40 years ago today, the U.S. military launched Operation Eagle Claw in the dead of night to rescue 52 hostages being held inside Iran.
Delta Force operators and a small contingent of Rangers and Green Berets were flown from Oman to a staging ground inside Iran known as Desert One. The stakes were high, the mission ambitious.
Years prior, Col. Charlie Beckwith had the foresight and vision to lobby for a dedicated Army unit that could conduct POW rescue missions and other technically demanding operations. The Pentagon resisted, but eventually came around to the idea after Israel's raid on Entebbe and realizing that America had no similar capability to rescue hostages.
Beckwith got the green light and spent two years selecting and training the first generation of Delta Force operators. The night of the unit's final validation exercise, Beckwith went back to his hotel room and learned that American hostages had been taken in Iran. The year was 1980 and Delta had its first mission.
The plan for what was dubbed "Operation Eagle Claw," was incredibly complicated. The rescue team would be composed of Delta operators who would clear the embassy and embassy grounds, a small element of Special Forces soldiers from Det A in Berlin who would clear the chancellery building where several more hostages were held, and a security force composed of soldiers from 1st Ranger Battalion.
The combined rescue force would meet up in Egypt, fly to Oman and then infiltrate Iranian airspace and arrive at Desert One. Once on the ground, they would be met by helicopters flown from an aircraft carrier off the coast. The rescue team would board the helicopters and fly to a second staging area known as Desert Two where they would lay low that night and later board trucks and drive to the embassy where they would execute the rescue mission itself. Then, of course, they would have to fight their way out and board the helicopters which would meet them at a nearby soccer stadium.
The operators were composed of the very best that America had to offer. Many had served with Special Forces in Vietnam. They had trained hard for this mission, rehearsing the actions to be taken at the embassy over and over again. However, there had never been a full mission rehearsal that integrated the entire assault force, aviators and support personnel. This proved to be the mission's undoing in many ways.
They made it as far as Desert One. Beckwith was forced to call off the mission when several helicopters suffering mechanical failures after they flew through a sandstorm. They didn't have enough birds to transport the assault force. Then, disaster struck when a helicopter pilot became disoriented in a brownout caused by rotor wash and crashed into a parked C-130 aircraft. The result was a fireball that lit up the night, killing eight service members.
The American rescue force returned to Oman, then back to the United States. Beckwith wrote in his memoirs that he cried on the way back, feeling that he had failed his country. However, the real legacy of Operation Eagle Claw is not merely a lesson in failure.
Sgt. Maj. Mike Vining was one of the Delta Force operators who participated in Operation Eagle Claw and was on the ground at Desert One.
"The Eagle Claw mission suffered from a post-Vietnam drawdown, both in funds, people and equipment. Especially hurt was special operation across the board in all four services," Vining told Connecting Vets.
"The legacy was the creation of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). After Grenada it was followed by the creation of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). I think you saw a little bit of improvement in Desert Storm with Special Operations working with the conventional Army. In Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, plus other hot spots across the world you have seen a more efficient joint special operations mission. Not to say sometimes things still go wrong," Vining said.
"Today, special operations has the respect of the American people and they are well funded and equipped. The biggest hindrance during Eagle Claw was our lack of intelligence on the situation in Iran and the U.S. embassy. I think today's intelligence capability has very much improved since that time. Out of the ashes of Eagle Claw rose today's joint special operations, much like the rise of the phoenix," he said.
Thinking about Desert One today brings me back to a conversation I had with a retired Delta Force officer one night in Southern Pines, North Carolina. We spoke over a couple pints of Guinness, naturally. At one point during our conversation, he stopped and pointed at me saying, "The worst thing that can ever happen is not mission failure, as bad as that is."
I asked what he meant by that – mission failure can be catastrophic in so many cases.
"The worst thing that can ever happen is that the public," he said waving his hand towards the other people in the bar, "come to believe that we're too chicken to even try."