The September 11th attack
Pilots report direct hits, high success rate
By Susan Sevareid
Associated Press
ABOARD THE USS ENTERPRISE — U.S. commanders yesterday reviewed their bombing raids on Afghanistan, showing video clips of battle damage taken by infrared cameras aboard F-14 and F/A-18 fighters. The runs had a "very high success rate," they said.
Associated Press
In Washington, Pentagon officials said the attacks yesterday, the second day of raids, included five long-range bombers, including a pair of B-2 stealth bombers and three B-1B's.
Ordnance is pulled from storage on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise yesterday in the northern Indian Ocean.
They joined 10 strike planes launched from aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea in sending bombs and missiles at air defense and other military targets across Afghanistan. Two U.S. naval vessels and one submarine launched 15 Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The pilots, who had flown about 70 sorties Sunday in the first, 15-hour wave of military operations, reloaded precision-guided bombs late yesterday and headed back out after darkness fell.
Every few minutes well into this morning, another catapulted off the flight deck.
Pilots and commanding officers spoke of several direct hits on Sunday.
The captain of the USS Enterprise said the infrared camera images showed a "very high success rate in hitting our targets," with one strike deeply penetrating an underground target that he would not reveal.
The captain said the pilot involved in that strike told him the hillside opened up with small arms fire immediately afterward.
Referring to another image, he said it showed the bombing of an anti-aircraft missile storage site.
The initial explosion was followed by a second explosion that sent at least one missile from the site into the air.
The captain said return fire also came in the form of one SA3 and shoulder-fired unguided missiles, which he described as "stupid missiles."
The military made "extraordinary efforts" to limit collateral damage, an admiral told reporters yesterday. "Our objective is to terrorize the terrorists."
The U.S. military, describing the battle as unique from past wars, is keeping security extraordinarily tight; some can be identified by first name only.
The 15 hours of flight operations had begun with an announcement over the aircraft carrier's loudspeaker: "To our air wing, godspeed."
The Enterprise is the flagship of a battle group that includes about a dozen ships and 7,500 personnel.
It was just two days into its trip home from the Gulf when the terror attacks on the United States hit.
It quickly turned around.
On the Enterprise flight deck yesterday, pilots were reloading their weapons should further strikes be ordered.
Some of the bombs carried scribbled reminders of the victims of the Sept. 11 terror strikes on the United States — "NYPD" and "FDNY" and "4WTC" — for those who died in the collapse of the World Trade Center.
One said "Doug Cherry Jr., 9-11-01."
A Douglas MacMillan Cherry of Maplewood, N.J., vice president of the professional services group Aon Corp, has been reported among the dead from the World Trade Center.
