The spot where Osama bin Laden’s blood-soaked body was delivered to the USS Carl Vinson on the night he was killed has been marked in red, in a chilling reminder of the al-Qaeda chief’s demise.
DailyMailTV has learned that sailors who witnessed the corpse of the terror boss being delivered by helicopter to the Vinson on the night of May 1, 2011 painted a ‘padeye’ – an attachment point to where fighter jets or helicopters are tethered – at the exact spot where his body arrived.
It’s believed bin Laden – who was shot twice in the head during a Navy SEAL raid on his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan hours earlier – was still bleeding heavily when he arrived on the flight deck, DailyMailTV has learned.
The padeye is one of hundreds on the deck on board the Vinson.
The spot – photographed by DailyMailTV – can be found midway along the flight deck of the nuclear powered super carrier.
DailyMailTV was invited on board the Vinson as it prepares for deployment to the western Pacific Ocean in early 2018.
One crew member on board said: ‘That’s where bin Laden arrived, his body was bloodied and people who saw it won’t forget it in a hurry.
‘The padeye is painted red as a reminder of the Vinson’s role that night in what was a historic mission.’
SEAL Team 6 — an elite unit known for its ruthlessness and bravery — took bin Laden out in what was dubbed Operation Geronimo.
Navy SEAL Rob O’Neill, who believes he fired the fatal shot on the terror kingpin, said he had heard of the red padeye and said the crew of the Vinson wanted to ‘acknowledge historically’ that that was where bin Laden came on the ship.
He told DailyMailTV the Al-Qaeda leader was ‘badly damaged’ after being shot in the head several times so he was ‘not surprised’ he was still bleeding when he arrived on the carrier.
‘I know what he looked like when we handed him off, so I’m not surprised,’ he explained.
‘He took some pretty severe head shots, I did three of them, he was very badly damaged.
‘We were with him until we handed him to some Army special operators and they brought him out to the ship in the Gulf and that’s where they buried him at sea, but I wasn’t there for that.’
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Source: DailyMailTV
