Failed 1980 American military operation in Iran
Operation Eagle Claw (Persian: عملیات پنجه عقاب) was a failed operation by the United States Armed Forces ordered by U.S. President Jimmy Carter to attempt the rescue of 53 embassy staff held captive at the Embassy of the United States, Tehran, on 24 April 1980. The operation, one of Delta Force's first, encountered many obstacles and failures and was subsequently aborted. Eight helicopters were sent to the first staging area called "Desert One", but only five arrived in operational condition. One had encountered hydraulic problems, another was caught in a sand storm, and the third showed signs of a cracked rotor blade. During the operational planning, it was decided that the mission would be aborted if fewer than six helicopters remained operational upon arrival at the Desert One site, despite only four being absolutely necessary. In a move that is still discussed in military circles, the field commanders advised President Carter to abort the mission, which he did.
As the U.S. forces prepared to withdraw from "Desert One", one of the remaining helicopters crashed into a transport aircraft that contained both servicemen and jet fuel. The resulting fire destroyed both aircraft and killed eight servicemen. In the context of the Iranian Revolution, Iran's new leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, stated that the mission had been stopped by an act of God ("angels of God") who had foiled the U.S. mission in order to protect Iran and its new Islamist government. In turn, Carter blamed his loss in the 1980 U.S. presidential election mainly on his failure to secure the release of the hostages. The American hostages were released the day of Ronald Reagan's inauguration.
Motivation for military intervention.
On 4 November 1979, fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were taken hostage in the United States Embassy in Tehran, Iran, by a group of Iranian college students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, avid supporters of the Iranian Revolution. American President Jimmy Carter called the hostage-taking an act of "blackmail" and the hostages "victims of terrorism and anarchy". but in Iran it was widely seen as an act against the U.S. and its influence in Iran, including its perceived attempts to undermine the Iranian Revolution and its longstanding support of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in 1979.
The crisis had reached a climax after diplomatic negotiations failed to secure the release of the hostages. Facing elections and with little to show from negotiations, the Carter government ordered the State Department to sever diplomatic relations with Iran on 7 April 1980. Cyrus Vance, the United States Secretary of State, had argued against a push by National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski for a military solution to the crisis. Vance left Washington on Thursday 10 April for a long weekend vacation in Florida. The following day, Friday 11 April, Brzezinski held a newly scheduled meeting of the National Security Council where he insisted that it was time to "lance the boil", and Carter said it was "time for us to bring our hostages home". During this Security Council meeting of 11 April Carter confirmed that he had authorized the mission. He also continued to entertain the planning for a concurrent punitive air-strike, but this was finally rejected on 23 April, one day before the start of the mission, which was code-named "Operation Eagle Claw".
"Operation Eagle Claw" occurred amid a breakdown in diplomatic relations between Iran and its western neighbor Iraq, including frequent border skirmishes, calls by Khomeini for Iraqi Shi'ites to revolt against the ruling Ba'ath Party, and allegations of Iraqi support for Arab and Kurdish separatists in Iran. According to an 11 April 1980 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysis, "Evidence indicates that Iraq had probably planned to initiate a major military move against Iran with the aim of toppling the Khomeini regime" and had "sought to engage the Kuwaitis to act as intermediary in obtaining United States approval and support for Iraqi military action against Iran". Carter, who wrote in his diary on 10 April that "The Iranian terrorists are making all kinds of crazy threats to kill the American hostages if they are invaded by Iraq—whom they identify as an American puppet," may have been influenced by such reports to approve a rescue mission prior to the outbreak of a possible Iran–Iraq War.
Planning and preparation.
Planning for a possible rescue mission began on 6 November, two days after the hostages were taken. Army Major General James B. Vaught was appointed as Joint Task Force commander and was to be forward-based at Wadi Kena in Egypt, reporting directly to the President. In turn, he had two field commanders: USAF Colonel James H. Kyle as the field commander for aviation and U.S. Army Colonel Charlie Beckwith as ground forces field commander. In planning the operation, some of the maps the US used were tourist maps.
The ambitious plan was to be based on the use of elements from four branches of the U.S. military: Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force. The concept was based on an operation where helicopters and C-130 aircraft, following different routes, would rendezvous on a salt flat (code-named "Desert One") 200 miles (320 km) southeast of Tehran. Here the helicopters would refuel from the C-130s and pick up the combat troops who had flown in on the C-130 transports. The helicopters would then transport the troops to a mountain location ("Desert Two") closer to Tehran, from which the rescue raid would be launched into the city the following night. The operation was further to be supported by an in-country CIA team. On completion of the raid, hostages were to be taken to a captured Tehran airport from where they were to be flown to Egypt.
On 31 March, anticipating the need for military action, a U.S. Air Force Combat Controller, Major John T. Carney Jr., was flown in a Twin Otter to "Desert One" by covert CIA operatives Jim Rhyne and Claude "Bud" McBroom for a clandestine survey of the proposed landing areas for the helicopters and C-130s. Carney installed remotely operated infrared lights and an IR strobe to outline a landing pattern for the pilots. He also took soil samples to determine the load-bearing properties of the desert surface. At the time of the survey, the salt-flat floor was hard-packed sand, but in the ensuing three weeks an ankle-deep layer of powdery sand had been deposited by sandstorms.
The Tehran CIA Special Activities Division in-country paramilitary team, led by retired U.S. Army Special Forces officer Richard J. Meadows, had two assignments: to obtain information about the hostages and the embassy grounds and to transport the rescue team from "Desert Two" to the embassy grounds in pre-staged vehicles. "Desert One" was in the South Khorasan Province, in the Dasht-e Lut desert near Tabas (); "Desert Two" was located 50 miles (80 km) short of Tehran at .
Assault teams.
The ground forces consisted of 93 Delta soldiers to assault the embassy and a 13-man special forces assault team from Detachment "A" Berlin Brigade to assault the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where three further hostages were being held. A third group of 12 Rangers were to act as the roadblock team at the "Desert One" landing area. Rangers were also tasked with taking and holding the Manzariyeh Air Base near Tehran to be used to escape from Iran. In addition, the CIA had prepared an in-country team of 15 Iranian and American Persian-speakers, most of whom would act as truck drivers.
Ingress.
The complex plan required that on the first night, three USAF EC-130s (Call signs: "Republic 4", "5", and "6"), carrying the logistical supplies, and three MC-130E Combat Talons (Call signs: "Dragon 1", "2", and "3"), carrying Delta Force and Ranger troops (132 assault and security troops in total), would depart Masirah, off the coast of Oman, for "Desert One," a flight of over 1,000 miles (1600 km). They would be refueled by Air Force KC-135 tankers en route. "Desert One" would be secured by a protection force, and once secured, a refueling area would be established for the helicopters with approximately 6,000 US gallons (22,700 L) of jet fuel being made available from collapsible fuel bladders carried in the C-130s.
Eight United States Navy (USN) RH-53D Sea Stallion (Call signs: "Bluebeard 1 – 8") helicopters were positioned aboard , 60 miles off the coast of Iran. The helicopters would fly to "Desert One", refuel, load up the Delta Force and part of the Ranger teams, then fly 260 miles (420 km) further to "Desert Two." As it would be close to morning, the helicopters and ground forces would hide during the day at "Desert Two". The rescue operation would take place the second night.
Rescue raid.
First, CIA officers who were already inside Iran would bring trucks they had sourced to "Desert Two". Together, the CIA officers and ground forces would then drive from "Desert Two" into Tehran. This team would assault the embassy and Foreign Affairs building, eliminate the guards, and rescue the hostages, with air support from Air Force AC-130 gunships flying from "Desert One." The hostages and rescue team would then rendezvous with the helicopters from "Desert Two" at the nearby Amjadieh Stadium, where the hostages and rescue teams would board the helicopters.
Egress.
In parallel to the rescue, an Army Ranger company would capture the abandoned Manzariyeh Air Base, () about 60 miles southwest of Tehran, to allow two C-141 Starlifters to arrive from Saudi Arabia. The helicopters would bring all parties from the stadium to the Manzariyeh airbase, and the C-141s would fly them to an airbase in Egypt. The eight helicopters would be destroyed before departure.
Protection and support.
Protection for the operation was to be provided by Carrier Air Wing Eight (CVW-8) operating from "Nimitz" and CVW-14 operating from . For this operation, the aircraft bore special invasion stripe identification on their right wings. This was necessary to distinguish support aircraft from Iranian F-14 and F-4 aircraft purchased by Iran from the US in the time of the Shah. CVW-14 Marine F-4Ns were marked with a red (VMFA-323) or yellow (VMFA-531) stripe enclosed by two black stripes while CVW-14 attack aircraft (A-7s and A-6s) had an orange stripe enclosed by two black stripes.
The mission.
Only the delivery of the soldiers, equipment and fuel by the C-130 aircraft went according to plan. MC-130 "Dragon 1" landed at "Desert One" at 22:47 local time. The landing was made under blacked-out conditions using the improvised infrared landing light system installed by Carney on the airstrip, visible only through night vision goggles. The heavily loaded "Dragon 1" required four passes to determine that there were no obstructions on the airstrip and to align with the runway. "Dragon 1" off-loaded the road-watch teams in Jeeps and a USAF Combat Control Team (CCT) to establish a parallel landing zone north of the dirt road and to set out TACAN beacons to guide in the helicopters.
Soon after the first crews landed and began securing "Desert One", a civilian Iranian bus with a driver and 43 passengers was stopped while traveling on the road, which now served as the runway for the aircraft. The bus was forced to halt by the Rangers and the passengers were detained aboard "Republic 3". Minutes after the bus had been stopped, the Rangers in the road-watch team observed a fuel tanker truck, ignoring their orders to halt, bearing down on them. The truck, apparently smuggling fuel, was blown up by the Army Ranger roadblock team using a shoulder-fired rocket as it tried to escape the site. The truck's passenger was killed, but the driver managed to escape in an accompanying pickup truck. As the tanker truck was thought to be engaged in clandestine smuggling, the driver was not considered to pose a security threat to the mission. The resulting fire illuminated the nighttime landscape for many miles around, and provided a visual guide to "Desert One" for the disoriented incoming helicopters.
Two hours into the flight, RH-53D "Bluebeard 6" made an emergency landing in the desert when a sensor indicated a cracked rotor blade. Its crew was picked up by "Bluebeard 8" and the aircraft was abandoned in the desert. The remaining helicopters ran into an unexpected weather phenomenon known as a "haboob" (an enormous, nearly opaque cloud of fine dust). "Bluebeard 5" flew into the haboob, but abandoned the mission and returned to