The Disasterous "Desert One" Rescue Operation of 1980

Air Force Magazine ^ | Otto Kreisher

[Askel5]

Isn't it weird how the Dems ALWAYS screw up and the GOP ALWAYS wins the foreign wars but -- here at home -- the Dems beat us, hands down, every time?

[Terminal Velocity]

A good book on this operation was published by the Naval Institute Press.The author was Paul B.Ryan.The Title is The Iranian Rescue Mission Why It Failed.Excellent book as it covers the whole scenario and aftermath of the operation.

[rockfish59]

very interesting. i had always wondered what the hell went wrong on that mission. were any decorated for bravery? boy, them dummycrats really know how to 'use' and abuse the military. clinton & carter...the 'cc rider' boys!

[Timesink]

Fascinating article. I was only 10 when this happened, so luckily I didn't get demoralized about it; to me it was just more adults screwing up. Given the other events of that period, I thought it fit in perfectly.

[Timesink]

Hey, wait a minute...

...as many of the Navy's pilots were unable or unwilling to master...

UNWILLING? If they were Navy pilots, why were they given a CHOICE? If your commanding officer says master it, you master it! No?

[BRK]

Thanks for posting this. Although I was 19 when this happened, I was not astute at anything that was happening in the world. I was, for all practical purposes, an idiot (look it up in the dictionary guys). May *od forgive me for my wasted youth.

But anyway great article on what happened in that terrible situation.

[jaz.357]

Young skul full of mush in 1980. My dad said: "VOTE FER REAGAN"... I did. And have voted+R+ ever since!

[infowarrior]

In April, 1980, I was in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on assignment with the U S Army, at about mid-point of my military career. I remember well Desert One, and what occurred there...

the infowarrior

[Paul_B]

Very gripping. The bravery of the men is moving.

I had voted for McGovern, but by the time Carter came around I was of the "don't vote; it only encourages them" belief. And when Reagan appeared I believed the "nuclear cowboy" rhetoric the liberals applied to him.

But soon after I had a forceable growing up life experience. I became a Christian and began to see things differently. I voted again in 84, for Reagan. He had given me something to believe in for America and the world.

I previously thought Carter was a benign fool, but what I've been learning about his and his VP, Mondale's, disdain for Israel and idiotic support for various dictatorships has changed my mind about the binignity. These idiots are dangerous. And it's usually the good who pay for their mistakes, as in this tragic tale. May God keep them from power.

[SamAdams76]

Thanks for the bump. One of the great things about Free Republic is seeing a post you made come back to life a year and a half later. Hopefully Free Republic plans someday to unlock some of the really old posts I used to make here (pre-9/11).

[dfwgator]

Within months, they, too, had been shoved aside, replaced by fundamentalist Shiite Muslim clerics led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

And where did the Ayatollah come from before taking over in Iran? FRANCE!!! Another reason to hate the Frogs.

[SamAdams76]

Bump on the 24th anniversary of this rescue attempt.

[RaceBannon]

me and you were only a few hundred miles away that day, then! :)

The day still makes me sad.

[wrbones]

I was a Sergeant in the Hydraulics shop with HMT-361, a CH-53 (A and D models) squadron at MCAS(H) Tustin in California when this went down. They came in asking for volunteers. At that time you did not volunteer for anything. Usually, for a Sergeant, it meant supervising a buncha PFC's and L/Cpls on a clean-up detail of some kind. A Corporal Davis finally volunteered and only later found out what he had volunteered for. We then spent two days getting everything we could think of ready for him to go on board ship. By that time we all had a pretty good idea of what was going on.

The gates were closed and the base was locked down til the mission was over. I worked for 54 hours straight after that, helping to get everything ready for that little "DET". Corporal Davis and the Hydraulic shop portion of that little exercise were well prepared. Once they were on their way, I remember just crashin' out where I was...onna concrete floor. Keep in mind that the helo community in the Marine Corps were chronically under line T/O strength by a substantial margin at that time.

Among the Marines who died in that clusterfuck were men I'd worked with in the past. The helo community in the Marine Corps is rather small. By the time you become an NCO, if you don't know someone, you know who trained them.

Out of that incident at the embassy in Tehran was born the terrorism we know and finally recognize today. They thought we were weak because we didn't fight. To display any sign of weakness in any way to that culture is to become a victim.

It was not the men or machines who failed in that mission. It was political gamesmanship at the highest levels of the Pentagon, along with lackluster, if not criminal, leadership from our C.I.C.

[dmkcap]

I find this article very interesting, I am retired from the AF, I was a Combat Controller. I know what happened leading up to and including that day. In an earlier post someone asked for the names of the Casualties at Desert One

Air Force
Maj. Richard L. Bakke
Maj. Harold L. Lewis, Jr.
Capt. Lyn D. McIntosh
Capt. Charles T. McMillan
Tech. Sgt. Joel C. Mayo

Marines
Staff Sgt. Dewey L. Johnson
Sgt. John D. Harvey
Cpl. George N. Holmes, Jr.

These brave Airman and Marines gave their lives for an operation that was doomed from the start. I still have nightmares about what happened, I some times wake up at night yelling to get out of the plane, my wife wakes my from these nightmares and asks what is wrong, we have been married 20 years and I still can not tell her what is wrong.

[newsgatherer]

I linked to your post on our news site at: www.christian-news-in-maine.com I just got an email, it seems your link to the Air Force source at the top of the page is not working, could you check it? Thanks, great article.

[dmkcap]

Another year, today it 25 years from that faithful event, we are now free to talk about.

God Bless those who gave there life for this country back then and today.

[wagglebee]

It began in the evening of April 24, 1980, when a supposedly elite US military force launched a bold but doomed attempt to rescue their fellow American citizens and their nation's honor from captivity in Tehran. In the early hours of April 25, the effort ended in fiery disaster at a remote spot in Iran known ever after as Desert One.

The mission never needed to be a "failure," it was "doomed" because America's so-called "Commander-in-Chief" lacked the testicular fortitude to protect America's interests.

[wagglebee]

Remember that the Desert One debacle set the stage for Ronald Reagan's victory later that year.