Operation Eagle Claw
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. The operation was a failure, and had a severe impact on
U.S. President Jimmy Carter's re-election prospects; on a military level, it led to the creation of the
United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and the
U.S. Army 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (the Night Stalkers).
The hostages were eventually released via diplomatic negotiations on
January 20 1981, Carter's last day in office, after 444 days of captivity.
Planned as
Operation Rice Bowl, the operation was designed as a complex two-night mission. The first stage of the mission involved establishing a small staging site inside Iran itself, near the
Tabas in the
Yazd Province (formerly in the south of the
Khorasan province) of Iran. The site, known as
Desert One, was to be used as a temporary airstrip for the
C-130 Hercules transport planes and
RH-53D Sea Stallion minesweeper helicopters which would undertake the actual rescue operation. After refueling the helicopters, the plan was for the ground troops to board the helicopter and fly to
Desert Two near Tehran. After locating and extracting the hostages from Tehran, the rescuers and rescuees would be transported by helicopter to
Manzariyeh Air Base outside of
Tehran, where C-130 transports would take them out of the country under the protection of fighter aircraft.
An unforeseen low-level
sandstorm caused two of eight helicopters to lose their way en route to
Desert One, but only after men and equipment had been assembled there. A third helicopter suffered a mechanical failure and was incapable of continuing on with the mission. Without enough helicopters to transport men and equipment to
Desert Two, the mission was aborted. After the decision to abort the mission was made, one of the helicopters lost control while taking off and crashed into a
C-130. In the ensuing explosion and fire, eight US servicemen were killed: five
USAF aircrew in the C-130, and three
USMC aircrew in the MH-53. During the evacuation, five MH-53 helicopters were left behind, intact but severely damaged by shrapnel from the burning aircraft. In their efforts to quickly evacuate the MH-53s, the aircrews left behind classified plans which identified
CIA agents within
Iran. Wounded personnel, mostly with serious burns, returned with the rest of the Joint Task Force (JTF) to the launch base in
Oman. Two
C-141 medevac aircraft from the rear staging base at Wadi Kena,
Egypt picked up the injured personnel, helicopter crews, and Delta forces. The C-141s then returned to Wadi Kena. The injured personnel were then transported to Ramstein Air Base,
Germany.
The failure of the various services to work together with cohesion forced the establishment of a new multi-service organisation. The concept of USSOCOM was born and finally established, and became operational in
1988/
1989. Each service subsequently now has its own Special Operations Forces under the overall control of USSOCOM. For example, the Army has its own
Army Special Operations Command (ASOC) that controls the Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF).
The lack of highly trained helicopter pilots that were capable of the low-level night flying needed for modern special forces missions prompted the creation of the
Night Stalkers.
A second rescue mission was planned under the name
Operation Credible Sport (also known as Operation Honey Badger) but was never put into action.
Not long after the failure of the mission, the
Iranian Embassy Siege occurred in
London.
The hostages were released after 444 days of captivity on
January 20 1981, the day that
Ronald Reagan succeeded Carter as president.
In the May 2006 issue of
The Atlantic, journalist Mark Bowden provided a lengthy account of the failed mission [
1].
These units are known to have participated:
*
USS Nimitz (CVN-68) & MarDet (Marine Detachment); and Battle Group
*
USS Coral Sea (CV-43) & MarDet; and Battle Group
*
1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (Delta Force), including mission commander
Charles Beckwith and
William "Jerry" Boykin*
75th Ranger Regiment (U.S. Army Rangers)
*
U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets)
*
USS Okinawa (LPH-3),
31st Marine Amphibious Unit,
3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, and
HMM-165 (see numerous Navy and Marine Corps deployment reports)
*
USAF 1st Special Operations Wing, 8th and 16th Special Operations Squadrons (AC-130/MC-130), USAF RED HORSE and numerous support organizations
*
USAF 1st Combat Communication Group*
Modern Warfare: Special Operations, Operation Eagle Claw - the first part of a series of articles on
Kuro5hin*
Pictorial overview*
Airman magazine - interviews with surviving participants
# USAF College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education.
Air & Power Course: Operation Eagle Claw. United States of America:
US Air Force.# Personal account of the mission and Iranian history related to the Iran Hostage Crisis. [
2]# Olausson, Lars, Lockheed Hercules Production List 1954-2005, Såtenäs, Sweden, annually.# Kyle, Colonel James H., USAF (Ret.), "The Guts to Try", Orion Books, New York, 1990, ISBN 0-517-57714-3.# Col. Beckwith, Charlie A., US Army (Re.), "Delta Force : The Army's Elite Counterterrorist Unit", Avon, 2000, ISBN 0-380-80939-7.
