DELTA AT MOG

“OPERATION GOTHIC SERPENT CULMINATED IN WHAT HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS THE ‘LONGEST FIREFIGHT INVOLVING AMERICAN TROOPS SINCE VIETNAM’”

3 October 1993 will forever be remembered as the date of the Battle of Mogadishu. Filmed as the Hollywood blockbuster Black Hawk Down and based on Mark Bowden’s best-selling book of the same title, ‘Operation Gothic Serpent’ culminated in what has been described as the “longest firefight involving American troops since Vietnam”. A small force of US special operations forces, principally drawn from the Rangers and Delta Force, battled several thousand armed Somalis as they attempted to recover the bodies of their fallen comrades.

For Delta, the Mogadishu mission began months earlier, as they were warned of a possible upcoming operation to capture Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aideed. He had become a thorn in the side of the United Nations humanitarian operation in Somalia, ambushing UN peacekeepers and pilfering supplies intended for the civilian victims of the drought and civil war that had ravaged the East African nation.

Retired Sergeant First Class and now Dr. Norman Hooten (who provided the basis for Eric Bana’s character in Black Hawk Down) remembers, “That mission grew from one or two