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Asfaras terraingoes, itwas proba-bly one of the most extreme areasIveseen since Ivebeen here.

Minutes before the Chinookslanded, the F-15s were calledaway to provide support to anoth-er group of troops engaged in a

firefight with Taliban fighters.The CH-47s landed in the valleyand dropped off the troops. Min-utes after they pulled away, theambush began.

Fighters in the nearby moun-tains fired on them using AK47s,heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

How air support flattened the foes of ambushed, outmanned troops

blown, slugfest, back-and-forth,rounds-smacking-right-over-your-head battle.

Coordinated attackFormorethan a week, thetroops

at Combat Outpost Kalagush hadreceived intelligence reports abouthundreds of fighters gatheringnear Do Ab. The local AfghanNational Police commander toldthe Americans he might be over-run by the fighters. Reconnais-

sance flights were inconclusive.Some of the American troopsworried that the insurgents wouldbe in prime striking ground ofKalagush if they overran Do Ab.They asked repeatedly to seewhatthesituationin thevillage wasbutnever received clearance fromtheir commanders, Delaney said.

And then, on themorning of May25, Delaney was on his way tobreakfast when he saw McCaffreysprinting toward him. McCaffreytold Delaney to call their comman-der, Maj. Raed Gyekis.

The airmen were going to join ascout platoon from 1st Battalion,

133rd Infantry Regiment, andabout 20 Afghan soldiers on athree-day reconnaissance missionof Do Ab, Gyekis told them. Theyhad 52 minutes to get their gearand report to the Chinooks.

The troops werent sure what toexpect but few thought theydface such a coordinated ambush.

I kind of thought wed land,walk up to the district center,shake hands with thesubgovernorand call it good, Delaney said.

As the helicopters ferried thetroopstoward thearea,two F-15Esoverhead were already in place toprovide close-air support. Lt. Col.

Daren Sorenson, a Strike Eaglepilot and the deputy commander ofthe 455th Expeditionary Opera-tions Group, was struck by howsevere the terrain was, how steepthe canyon walls were.

I knew if these guys got in a bigfight, it would be an extraordinarychallenge to help them out, he said.

By Scott Fontaine

sfontaine@militarytimes.com

The two Chinooks landed onthe only flat piece of groundin the valley. Steep, rockymountainsides surroundedthe area. Americans hadnt

set foot therefor almost twoyears.It was the perfect place for an

ambush.As soon as the helicopters took

off, hundreds of Taliban fightersattacked with heavy machineguns, rocket-propelled grenadesand mortars. Radio interceptsindicated they had been waiting

days tolure, trap and kill the forceof American and Afghan troops and they had the advantage ofnumbers, position and firepower.

But when the attack ended 13hours later, not a single Americanor Afghan troop was killed. Nonewas injured. About 270 Talibanlay dead.

The story of the May 25 attacknear the village of Do Ab in Nuris-tan province, nestled amid theHindu Kush mountains, demon-strates the decisive role air powercan play when a ground force is

badly outnumbered and isolatedfrom backup troops.

It also shows how two tacticalair control party airmen can turnthe tide of a battle.

Those TACPs were Tech. Sgt.Tavis Delaney and Senior AirmanMike McCaffrey, bothof theWash-ington Air National Guards 116th

Air Support Operations Squadron.The pair called in 18 bomb

strikesin a battlethat used14 air-frames from all four services.Delaneys actions that day earnedhima nomination fora SilverStar,

the nations third-highest honorfor valor.They owned the high ground,

Delaney said. They had firesuperiority. They had hundreds ofpeople.And we killed almost all ofthem and didnt lose a single

American in seven hours of bat-tle. It was seven hours of full-

PHOTOS COURTESY OF TECH. SGT. TAVIS DELANEY

A 500-pound bomb is dropped along the ridgeline during the battle in Nuristanprovince, Afghanistan. Master Sgt. Rob Lee, left, Senior Airman Mike McCaffrey and

Tech. Sgt. Tavis Delaney coordinated airstrikes that saved 60 U.S. and Afghantroops. Delaney was nominated for a Silver Star.

22 Air Force Times August 15, 2011

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Soldiers hit the ground andreturned fire but bullets werecoming from all directions. Themortars landedcloser to thetroopswith each shot. Only a few nearbyrocks provided any bit of cover.

They knew where wed land

it was the only place to landaround there so they pre-regis-tered their mortars for that spot,McCaffrey said.

Calls for backupAn MC-12 Liberty was circling

overhead. The crews intendedmission involved collecting intelli-

gence but when the troops werepinned down, they became a cru-cial link for mounting a defense.

Delaney yelled into his radiothat rounds were coming in fromall directions and called for close-air support. The Liberty crewrelayed the situation to MasterSgt. Rob Lee, another member ofthe 116th ASOS who was coordi-nating aircraft from the tacticaloperations center at Kalagush.

Lee sent the request for close-airsupport up the chain, and twoNavy F/A-18s arrived to help.

Delaney and McCaffrey, though,couldnt contact the Super Hornetsbecause the steep mountains pre-vented line-of-sight communications.So Delaney passed the firing coordi-nates to the MC-12 crew, whichrelayed them to theNavy fighters.

They went to work just think-ing it would be another day cruis-ing overhead and sipping coffee,Delaney said of the MC-12 crew.But those guys absolutely saved

the day.A Super Hornet dropped a bomb

on the eastern ridgeline, but theenemy firing continued. At aboutthe same time, AH-64 Apaches andOH-58 Kiowasarrived on scene andbegan firing on enemy positions tothe west of the troopslocation.

An hour later, Delaney called inanother airstrike in the easternmountains. The gunfire subsidedfor a few minutes, and the troopsscrambled into three nearbyqalats Afghan mud huts withbrick-walled animal pens.

The troops took up a defensiveposition inside the buildings andtraded intermittent fire. Delaneytold McCaffrey to start calculatingcoordinates to drop a bomb onevery dominant terrain featurearound them. Two F-15Es arrivedto replace the Navy fighters.

McCaffreysat on theground and

started crunching the numbers.Bulletspopped all aroundhim, yethe continued to use his laserrangefinder and GPS targetingdevice to build attack coordinates.Occasionally he would see a muz-zle flash in the distance, pick uphis M4, return fire and then goback to calculating airstrikes.

I dont really know how toexplain it, McCaffrey said. If Iwent into the qalat, my role was

done. I couldnt help my team. Iknew if I got up and moved, Icouldve been hit. I knew whatneeded to be done, and I knew Ihad to do it.

Delaney received an updatefrom the MC-12 overhead: TheTaliban were rearming in a cavecomplex in the mountains andpreparing for a second attack.McCaffrey calculated the coordi-nates for an airstrike.

The cave entrance sat behind aprotective wall, and surroundingridgelines made it a tough target.

Sorenson and his weapons systemofficer, Capt. Mark Rioux, madeseveral approaches until theyfound the perfect angle.

The 2,000-pound bomb demol-ished the cave.

As soon as that drop went off,everything went insane, Delaneysaid. It was like shaking ahornets nest.

Danger closeD el an ey a nd Mc Ca ff rey

remained, calculating airstrikecoordinates and dodging enemy

gunfire. Sorenson, who remainedin radio contact with the airmenduring this phase of the battle,said they werent calm, but theywerent freaking out.

You could tell they were under alot of stress, he said. It wasntpanic, but they knew they were ina bad place.

The ground troops continued toreceive incoming fire from alldirections. The aircrews overheadcouldnt pinpoint where it wascoming from, so Sorenson offeredto provide a show of force.

He banked his Strike Eagle intothe valley and roared directly overthe Taliban positions. The anglesat which the jet dove, buzzed theground and climbed again laterled the troops to nickname it theDeath Star run.

That was definitely the mostdramatic show of force Ive everdone, Sorenson said. And since

then, I havent done anythingclose to that.

He provided two more shows offorce before leaving the scene.

As the hours wore on, the Tal-iban fighters continued firing onthe troops and the airmen con-tinued to call in airstrikes. TheF-15s eventually dropped all 12bombs they carried and still theTaliban fighters were closing in.

Sorenson, who has deployed sixtimes, had never flown a sortieduring which every bomb was

dropped.

As quick asthey could giveus targets, wewould roll inand dropthem, he said.

After abouttwo hours, theground troopswere runningout of water

and ammunition. Two BlackHawks tried to land to drop offsupplies, but heavy gunfire limit-ed what they could do.

The Taliban continued toadvance. Delaney sought theground commanders permissionto drop two danger-close bombsat targetsabout 200 yards away. Ifthe calculations by Delaney andMcCaffrey were off, Americantroops could die.

Everyone on the ground wasordered to take cover. One of twoF-16s that recently arrived over-head dropped a bomb. Delaneysaid a prayer as he waited for theimpact.

Rocks flew overhead and dust

covered the area, but no Americantroops were hurt. The TACPscalled in another danger-closestrike several minutes later.

On the offensiveDelaney realized the ground

troops needed more help. Herequested an AC-130, an airborne

forward air controller and twomore TACPs. A quick-responseforce of special operations forcesand Afghan commandos arrived ina Chinook, and the firefight flaredback up.

A pair of F-15s replaced the twothat had used all their bombs. Thenew Strike Eagles dropped twomore bombs, which helped quietthe gunfire.

When a Chinook carrying thespecial operators arrived, the fire-fight flared again. An AC-130 soonarrived. The ground troops placedinfrared strobes, and the Spooky

pounded the northern ridgelinewith its 105mm cannons.

Thats when we felt the tideswere turning, McCaffrey said. Itwas like, holy crap, were going tomake it through this.

The troops hadnt realized it atthe time, but they had largelyrepelled the ambush.

The Americans then went onoffense.

Delaney, McCaffrey and an AirForce Special Operations combatcontroller divided the battlefield.The special operator called in

AC-130 strikes on targets to theirnorth. Delaney and McCaffreycalled in enemy positions to thesouth, west and east.

For the next five hours, the air-craft hunted down the Talibanfighters trying to escape. A second

AC-130 arrived on scene, and thetwo gunships circled overhead,locked onto Taliban hiding in themountains and opened fire.Through night-vision goggles,Delaney could see the planes mas-sive infrared spotlights searchingforfighters andthenthe heat ofthe

bullets raining down in the spot. Avoice in his radio then called in thenumber of enemies killed.

It was one of the most awe-some, awe-inspiring and intimi-dating sights Ive ever seen,Delaney said.

Thirteen hours after theambushbegan, the planes overhead couldfind no more enemies to target.The battle was over.

The troops waited for a counter-attack, but none came. When theymarched toward Do Ab that morn-ing, they passed spots on the

mountainsides where Talibanfighters had already been buried.Delaney thought back to some-

thing he told himself when thebattle reached its fiercest:

I remember thinking to myself,Im going to kill every last one ofthese bastards who dare raisetheir hand against us.

August 15, 2011 Air Force Times 23

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AIR FORCE

Senior Airman Mike McCaffrey calculated where close-air support should strikeduring a tense ambush in Afghanistan.

Sorenson

POWERFROMABOVEAir power saved outmanned ground troops inthe battle of Do Ab. At least 14 airframes from all four services were used during the13-hour battle:

Airframe Service

F-15 Air ForceF-16 Air ForceF/ A-18 Nav yAC-130 Air ForceB -1 A ir Fo rc eEC-130 Air ForceMC-12 Air Force

Airframe Service

MC-130 Air ForceMQ-1 Air ForceMQ-9 Air ForceAH-64 ArmyOH-58 ArmyRC-12 ArmyEA-6B MarineCorps

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