War Stories
Somali Civil War9 min read

Black Hawk Down

A thirty-minute raid in Mogadishu that became a fifteen-hour fight for survival.

Mogadishu · 1993

A sprawling sun-baked city of low buildings and dust under a hazy sky.

1993. Somalia has collapsed into civil war and famine. A US-led mission to protect aid has narrowed into a hunt for one man: the warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, whose militia controls much of the capital, Mogadishu.

Helicopters sweeping over a dense city as soldiers fast-rope into a dusty street.

On October 3rd, an elite American force — Army Rangers and Delta operators — launches a daylight raid into the heart of the city to seize two of Aidid's top lieutenants.

Soldiers hustling captives toward a vehicle as crowds gather at the edges.

The raid itself goes fast and clean. The targets are captured within minutes. Then everything goes wrong.

A helicopter trailing smoke and spinning down toward rooftops.

As militia and armed crowds swarm toward the sound of the helicopters, a rocket-propelled grenade slams into a Black Hawk overhead. It spins and crashes into the city.

A tense radio operator in a dim operations room pressing a headset.

A pilot, on the radio

“We got a Black Hawk down. We got a Black Hawk down.”

Small groups of soldiers moving warily through narrow rubble-strewn streets under fire.

The mission instantly changes from a raid to a rescue. The Americans must reach the crash site and hold it — in a maze of hostile streets, surrounded and hugely outnumbered.

A second helicopter smoking and falling beyond distant rooftops.

Then a second Black Hawk is hit and goes down, far across the city, with no ground force able to reach it.

Two snipers in a helicopter doorway looking down at a distant crash site.

Gary Gordon & Randy Shughart

“Put us down at the second crash site. Someone has to hold it.”

Two soldiers making a last stand beside a downed helicopter against a closing crowd.

The two Delta snipers are dropped alone to defend the wounded pilot against a coming mob. They hold until their ammunition is gone. Both are killed; for their sacrifice they receive the Medal of Honor. The pilot, Michael Durant, is taken prisoner.

Soldiers firing from broken windows of a bullet-pocked building at night.

Through the night, the trapped Americans fight off wave after wave from a few shattered buildings — low on ammo, waiting for rescue, as the city burns around them.

A column of armored vehicles pushing through a smoky street at dawn.

At dawn, a relief column of armored vehicles finally fights its way in and out, running a gauntlet of fire to bring the survivors home.

Weary, hollow-eyed soldiers at a base at dawn after the battle, removing gear in silence.

When it ended, eighteen Americans were dead and dozens wounded; Somali losses were far heavier. The shock turned American opinion against the mission, and within months US forces left Somalia. A fifteen-hour firefight had changed a nation's foreign policy.

Sources

This story was adapted from the following. The illustrations are stylized depictions, not photographs of the events.

  • Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, Mark Bowden (1999)

    Definitive account of the battle.

  • “Battle of Mogadishu (1993)”, Wikipedia

    Overview, the crash sites, and aftermath.

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