Citizendia
Your Ad Here

Operation Eagle Claw

A left side view of six RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters in flight. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout The helicopters, based aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68), are taking part in Operation Evening Light, a rescue mission to Iran. Nuclear power is any Nuclear technology designed to extract usable Energy from atomic nuclei via controlled Nuclear reactions General characteristics Builder Newport News Shipbuilding Company Newport News Virginia Power Plant Two A4W reactors Ship's history The USS Nimitz was first deployed to the Mediterranean in 1976 in company with the nuclear powered Cruisers USS ''South Carolina''
Date April 24, 1980 - April 25, 1980
Location Tehran, Iran
Result Unsuccessful hostage rescue attempt; mission aborted with loss. Events 1479 BC - Thutmose III ascends to the throne of Egypt, although power effectively shifts to Hatshepsut (according to Year 1980 ( MCMLXXX) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar) Events 1607 - Eighty Years' War: The Dutch fleet destroys the anchored Spanish fleet at Gibraltar. Year 1980 ( MCMLXXX) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar) Tehran (or Teheran) ( Persian: تهران Tehrān) is the capital and largest City of Iran, and the administrative center of For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iran topics.
Belligerents
United States Iran
Commanders
Col. Charles Beckwith,
Col. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The Iranian Revolution' (mostly known as the Islamic Revolution, Persian: انقلاب اسلامی Enghelābe Eslāmi was the Revolution that transformed Colonel ( RP ˈkɜnəl GA ˈkɜrnəl is a Military rank of a Commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every country Charles Beckwith may refer to Charles Alvin Beckwith – Colonel Charles "Chargin' Charlie" Alvin Beckwith (22 January 1929 – 13 June 1994 career James Kyle
Casualties and losses
8 KIA
4 WIA		 1 civilian
44 civilians temporarily detained (released before the end of the operation)

Operation Eagle Claw (or Operation Evening Light) was a United States military operation to rescue the 53 hostages from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran on April 24, 1980. Killed in action ( KIA or K I A) is a casualty classification generally used by militaries to describe the deaths of their own forces by other WIA is a Three letter abbreviation standing for Wounded In Action. The United States Armed Forces are the overall unified military forces of the United States This article describes three distinct but related terms military operations Operations as military events and operational level of war The Iran hostage crisis ( Persian: تصرف سفارت آمریکا was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States where 52 The United States of America —commonly referred to as the A diplomatic mission is a group of people from one State or an international Inter-governmental organization (such as the United Nations) present in Tehran (or Teheran) ( Persian: تهران Tehrān) is the capital and largest City of Iran, and the administrative center of For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iran topics. Events 1479 BC - Thutmose III ascends to the throne of Egypt, although power effectively shifts to Hatshepsut (according to Year 1980 ( MCMLXXX) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar) The failure of the operation led to the creation of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and the U.S. Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (“The Night Stalkers”). The United States Special Operations Command ( USSOCOM or SOCOM) is the Unified Combatant Command charged with overseeing the various Special Operations The United States Army is a military organization whose primary mission is to "provide necessary forces and capabilities.

The hostages were eventually released after extensive diplomatic negotiations on January 20, 1981, Carter's last day in office, after 444 days of captivity. Events 250 - Emperor Decius begins a widespread persecution of Christians in Rome. Year 1981 ( MCMLXXXI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Jimmy Carter was determined to ensure the release under his administration, particularly as the Democratic nomination for the 1980 presidential election neared, but the release did not occur until immediately after Reagan had taken the oath of office. James Earl "Jimmy" Carter Jr (born October 1 1924 was the thirty-ninth President of the United States, serving from 1977 to 1981 and the recipient of the 2002 The United States presidential election of 1980 featured a contest between incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter and his Republican opponent Ronald Reagan An oath of office is an Oath or Affirmation a person takes before undertaking the duties of an Office, usually a position in government or within a religious

Contents

Overview

The wreckage of a Sea Stallion helicopter at the Desert One base in Iran
The wreckage of a Sea Stallion helicopter at the Desert One base in Iran
Planned by Joint Task Force (JTF) 1-79 as Operation Rice Bowl, the operation was designed as a complex two-night mission. The first stage of the mission involved establishing a small initial staging site inside Iran itself, near the Tabas in the Yazd Province (formerly in the south of the Khorasan province) of Iran. Tabas (طبس center of Tabas County, is a city of 30000 people located in central Iran 950 kilometers southeast of Tehran in the province of Yazd. Yazd (استان یزد is one of the 30 provinces of Iran. The site, named Desert One, was to be used as a temporary airstrip for the USAF special ops MC-130E Combat Talon I penetration/transport aircraft and C-130 Hercules (later MC-130P Combat Shadow) refueling aircraft, along with eight Navy RH-53D Sea Stallion minesweeper helicopters flown in by Marine Corps aircrews from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz stationed in the nearby Indian Ocean. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout Ship's history The USS Nimitz was first deployed to the Mediterranean in 1976 in company with the nuclear powered Cruisers USS ''South Carolina''

After flying in under radar and landing at Desert One, the C-130 Hercules would off-load men and equipment and refuel the arriving helicopters, which would undertake the actual rescue operation. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout After refueling the helicopters at Desert One, the plan was for the ground troops to board the helicopters and fly to Desert Two near Tehran the same night where the helicopters would be concealed. The next night, the rescuers would be transported to the embassy by assets in place and overpower the hostage guards and extract the hostages across Roosevelt Boulevard (the main road in front of the embassy) to a soccer stadium, where the helicopters would land and retrieve the entire force.

The assets in place were a Tehran CIA team led by noted special forces legend Richard Meadows, who were 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. near as long as it used to be several months ago It has been actively summarized and split into sub-articles and there is a dynamic talk page discussion of all Major Richard J Meadows ( June 16, 1931 - July 29, 1995) was a U (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. )

The assault on the embassy compound would occur after eliminating electrical power in the area in order to disrupt military and civilian capabilities, communications, and any counterattacks attempted by the Iranians. Special Ops AC-130 gunships would also orbit overhead to provide supporting fire against reacting forces. The Lockheed AC-130 Gunship is a heavily-armed ground attack airplane The helicopters would transport the rescuers and hostages from the soccer stadium to Manzariyeh Air Base outside of Tehran ( 34°58′58″N, 50°48′20″E), where a Ranger force would have captured the air field and C-141 transports would be waiting to remove the entire contingent out of the country under the protection of fighter aircraft. Tehran (or Teheran) ( Persian: تهران Tehrān) is the capital and largest City of Iran, and the administrative center of

However, only the delivery of the rescue force, equipment and fuel by the special ops C-130 Hercules occurred according to plan. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout An unexpected low-level intense sandstorm of the kind known as a haboob contributed to the loss of three of the eight RH-53D helicopters by the time the helicopter squadron reached Desert One, behind schedule. A haboob is a type of intense sandstorm commonly observed in the Sahara desert (typically Sudan) as well as across the Arabian Peninsula throughout Kuwait and in WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout The first helicopter was grounded and abandoned in the desert with equipment indicating a cracked rotor blade, and its crew picked up by another helicopter that continued the flight. The second helicopter abandoned the flight and returned to the Nimitz with reported erratic instrumentation blamed on the highly elevated temperatures inside the haboob. The third helicopter arrived at Desert One with a malfunctioning primary hydraulics system and insufficient confidence in the secondary (backup) hydraulics system to continue. The first and third helicopters, which were abandoned, now serve with the Iranian Navy. The Iranian Navy has traditionally been the smallest branch of Iran's armed forces and is designed solely for securing its own ports and coast with

Meanwhile, a fuel-smuggling tanker truck 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 beacon to Desert One for the disoriented and dehydrated incoming helicopter crews, who flew in lower than the undetected C-130 Hercules flight because of miscommunicated instructions and faulty communications equipment, and subsequently encountered the sandstorm. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout The passenger in the tanker truck perished, while the truck's driver managed to escape in an accompanying pickup truck, and was considered to pose a security threat to the mission, although subsequent evaluation realized that the clandestine smuggling nature of the tanker trunk posed no immediate threat. Soon after the truck driver escaped, a civilian Iranian bus with a driver and 43 passengers traveling on the same road, which served as the runway for the aircraft, was forcefully halted and held until the site was fully evacuated.

With only five helicopters remaining for transporting the men and equipment to Desert Two, and needing a predetermined minimum of six helicopters at that stage (Col. 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), Col. Beckwith recommended that President Carter abort the mission, and Carter did just that on April 25, 1980. While maneuvering the helicopters from refueling positions directly behind the C-130 Hercules fuel aircraft so the C-130s could taxi out and take off, one of the helicopter pilots attempted to hop over its C-130 and became disoriented in the dust cloud raised by its rotors and crashed onto the C-130. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout

In the ensuing explosion and fire, eight U. S. servicemen died: five USAF aircrew in the C-130, and three USMC aircrew in the RH-53D (the helicopter pilot survived). WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout 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 the ammo cooking off in the fire, five RH-53D helicopters were left behind mostly intact, some damaged by shrapnel, with the sixth helicopter on top of the C-130 where it crashed and was being consumed by the fire. Iranian gains from the failed operation total between four and six RH-53D helicopters. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout In their haste to evacuate the helicopters quickly, the Marine aircrews inadvertently left behind classified plans that identified the Tehran CIA agents. near as long as it used to be several months ago It has been actively summarized and split into sub-articles and there is a dynamic talk page discussion of all

The C-130s carried the remaining forces back to the intermediate airfield at Masirah Island where two C-141 Medevac aircraft from the rear staging base at Wadi Kena, Egypt picked up the injured personnel, helicopter crews, Rangers and Delta Force members and returned to Wadi Kena. Masirah (مصيرة is an island off the East coast of Oman, 95 km long north-south between 12 and 14 km wide with an area of about 649 km² and a population estimated WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout This article is about the country of Egypt For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Egypt topics. The United States Army Rangers or simply Army Rangers are specialized elite American light infantry and Special operations troops For the computer game see Delta Force (video game. For the movie see The Delta Force (film. The injured personnel were then transported to Ramstein Air Base, Germany. Ramstein Air Base is a United States Air Force base in the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. The Tehran CIA team fortuitously exfiltrated Iran, unaware that their presence had been compromised.

Aftermath

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 eye witness accounts of the operation.

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. The United States Special Operations Command ( USSOCOM or SOCOM) is the Unified Combatant Command charged with overseeing the various Special Operations Events 1178 BC - A Solar eclipse may have marked the return of Odysseus, legendary King of Ithaca, to his kingdom Year 1987 ( MCMLXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar) 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 United States Army Special Operations Command (Airborne ( USASOC or ARSOC)is the command charged with overseeing the various Special Operations Forces The Air Force special ops unit that supplied the C-130 elements of the rescue attempt, and was awarded the AF Outstanding Unit Award for both that year and the next, was assigned its own squadron of HH-53H Pave Low (Super Jolly) 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 (USAFSOC). The 1st Special Operations Wing ( 1 SOW) is a wing of the United States Air Force, the Air Force component of the U WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout Hurlburt Field is a US Air Force installation located in Okaloosa County Florida, immediately west of the Town of Mary Esther and is part of the Air Force Special Operations Command ( AFSOC) was established 22 May, 1990, with headquarters at Hurlburt Field, Florida

The lack of highly 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).

A second rescue mission was planned under the name Operation Credible Sport (a. Operation Credible Sport was a United States military operation plan in late 1980 to rescue the hostages held in Iran using C-130 k. a. Operation Honey Badger), but was never put into action. This second rescue attempt was planned using highly modified YMC-130H Hercules aircraft. Outfitted with rocket thrusters fore and aft to allow an extremely short landing and take-off in a soccer stadium, three aircraft were modified under a rushed secret program. JATO may also refer to the group Jews Against the Occupation. One aircraft crashed during a demonstration at Duke Field, Fl, at Eglin Air Force Base Auxiliary Field 3 on October 29, 1980, when its landing braking rockets were fired too soon. Eglin Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located southwest of Valparaiso in Okaloosa County, Florida, United States Events 437 - Valentinian III, Western Roman Emperor, marries Licinia Eudoxia, daughter of his cousin Theodosius II Year 1980 ( MCMLXXX) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar) The misfire caused a hard touchdown that tore off the starboard wing and started a fire. All on board survived. The impending change in the White House led to the abandonment of this project. The two surviving airframes were returned to regular duty with the rocket packages removed. One is now on display at the Museum of Aviation located next to Dobbins Air Force Base in Georgia. Georgia ( საქართველო, Sakartvelo) is a Transcontinental country in the Caucasus region situated at the dividing line between [1]

Not long after the failure of the mission, on 6 May 1980, the Iranian Embassy Siege occurred in London. Events 1527 - Spanish and German troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance. Year 1980 ( MCMLXXX) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar) The Iranian Embassy Siege of 1980 was a Siege of the Iranian embassy in London after it had been taken over by Iranian Arab Separatists London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom.

As for the situation in Iran, the hostages were released after 444 days of captivity on January 20, 1981, the day that Ronald Reagan succeeded Jimmy Carter as president. Events 250 - Emperor Decius begins a widespread persecution of Christians in Rome. Year 1981 ( MCMLXXXI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981

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. Organization of the CNO's Office The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations includes the Chief of Naval Operations the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, the Deputy Chiefs Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks of the highest Naval officers James Lemuel Holloway III (born 1922 is a retired United States Navy Admiral and Naval aviator who was highly decorated for his actions during World 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. The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 reworked the command structure of the United States military. [2]

Units involved in the operation

These units are known to have participated:

See also

Fictional depictions

References

  1. ^ The Hostage Rescue Attempt In Iran, April 24-25, 1980. by James Bancroft. Accessed 31 March 2007.
  2. ^ The Holloway Report (PDF). Accessed 31 March 2007.

External links

Kuro5hin ( K5) ( pronounced " Corrosion " ie kəˈroʊʒən is a collaborative discussion website. The United States Department of Defense ( DOD or DoD) is the federal department charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government
© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic