After 10 hours of slogging through a muddy, cratered, 15-mile stretch of road under rebel gunfire, the convoy of freed peacekeepers linked up this evening with a large contingent of United Nations troops that fought its way up from the south, Major Arun said.
The blockade squadron under Rear-Admiral Lord Nelson intercepted the convoy within sight of the starving troops on Malta and in the ensuing, but brief, battle, Perrée was killed and his flagship captured.
"Oh, marine, we like you, oh!" the bare-chested boys chanted, running alongside the convoy under the hot sun.
At 14 00, Linois abandoned the action and ordered his squadron to haul away with the wind and sail eastwards, away from the convoy, under all sail.
The frigate, despatched from Gibraltar to make a scheduled rendezvous, sighted the convoy under attack at 10 10 pm, and was herself attacked by Condors, the bombs falling 20 yards astern.
The passage across the Atlantic was uneventful and by the afternoon of 15 October the convoy, under orders to make any Spanish port, was nearing its destination at Vigo, a fortified port city in Galicia just south of Cape Finisterre at the most northwestern point of Spain.
The convoy came under attack as it neared Baghdad.
The convoy fell under significant shelling, he said, and many of the men were forced to abandon their vehicles and make their way back by foot.
In written testimony submitted to Congress but not made public, Blackwater has said that the convoy came under attack by automatic weapons fire.
The bomb was planted on Gaza's main north-south road and detonated under a Chevrolet Suburban shortly after the convoy entered Gaza.
