| Operation Eagle Claw |
| Part of Iran Hostage Crisis |
Overview of the wreckage at the Desert One base in Iran. |
| Date |
24 April - 25 April 1980 |
| Location |
Tehran, Iran |
| Result |
Failure (unsuccessful hostage rescue attempt); mission aborted with loss. |
|
| Belligerents |
 United States |
 Iran |
| Commanders |
Maj. Gen. James B. Vaught
Col. James H. Kyle
Col. Charles Alvin Beckwith |
|
| Casualties and losses |
8 dead
4 injured |
1 civilian death |
Operation Eagle Claw (or Operation Evening Light) was a United States military operation that attempted to rescue 53 American hostages from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran on 24 April 1980. The attempt was aborted when three helicopters that were part of the operation were damaged or forced to return to the carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) by a sandstorm. As the U.S. force prepared to leave Iran, a refueling accident led to the remaining helicopters and a C-130 Hercules refueling aircraft being destroyed or left behind, and the deaths of eight American servicemen.
Planning and preparation
RH-53Ds of HM-16 on the USS
Nimitz before repainting.
The operation was designed as a complex two-night mission. The first stage of the mission involved delivering a rescue team of U.S. Army Delta Force Special Forces troops to a small staging site inside Iran, near Tabas in the Yazd Province (formerly in the south of the Khorasan province). The site, named Desert One, was to be used as a temporary airstrip for the three USAF special operations MC-130E Combat Talon I penetration/transport aircraft and three EC-130E Hercules, each of the latter installed with a pair of collapsible fuel bladders containing 6,000 U.S. gallons of jet fuel. Desert One would then become a staging base for eight Navy RH-53D Sea Stallion minesweeper helicopters. The RH-53s, flown by US Navy/Marine Corps personnel off the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) in the nearby Indian Ocean, would then transport the rescue team to Tehran. These operations were covered by Carrier Air Wing 8 (CVW-8) aboard Nimitz and CVW-14 aboard the USS Coral Sea (CV-43). For this operation the aircraft wore special black-red-black identifications stripes on the right wings.
After flying in under radar and landing at Desert One, the C-130s would off-load men and equipment and refuel the arriving helicopters, which would undertake the rescue operation. The helicopters would fly the ground troops to the Desert Two "hide point" near Tehran the same night, where the helicopters would be concealed. The next night, the rescue force would be transported in trucks to the embassy by CIA agents, overpower the hostage guards, and escort the hostages across Roosevelt Boulevard (the main road in front of the embassy) to the Amjadien (soccer) Stadium, where the helicopters would land and retrieve the entire force. The Joint Task Force commander was U.S. Army Major General James B. Vaught, while the fixed-wing and overall air mission commander was Colonel James H. Kyle, the helicopter commander Marine Lt Col Edward Seiffert, and the Special Forces commander Col. Charles Beckwith.
The Tehran CIA Special Activities Division paramilitary team was led by a retired Special Forces officer, Richard J. Meadows, and was there for two purposes: (1) to obtain information about the hostages and the embassy grounds, and (2) to transport the rescuers from Desert Two to the embassy grounds with pre-staged vehicles. In reality, the most important information came from an embassy cook who was released by the Iranians and discovered on a flight from Tehran at the last minute by another CIA officer, and who confirmed that the hostages were centrally located in the embassy compound - this was a key piece of information long sought after by the planners.
Sailors applying identification stripes to a
VMFA-323 F-4N aboard
Coral Sea.
The assault on the embassy was to occur after eliminating electrical power in the area to disrupt any military response by the Iranians. AC-130 gunships were to orbit overhead to provide supporting fire. The helicopters were to transport the rescuers and hostages from the Amjadien Stadium to Manzariyeh Air Base outside of Tehran (34°58′58″N 50°48′20″E / 34.98278°N 50.80556°E / 34.98278; 50.80556). There a Ranger force would seize the airfield to permit C-141 transports to land in advance of the rescue for transporting the contingent from Iran under the protection of fighter planes.
On April 1, three weeks before the operation, a USAF combat control team officer, Major John E. Carney, was surreptitiously flown in a Twin Otter to the Desert One site by two CIA officers, where despite their overly-casual approach to the mission, he successfully surveyed an airstrip, installed remotely-operated infrared lights and a strobe to outline a box pattern for pilots, and took soil samples to determine the load-bearing properties of the desert surface. At that time the floor was hard-packed sand, but in the intervening three weeks an ankle-deep layer of powdery sand was deposited by sandstorms.[1]
Execution of the mission
Repainted RH-53Ds in sand camouflage and without markings aboard
Nimitz.
Only the delivery of the rescue force, equipment and fuel by the MC-130E Combat Talons (call signs Dragon 1 to 3) and EC-130Es (Republic 4 to 6), all flown by Combat Talon crews, went according to plan. The special operations transports took off from their staging base at Masirah Island near Oman and in-flight refueled from KC-135 tankers just of the coast of Iran.
Dragon 1 landed at 22:45 local time after the hidden lights were activated. The landing was made under blacked-out conditions using the same improvised infrared landing light system as that installed by Carney on the airstrip, visible only with the use of night vision goggles. The heavily-loaded Dragon 1 required four passes to determine that there were no obstructions on the airstrip[2] and squeeze into its small confines. The landing resulted in substantial wing damage to the Talon that later required it be rebuilt "from the ground up", but no one was hurt and the Talon remained flyable. Dragon 1 off-loaded Kyle, a USAF combat control team (CCT) led by Carney, Beckwith and part of his 120 Delta operators, 12 Rangers of a roadblock team, and 15 Iranian and American Farsi-speakers, most of whom would act as truck drivers. The CCT immediately established a parallel landing zone north of the dirt road and set out TACAN beacons to guide the helicopters. The second and third MC-130s landed and discharged the remainder of the Delta force, after which Dragon 1 and 2 took off at 23:15 to make room for the EC-130s and helicopters.
An unexpected weather phenomenom known as a haboob (fine particles of sand suspended to a milky consistency in the air following dissipation of a thunderstorm) contributed to the loss of three of the eight RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters (Bluebeard 1 to 8) by the time the scattered formation reached Desert One, 50 to 90 minutes behind schedule. Prior to encountering the haboob, Bluebeard 6 was grounded and abandoned in the desert when it received a sensor indication that its Marine pilots interpreted as a cracked rotor blade, and its crew was picked up by Bluebeard 8 that continued the flight. Bluebeard 5 flew into the haboob but abandoned the mission and returned to the Nimitz when erratic flight control instrumentation made navigating without reference points impossible, just 25 minutes from clear air. The third Sea Stallion, Bluebeard 2, arrived at Desert One with a malfunctioning second-stage hydraulics system (which power the number-one automatic flight control system and a portion of the primary flight controls) and insufficient confidence in the remaining hydraulics to continue. The first and third helicopters, which were abandoned, now serve with the Iranian Navy.
Soon after the first Combat Talon landed, a tanker truck apparently smuggling fuel was blown up nearby with a shoulder-fired rocket as it tried to escape the site shortly after the first crews landed and began securing Desert One. The resulting fire illuminated the night-time landscape for many miles around, and actually provided a visual guide to Desert One for the disoriented and dehydrated incoming helicopter crews. The passenger in the tanker truck was killed in the attack, while the truck's driver managed to escape in an accompanying pickup truck, and was not considered to pose a security threat to the mission when evaluation deduced the clandestine smuggling nature of the tanker truck.[3] A civilian Iranian bus with a driver and 43 passengers travelling on the same road, which served as the runway for the aircraft, was forcibly halted at approximately the same time and detained aboard Republic 3.[4]
Plan sketch of Desert One.
With only five Sea Stallions remaining for transporting the men and equipment to Desert Two, and needing a predetermined minimum of six helicopters at that stage, the various commanders reached a stalemate. Helicopter commander Seiffert refused to continue Bluebeard 2 on the mission, while Beckwith refused to reduce the size of his rescue force (Beckwith's plans anticipated losing additional helicopters at later stages, especially as they were notorious for failing on cold starts and they were to be shut down for almost 24 hours at Desert Two). Kyle recommended to Vaught that the mission be aborted, who passed the recommendation by satellite radio up to the president. After two-and-a-half hours on the ground, the abort order was received.
Disaster and debacle
Fuel consumption calculations showed that the extra 90 minutes idling on the ground had made fuel critical for one of the EC-130s. When it became clear that only six helicopters would arrive at Desert One, Kyle had authorized the EC-130s to transfer 1,000 U.S. gallons from the bladders to their own main fuel tanks, but Republic 4 had aleady expended all of its bladder fuel refueling three of the helicopters and had none to transfer. To make it to the tanker refueling track without running out of fuel, it had to leave immediately, and was already loaded with part of the Delta force. In addition, RH-53 Bluebeard 4 needed additional fuel, requiring it be moved to the opposite side of the road.
To accomplish both actions, Sea Stallion Bluebeard 3 had to be moved from directly behind the EC-130. The helicopter could not be moved by ground taxi,[5] and had to be moved by "air taxi" (flying a short distance at low speed and altitude). An Air Force CCT marshaller attempted to direct the manuever from in front of the helicopter but was involuntarily driven back by its rotor wash and resulting blast of dust. Bluebeard 3's pilot, having only the CCT marshaller as a point of reference, became disoriented in the dust cloud. The RH-53 struck the vertical stabilizer of the EC-130 with its main rotor and crashed into the wing root of the EC-130.[6]
In the ensuing explosion and fire, eight US servicemen died: five USAF aircrew in the C-130, and three USMC aircrew on the RH-53, with only the helicopter pilot and co-pilot (both badly burned) surviving. During the following frantic evacuation of the scene by the C-130s, with many of the helicopter aircrews believing they were under attack due to munitions cooking off in the fire, five RH-53 helicopters were left behind mostly intact, some damaged by shrapnel. Iranian gains from the failed operation total between four and six RH-53 helicopters. In their haste to evacuate the helicopters, the Marine aircrews inadvertently left behind classified plans that identified the Tehran CIA agents.
The C-130s carried the remaining forces back to the intermediate airfield at Masirah Island where two C-141 medical evacuation aircraft from the Night Two staging base at Wadi Abu Shihat, Egypt (referred to as Wadi Kena by the US Forces due to its location near Qena) 26°33′18″N 33°07′58″E / 26.555058°N 33.132877°E / 26.555058; 33.132877 picked up the injured personnel, helicopter crews, Rangers and Delta Force members and returned to Wadi Kena. The injured personnel were then transported to Ramstein Air Base, Germany. The Tehran CIA team left Iran, unaware that their presence had been compromised.
Aftermath
The wreckage of a
RH-53D at the
Desert One base in Iran.
The White House announced the failed rescue operation at 1 A.M. the following day. The embassy hostages were scattered across Iran to make a second rescue attempt impossible. Iranian Army investigators found 9 bodies, 8 Americans and 1 Iranian civilian (which was used to criticize the White House’s announcement that “…there were no Iranian casualties…”). The 44 Iranian civilians were interviewed and gave eyewitness accounts of the operation.[3]
The failure of the various services to work together with cohesion forced the establishment of a new multi-service organization. The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) was established and became operational on April 16, 1987. Each service now has its own Special Operations Forces under the overall control of USSOCOM. For example, the Army has its own Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) that controls the Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF). The Air Force special ops unit that supplied the C-130 elements of the rescue attempt was awarded the AF Outstanding Unit Award for both that year and the next, was assigned its own squadron of MH-53 Pave Low helicopters for long-range low-level night flying operations, and became co-hosts at its home base of Hurlburt Field with the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC).
The lack of well-trained Army helicopter pilots that were capable of the low-level night flying needed for modern special forces missions prompted the creation of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) (Night Stalkers).
Planning for a second rescue mission attempt was authorized under the name Project Honey Badger shortly after the first failed. Plans and exercises were conducted, but the operation grew large in manpower and aircraft requirements, involving nearly a battalion of troops, more than fifty helicopters, and such contingencies as transporting a 12-ton bulldozer to repaidly clear a blocked runway. Even though numerous rehearsal exercises were successful, the failure of the helicopters during the first attempt resulted in development of a second concept involving only fixed-wing STOL aircraft capable of flying from the United States to Iran using aerial refueling, then recovering aboard an aircraft carrier for rapid medical treatment of wounded.
The concept, called Operation Credible Sport was developed but never implemented. It called for a modified Hercules, the YMC-130H, outfitted with rocket thrusters fore and aft to allow an extremely short landing and take-off in Amjadien Stadium. Three aircraft were modified under a rushed secret program. The first fully-modified aircraft crashed during a demonstration at Duke Field at Eglin Air Force Base on October 29, 1980, when its landing braking rockets were fired too soon. The misfire caused a hard touchdown that tore off the starboard wing and started a fire. All on board survived without injury. The impending change in the White House forced the abandonment of this project.[7]
Not long after the failure of the mission, on May 6, 1980, the Iranian Embassy Siege occurred in London which ended in a successful assault by the British Special Air Service (SAS).
Despite the failure of Credible Sport, the Honey Badger exercises continued until after the 1980 U.S. presidential election, when they became moot. Even so, numerous special operations techniques and applications resulted which became part of the emerging Special Operations Command repetoire. President Carter continued to attempt to secure the release of the hostages before the end of his presidency. Despite extensive last-minute negotiations, the Carter administration was unable to secure the release of the hostages by Carter's last day in office, January 20, 1981. It was only after Ronald Reagan's election, after 444 days of captivity, that Iran released the American hostages.
Retired Chief of Naval Operations Admiral James L. Holloway III led the official investigation in 1980 into the causes of the failure of the operation on behalf of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Holloway Report primarily cited deficiencies in mission planning, command and control, and inter-service operability, and provided a catalyst to reorganize the Department of Defense, and the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986.[8]
A memorial honoring the eight Americans who lost their lives during the rescue attempt is located in the Arlington National Cemetery.[9]
The incident in Iranian eyes
Many Iranians believed that US failure on this mission was a help from God in those politically and militarily unstable days of Iran. They especially refer the similarity of this incidence to the story of Abraha in attacking the Kaaba in the Year of the Elephant. This event is referred to in Qur'an, sura 105, Al-Fil, and is discussed in its related tafsir.
Many Iranian writers and journalists compared the two events. [10][11][12][13]
Units involved in the operation
Units known to have participated:
United States Air Force
United States Army
United States Navy and Marine Corps
See also
Fictional depictions
- The Desert One phase of the operation is depicted in the 1986 film The Delta Force. The sequence in the film shows the explosion of a Sea Stallion helicopter and the subsequent rescue of an injured soldier by a character played by Chuck Norris. The film also depicts the escape from Desert One in a Hercules C-130 aircraft.
References
- ^ Bottoms, Mike (2007). "Carney receives Simons Award". Tip of the Spear. United States Special Operations Command Public Affairs Office. http://www.specialoperations.net/Spear/tipspear.pdf. Retrieved 25 November 2009. , pp. 26-31.
- ^ This was done by use of a Forward looking infrared (FLIR) pass before attempting to land.
- ^ a b Bowden, Mark (2006). Guests Of The Ayatollah: The First Battle In America's War With Militant Islam. Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 0-87113-925-1.
- ^ It was originally planned to simulate a head-on accident between the tanker and the bus, flying the bus passengers out of Iran aboard Dragon 3 and then returning them to Manzaniyeh on the second night.
- ^ Either because of a deflated nose gear tire, because of the layer of soft sand, or both. It had originally been positioned behind the EC-130 by a technique in which its nose gear was held off the ground while it rolled on its main gear.
- ^ Thigpen 2001, p. 226
- ^ "The Hostage Rescue Attempt In Iran, April 24-25, 1980". http://rescueattempt.tripod.com/id1.html. by James Bancroft. Accessed 31 March 2007.
- ^ "The Holloway Report" (PDF). http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB63/doc8.pdf. Accessed 31 March 2007.
- ^ the eight were: USAF members MAJ Harold L. Lewis, MAJ Richard L. Bakke, MAJ Lyn D. McIntosh, CPT Charles T. McMillan II, and TSG Joel C. Mayo; and Marine Corps members SSG Dewey L. Johnson, SGT John D. Harvey, and CPL George N. Holmes, Jr.
- ^ Tabas Event and the Magical Helps, 1984, by Ministry of Islamic Thoughts and Guidance, Iran, in Arabic.
- ^ "Tabas, An implementation of the Elephant Surah, 1991". http://www.nlai.ir/Default.aspx?tabid=1667. by Imam Khomeini following muslim university students group. 191 pages, in Farsi.
- ^ "The Loss of US In Tabas, April 26, 2003". http://www.hawzah.net/hawzah/magazines/magart.aspx?magazinenumberid=4670&id=35829. in Farsi. Accessed 19 July 2009.
- ^ "Tabas Desert, A Repetition of the Elephant Surah, April 25, 2009". http://yazdanparast.ws/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=401:1388-02-05-09-26-47&catid=66:1388-01-31-13-54-43. in Farsi. Accessed 19 July 2009.
- USAF College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education. Air & Power Course: Operation Eagle Claw. United States of America: US Air Force.
- Kamps, Charles (2006). "Operation Eagle Claw: The Iran Hostage Rescue Mission". Air & Space Power Journal. http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/apjinternational/apj-s/2006/3tri06/kampseng.html.
- Olausson, Lars, Lockheed Hercules Production List 1954-2005, Såtenäs, Sweden, annually, no ISBN.
- Kyle, Col. James H., USAF (Ret.) (1990). The Guts to Try. New York: Orion Books. ISBN 0-517-57714-3.
- Lenahan, Rod (1998). Crippled Eagle: A Historical Perspective Of U.S. Special Operations 1976-1996. Narwhal Press. ISBN 1-886391-22-x.
- Beckwith, Col. Charlie A., US Army (Ret.) (2000). Delta Force: The Army's Elite Counter Terrorist Unit. Avon. ISBN 0-380-80939-7.
- Haney, Eric (2002). Inside Delta Force: The Story Of America's Elite Counter Terrorist Unit. Random House. ISBN 0-385-33603-9.
- Bowden, Mark (May 2006). "The Desert One Debacle". The Atlantic Monthly. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200605/iran-hostage.
- Bowden, Mark (2006). Guests Of The Ayatollah: The First Battle In America's War With Militant Islam. Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 0-87113-925-1.
External links
Coordinates: 33°05′N 55°48′E / 33.083°N 55.8°E / 33.083; 55.8
