Hancock, Frank Operation Desert Storm

How Two Young Intelligence Analysts and an Infantry Battalion Changed the War in Iraq

Operation Desert Storm tells perhaps the most incredible story of the Gulf War that was never told. It describes two young soldiers from the intelligence section of the 1-327 Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, Captain Jose Delgado and Sergeant Jesus Gonzalez, who solved an intelligence puzzle that none of their superiors had recognised. This crucial discovery came after the 101st Airborne Division's plans for the attack on Iraq had been finalised and changed the course of Operation Desert Storm. The 1-327 Infantry was also the leading unit in the largest air assault (using helicopters) in US history. The 101st Airborne Division was a unique army division due to its more than 300 helicopters. General Schwarzkopf's Hail Mary plan to deploy the 101st Division for an air assault deep into Iraq and cut through the Euphrates Valley was the most daring operational move by the US military since the landing at Inchon in Korea in 1950. Schwarzkopf's plan stretched the division's capabilities to their limits and revealed the strengths and weaknesses of the 101st Airborne Division. CPT Jose Delgado and SGT Jesus Gonzalez discovered the fatal flaw in the intelligence information, namely a bunker-trench complex belonging to an enemy battalion in the landing zone of the leading company of the 1-327 Infantry. Their discovery 48 hours before the air assault led to a change in the division's plan, even though this posed a major challenge. Without their discovery, the attack would have been doomed to failure. In writing the book, Colonel Frank Hancock, battalion commander of the 1-327 Infantry, asked soldiers from across the battalion to provide reports and recollections of the events in order to provide a comprehensive picture of what had happened and why, from the perspective of soldiers ranging in rank from private to colonel. The book also describes in detail how the US Army learned from its experiences in Vietnam, made changes and developed into a different, more structured and more powerful army in the post-Vietnam era.