ABSTRACT
The amphibious assault ship USS Guam, flying the broad command pennant of Captain Carl R. Erie, Commander, Amphibious Squadron FOUR, was sailing eastward at an easy fourteen knots. The Independence and her consorts were also heading eastward, but they were about 150 miles to the north. It was after midnight on October 21, 1983, when orders came in to Erie to change his course. The Navy and Marines were to make no noncombatant evacuation of Americans from St. George's. The Guam's flag spaces and communications equipment are built to serve the needs of the ten or a dozen officers normally on the staff of an amphibious squadron commodore. In electronic silence his ships were to proceed southward toward a position on the ocean not far from the island of Grenada. Grenada is an oval about twenty miles north and south by twelve miles east and west, with a stem at the southwestern corner.
