Images from an Unlikely War

A report from the battle

As the U.S. and allied Caribbean forces were coordinating their assault on Grenada, TIME was engineering a landing of its own. After a five-hour voyage in an open boat, Caribbean Correspondent Bernard Diederich headed ashore on D-day to find the capital city of St. George's still in the hands of Grenada's People's Revolutionary Army. The Marines would not take charge of the town for another two days. Diederich's account of the invasion:

Those last minutes in the solid wood boat approaching the port capital of St. George's were the most trying. Captain Alfred, who calls himself the "Big Fisherman," had argued against taking his 20-ft. vessel into the harbor directly under the guns of the People's Revolutionary Army's (P.R.A.) Fort Rupert. We had worried more about a shark spotted on the five-hour trip from the out island of Carriacou than any trouble we expected ashore. Two U.S. helicopters had buzzed us as we approached, and we waved back with our cameras and radios. But as we came closer to the coastline, we heard the dull thud of bombs over the noise of the throbbing diesel engine, and with each thud, Big Alfred stubbornly refused to go any farther. We coaxed and cajoled him over almost each wave with the radio reports that the quay in St. George's had been secured by the attackers and Fort Rupert taken. U.S. ships were still visible at sea, as were the gaping holes in the green roof of the fort, which has guarded the picturesque blue-water harbor since the 18th century. Two antiaircraft guns on the ramparts were unmanned, and the harborfront seemed deserted.

Our first surprise awaited us as we stepped onto the shore to be met by a military Jeep. The soldiers were not, as the radio had promised, U.S. Marines, but Grenadians, wearing East German helmets and carrying AK-47s. Overhead the calm was shattered by deafening shooting and rocketing from U.S. helicopters as we quickly scrambled ashore. It was only noon Tuesday, the week had barely begun, and Big Alfred was already headed back to the open sea.

The police officer who introduced himself was cool and militarily correct, oblivious to the din of warcraft overhead. He addressed us in the functionary protocol of any customs officer. "We must be careful about infiltrators between the lines," he said, inspecting our passports. We attempted to respond with the same kind of proper formality, requesting permission to report on the events in Grenada. There was no shortage of those.

U.S. helicopters came rocketing in on their principal target, the army base of Fort Frederick on the hill just behind us. A-7 Corsair light attack jets screamed down, bombed and fired on positions surrounding where we stood. Then a lumbering gray-painted C-130 with its rapid-fire gun in the rear made its entry, spraying the hillsides above with percussion fire as loud as hailstones hitting a tin roof. We could feel the hot rush of air and the concussion from the exploding bombs, and yet, directly in front of us, four fishing boats still bobbed idly at their anchors, and a young Grenadian in a red bathing suit walked nonchalantly by as if he were still headed for his afternoon swim. Just then, another explosion, as the gunships made their passes across the hilltops.

We were rather hastily taken to shelter inside the port's fire station and were cautioned against straying too far. "They've hit a warehouse," commented a fireman inside, making no move to rush out with his engine. The firehouse had lost its electricity and was down to the last of its cool water. Strafing attacks continued even as we listened to radio reports declaring that the war was already over. Minutes later, thick black smoke erupted into the sky from a U.S. helicopter that was shot down, falling into a sports field several hundred yards behind us. A group of Greek sailors who happened to be in port unloading their freighter, saw one of the wounded pilots wave his hat, a gesture they interpreted as a signal for surrender. But the Grenadian gunners continued firing until he fell to his knees. It was not until 90 minutes later that two gunships came in under heavy fire to make their rescue. By then the downed chopper was already gutted by fire. One of the pilots was still alive. The other, the one who had waved his hat in vain, had died and was left behind on the grassy field.

One bearded Grenadian soldier, touring the waterfront in his Jeep, stopped to declare confidently they were pushing "the enemy back." Another young soldier, his eyes as wide as saucers, sat in a Jeep plastered with the revolution's symbol of a smiling rising sun and the slogan EVERY CHILD IN SCHOOL. Our immigration official, whom we had nicknamed "the Inspector," offered his own commentary: "The Marines say they came here to rescue Americans," he said, "but I saw one American from the medical school on his way to our hospital to volunteer." At the docks near by there was a weathered billboard that invited nonexistent cruise ships to COME AGAIN TO THE SPICE ISLAND. The helicopters overhead did just that, and so did the jets, until it seemed it would never end. The Inspector found the flattened lead of a chopper round and, fondling it sadly, said, "I'll keep it to show my children and grandchildren. American invasion Oct. 25, 1983." As if the scene were not already crazy enough, it was about 5 p.m. when a well-dressed young man walked by into the midst of the fighting distractedly blowing a trumpet.

Soon afterward, we could see the government headquarters of Butler House, the former offices of slain Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, burst into flames after a firing pass from a C130. This time the firemen obeyed orders to try to extinguish the blaze, although one fireman prayed as he left the station, and another muttered: "What's the point? What's the use?" At dusk, U.S. jets were still fanning across the island, angrily searching for more targets.

The comrades offered us a hotel of our choice for the night. We selected the nearby St. James, next to Fort Rupert. Miss Constance Bertram, 90, was our fellow guest, but she found it difficult to understand why the hotel maid had fled. Darkness brought no end to the bombs and explosive barrages. Butler House was set on fire again. Just before dawn, we awoke to find our hotel eerily illuminated by falling flares.

As morning came, the Marines began appearing on the edge of town at Queen's Park, Bishop's favorite gathering place to address his people. The Marines spread out in firing positions alongside tanks and personnel carriers, while Grenadians sat looking back from their front steps on the opposite hillside. A U.S. tank sprang into life, firing into a hill with thick green vegetation, making a direct hit on an ammo dump and an antiaircraft position. One young man who sat watching the scene admitted that he too was once for the revolution. Now, reluctantly, he welcomed the invaders. "It's a sad solution, but there seemed to have been no other way," he said. "The military would have ended us all, they would never have given up power."

A short distance away, a P.R.A. soldier had gone to a funeral parlor, carrying the body of the downed U.S. helicopter pilot. He decided against leaving it, and carried it to the beach. The funeral director said, "I have no new bodies, just the ten from our own executions." An orderly said that when Fort Rupert was hit by a naval bombardment early Tuesday morning, some of the soldiers had fled to the hospital and hurriedly exchanged their uniforms for pajamas. Of the 30 casualties, perhaps half had arrived at the hospital within the first hour of the invasion. "We had been ready for hundreds, but they just didn't come," said an Irish doctor.

It was also here at the hospital that we encountered the American volunteer doctor from the medical school described by the Inspector. Among all the other broken fragments, it somehow did not seem so unnatural that the doctor was a Cuban--but from a family of exiles living in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Dr. Raul Jirmenez, 31, had made his way to the hospital soon after watching the first paratroopers dropping from the sky near his home facing the stretch of wide white beach known as Grand Anse. He had been here ever since. The hospital, he said, had no X-ray machine, little oxygen on hand, and only five pints of blood.

The doctor, at least, knew where he was. By now the Marines had set up a roadblock at the coastal bridge leading into Queen's Park. A Soviet diplomat who found himself there seemed less sure than the doctor of his whereabouts. Boris Nikolayev, who described himself as an economic counselor, stood with a letter in hand. He was visibly nervous. He leaned against his shiny black Mercedes-Benz with an aide, waving the letter he wished to deliver to the head of the country, whoever that was. One Soviet embassy official had been wounded. "It was not direct shooting," Nikolayev explained. "He was hit by a piece of shrapnel in the left shoulder. He is one of our new diplomats. We have problems. No light, no water. We have children, we have no telephone line, no telex. It is very difficult to contact who is running this country. I come here to ask who is. What can I do?" What about General Hudson Austin? "I don't know where this Austin is . . ."

Late Wednesday afternoon, as we look down from near the now deserted Fort Frederick in the flickering last rays of sunset, a dozen helicopters whirl like spiders over a silvery sea while smoke billows from bomb and rocket strikes, the action stretching across the entire beachfront of the town, from the studios of Radio Free Grenada to the medical school campus and the ruins of another resort hotel.

Like all wars, this one had already begun to leave behind its litter--a shattered telephone post, a Grenadian army Jeep in a ditch, another smashed into a tree, an abandoned Soviet-made tank with its battery still humming, torn metal and debris. In the midst of the rubble appeared a woman in a long brown dress. She was barefoot. We called to ask her if she was safe. She turned, exposing her open dress front, and laughed. The insane asylum had also been hit, and the inmates, like this one, had wandered off into the city.

There were escapees among the sane as well. At Richmond Hill prison, a dark and moldy relic of colonial times, ten of perhaps 90 political prisoners* walked free, along with one convicted murderer. Leslie Pierre, who had been in jail since July 1981 on political charges, had said to his guards, "leave the keys when you run." They had run, but they had taken their keys with them. When one prisoner tried to escape earlier, a guard shot him and locked his dead body in a cell. "He's beginning to stink," the prisoner complained. As we walked down the hill with another escaped political prisoner, he said: "I don't know whether the intervention could have been averted. The situation had got out of control. The moment they decided to get rid of Bishop, the party was destined to collapse. They were wrong to believe that power came from the barrel of a gun."

A Marine officer barked at his men to be more thorough in searching people, as he advanced slowly up the road past our hotel to Fort Rupert, which was now filled only with looters. As one soldier searched a man with a bundle of loot from the fort, the man kept grinning and saying, "May God bless the United States and President Reagan." Marine Lieut. Colonel Ray Smith from Oklahoma described taking the old civilian airport under antiaircraft fire, but, he added laconically, "We took it." Commented a fellow Marine: "Their antiaircraft was good. They were doing a good job. The ones who really fought, though, were the Cubans."

No one was sure what remained. Where was the 16-member revolutionary military council? Or the Marxist Bernard Coard, who along with some hard-line officers was probably responsible for deposing and executing Bishop? Many army members who were wearing uniforms yesterday are already dressed in shorts and sandals today. The U.S. intelligence teams have arrived to bring out briefcases full of "Top Secret" files to be shipped off to Washington. The Point Salines airport, almost finished by Cubans, now looks like an annex of Fort Bragg. The 82nd Airborne gets around in an assortment of captured vehicles, and the airport has C-130s landing every 30 minutes with even more materiel. Everyone points out the final paradox that the first ones to put Grenada's controversial new airport to military use were not the Cubans, who built it, but the Americans themselves.

* "Including Alister Hughes, a prominent Grenadian journalist who had been arrested after reporting on this month's coup for TIME and other publications. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.