Delta Force (26 page)

Boris has fallen in love. He is no longer a sniper. In Teheran he will be a machine gunner and he has been smitten by the HK21. For hours and hours he has familiarized himself with every nuance of the weapon. He's changed barrels, he's changed ammunition, he's changed feed systems. He can take its roller-locked delayed blowback system apart and reassemble it blindfolded in a matter of seconds. He makes the HK21 sing on the range. The problems he is solving in late November revolve around his weapon—how much ammo should he carry and how will he carry it, will it be more efficient to carry and fire drums, belts, or magazines?

Besides his weapon, Boris has backup responsibilities to learn and perfect. He must teach the man who will back him up everything he has learned about the HK21 and about his job of covering the southern sector of Roosevelt Avenue. It will be his job to prevent reinforcements from coming toward the compound from that direction. How well Boris does it might determine the success or failure of the entire mission.

When you meet Walter Shumate you might say he isn't the smartest guy you've ever seen. You'll be wrong. A senior NCO, he took it upon himself to act as liaison between the troops and the headquarters staff. A difficult job and one Walter did with aplomb.

The troops wanted to know: “Are we going or aren't we?” “How long are we going to stay here in Smokey?” “Can I call my wife? It's our anniversary.” “My kid's sick. What can I do?” Walt had to be the man who solved these problems. He's got to come up to headquarters and say to me or Buckshot or Country, “Hey, look, we got cut a little short on chow yesterday. Can you make it up tomorrow?” “Chow arrived on the range late and cold today. What can we do to prevent this from happening again?” “We got a laundry problem.” “The mail is slow coming in.” These all seem like unimportant complaints.
I can assure you they aren't, when you have to keep morale high so that troops will be ready to go at any instant. It was like a football coach trying to prepare his team for the Super Bowl without knowing when he'd have to play it.

On a day in late November at Camp Smokey, probably around chow time in the evening, while everyone on the headquarters staff was watching the network newscasts, Walter would sashay in. He wouldn't rattle anything. He'd just glide through the door. Before you knew it you'd look up and there would be Walter, at peace with the world, calmly watching Cronkite or Chancellor. He knew he shouldn't be there, but he also knew as a good friend of mine and a man I respected he wouldn't be asked to leave. He wanted to be able to go back and tell the troops that everything was O.K. with the Old Man. He'd talk some to Ish, trying to read my mood. After chow he'd saunter up to me, “What d'you think, Boss? How's it going? You need more rest. You look tired.” Then Walt would float away and no one would remember seeing him leave.

Back with the troops he'd draw a crowd for his report. “Boss looked good tonight. Everyone was up.” Or, “Boss is real preoccupied. Got a big meeting with the Neanderthal Man tomorrow. Something big's about to happen.” Then he'd tell everyone a war story, “I remember once going in ahead of an operation around Long Thanh. The Boss asked me to do a quick bomb damage assessment, the problem was all the VC weren't dead.”

Later in the evening, before the second big intel dump would come in, Country, Delta's sergeant major and my right arm, would come up to me, “Boss, don't talk to these guys that come in here. Let me take care of that.” That's fine, but I didn't want to be rude and just tell the visitors to get out. That would cause sparks and no one wanted that. We came close several times, but nothing that couldn't be smoothed out.

It would be fair to say that Buckshot is moody. On idle days, when time hangs heavily on your hands, when there's too much time and not enough to do, Buckshot will not fit in very well. He'll either piss somebody off in Washington on
the phone or he'll go down to the squadrons and have a disagreement with one of the commanders. If it's a fast-moving day with lots of activity or stress, a day in which there is too much to do and not enough time to do it in, Buckshot's happy.

In late November Buckshot was very happy.

He'd normally get up a little after Ish and a little before me. Once breakfast was out of the way, he and I would go in to see Ish and try to very quickly get a rundown on what, if anything, had happened while we were sleeping. Ish, depending on the day he'd had yesterday, or the day he was about to have, was either cordial or brusque. “Nothing came in we need to worry about,” or, “Jesus Christ, guys, we're real busy right now. Can you come back later? Please!” More often than not Buckshot and I would hear, “Something important came in. You might want to read it. It's on top of the pile over there. By the way, Boss, you gotta call Vaught. He's called already.”

This would be Buckshot's cue to leave. “I'm going down to the range. The squadrons are working on the M79 and I want to see how it's going.” He was not one for sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. He'd rather go out to find work.

Around noon he'd return from the range and it would be either real good or real bad—never middle of the road. “Things are really screwed up down there. The range is pure shit.” Or, “The guys are doing great. They love that M79. It's one hell of a weapon.” Whatever, Buckshot's going to be honest.

At the range, Fast Eddie had talked to him, and Buckshot would want my opinion. “Boss, Fast has got these three areas staked out,” and he'd point them out on a map that hung on the wall of the office. “What d'you think? He's gonna make a lot of noise and he's gonna blow up something big. Why not move him here to this corner, where he can't hurt nothing.”

He'd come back from the squadron billets all charged up about the troops. “How come the men haven't received their mail yet, Country? Two of the guys got some problems back at Bragg. They owe some money but can't pay until they get their bank statements. Also, so-in-so's little boy just had an
appendectomy. The next time you call Potter ask him if he can find out how the little fella's doing. His Dad's worried.”

Buckshot always handled visitors. Usually they'd come down toward evening. General Vaught would arrive and might have the CIA's representative to the JTF in tow. Buckshot would meet and greet them at the airport and on the way back to Smokey pull out of them whether something heavy was about to come down. At headquarters he'd either give me a wink or get me aside and tell me what he'd found had been bothering Hammer.

Buckshot would stroke the visitors. Whether he had to give a brief or take General Vaught on an exercise, it would be done with poise and self-assurance.

Once General Vaught had left, Buckshot and I would go back to the intel shop and get briefed on the events of that day in Teheran. We read message traffic and IRs until we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer. Then we'd go to bed.

Ishimoto would still be up, looking to add information to his workbooks.

THIRTY-FOUR

ON DECEMBER 2ND
, the Sunday following Thanksgiving, Vaught came down to Camp Smokey accompanied by Gast, Kyle, and many of the JTF staff officers.

The purpose of this meeting was to determine the best way to infiltrate and exfiltrate Delta. There were various options open to us. One not open, but nonetheless suggested by an Air Force brigadier, was that Delta, after landing by helicopter, ride through the streets of Teheran on bicycles. “Nobody'll bother you.” This individual frightened me. He had been in Iran. I don't know; he either had some very good information or I didn't understand it.

Another option, once Delta had parachuted in the vicinity of the city and freed the hostages, was to have the entire party evade and escape overland. I couldn't see myself carrying a hostage around Iran for six months, two years, or for however long it took to get back to this country.

These ideas now sound ludicrous, but they were perhaps the fevered results of the excitement generated by the media. On television, each and every night, Americans were told they were being held hostage. People were driven to the point of saying, “We gotta get these hostages out of the hands of those Iranians. When and what are we going to do? Try anything, but
do
something.” Bicycles and E and E tactics weren't the solution, but we had to proceed this way. “Describe the options and accept or discard them on their merit, no matter how crazy they at first seem.”

At this Sunday meeting on December 2nd the parachute option was carefully analyzed. At first blush it seemed reasonable. But the more it was discussed the more impractical it became. Experience since World War II revealed that if 100 paratroopers were dropped in rough terrain, about seven of them would become casualties. Some would be hit by small arms fire. Others would suffer twisted backs, sprained ankles, broken legs. Seven percent casualties. Now at Normandy or Arnhem that wasn't bad. But what's Charlie Beckwith going to do with a man on a drop zone in Iran who's got a broken leg? He doesn't want to leave him and he doesn't want to carry him either. Although it wasn't the perfect solution, the parachute option was favored by some of the planners. It continued to be one of the acceptable choices.

Another possible solution to the problem: why not enter Iran from across the Turkish border in trucks? It sounds like a real good way to get in and get out, because a large number of trucks cross into Iran each week. They move from West Germany to Pakistan and back again. At the border these trucks are carefully checked by customs officials. If the paperwork is not perfect, the trucks would be stopped and searched. The Agency had begun checking on this documentation at each border crossing in the event the truck option proved viable. The trouble was, if there were any slipups on the Iranian side of the border, if the Pasdaran opened a refrigerator truck and found it full of Delta operators and not frozen beef, what the hell were we going to do?

There was also the problem that trucks would take a long time to drive across Iran and this would increase the time in which Delta could be discovered. The terrain in northern Iran requires vehicles to stay on the few roads that cross the region. Furthermore, no one could come up with a foolproof plot for clearing all the Iranian Army, police, and IRG (Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the paramilitary group also known as Pasdaran) checkpoints and roadblocks that might be encountered.

In the long run, if you could really figure out all the logistics, the trucks were probably a pretty good way to go at it,
but the truck concept allowed no other option if something went wrong.

Furthermore, I learned our country had decided for security or political reasons that Turkey would not, or could not, play any role in our rescue plans. In the long haul, this proved very unfortunate.

The conference table was soon covered with papers, maps, charts, overflowing ashtrays, and Styrofoam coffee cups. After much discussion, the only way which argued for any degree of success was the use of helicopters. Everyone who served in Vietnam carried no illusions about them. They could, at times, be undependable, but if properly backed up they would get the job done. On this Sunday, in the view of the air planners, the helicopters' strengths outweighed their weaknesses and on this testimony the choppers began to win the day.

There was no question that the choppers offered a vast improvement over the contingency plan Delta had worked out in the first few days of the crisis. General Vaught eventually decided for planning purposes to propose the helo option to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. David Jones.

In the event helicopters were used, several major questions and problems emerged and were discussed at length. Which series of helicopter would meet all the load and range requirements? There were several options: CH-47 Chinooks or CH-46 Sea Knights, HH-53s or RH-53s. It became apparent, when all the specifications were laid out, that the 53 series met most of the requirements. Additionally, the Navy RH-53D, known as the Sea Stallion, had both foldable tail boom and rotor blades, which permitted them to be carried on aircraft carriers. These choppers were designed for mine-sweeping missions and their presence on board a carrier would not cause any surprises, thereby strengthening security considerations.

The RH-53D is the largest helicopter in the military's inventory. With a full load of fuel they'll generally carry thirty people. As fuel burns off while it's flying, the chopper becomes lighter and its carrying capacity increases. At the next stop, therefore, depending on how much fuel it has consumed, the chopper might be able to load forty or fifty people.

Although the Sea Stallions had heavy lift and long-range ferry capabilities, they did not have the range to fly from the Gulf of Oman to Teheran without refueling somewhere in the 900 miles between. How, then, would they refuel and where? Would it be somewhere in the Iranian desert or, as someone suggested, at a lightly manned or abandoned airfield in the vicinity of a small Iranian city. This site made little sense to me. It meant people would be killed. Killing wasn't the problem—that was one of Delta's jobs—but to kill people unnecessarily would be stupid. Also a firefight increased the risk of discovery. The option to seize an airfield lay on the table like an old balloon. The desert? Not if MC-130s, configured to carry fuel, were to be used. The desert, it was believed, would never support their weight. Assuming, however, this problem could be solved, how would Delta, after they freed the hostages, leave Iran? The choppers would face the same problem departing as they had entering. Fuel. Where would they refuel on the way out? Looking at a large map of the area, it was obvious they could not double back the way they'd come. It was just too far and the refueling point, if the same one was to be used, stood a chance of being discovered. Someone suggested that the helos could lift Delta and the freed hostages to a location where fixed-wing aircraft could land and from there fly everyone out. But where would the rendezvous take place?

One by one the problems began to assume manageable proportions. Everyone was by now in shirtsleeves, collars open. Empty coffee cups were stacked on top of each other. How many days would the mission require to accomplish its objective? One? Two? Surely, one day was preferable to two, but it became obvious as the meeting wore on that there was going to be too much to do for it all to be accomplished in one day. It would probably take two. Three was out of the question. On the first night, Delta would be moved to Iran and located outside of Teheran; on the second night the assault would take place and Delta and the freed hostages would be lifted out of Iran. This left the day between the two nights—a period of time when the assault force and helos would have to remain hidden. Obviously this hide-site, or hide-sites, would require
isolation, but it would also require access to a road where Delta would travel by motor vehicles to Teheran. Another problem for the planners. Find Delta and the Sea Stallions a place to hunker down, someplace where they could remain undercover and undetected for twelve hours.

A staff officer turned to me. “Colonel, how many of your men will be required to handle the mission?” In an earlier meeting, one of the sessions held at the Pentagon, I had laughed when it was suggested that forty of them be used. A hell of a lot more than that would be needed! I answered that seventy was a good number. General Vaught looked uncomfortable and sat up. “Goddamn, Charlie, that's too many.” The problem was carefully explained. There was simply too much to do. Delta couldn't assault the large compound, seize and clear fourteen buildings, secure and hold adjoining Roosevelt Avenue, organize, protect, and move fifty-three hostages—it couldn't do all that with fewer than seventy operators. Just like taking a ham sandwich to a banquet, it couldn't be done. Economy of force is a basic principle of combat. Accurately assessing the number of men to constitute the force is the trick. Delta had been asked to come up with a realistic number for the mission. The staff had spent days carefully working out all the eventualities and arrived at the number I submitted. Most of the planners accepted seventy as viable. General Vaught returned to Washington with it.

In the days following the meeting at Camp Smokey, General Vaught wisely recommended to General Jones that six RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters be delegated to the Joint Task Force. Based on experience, judgment of the routes, distances, loads, and temperature, the staff planners at first determined six helos would be needed to support the mission. Four, I was told, would be sufficient to carry the necessary personnel—a fact which had come out of the Sunday meeting—and the other two would act as backup. Accordingly, in early December, six Sea Stallions from Helicopter Mine Countermeasure Squadron 16 were placed aboard USS
Kitty Hawk
(CV 63), which at the time was on station somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

These Navy/Sikorsky RH-53Ds were drawn from a fleet of thirty minesweeping helicopters that had been built for the Navy between June '73 and December '75. Modifications for the mission included removing from the helos their mine-sweeping gear and adding fuel tanks, which increased their range by more than 200 nautical miles.

Much had been decided on December 2nd, but so much more still needed to be determined. The normal Navy crews who trained on the 53s had no experience in the type of mission we envisioned. In fact, there were no pilots in any of the services who had been trained to fly in the conditions this mission required. Where would they come from?

Also, and closer to home, Delta still lacked sufficient intelligence necessary to weld together a viable, deliberate assault plan. With the great distance from the Gulf of Oman to Teheran, the planners knew they had to locate and fabricate a refueling site. Beyond that, the assault plan was sketchy. Its chances for success were very slender indeed.

The basic scenario looked very complicated. It also revealed that at this time the Armed Forces of the United States had neither the present resources nor the present capabilities to pull it off. Training was needed to accomplish unique and demanding tasks.

The puzzle had been described. It seemed a gargantuan task for everyone involved to solve all its problems and make each component part fit together. But at least a beginning had been made.