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On October 3, 1993 U.S. Rangers and Delta Force members would go on a mission expected to take roughly 1 hour. What happened instead was an 18 hour firefight which left 18 U.S. soldiers dead and 73 wounded, also including a Somali death count in the hundreds to potentially thousands. 8 years later, a movie about the incident would be released, titled, Black Hawk Down.
This movie is the subject of the article. Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down is highly respected among most viewers due to it's attention to detail in many aspects of the real life battle of Mogadishu, such as background radio chatter in some scenes being the actual recordings of radio communications during the engagement. However, like all films about real events, the authenticity is definitely a subject for analysis. Some films maintain incredible historical accuracy (A Bridge Too Far) and some historical films are almost completely fictional (Braveheart). Black Hawk Down is certainly one of the former.
Before we breakdown the film's authenticity, a short synopsis of both the film and the real life event is necessary. In 1991, the Somalian president was overthrown by the clan militia Habr Gidr led by Muhammad Farah Aydid. Muhammad and other local warlords at the same time were causing a humanitarian crisis within Somalia by restricting food access to civilians. This caught the attention of the United Nations, including the United States of America. They began sending in humanitarian workers who were subsequently attacked by Aydid's soldiers. From here the U.S. deployed soldiers to the region in order to arrest Aydid. On October 3, 1993, Operation Gothic Serpent began. Under the command of Major General William Garrison, a combined task force of Army Rangers, 10th Mountain Division soldiers, and Delta Force fighters were tasked with capturing some of Aydid's top lieutenants who were meeting. After dropping in from UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, the soldiers captured 24 prisoners, excluding Aydid who was not present. A convoy of armored vehicles were on their way to pick up and evacuate the initial assault team. During all of this all units were under heavy fire from Somali fighters. At around 4:20 p.m., one of the black hawks with the callsign "Super 61" was shot down by an RPG-7. The resulting crash left both pilots dead and two of the crew chiefs severely wounded. Two special forces snipers also survived the crash, and defended the crash site until they were rescued by an MH-6 that landed nearby. The initial assault team that wasn't being evacuated by the convoy was to head to the first crash site, where upon arrival they would be pinned down and forced to hold position for the rest of the night.
The second black hawk to crash was "Super 64", which went down at around 4:40 p.m. during a 20 minute period of radio confusion between the convoy and assault team. Two snipers, Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart, were deployed by Super 62 after two denied requests and a confirmed third in order to defend the surviving pilot Michael Durant, until rescue eventually came. Rescue didn't come; however, the two snipers were able to hold off the mob for a lengthy period of time. The two snipers would be killed, and Durant captured. Gordon and Shughart were both awarded the medal of honor for their actions, the first ones since the Vietnam War.
The next morning, U.S. and U.N. relief force of around 100 vehicles aided in the extraction of soldiers pinned down at the Super 61 crash site. The troops moved towards the extraction point for a mile under heavy fire and with many of the soldiers wounded, commonly referred to as the "Mogadishu Mile". Michael Durant would be released from captivity 11 days afterward, and the at the time acting president Bill Clinton withdrew troops from Somalia.
It may come as a disappointment to some history buffs out there, but Black Hawk Down doesn't have many major historical inaccuracies that aren't just result of the film trying to cover an 18 hour event in only two. Things like not portraying Navy SEALs and Air Force Pararescue men, anachronistic equipment, not showing many of the operations that took place prior to the Battle of Mogadishu have been noted. While it's technically up to preference whether these even should've been included, a budget isn't, which should be taken into account when discussing authenticity in all historical films anyway, but especially here. Another point is that Black Hawk Down is a movie technically made for entertainment (as haunting as that sounds), and the plot must still feel cohesive at the end of the day. Having scenes of the other 450 active personnel (know that the film focuses on roughly 20 of them), while nice, ultimately would have made the film less *meaningful.
*As a quick note, often times critics will complain when a large conflict is shown on screen, yet we only see a small part of it. They will say more aspects of said conflict should be portrayed. This is a little misguided. One, like said before a film only has so much money in the budget. Two, when we focus in on a small group of characters and help develop them, it helps the audience better realize that the exact same stories could be told for the group of characters in the background (this does depends on how good a job the director does of immersing the audience in the world). In the case of Black Hawk Down, Scott does a better job of this than most war films out there.
When discussing the synopsis for the plot of the film and the real life event, it became clear that the lines between the movie and research around the incident was becoming blurred. Let this concept be the final assessment for analysis into the film's authenticity/accuracy.
Sources:
Historical Recount
Historical Inaccuracies:
Gunner Farrell is a member of the Poudre Press and focuses on writing critiques and analysis on popular media such as film and video games. He does a bi-weekly series where he covers obscure films that are typically bad.
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