From the ANI Archives: Iraq War Part 3

The chronological trawl through the Journal of Australian Naval Institute has reached 2003 and this March is the 23^rd anniversary of the commencement of the Iraq War. As with the Journal coverage of the Gulf War, ANI members who played key roles in the conflicts provided the magazine with first-hand accounts for its readers.

This week From the ANI Archive reproduces an article on the service of the Clearance Diving Team 3 in the Iraq War by its commanding officer, the then Lieutenant Commander Scott Craig. Next The week will be an article by Lieutenant Commander Ivan Ingham, the gunnery officer of HMAS Anzac.

Clearance Diving Team Three’s Contribution to Operation Falconer

Navy Clearance Divers have always been the Australian Defence Forces’ specialist divers and have, since the inception of the Branch, operated all in-service diving equipment to the full extent of its operational capacity. Nevertheless, the primary focus of a diver is to perform Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD). This role is conducted at sea in ships, in the oceans (particularly the vulnerable approaches to ports and anchorages), and onshore in port facilities. installations and the littoral environment associated with amphibious operations. The Clearance Diving community represents the largest single ADF organisation with a direct and primary interest in the conduct of EOD.

The RAN established its Clearance Diving Branch in 1951. Initially, the Branch drew on experience of the Royal Navy Combined Operations Pilotage (or P Parties) of World War II, that had been responsible for clandestine reconnaissance and obstacle clearance in a maritime environment. Similar combined USN and RAN units operated in the South Pacific theatre and also provided further examples of potential tasking and methods of operation. In its infancy, the Branch also found inspiration in the exploits of many RANR officers who served with British forces during World War II. Pioneers in render safe and disposal of enemy sea mines and other ordnance, these officers were amongst the most decorated of all Australian servicemen in the war. Several of these men served on in the RAN after the war and were directly involved in establishing the Branch.

Between its inception and the war in Vietnam, the Branch was kept busy growing its numbers and meeting the demands of domestic diving and peacetime EOD tasks. In Vietnam divers served from a base in Vung Tau providing specialist EOD and diving support to the Australian and Allied forces. Apart from the more recognisable tasking of providing ships with defence against enemy swimmer attack, these personnel were frequently assigned in support of US operations in the Vietnamese delta region. They conducted numerous operations in the field, often coming under fire.

Several divers were decorated for, amongst other things, capturing an enemy diver and conduct of high-risk tunnel clearances. Clearance Diving Team Three (CDT3) received a United States Congressional Unit citation for its conduct during the Vietnam War.

In peace and wartime, the Branch continued to provide support to the RAN’s non-warlike activities. Most notably, it often responded at short notice to calls for specialist high-risk and psychologically demanding dive tasks such as deep diving in the high altitude dams of the Snowy River project and body recoveries post the West Gate and Tasman Bridge disasters and Cyclone Tracy. Following the 1978 Sydney Hilton bombing, and the establishment of an ADF counter-terrorist (CT) capability in 1980, divers were tasked with performing CT duties with the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR). This was to prove an enduring task that would extend for the next 15 years and result in over 120 sailors and officers serving in SASR CT Squadrons. In 1988 Minewarfare and Clearance Diving Officers were attached to the RN Mine Countermeasures force in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War. The force was expanded to include other European nations and tasking included the clearing of the Shah Allum minefield, located with a mine strike on the USS Samuel B Roberts. In 1991, with war imminent in the Persian Gulf, a CDT was tasked with support of coalition forces involved in planning for amphibious operations. The USN specifically requested Australian divers whom they recognised as world leaders in conduct of clandestine reconnaissance and clearance operations in a shallow water mine-threat environment. Like its predecessor in Vietnam, the CDT that deployed to the Gulf War was recognised with a Unit Citation as well as many individual decorations for conspicuous service.

Diving detachments and individuals have supported almost all post-Gulf War ADF operations including: the search for and destruction of chemical filled ordnance in Iraq and RAN operations in the Persian Gulf, Somalia and Bougainville. CDTs conducted clandestine reconnaissance and explosive ordnance disposal operations in direct support of Australian led UN Forces in East Timor. Several divers were also decorated for their efforts during the early days of the UN deployment. In 1999 the first Huon class coastal minehunter entered RAN service. These ships represent a major contribution to the war fighting capability of the ADF and incorporate state of the art technology for conducting mine countermeasures operations at sea. Each ship has one Minewarfare Clearance Diving Officer (MCDO) and five divers posted as part of the ship’s company; these officers may also be posted to any of the other officer billets in these ships, including CO and XO. Following the terrorist strikes of 11 September 2001 the Australian Government moved to establish a second counter-terrorism Tactical Assault Group. This unit mirrors that maintained by the Special Air Service Regiment and is part of 4 RAR Commando. Like their predecessors of two decades ago, young divers and officers are meeting the selection criteria for service in this Special Forces unit and are contributing to the defence of Australia against terrorism.

Only the most dedicated of the Navy’s personnel choose to pursue the path of a diver. Sailors transferring from any other Navy category must revert in rank to Able Seaman if they want to become a diver. Additionally, all personnel joining the Branch, including officers, must undergo acceptance testing and complete the arduous requirements of the Clearance Diving qualification course. These demands placed on potential applicants to a category are probably not seen anywhere else in the ADF outside of the Special Forces. In the present international climate of uncertainty and widespread threat of terrorism, divers represent a valuable and extremely flexible asset for both the ADF and the nation.

Operation Falconer

Not surprisingly, when faced with the risk of conflict in Iraq, the ADF again called upon divers to meet the challenges of war. As has often been the case since Vietnam, CDT3 was formed to meet the demand. Team Three is a composite team created, in time of conflict or other great need, with personnel from each of the two standing Australian Clearance Diving Teams. CDT3 served in Vietnam, in the early days of diving support to the SASR counter terrorist Squadron, and in Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War.

The men of the latest CDT3 deployed in support of Operation Falconer by RAAF C130 on 22 February 2003. Before this, the same personnel had attended an exercise with coalition units on the US west coast. Having left for the exercise six days into the new year, and only managing to achieve one week at home before the re-deployment, the Team was essentially away from home for much of the first half of 2003.

The Team’s operations can be divided into two phases, the pre-war deployment and operations during the war. The Team staged through Bahrain arriving on 24 February to be met by an advance party who had pre-deployed. There they linked up with over 40 tonnes of equipment and stores that had been shipped to the theatre onboard HMAS Kanimbla. Coupled with over 20 tonnes of equipment that had travelled with the Team by C130, the mere scale of equipment to be sorted and re-packed represented the first challenge. Over the course of six days the Team broke down the entire load and re-palletised it for staging north.

Much of the load was embarked in the LPD USS Gunston Hall, that would house the majority of the coalition mine countermeasures divers. However, with the exception of the Team storeman who boarded as caretaker of the equipment. CDT3 was destined to use a less orthodox mode of transport into war. In early March, the Team staged into Kuwait by air and took up residence at the Kuwait naval base on the coast not far from Kuwait City. Here they plunged into a constant stream of equipment preparation and training; a significant amount of the training involved chemical detection, decontamination and explosive ordnance disposal. At one stage during this phase Kanimbla closed the coast and the Team’s Army four wheel drive vehicles and fast insertion craft were landed, along with two divers who had been embarked to sort through the considerable explosive stores that were earmarked for use by the Team.

The Prime Minister committed Australian forces to support any action taken by the coalition against Iraq on 18 March. The Team was ordered to move north that night and the next day joined a convoy snaking its way through the outskirts of Kuwait City and into the desert plains south of the Iraqi border. At tactical assembly area BULLRUSH, a former US Marine Corp desert camp surrounded by berms, the Team began the tense wait for commencement of hostilities.

When the war commenced, the divers were in the path of Iraqi missiles that were fired south in an attempt to strike coalition forces arrayed in the desert. Over the course of several days the Team adopted full protective measures against chemical attack, donning respirators (gas masks) and charcoal impregnated clothing eleven times in the first 24 hours. On many occasions, the shock wave of missile impacts rocked the divers huddled within the flimsy accommodation tent. Rotating through duties manning observation posts and vehicle checkpoints as they were, most personnel witnessed at least one or two explosions in the night skies indicating soft-kills of in coming missiles by Patriot anti-air missiles.

While their mates were ducking missiles in the desert, other divers were embarked in a frigate in the Navy’s Task Group sailing the Northern Arabian Gulf. On 20 March, this detachment of four men staged forward from Kanimbla in support of a boarding party that had made the unexpected discovery of an entire barge full of concealed anti-shipping mines. The divers drew alongside in a fast boat and quickly linked with USN EOD personnel, who then made short work of searching for booby traps and certifying the mines safe for transport to Kuwait for further research.

Meanwhile, the Team in the desert were ordered further forward and made their way, again by convoy, across a rough road hewn from the desert by British Army Engineers. There followed a short respite at another assembly area, this time bearing the name Viking, within sight of Iraq. A spectacular series of explosions lit the evening sky and staccato reports of contact over the US Marine radio operations net confirmed to all present that they were about to enter the war. On the morning of 24 March, the Team crossed through a breach in the berms and tank traps marking the border of Iraq.

In a short time, the Team had established their headquarters and accommodation in a decrepit warehouse within the old port at Umm Qasr and had linked up with the remainder of the Coalition mine countermeasures diving force. The American and British units had been embarked in Gunston Hall for almost a month and had finally been inserted into Umm Qasr in USN MH53 Sea Stallion helicopters after the Australians had arrived by road. In the dark hours of the morning after their arrival, a number CTD 3 divers slipped below the coffee coloured surface of the harbour and by touch alone located a sunken minelayer with four live ship-killing mines onboard.

Over the course of several days, fighting against extreme tides and sub-surface conditions of zero visibility, a number of divers proved their endurance and courage as they wrestled mines into position for lifting and transportation to a safe detonation site. When the job was done and a series of spectacular explosions marked the mines’ disposal, the Australians could rest happy in the knowledge that they had located and cleared the only mines to be found in the waters of Umm Qasr harbour.

While some of their mates were risking the murky waters of the harbour to allow the passage of humanitarian aid, other divers from the Team joined British Commandos in the town of Umm Qasr to clear unpredictable ordnance that threatened the lives of the local populace. In one memorable task, a patrol of divers helped sweep a schoolyard for ordnance and located a hitherto undiscovered cache of mortars. The mortars could be moved, but a pair of rocket propelled grenades also found in the school were too dangerous to move. The Australians quickly cleared a huge crowd of Iraqis, mainly women and children, to create a safe area for demolition of the rocket-propelled grenades. After a successful clearance, they moved on to several other EOD tasks, including the discovery of a cache of 25 sea mines hidden in the deserts to the north of Umm Qasr.

As the remainder of Umm Qasr harbour was cleared by divers, and the grain terminal was checked for ordnance and booby traps to allow the flow of Australian wheat, a series of patrols participated in rendering safe and disposal of most of the sea mines that had been located in and around Umm Qasr. Clearing a disposal site for this task proved a unique challenge when some of the men had to turn their hands to droving and move a large flock of local sheep to safety before setting their counter-mining charges.

Soon after arriving in Iraq, another patrol of divers encountered the challenge of dealing with a civilian populous deprived of reliable food and water supplies. Called upon to escort a defence media liaison team, the patrol found themselves the only coalition presence at the first water distribution in Umm Qasr post the invasion. Several hundred desperate Iraqi civilians of all ages crowded around the men and their vehicles, scrambling for the water and begging for food. Scuffles broke out in the crowd and were it not for the calm, disciplined response by the divers, the situation might easily have escalated. Early in the task at Umm Qasr, the divers who had been embarked in ships and had helped clear the barge-load of captured Iraqi mines, joined the rest of the Team ashore. Consequently, on 27 March the Team became the biggest CDT3 to ever be deployed with a total of 32 personnel. Apart from divers, the Team has a robust support structure including a logistics officer, storeman. communications specialist, PO Bosun and underwater medic.

All of these personnel encountered the challenge of operating in an environment seldom faced by naval personnel. Although the port of Umm Qasr was considered secured, the nearby townsite was not and Ba’ath Party loyalist continued to operate there. Most nights were punctuated by gunfire and extensive fighting continued on the nearby Al Faw peninsula for over a week after the Team took residence in the port. Personnel soon grew used to the pressure waves from artillery and mortar tire rocking the sheet metal walls of the warehouse.

Before long, only the frequent missile alerts and associated gas alarms generated a quick reaction. The Commander of the RAN Task Group at that time, Captain Peter Jones experienced one of these when, five minutes after his helicopter touched down for a visit to the Team, an incoming missile alert was sounded and all personnel rushed to don full protective equipment. Subsequent coalition reports indicated at least one missile had impacted in the vicinity of Umm Qasr during these early days.

To much international fanfare, the port of Umm Qasr was declared ‘green’, or open, on 9 April. The divers had no time to rest though, because this announcement merely heralded the start of their second task. Having stepped up a headquarters detachment on 9 April, the Team staged forward on 11 April. In one 24 hour period, they manhandled their entire 50 or so tonnes of equipment onto several trucks and convoyed it 20km north to the port of Khawr Al Zuhayr, known to the resident British Commandos as ‘the KAZ’. Here they took up residence in another, less worn warehouse, shared with several hundred British Royal Marine Commandos.

Once established on the ground, the Team again linked with American and British mine countermeasures divers to clear the harbour. Concurrently, the Australians engaged in a constant round of explosive ordnance disposal patrols on the Al Faw peninsula. These tasks were completed in a tactical fashion, as the Al Faw was a coalition ‘go zone’, meaning the threat justified ground forces having the ability to call in air strikes if they were under attack. The divers prepared for these patrols with detailed planning and complex orders before they drove from the British camp where they lived and made the long haul out to Al Faw.

When they reached their area of operations, they trod carefully wary of the land mine threat and used minor infantry tactics to cover each other as they searched for and disposed of unpredictable ordnance. It was challenging work but the divers lapped it up, seeing this as a great chance to employ well-rehearsed skills. The Khawr Abd Allah flood plain, running the entire southern coastline of the Al Faw peninsula, was cleared by the Team and reported as complete on 28 April.

Subsequently, 1 UK. Divisional Headquarters requested the Team’s specialist knowledge to deal with a massive maritime ordnance cache located 20 km inland from the KAZ. The vast bunker system lay adjacent to the KAZ helicopter facility and included the Iraqi Navy’s mining school. Every bunker in the complex contained ordnance and extensive stockpiles also lay within sand berms scattered indiscriminately throughout the area.

Like transits to the Al Faw, movement to the KAZ helicopter facility required patrols to transit in convoy and in a tactical fashion. At the site, security was always a consideration as fencing had been looted and the local populace wandered unhindered throughout the area. The Team Command Group and patrol commanders kept close watch on threat assessments and adjusted the force protection posture accordingly. Nevertheless, the threat from paramilitary forces and terrorists did not recede throughout the deployment in Iraq so patrols were always obliged to maintain readiness.

With mechanical handling equipment at a premium, much of the work at the KAZ helicopter facility was done by hand. While one patrol established a perimeter for security, another patrol would spend a long, hot and arduous day lifting, shifting and stacking heavy pieces of ordnance like Russian manufactured anti-submarine mortars. This task, along with rendering safe a selection of captured enemy mines for recovery to Australia, kept the men busy until 8 May when the Team finally completed operations. Following their extended field deployment the divers then required four days to de-service and load-out for the final departure from Iraq by road on 12 May 2003.

A less publicised but possibly very important achievement of the Team was their contribution to intelligence gathering. After entering Iraq, CDT3 identified, rendered safe and recovered an assortment of enemy equipment that was prized and highly sought-after by Australian intelligence. Electronic devices, communications equipment and hard to acquire threat weaponry, including numbers of missiles and their components, were obtained by the Team and passed into the hands of intelligence specialists.

Conclusion

A number of pertinent statistics reflect the scale of CDT3’s achievements in this war. The distance covered in convoys during two tactical lodgements was 213km, taking the entire Team and their extensive equipment load from Kuwait naval base, through TAA BULLRUSH, into Umm Qasr and then on to KAZ. They endured over 30 missile alerts and spent seven days in chemical protective clothing. Mine countermeasures diving resulted in a total searched area of 2,550,000 square metres and the Team were the only unit to locate mines in an Iraqi port. These four mines were destroyed and another 20 unknown contacts were countermined as the Team responded to USN unmanned vehicle or marine mammal searches. In total, 34 tactical explosive ordnance disposal patrols were completed, with 2,100km travelled during the patrols. The Team’s patrols eventually cleared unexploded ordnance from 135 square kilometres of Iraqi territory. Over 4,000 items of ordnance were located and destroyed in addition to hundreds of thousands of small arms ammunition rounds.

About the Author

Captain Scott Craig DSM RAN joined the RAN in 1987 as a seaman officer. After completing a BA at the ADFA he commenced specialist seaman training. He completed Clearance Diving training in 1995 and served in operational and training roles. Captain Craig has held several command positions throughout his career, notably command of AUSCDT 3 for which he was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal for distinguished leadership in action.

Captain Craig was later the Commander of the Australian Mine Warfare and Clearance Diving Task Group and had a posting to the USA as the Assistant Naval Attaché before being promoted to Captain and returning to Australia as the Director of Policing and Security for Navy. He was the Director of Special Operations Development and then a Chief of Staff in the National Naval Shipbuilding group before transferring from full time service in October 2023.