Fallujah, Iraq · 7 November 2004 · 1st Marine Division and U.S. Army
The Americans Are Everywhere
In November 2004, Marines and soldiers stormed the insurgency’s fortress in Iraq and took it back one house at a time.
The moment · Night · 10 November 2004
Nine houses on the block are empty. In the tenth, machine guns under the stairs pin a squad inside a room. Staff Sgt. David Bellavia grabs a SAW, steps into the doorway and fires until it is empty. His men get out. Then he goes back in.
By the fall of 2004, Fallujah was the insurgency’s fortress in Iraq. Fighters had turned a city of more than 50,000 buildings into a maze of fortified houses, bombs and weapons caches. Iraq’s interim government wanted it back. The 1st Marine Division drew the job, reinforced by two Army heavy task forces and six Iraqi battalions, and cleared it one house at a time.
A new dawn
The operation is called Phantom Fury until the last minute, when it is renamed al-Fajr, New Dawn. Hours before the assault, Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski visits Army, Marine and Iraqi units in their attack positions. At 22:07 the Iraqi 36th Commando Battalion and a task force from the 3d Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion seize Fallujah Hospital on the peninsula west of the city. By 00:05 they hold the bridges.
Blowing the berm
A railroad embankment guards the city’s northern edge. Four Marine F/A-18D Hornets of VMFA(AW)-242, one flown by wing commander Maj. Gen. Keith Stalder, drop eight 2,000-pound guided bombs on the berm and tracks to open the breach. At 18:00 Navy Seabees and civil affairs Marines cut the city’s power. At 18:59 the 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, hits the train station and secures it by 20:34.
A-hour
Two regimental combat teams attack from the north. Col. Michael Shupp’s Regimental Combat Team 1 takes the west with the Army’s Task Force 2-7 Cavalry. Col. Craig Tucker’s Regimental Combat Team 7 goes in with three battalions abreast, the Army’s Task Force 2-2 Infantry on its left. Tanks lead through the breach lanes. At 00:14 on 9 November, the cavalry’s lead armor starts across.
Route 10
The 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, takes the Hadrah Mosque at 09:00. Task Force 2-2 drives down the eastern edge of the city all the way to Route 10, the highway through the middle of Fallujah, killing about 48 enemy fighters on the way. In the west, Lt. Col. James Rainey’s Task Force 2-7 Cavalry reaches Route 10 at 22:00 and takes Jolan Park, the division’s first objective, well ahead of schedule.
The Marine Corps birthday
Company A, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, rides in amphibious tractors with a tank escort and seizes the Government Center at noon. By nightfall Shupp’s regiment holds the entire northwest quarter of the city. It is the Marine Corps’ 229th birthday. In the early evening, as units set in for the night, Army psychological operations soldiers play the Marines’ Hymn over loudspeakers across Fallujah.
The tenth house
Staff Sgt. David Bellavia’s platoon from Task Force 2-2 is clearing a block of 12 buildings. The first nine are empty. In the tenth, machine guns under the stairs pin a squad inside a room. Bellavia swaps for a SAW, stands in the doorway and fires until it is empty so his men can get out. Then he goes back in. When he is done, four insurgents are dead and a fifth is badly wounded.
The beam of a rifle-mounted flashlight cuts through the dust as U.S. Army soldiers clear a house in Fallujah, 13 November 2004.. Spc. Brandi Marshall, U.S. Army / Department of Defense. Saved Marine lives
Regimental Combat Team 1 finishes its first sweep through the west side of the city. Its 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, has seized the south end of its zone against the stiffest resistance yet. The assault troops have a name for their method: the ten-second firefight, every contact met at once with tanks, cannon and air. Shupp reports on the Army task force that led his attack.
Col. Michael Shupp, RCT-1 reportThe soldiers of 2-7 demonstrated extraordinary courage in the face of the enemy. Their firepower and can-do spirit has saved Marine lives.
Hell House
Marines of 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, are trapped in a house in southern Fallujah, with insurgents firing from the floor above. First Sgt. Bradley Kasal runs in with a fresh squad and kills an insurgent at close range. Rifle fire cuts down his legs. When grenades come, he rolls on top of a wounded Marine and takes the fragments himself. Cpl. Robert Mitchell Jr. kills an insurgent with his knife. A satchel charge brings the house down.
Coming home
Six weeks after the assault began, the operation turns from combat to recovery. Six hundred residents return to the al-Andalus District, the first civilians back. The fight is not quite over. That same day Sgt. Jarrett Kraft and Cpl. Jeremiah Workman of 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, lead assault after assault into insurgent-held houses to rescue wounded Marines. Both earn the Navy Cross.
The men
Buffalo-born infantryman who enlisted in 1999 and served in Kosovo before Iraq. On his 29th birthday he cleared a fortified house in Fallujah, killing four insurgents and badly wounding a fifth. First living Iraq War veteran awarded the Medal of Honor.
Iowa high school wrestler who served 34 years in the Corps. In Hell House he was shot seven times in the legs, then rolled onto a wounded Marine to shield him from a grenade and refused evacuation until the others were out. Navy Cross.
Commissioned in 1973. Led Task Force Tarawa through Nasiriyah in 2003. Took the 1st Marine Division in August 2004, called for the Army armor the fight would need and planned the assault on the city. Retired in 2010 as a lieutenant general.
Eastern Kentucky University swimmer commissioned through ROTC in 1987. His tanks and Bradleys spearheaded Regimental Combat Team 1 into Fallujah and reached Route 10 on the first full day of the assault. He rose to four-star general and led Army Futures Command.
By the numbers
In pictures
Watch, listen, see
Films, photographs and first-hand accounts from across the web. Each opens in a new tab.
The Army’s film on Staff Sgt. David Bellavia and the house fight that earned him the Medal of Honor.
U.S. Army
The White House ceremony of 25 June 2019, where Bellavia received the Medal of Honor.
U.S. Army
Marines who fought in Fallujah tell their stories on the battle’s 20th anniversary.
U.S. Marine Corps · DVIDS
Two retired 1st Marine Division Marines look back on Operation Phantom Fury.
1st Marine Division · DVIDSThe 3/1 commander and a wounded platoon sergeant recall the fight where Kasal shielded a Marine.
1st Marine Division · DVIDSThe Army’s official citation, battle narrative and photographs for Staff Sgt. David Bellavia.
U.S. Army
The official Marine Corps history of 2004 and 2005 in Iraq, with the full story of al-Fajr.
Marine Corps History Division · GovInfo
The Army’s study of how its heavy task forces and the Marines took Fallujah together.
Combat Studies Institute · Internet Archive“Operation AL FAJR was joint and coalition warfare at its finest.”
Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, Commanding General, I Marine Expeditionary Force
After
On 25 June 2019, President Trump presented the Medal of Honor to David Bellavia at the White House. He was the first living veteran of the Iraq War to receive it. Bradley Kasal received the Navy Cross at Camp Pendleton in 2006 and was promoted to sergeant major in the same ceremony. Robert Mitchell, Jarrett Kraft and Jeremiah Workman earned the Navy Cross too.
Sgt. Rafael Peralta, a Mexican-born Marine who enlisted as soon as he had his green card, was killed in the battle on 15 November and received the Navy Cross. On 29 July 2017 the Navy commissioned the destroyer USS Rafael Peralta in his name.
Fallujah’s families began coming home on 23 December. On 30 January 2005, Marines of Regimental Combat Team 1 stood guard in the city as Iraq held its first free national election. Twenty years later, Willy Buhl, who commanded 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, put it plainly: “Uncommon valor was a common virtue on Iwo Jima. And it was at Fallujah.”
Primary sources
- U.S. Marines in Iraq, 2004–2005: Into the Fray. Lt. Col. Kenneth W. Estes, USMC (Ret.), History Division, U.S. Marine Corps, 2011.
- Operation AL FAJR: A Study in Army and Marine Corps Joint Operations. Matt M. Matthews, Combat Studies Institute Press, Fort Leavenworth, 2006.
- Medal of Honor: Staff Sergeant David G. Bellavia. U.S. Army, 2019.