Rescue in Bosnia

Americans saluted Air Force fighter pilot Capt. Scott O'Grady, who survived after his plane was shot down over Bosnia in 1995. O'Grady insists the true heroes are the Marines who brought him home.

June 2, 1995, began as just another day on the calendar for Air Force fighter pilot Capt. Scott O'Grady. Supporting Operation Deny Flight, his job was to patrol the skies over Bosnia and prevent enemy air operations in the region's no-fly zone. Then his F-16 Fighting Falcon took a belly shot from a Serb SA-6 surface-to-air missile.

The wingman didn't see a parachute. But O'Grady was gone, and no one knew if he was dead or alive. U.S. and NATO troops were ready to pounce if the young fighter pilot had been taken captive. Among them were U.S. Marines onboard the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, which was patrolling the Adriatic Sea off the Bosnian coast. As the next few days passed, they trained relentlessly, eager to transition into actual rescue mode and recover the downed pilot. "We rehearsed constantly," recalls Maj. Gen. Martin Berndt, then a colonel and commander of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard the Kearsarge. "We got to the point where everybody could do everything they needed to do without even thinking."

All Systems Go. Finally, at 2 a.m. June 8, Berndt overheard a radio transmission between an F-16 pilot and someone on the ground. O'Grady was alive and in a pine forest south of the Bosnian city of Banja Luka. Berndt immediately rallied his crisis-action team in the ship's war room, where they waited impatiently for the "go" order from Adm. Leighton "Snuffy" Smith, commander of NATO's southern forces.

"We were on the phone with Adm. Smith almost immediately," Berndt says. "The only real question was if we should launch immediately or wait until we had the appropriate air-defense systems available. We decided to execute in the early daylight hours because we could minimize the risk with air support in place."

When the rescue mission launched at about 5 a.m., an interservice airborne armada of more than 40 aircraft took to the skies. It included land-based NATO AWACS air-traffic-control planes; Air Force F-15s, F-16s and A-10s; Navy F-14s and F-18s; four AV-8 Marine Harriers; two AH-1W Cobras; and two CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters. All were assigned to the Kearsarge.

The sky was clear when the Marine aircraft lifted off the Kearsarge and turned toward the rising sun. Onboard Dash-2, one of the two massive Super Stallions, Berndt and his team circled off the Bosnian coast for a half hour, waiting for the fighters to arrive. With air support in place, the helicopters continued east. Less than an hour later, they reached O'Grady's location, but their hearts sank when they saw that the landing zone was cloaked in heavy fog.

"You couldn't see the ground; there was no visibility whatsoever," Berndt recalls. "Then a small hole opened up, and Maj. Bill Tarbutton, the lead CH-53 pilot, literally stood his helicopter on its tail and dropped through the opening like it was sliding down a rope."

Wild-Eyed Apparition. Immediately after the first CH-53 landed, 20 Marines clambered out and secured the perimeter. Dash-2 followed, unloading more Marines and their 50-mm machine guns. Before they could even begin their search, a wild-eyed O'Grady, armed with his issue handgun, appeared like an apparition from the forest and ran toward Dash-2. Unable to communicate over the rotor noise and not taking any chances, crew chief Sgt. Scott Phister slapped the weapon from O'Grady's hand before shoving the bewildered airman into the helicopter.

"He looked like a guy who had been in a forest for several days," Berndt remembers. "He hadn't shaved in a week, and he was very thin and pale. Other than that, he was in good health. The way he came running across the field showed he didn't have a back injury or a broken leg, so that was good news."

A crewman wrapped the shivering pilot in Berndt's jacket as the Marines jumped back onboard the helicopters. On the ground for no more than three minutes, the operation was textbook, Berndt says.

Soon O'Grady was eating a sandwich - a welcome relief from six days of bugs and grass. But the mission wasn't over yet. Both helicopters had to dodge Serb missiles on their return flights, and Dash-2 absorbed small-arms fire. One nearly-spent round struck a crewmember's canteen before falling harmlessly to the chopper's floor. About 45 minutes later, the rescuers were back aboard the Kearsarge. From lift-off to return, the entire operation took just over two hours.

O'Grady soon captured America's headlines and heart. A dizzying whirlwind of press conferences and appearances on television talk shows followed his rescue. Calling O'Grady "one amazing kid" at a White House luncheon, President Clinton said the fighter pilot "made all Americans proud." Attempting to deflect the accolades from a country hungry for heroes, the airman paid tribute to those he said were at the "pointy end of the spear."

"They came in here, they risked their lives to get me," O'Grady said. "Those are the people on the USS Kearsarge, the men and women of the Navy and Marine Corps who came in there and saved me. If you want to find some heroes, that's where you should look. A hero is somebody who helps somebody else. These boys, they weren't doing anything for themselves, just for me. The Marines gave me a chance to live. They'll always be my heroes."