Chapter 2. Recon Off Yucatan

by Irene

(Note: Because of the Operation against the Five in Peru, Martin and Irene left for Peru at the end of training and rejoined the cargo ship in Panama. During the Pacific leg of the ship voyage, Tuska’s captain Monsignor Angel and the sergeants drilled the troops on board the ship. For recon two boats, “Herbie Brown” and “King Troy” were rented in Texas about the same time the land training began. They sped to the Yucatan to get an early start on recon work with drones, arriving well before the cargo ship and the Aztexs.)

There were some facts we needed to plan the operation. The mapping pictures from orbit gave us the basic layout of the Aztec camp, but we needed better pictures, some up-to-date human recon of the grounds and, most importantly, a current depth chart confirming how deep the water was near the possible drop-off points. Two boats, manned by former members of the US Navy and Marines, were sent right away. The crews flew commercial flights to south Texas and rented boats there. They could not carry guns until after they were on station.

One group of men and women in their twenties rented a very fast cigarette boat named “Herbie Brown” in Texas for SCUBA and para-sailing. On Friday August 8 they arrived on station off the coast of the Yucatan in the vicinity of the Crystal Aztex’s camping/party area. The next day they began para-sailing with cameras to get some pictures of the quay and the terrain inland. Next they began scuba diving, working out from the quay to read the underwater terrain close to shore. The quay, built around 1900, was solid and well placed, the water was deep enough at the end for Tuska to load or unload vehicles. I was told it was used by medium trucks to unloading fishing boats.

On Friday August 15 a second group included men and women of various ages, acting like an adult family group taking a vacation cruise together, arrived in a large cabin cruiser named “King Troy,” also rented in Texas. While the younger crew worked outward from the quay, the larger group worked farther south, looking for a place where the tank and M-113 could swim ashore and move inland to establish a firing position for the mortars in the very hostile marsh. In addition to diving to get the depth, they used short-range drones to look at the first 100 yards from the shore into the marsh, and the entire shoreline at low and high tide from their location to the quay.

If one did not mind getting a little wet, and depending on the tide, a jeep or a tracked vehicle could drive the entire shoreline between the likely landing spots and the quay.

Both crews were ordered not to set foot on dry land in Mexico. Also, they did not linger near shore, when not engaged in active operations they moved below the horizon so as not to draw suspicion.

The Patron’s “cousins” operated a legitimate ship in the area that made a living doing resupply for fishing boats and oil rigs. They supported the recon boats with fuel, food, weapons etc. until the “Tuska Maru” arrived.