Manhunt on Gea Island
Tuesday, July 24th, 2007(This posting is part of Sidetrips, visits to unusual places and events. On this occasion, members of the Kwajalein Police Emergency Response Team were sent on an operation to a tiny island on the southwest side of Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands. See ‘Waiting for the Russians’ March 9, 2007, this blog for background.)
03 November 1987
0930, Kwajalein Island
I was just about to catch up on some overdue sleep when the phone rang. Headquarters notified me that a recall was in effect and I had to round up everyone in the building and meet at HQ wearing island gear and weapons belt.
Over the next fifteen minutes a dozen of us made it to the station where the Chief briefed us.
“Early this morning an officer on Carlos (island) spotted an armed caucasion with a long gun on Gea. We sent a squad out and they made contact with the subject before he escaped into the thick brush.
“You’ll join them shortly and make a sweep of the island. I don’t know what we’ve got so be careful out there. You have permission to use deadly force but only in self-defense. You’ll be going out on the Q-60 (a converted Miami drug boat). The van’s out back. Good luck.”
There was a lot of nervous chatter and joking as the boat pulled out for the trip across the lagoon. Every man thought about the possibilities.
The swells on the lagoon were unusually high but nothing like the Pacific once we crossed the reef into open water. An inflatable, which would bring us to shore, bounced along in the Q-60’s wake.
I went ashore on the second run, landing on a sandbar just south of Gea. Our base camp was on the southwest corner of the island under some coconut and pandanus trees. On the north side is Gea Pass, the entry to Kwajalein Lagoon for ships of all sizes. Carlos is only a short walk south on the reef at low tide. Gea is maybe 600 yards long and 125 yards wide. The vegetation, however, is very dense.
On 02 February, 1944, a small battle took place here as the American invasion of Kwajalein began. According to one report, a U.S. “landing team hit the southwest end of Gea at 0620. It headed north toward the lookout tower, where a single Japanese sentry was slain, and then combed south again. It then encountered and overcame about 20 Japanese in hand-to-hand fighting.”
Our operation was led by Lieutenant Billy Waugh, head of Special Ops (See photo, the man in the white shirt to my left). Waugh, a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, had a twenty-two year career in special forces. Even at fifty-eight, he remained in excellent physical condition. (In Soldier of Fortune’s February 2000 edition, pp. 67,73, Billy Waugh is on a list of SOG’s bravest men of the Vietnam conflict. According to the article, “It is doubtful that any man in SOG fought more battles, served on more assignments, and tempted fate more often than Sergeant Major William ‘Billy’ Waugh.’)
We formed a line on the sand, twenty men stretched from lagoon to ocean. Every third man carried a radio. We loaded our sidearms, drank some water and waited nervously for the sweep to start.
The radios crackled. “O.K. Let’s move out–slowly. Maintain the formation.” We hit the tree line at 1105. The heat and humidity increased dramatically in the stillness of the vegetation. Heavy undergrowth, vines and fallen, decaying trees hampered progress. The line didn’t remain straight very long. A couple of radios went dead. Communication was passed across island from man to man. My jumpsuit became soaked and salty sweat poured over my eyes.
The subject’s camp was in a clearing about seventy-five yards in, on the oceanside. It consisted of a cold campfire, some nylon rope, a pile of husked coconuts and a homemade husker constructed from a sharpened log and a forked tree branch.
We continued on, checking the undergrowth and in the tops of trees. making as much noise as possible, trying to flush the prey out. Three hours later we reached Gea Pass. There were no footprints on the sand, no evidence at all that anyone had been here. My guess is that he had a chance to make it to the pass and escape before the sweep began and it could be closed off. There was access to the water on the east side without leaving a trail.
After a thirty minute break, we made another sweep south with the same results. We were dragging by then and I had lost eight pounds. When the operation began, we were psyched. But the ending was a disappointment. It was a good workout, though, and we all made it back.
[Photo below shows E.R. Team sweeping Ennugarret Island on the northern atoll for Soviet electronic devices. photo by Ray Kania ]
