Mission Iran, page 7
While the building team relied on Walther MPKs, Remington 870Ps, and pistols for the inside work, the security teams went for M-16s and medium machine guns, in this case the Heckler & Koch HK-21. The HK-21 was a good weapon that could deliver a very damaging quantity of 7.62mm firepower quickly and accurately onto most any target. It had one minor flaw—it tended to jam when hot. The gunners compensated by carrying not only spare barrels, but a quart spray bottle of gun oil to relieve the problem. Each man’s basic load of ammunition was impressive: the building team carried around twenty-five 30-round magazines per man, while the security teams were at thirty mags per man. Each machine-gunner carried over a thousand rounds of linked 7.62mm ammunition that included a mix of standard ball, armor-piercing incendiary, and tracer rounds. Two hundred rounds were carried at the ready, with the remainder on each gunner’s back. Two M-72 LAWs, two Claymore mines, as well concussion and smoke grenades, completed the load. They were loaded for the proverbial bear.
A degree of irreverence permeated the training. All team members had olive drab T-shirts with the logo “The Empire Strikes Back” stenciled on them. An even larger stencil was made that would have been used to spray paint the same logo onto the MFA building in the middle of the assault. A 5-foot by 7-foot American flag borrowed from the Berlin Brigade Headquarters would have replaced the Iranian flag outside the MFA.
The unit was now out of the intelligence-collection business. There would be other activities undertaken by the ad hoc “new special intelligence unit” and other national assets to determine where the hostages were located as well as to conduct disruptive and diversionary attacks on the Iranian command and control infrastructure. If the mission did take place, it would not be limited to a “humanitarian” rescue; it would be punitive.
In October 1980, Colonel “O” told the force that they were going back to the States for further training and rehearsals. One last practice run was scheduled and, secretly, the force was assembled at a secure landing zone at Rose Range in the southwestern corner of Berlin. Just after dusk, three UH-1H “Hueys” flew into the LZ and the teams climbed on, Team Three in the lead bird, Team One in the second, and Team Five in the last. The flight lifted off and headed for Doughboy City. Flying a fairly direct course into the range facility, the birds did an assault landing on a road adjacent to one of the largest buildings. The security teams poured off the birds and set up in their blocking positions, while the building team raced to its objective. It was a full-on assault with few subtleties. Anything that came into view was considered hostile and “taken out.” Team One ran up the stairwell, leaving a small security element at each level until it reached the third floor, gathered the hostages, and turned around, rolling up its security teams as it returned to the ground level and back into the street. Once the building team and their “precious cargo” were on board, the roadblock security teams ran to their respective helos and loaded. The birds took off, and then the assault was repeated. Colonel “O” and the Sergeant Major watched closely from different vantage points, making sure all went as desired before they called it a night. The helos flew back to Tempelhof while the teams conducted a “hot wash” to review and critique the practice. In West Berlin, it was the best preparation anyone could hope for before getting back to the States.
The time in Berlin was not all spent on the mission. Seeing the unit needed somewhere to burn off its excess adrenaline, the executive officer, Major Bob Wise, coached the unit’s football team to the brigade championship. While the unit had mixed luck with its soccer team, especially at the hands of the Germans, its American football team was a different story. The brigade’s teams were normally made up of young men in their early twenties, while the average age of the Det’s team was closer to thirty, a bunch of (comparatively) old, grizzled men. One of the opposing players wailed, “What did they do, let those guys out of prison?”
That might have been one of the more positive interactions the unit had with people from the other units in the city. Between exercises, shooting, and city operations, 20 guys found time to practice and play. It paid off when the unit won the trophy early that fall and a raucous, if somewhat besotted, celebration followed to the tune of Queen and Freddie Mercury singing “We Are the Champions.” Then, it was back to work.
CHAPTER 12
The Little Birds
In 1980, the OH-6A “Cayuse” helicopter had almost been eliminated from the Army’s inventory. A venerable veteran of the Vietnam era, it had been withdrawn from active Army stocks and relegated to Army National Guard aviation units. Built by Hughes Helicopters, it was one of the smallest and safest aircraft in the Army and was nicknamed “Loach,” for light observation helicopter, or “Little Bird.” The military version of the Hughes 500, it looked much like an olive-drab, flying egg. Its fuselage was actually one of the safest designs ever achieved for an aircraft. In a crash, even though its tail and rotor blades would break off, its egg-like shape absorbed the shock of impact and protected the occupants. Still, the Detachment was taken back a bit when told that 12 Little Birds would ferry them into the objective area.
The Little Birds for this operation were provided to the 101st Aviation Group1 from National Guard stocks in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Kentucky and then assigned to the newly designated Task Force 158 (TF-158) as the Special Helicopter Operations Company.2 Equipped with CH-47s, UH-60s, and OH-6s, TF-158—now renamed as TF-160—along with a number of USAF MH-53s, would provide the helicopters for Operation HONEY BADGER, the aviation component of the second rescue attempt.
Twelve OH-6 helicopters and two CH-47s participated in the initial training. The CH-47s provided command and control from the air, while the Little Birds would carry the assault force into the objective. To get the aircraft into range of Tehran, it was planned to airlift the helos by C5A Galaxy into an airfield (the mission air head) within striking distance of Tehran, which was to be seized by a Ranger assault force. The helos would be off-loaded and put into flight mode within 30 minutes. For the OH-6 it was a simple procedure of refitting the rotor blades, which were partially disassembled and stowed along the tail of the aircraft.
Additionally, because of weight limits and the fact that the assault force had grown from nine troopers to nearly thirty, the co-pilot’s controls were removed from the left side of the cockpit. Only one crewman would fly each bird. Instead, the front left seat would accommodate an assaulter, and two more assaulters would sit in the rear compartment. It was expected that at least three American hostages would be brought out on the return flight.3
The pilots were from the 101st Airborne Division and were all very experienced. Importantly, they were qualified to fly with night-vision goggles (NVGs)—an entirely new methodology for the time.
Training would involve the crews preparing the birds for flight in the requisite time frame, loading and unloading procedures, formation flying, live-fire exercises, and the assault landing itself. The longest night formation flight was approximately one hour, all done with minimal illumination and using NVGs. The pilots and the assaulters were equipped with AN/PVS-5 NVGs. Flying with NVGs was still very much in its infancy at the time, and the pilots were still perfecting their skills (as were the assaulters) as training progressed.
CHAPTER 13
Florida
While the unit’s actions on the objective were being practiced in Berlin, planners in the Pentagon were working out the method of inserting the teams. The solution for “SoF” involved bigger helicopters, while the Detachment literally got the Little Birds.
The entire Berlin force was flown by C-141 to Hurlburt Field on the Florida panhandle for rehearsals. The MFA assault element was increased from 9 to 23 men. Colonel “O” would still command the ground element, while Sergeant Major Raker would fly in the command and control (C2) aircraft overhead. A number of the Detachment’s support staff came back to assist in the training along with two extra men from each team—about fifty men in total. There the Detachment met the crews who would fly them in. They were from TF-158, a new, provisional outfit, equipped with OH-6 helicopters pulled from National Guard stocks.
The first briefings centered on how the birds would fly into and out of the targets, loading and unloading, as well as emergency procedures. Some birds would carry three assaulters, some only two. Daytime flights were made to allow the assaulters to determine the best load plan and where to locate their weapons. The tail security team wanted its machine guns to face the police station on infiltration to facilitate engaging any hostile threat that might come from that location, for example.
At one point during the night training, team members realized they needed a viable way to quickly recognize their team’s helicopters as they sat on the ground. The answer turned out to be silver duct tape stripes on the rear section of the fuselage. In some contemporary pictures it’s possible to discern the single or double stripes on each bird.1
Practice mission profiles were flown during daylight, and the pilots familiarized the assaulters with enough “stick time” to be dangerous, the theory being that if the pilot was wounded, the front-seat assaulter could help get the bird on the ground. Of course, there was no chance of that ever happening at night, in a hostile environment, with anything less than ten hours of practice. That said, most could keep the birds on the straight and level without too much difficulty. It was the transition to hover and landing that would kill everyone on board.
Then came night flying with all the birds in close formation. The pilots flew with NVGs, while the team members stared into the darkness as the birds went through their routes. Lit only by very small side markers, the OH-6s were all but invisible, and even in close formation, only the occasional main rotor blade of another bird would be sensed as it swished by just beyond the rotor tips of the observer’s bird. It was a relief to end the flights, as crews and assaulters would be mentally drained after even a one-hour flight.
For the mission, the OH-6s would be loaded onto a C5A Galaxy with their rotors folded up in transport position and the whole package flown into an airfield that would be seized by the Rangers. The Little Birds were to be wheeled off the ramp and put back together quickly, loaded, and launched for the rescue. Simultaneously, “SoF” would be doing the same thing with its UH-60 Blackhawks in the far west. The assembly procedure was practiced multiple times until the crews and support personnel were able to make each aircraft flightworthy in several minutes. The assaulters always wanted to touch the “Jesus Bolt” that held the main rotor in place, just to make sure it was good and tight before the pilot cranked his bird up.
Gunnery practice was also big on the program, and ranges were acquired and set up for the helos to practice assault landings coupled with live-fire exercises. Anything dangerous is best undertaken in small practice steps before the full Monty is applied. That was the case in this instance as well. Static off-loads and firing came first, followed by single bird and section landings, before the entire flight was practiced. The pilots quite enjoyed the experience of landing 12 birds with 24 weapons firing live ammo out their port doors. Surprisingly, no one was shot out of the sky.
Only one mishap occurred when a wind gust caught the tail rotor of one of the birds and it spun out of formation.2 Luckily, the bird spun up and away from the others and the pilot was able to recover and set the bird down in a field.
A final weapons practice was run at night, which was most impressive, as every weapon was loaded with tracers. The guns opened up as each section settled in to land and continued until all the birds were down. There was little attempt to conserve ammunition. The result was a horizontal wall of flame that reached from the birds to the ground and tore up everything in its path. The targets placed in the field were shredded by the machine guns, flopping over backwards as the bullets cut them in half. There were more than a few 40mm rounds pumped out of grenade launchers—using training practice rounds to avoid shrapnel damage to the birds. There was a short intermission to let the smoke drift off and to reload the aircraft. Then the routine was repeated as the birds lifted off to return to base.
Assault plan of MFA. (Author’s diagram)
The final practice runs were done at Camp Rudder on Eglin Air Force Base, the location of the Florida Phase of Army Ranger training. The headquarters building, a concrete-block, three-story barracks, was eerily similar to the Iranian MFA and would be the target of the assault. The landings were practiced again by section and then with the complete package until everyone was satisfied with the landings and placement. After that, the teams practiced off-loads and taking up their positions while the building team did its thing of retrieving the hostages and reloading the birds.
The daytime practices took the better part of several days until the force was ready for nighttime runs. Short flights preceded the longer ones until the full mission flight profile was practiced.
On the night of November 23/24, 1980, a full-scale exercise of the mission took place. The Det loaded its helicopters after a simulated unload and assembly of the OH-6s. The birds flew a nearly two-hour-long mission that simulated the extreme flight duration. Taking off from Hurlburt, the birds flew out over the swamps of Florida, while the assaulters sat back and tried to enjoy the flight. Further up in the sky, AC-130 gunships covered the approach to the target while a CH-47 helicopter provided command and control. For the actual mission, the AC-130 gunships would lay down pre-planned 105mm gunfire before the assault to eliminate a number of known or suspected Iranian military positions that included the Ministry of Defense. Having “Spooky” overhead with all its firepower was a comforting thought when flying into what could well be a hornet’s nest.
The pilots signaled their final approach and sat down on the road, with the teams running to their designated security positions on the ends of the road. The building team breached the gate and entered the MFA, and within minutes the “hostages” were loaded onto the birds. The commander spoke the withdrawal codeword and everyone folded back to their birds by section, and the flight took off and ran for home. It went well the first time and it seemed like the plan might actually work.
Unbeknownst to the Detachment members, that night the entire SNOW BIRD force had practiced successfully in dispersed locations across the United States. The operations order for the rehearsal was codenamed “STORM CLOUD.”
CHAPTER 14
It’s All Over But The Shouting
By late 1980, the Iranian hostage drama had become a political football and it became clear the mission would not go forward. On Tuesday, November 4, 1980, the Republican challenger Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Democratic president Jimmy Carter. Even before Reagan was sworn in, private signals were sent by the Iranian regime that the hostages would be released. With that Operation SNOW BIRD/STORM CLOUD was put into mothballs.1 The Task Force broke up and the Detachment returned to Germany shortly before Christmas 1980. Everyone remained ready, but the release of the hostages on Inauguration Day on January 20, 1981, cancelled the need for any operation for good.2
Several days before the men flew back to Germany, General Vaught visited the unit, which was still at Hurlburt Field. He had made a whirlwind tour of all the different elements that were involved, and this was his last stop before heading back to Washington and the Pentagon. The helicopter crews were tinkering with their aircraft on the flight line, and the men from Berlin were sitting in the grass cleaning their weapons. Despite their disappointment over the mission being scrubbed, it was a glorious, sunny day.
Vaught was talking with Colonel Olchovik as he walked over. There was a bit of small talk with each man and then he spoke to the whole group to thank them for their work. He said “at least, it was good training.” No one could fault his logic, but suicidal or crazy as it may sound, each man just wanted the mission to go.
CINCEUR General Kroesen forwards MG Vaught’s classified Letter of Appreciation to Det “A” members of JTF 1-79. (Author’s collection)
As the two officers walked away, James let the bolt of his HK-21 slam forward and said, “That’s all she wrote then.”
Staff Sergeant “JJ” Morrison summed it up best: “It would have been glorious.”
The Detachment and its soldiers who participated received a JCS Letter of Commendation for their part in the mission. It was classified Top Secret and has not seen the light of day since it was filed away in the S-2’s safe.
APPENDIX 1
Timeline
Nov. 4, 1979
Embassy occupied.
o/a Nov. 7, 1979
Colonel Olchovik and SGM Raker travel back to CONUS.
Nov. 1979–Feb. 1980
Operation RICE BOWL planning begins.
Dec. 1979–Mar. 1980
Bob Plan acquires vehicles and warehouse.
March 24, 1980
Clearance for the advance team given.
March 25, 1980
Advance team members sign “USG will disavow you” papers.
March 17–28, 1980
Close-Quarter Battle course.
March 26, 1980
