne-improvised-explosive device (VBIED).
The explosion was massive, later confirmed to contain 4,000-5,000 pounds of explosives, and blew down about 200 meters of the fence line. Ten minutes later, another truck pulled up to the vast crater left by the explosion. A tarp was pulled off, and 12 al-Shabaab fighters got out. Yet, they were surprised, as they believed they were inside the base but were still outside the wire.
“They came out looking very surprised,” said Karcher. “The leader looked really pissed off. They were completely unorganized; they weren’t taking cover,” Karcher added.
Sniper teams quickly killed half of them while the rest took cover behind a berm, firing RPGs. Nagai then put the mortar teams in action. The Guardsmen had pre-registered multiple points for the mortar teams, so once the mortars began firing, the al-Shabaab fighters were wiped out. The truck was believed to have another unexploded VBIED inside and was subsequently destroyed by an Air Force drone.
No Americans were killed in the attack; although one suffered a concussion from the blast. “The success on that day was not due to luck or heroism,” said Nagai. “It was due to disciplined Soldiers executing a well-rehearsed battle drill that was exercised and refined over and over again.”
“There is no question that if it hadn’t been for Charlie Troop, al-Shabaab would have destroyed the aircraft and killed as many people as possible,” Karcher said.
Feature Image: Guidon bearer U.S. Army Pvt. Zach Turner, 253rd Transportation Company, stands at ease during roll call as more than 130 New Jersey Army National Guard Soldiers at Cape May Courthouse, N.J., deploy to support the Florida National Guard in anticipation of Hurricane Irma Sept. 8, 2017. (New Jersey National Guard photo by Mark C. Olsen/Released)
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