U S Marines In Grenada 1983

On 21 October 1983, following the death of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, the leaders of the six small nations forming the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States voted to intervene militarily to restore order in Grenada. As none possessed the forces necessary to carry out a successful operation, the United States, fearing for its citizens on the island, and wanting to curb Cuba's growing influence, decided to get involved. This book provides a day-by-day account of the US invasion of Grenada, focusing on the units and forces deployed. Numerous contemporary photographs and colour plates detail the uniforms and equipment of the US, Cuban and Caribbean forces.

This short study of the role of the U.S. Marines in Operation Urgent Fury is in some ways an experiement in the writing of comtemporary military history. The near-coincident Beirut deployment and Grenada intervention presented us with the problem and opportunity of collecting operational history in real time. The brief account was prepared within a few weeks of the events it describes and relies heavily upon the first hand testimony of the participants. The viewpoint presented, therefore, is very much that of the participants and the story is told almost entirely in terms of their perceptions and beliefs.

Why did the United States invade the sovereign state of Grenada in October 1983, risking world condemnation and the possible escalation of violence outside the borders of the tiny Caribbean island? According to the contributors to this book, the invasion-code-named "Urgent Fury"--was a product of the increasing concern with political instability in

One of the only two foreign journalists present in Grenada for the U.S. invasion provides a firsthand account of the invasion and the immediate events and history leading up to it.

Operation URGENT FURY: The Invasion of Grenada, October 1983, prepared by Richard W. Stewart, is an edited extract of Center historian Edgar Raines' larger account of U.S. Army operations on Grenada entitled The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, October-November 1983. The brochure tells the story of the U.S. Army's "no-notice" joint force contingency operation on the island of Grenada. Because of a deteriorating political situation on Grenada after the deposing and execution of the leader of the government by its own military, the perceived need to deal firmly with Soviet and Cuban influence in the Caribbean, and the potential for several hundred U.S. citizens becoming hostages, the Ronald W. Reagan administration launched an invasion of the island with only a few days for the military to plan operations. While the U.S. military's capabilities were never in doubt, the unexpectedly strong Cuban and Grenadian resistance in the first two days of the operation and the host of American military errors in planning, intelligence, communications, and logistics highlighted the dangers of even small contingency operations. As the first joint operation attempted since the end of the Vietnam War, the invasion of Grenada also underscored the problems the U.S. Army faced in trying to work in a joint environment with its Air Force, Navy, and Marine counterparts.