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Home >> Marine Amphibious Unit

Marine Amphibious Unit

Ship Designation: 
NULL-NULL
Date Lost: 
Sunday, October 23, 1983
Terrorist Bombing in Beirut
At approximately 0622 on Sunday, October 23, the Battalion Landing Team headquarters building in the Marine Amphibious Unit compound at Beirut International Airport was destroyed by a terrorist bomb. The catastrophic attack took the lives of 241 Marines, sailors and soldiers and wounded more than 100 others. The bombing was carried out by one lone terrorist driving a yellow Mercedes Benz stake-bed truck that accelerated through the public parking lot south of the BLT headquarters building, where it exploded. The truck drove over the barbed and concertina wire obstacle, passed between two Marine guard posts without being engaged by fire, entered an open gate, passed around one sewer pipe barrier and between two others, flattened the Sergeant of the Guard's sandbagged booth at the building's entrance, penetrated the lobby of the building and detonated while the majority of the occupants slept. The force of the explosion [12,000 pounds] ripped the building from its foundation. The building then imploded upon itself. Almost all the occupants were crushed or trapped inside the wreckage. . .more died than on the deadliest day of fighting in Vietnam, the invasion of Iraq or the entire 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Beirut Memorial Website


Lost At Sea Log

Number of sailors in this log: 237

Name Service Branchsort descending
PFC John Allman USMC
SSGT John Bohnet USMC
PFC Juan Comas USMC
PVT Nathaniel Dorsey USMC
CPL William Gaines USMC
LCPL Thomas Hairston USMC
LCPL Bruce Hollingshead USMC
MAJ John Macroglou USMC
GYSGT John Pearson USMC
LCPL Warren Richardson USMC
CAPT Vincent Smith USMC
PFC Stephen Tingley USMC
GYSGT Scipio Williams USMC
CPL Moses Arnold USMC
CPL John Bonk USMC
SGT Robert Conley USMC
SGTMAJ Frederick Douglass USMC
LCPL Sean Gallagher USMC
SGT Freddie Haltiwanger USMC
PFC Melvin Holmes USMC

Pages

Various, including official DOD report