Delta Force (33 page)

FORTY-TWO

IN THE MORNING
—it was Monday, 21 April—when we landed at Wadi Kena, Egypt; Dick Potter, Delta's deputy commander, was there to meet us. The heat hit us like a wall. It felt like we were walking into a blast furnace. Everyone was beat; we had just flown halfway around the world. Because of all the Gatorade that had been consumed, a long line formed at the latrines.

Dick briefed me on the form; where we would base, sleep, train, and pointed out the location of General Vaught's headquarters.

Lieutenant Colonel Potter is a professional officer who doesn't miss the details. More important, he is the kind of officer who checks to make sure each task is accomplished in good order. If Dick Potter had not gone to Egypt, very little preparation would have been done before Delta's arrival. I'm not sure I ever told Dick how much the Delta operators appreciated what he did for them.

A day or two before we arrived there had been a disagreement over the use of a generator. An Air Force lieutenant colonel responsible for setting up the base had wanted it to run the air-conditioning system in the headquarters area, and Potter had wanted it to run refrigerators that were going to store plasma and other medical supplies. The discussion had reached the shouting stage when General Vaught stepped in. Both officers explained their needs to him. “Now listen here,” General Vaught said to the Air Force officer, “let me explain
the chain of command. There's Jimmy Carter, there's General Jones, there's me, and there's Dick Potter. Now, did you hear your name anywhere?” That was the end of the discussion!

North of the Aswan Dam, not far from the pyramids, the Russians had built an air base at Wadi Kena. The base consists of more than thirteen reinforced concrete hangars and support buildings, which range from one-story wood-frame buildings to ramshackle huts. Delta's billets were in one of the large hangars and even at a distance the shoddy workmanship could be detected. A 250-pound bomb would have caved it in. When Potter arrived, he had found the concrete floor partially covered with broiled human feces. Only through his hard work, and that of some others, had the area been cleaned and made germfree.

Outside the base an endless desolate landscape disappeared into the heat of a cloudless sky. And there were the flies. There were clouds of them. They were everywhere, in, on, and about anything that moved or stood still.

Everyone tried to sleep, but whether it was because of the blazing heat of the day or the excitement of the mission, not many Zs were logged on Monday. Dick had acquired several trucks, which permitted us to work further with the drivers. It still needed to be determined whether the assault force would be driven to the embassy by Iranian or Farsi-speaking American drivers. I tried to sleep, but spent more time worrying than anything else. I was still afraid the mission would be canceled. My shirt was black with sweat.

The sun went down, but nothing cooled off. We worked with the drivers. One of the Americans was a Navy captain, Butterfield. He'd been on the faculty of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and when it was discovered he spoke fluent Farsi he was sent to Fort Bragg. He didn't care what it was he was going to do as long as he got a chance to go. In Teheran, all these men had to do was drive or act as assistant drivers and at the appropriate time get out of their trucks and jump on a helicopter. But none of them had to go to Iran. They were all volunteers.

I'd gone over to see General Vaught. His SATCOM (Satellite
Communications) package had been installed, but his headquarters, two command trailers that had been flown in from Europe, was nothing fancy.

Excitement, expectation, and energy were in abundance. You could almost touch it. The pucker factor was also in evidence. People were feeling the stress.

I asked General Vaught if Delta could test-fire its weapons before they left and arrangements were made to use a makeshift range the next night. In the early evening, which seemed as suffocatingly hot as the day, I continued to monitor the progress of the drivers. The four Department of Defense contacts, who were in Teheran and with whom Delta would link up at the hideout, would recommend how they thought the trucks should enter the city. This was not going to be a problem.

The three Delta Elements—Red, White, Blue—spent the night running over their tasks. The ground was laid out with white tape indicating the distances between the embassy buildings, and the men practiced their maneuvers. The next time they did this it would be for real.

All the operators were weighed again with their equipment to make sure no one exceeded the 270-pound-per-man limit. It was necessary that the weight not go over a certain mark or the helicopters would be unable to fly Delta out of Desert One. The formula between weight and lift had been carefully worked out.

The confidence level was right.

Everyone tried to get his metabolism turned around from daytime to nighttime.

All weaponry was stripped, cleaned, and reassembled; knives were given new edges.

The men took PT.

While we were still in Egypt an event occurred that might have had great impact on the mission. One of the U.S. Embassy's cooks was permitted to leave Iran. Reportedly, on the plane a CIA agent managed to sit next to him. This cook not only knew where the guards were stationed but where all their prisoners were being held.

In the middle of the night, the last one we were to spend in Egypt, I was awakened and told of our good fortune. The information that was passed reported that all fifty-three hostages would be found in the chancellery.

Making use of this intelligence, and in consultation with Buckshot and the commanders of the Red, White, and Blue Elements, I modified the assault plan.

Blue would now pick up more security responsibilities leaving Red to concentrate its entire effort on cracking the chancellery. Because of the building's size, the ninety rooms that needed to be cleared, and its hardened status, it would be a tough nut to crack. To help Red, I gave it two teams, eight operators, from Blue.

The plan now was for one of Red's teams to force the staff door in the east end, then race down the darkened central corridor and open the main entrance, which faced south, to the rest of Red Element.

Blue would neutralize the guards' quarters at the motor pool and power plant. This critical area would be covered by several well-placed machine guns.

No one felt sorry to leave Egypt. The dirt and flies were left behind as Delta was flown in two C-141s to an island, Masirah—which the men instantly, and predictably, nicknamed Misery—off the coast of Oman. As we had flown over the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, the thought that we would not turn back—that we were actually going to go and do the mission—sank in. If there ever was a chance for the operation to be canceled, it would have been while Delta was in Egypt.

Earlier on Thursday, the 24th, before we had left Wadi Kena, everyone had been high-strung. After troop inspection we'd gathered in one of the hangars. Flies were everywhere. Major Snuffy, standing on a small, crudely built platform, read passages from 1 Samuel: “And there came out a champion…named Goliath…his spear was like a weaver's beam…. And David said, ‘The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the bear, will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.' David…took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead and Goliath fell on his face to the ground.”
We'd then prayed for guidance and strength. Suddenly, Buckshot began singing “God Bless America.” All the troops joined in. Their voices swelled in chorus filling the empty hangar with sound that echoed off the concrete walls. “From the mountains, To the prairies, To the oceans white with foam.” Everybody was really up. God, you could feel it, “God bless America, my home sweet home.” General Vaught turned to our psychologist, “Well, Doc, what do you think?” “They're up higher, sir, than I've ever seen them.” Amen.

Delta landed at Masirah about 1400 hours. General Gast was there to meet us. Some tents had been put up. There were soft drinks and water and lots of ice. Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to make Delta comfortable. Some said it was unnecessary. People laughed. Most everyone went into the 16-man tents, the canvas walls were rolled up, and got off their feet. The night was going to be a long one.

Buckshot, Major Snuffy, and I went over on that sunbaked afternoon to the MC-130s and EC-130s to check the schedule one more time. We bumped into Jim Kyle, the commander of Desert One. There weren't any problems. An Air Force colonel, one whom Kyle had selected to go along and assist him during the landings, refueling, and takeoffs, voiced his concern about the three troop-carrying 130s being overloaded. Tongue in cheek, he hoped we'd be able to get off the ground. This scared me. “Hells-bells, Colonel. It's a little late to be talking like that.” Jim Kyle jumped all over him, “You don't know what in the hell you're talking about. This has all been worked out and there isn't going to be any problem getting off the ground. If you don't know what you're talking about, keep your mouth shut!”

By 1630, the time selected to board the 130s, Delta Force was dressed for the mission. They wore Levi's, unpolished GI boots, and field jackets that had been dyed black. On the right shoulder of each jacket was stitched an American flag, which had been covered by tape. When they reached the embassy, the tape would be ripped off. On their heads they wore knitted, dark blue Navy watch caps. No one wore any rank. There was no need to.

FORTY-THREE

BY 1800 HOURS
on April 24th, the first MC-130 was in the air. It carried Colonel Kyle and his Combat Control Team, the Road Watch Team, Major Fitch and the Blue Element, and me. The other five aircraft would follow an hour later.

Over the Gulf of Oman, the plane flew at a couple of thousand feet. As the MC-130 hit the Iranian coast west of Chah Bahar, it dropped to 400 feet. Sitting near the rear cargo hatch, Wade Ishimoto felt a blast of hot air. He knew he was in Iran.

The ground below rolled toward the darkening horizon. To the north, far away, the hills looked like blue smudges and soon grew in size; behind them, farther still, the black mountains rose steeply.

To fly through the seams and into the gaps of the Iranian ground radar tracking system, which under the Khomeini regime had begun to break down, it was necessary to fly a lurching, stomach-tumbling route—hard to port, hard to starboard, up and down, sharp again to port, a sudden dip. It went this way, irregularly but constantly, for several hours.

Some of the Rangers in the Road Watch Team became airsick and remained so the entire flight.

Delta's operators sat shoulder to shoulder, their equipment strung overhead in the webbing or else strapped to the inside of the fuselage. No one spoke much. The cabin interior was lit by small red lights—an aid to night vision once Desert One was reached. There was not much movement. The men remained
inside themselves like a unit waiting for a combat airborne drop.

I thought about the year I'd spent with 22 SAS. I thought of the names and places: John Woodhouse and John Edwards; the Rat, Peter Walter, and Gloom, Sergeant Major Ross; Troopers Scott and Larsen; Harry Thompson; Crab Stakes and the Brecon Beacons and Sherwood Forest; Corsica and Malaya; the old Gurkha Camp at Gerik and the hospital at Ipoh. Maybe these memories came back because I'd been thinking earlier that day of Johnny Watts. He was the Senior British Army Representative to the Government of Oman. If he'd known we were in Masirah, I felt sure he would have greeted us as we deplaned—dressed in full battle gear, demanding to be taken along. As a former brigadier in the Special Air Service Regiment, he had spent many hours helping me form the ideas that led to Delta. It was appropriate that afternoon to feel close to him.

About thirty minutes out, I looked aft and saw there were only a couple of guys still awake. The rest were snoozing, getting their rest. I moved from the cabin and climbed a short ladder into the dimly lit cockpit. There wasn't much room. The pilot and copilot were hidden from me behind their huge chairs. Jim Kyle sat with his back to the bulkhead, monitoring the radio signals back to Wadi Kena and Misery.

It was hard not to be concerned about the trucks and, more, what we'd actually find in the streets of Teheran. Had a new roadblock been established? Would all the hostages really be found in the chancellery? Could those Soviet ZSU-23-4s, with their lethal 23mm cannon, reach Delta while it was still in the stadium? How many helicopters would crank tomorrow night? But my main concern was the route from the hide-site to the wall. If we got to the wall I believed we were home free.

The MC-130 was more than halfway to Desert One when Kyle slapped my shoulder. He grinned. “The helicopters have launched. All eight got off.” “Wonderful,” I said. “That's great.”

How many people have the opportunity to do what I've done: find a new command; build it from scratch; and then,
after creating a unique, the most beautiful, and the finest unit in the United States Army, take it off to war and fight it! I was all smiles.

At almost 2200 hours, right on schedule, the MC-130 closed on Desert One. Three miles from touchdown, the pilot switched on the remotely controlled lights at the still-distant LZ. The STOL mission had done well. The beacons were faint, but there.

“Here we are!”

The MC-130 flew one circle over the LZ, then landed west to east. A hard-packed, unimproved road had been selected and the landing wasn't as rough as some we'd done in training.

After we'd taxied off the road and come to a halt, the rear ramp was lowered and the small Road Watch Team, whose job it would be to guard the site's flanks, unloaded. These were mostly Rangers, but there were some Delta Force support people among them. They deployed once their motorcycles and quarter-ton jeep had been driven down the ramp.

I walked off with them, turned right, and headed north, toward the road. It was a cool, clear night; the stars were easily seen. There was enough light from the moon to recognize people thirty or forty yards away.

Before the Road Watch Team was actually in blocking position, a big Mercedes bus, its headlights showing the way, drove into our perimeter. I hollered, “Stop that vehicle,” and fired once at its tires. A Ranger also fired. It thudded to a stop. Blue Element, under Major Fitch, which had just deplaned, surrounded the bus and ordered its passengers off. There were forty-five people on board, mainly elderly folks and very young kids. Perhaps three or four were adult males. The passengers were at first lined up on both sides of the hard dirt road and then moved off to the south side, where they were carefully searched and closely guarded. A plan had been prepared for this. They would have been back-hauled out on a C-130 later in the evening and returned the same way the following night to Manzariyeh. The mission was later accused of not looking at all the eventualities. This was an unfair assessment.
We had planned for such a mishap and when it occurred it was handled routinely.

Speculation had been that most of the Iranian road traffic that could come through Desert One would come from the east. Accordingly, the strongest security contingent was placed down the road in that direction. The second and smaller force was just beginning to position itself to the west of the LZ when from that direction a gasoline tanker truck drove into view. Capt. Wade Ishimoto, one of the security force leaders, was out in front on a Yamaha motorcycle with a Ranger named Rubio. As the truck continued to drive toward the LZ, it was hit by an M72 LAW (Light Antitank Weapon) fired by Rubio. It immediately began to burn furiously. Ishimoto rushed toward the truck on foot, yelling in Farsi a phrase he had memorized, “Biya enja!” which meant, “Come here!” When no one responded, he returned to Rubio and the motorcycle. At that instant, a second and smaller vehicle drove up behind the burning truck. The driver of the tanker leaped out of his cab and ran for the second truck. Once he jumped in, this vehicle made a hard U turn and raced for the darkness. Ishimoto's motorcycle failed three or four times to kick-start. When the engine finally caught, the small truck was out of range and too far ahead for it to be caught. It escaped down another track.

I did not believe the Iranians who had run away could have seen, or identified, the C-130s. If they had, who knows what they would say they saw? Would anyone believe them? All things considered, the possibility that two truck drivers saw the rescue force was no reason to cash in our chips and go home. Of course it was a risk, but it was one I elected to take.

The fire from the petrol truck blazed brightly the entire time Delta was on the ground, the flames reaching 300 feet in the sky. The night was brighter than ever.

Jim Kyle walked over, “What do you think, Charlie?”

“It's all based on how many Iranians we can haul out,” I said. “Let's don't get excited until we get eight or ten vehicles in here and have to establish a parking lot.”

The C-130 sat facing west near the road, its engines idling. Once Kyle organized the Combat Control Team that was responsible
for air traffic operations, once the security force had deployed, and once Blue Element had unloaded, he gave the O.K. to the pilot. Into the brightly lit sky the 130 lifted and was soon out of sight.

For the moment we were alone on the desert floor. I dug my heel into the ground and found the crust to be particularly hard to break through.

The second MC-130, the one carrying Major Coyote's Red Element, landed shortly afterward. Buckshot trotted down the ramp and saw the flaming tanker. He was laughing, hitting on all cylinders.

“Welcome to World War III,” I said.

This MC-130 was immediately unloaded. It carried, amongst other equipment, the mountains of camouflage netting, which were to be used to cover the helos the next day. This done, the aircraft repositioned itself outside the LZ; the third troop-carrying 130 landed and was followed in short order by the three tanker EC-130s. The last four aircraft taxied down the road and lined up north to south, a full two football fields apart, to await the arrival of the helos. The second C-130, the one which carried the Red Element, then taxied back out onto the rough strip and took off for the return flight to Masirah.

Jim Kyle and the Air Force did a great job. Delta's arrival had been handled very smoothly, just like in the rehearsals. All that needed to be done now was wait for the Sea Stallions.

Thirty minutes behind the arrival of the fuel-birds, the choppers were scheduled to come in.

Thirty minutes.

Delta began to break into three smaller groups, and with their equipment they pre-positioned themselves for loading onto the helicopters. There was a good deal of movement on the ground as the men went about their business moving and shifting equipment. Based on footprints alone, I can imagine why the Iranians later claimed there had been a force of 800 on the ground.

Since this was the last pit stop before sunrise, everyone took the opportunity to relieve the pressure on his kidneys.

The helicopters were due in fifteen minutes.

While we waited, I happened to see one of the Iranian generals. I did a double take. His holster was empty. “Where is your weapon?” I asked. “It fell out,” he said, “when I got off the aircraft.” Two operators were sent back to the plane to see if they could find his Smith & Wesson revolver. After a thorough search they reported they couldn't find it. I knew what had happened. Once on the ground, seeing the bus and the burning oil truck, he had panicked and thrown his weapon away. He was scared. I told him we didn't have generals in the American Army who threw their sidearms away. I let him have it and put him down as hard as I could. It made no difference he was a general if he wasn't much of a soldier. Right then I made up my mind that he was going back with the Iranians who had been on the bus. He was going to be baggage.

During this time, the satellite radio was also set up and Delta's primary radio operator, Mr. Victor (pseudonym), a warrant officer, had made contact with the two agents who were at the hide-site. I was told, “All the groceries are on the shelf.” It meant everything outside of Teheran was in order. They were waiting for us. There were no problems.

The tanker truck blazed on.

There was a good deal of noise from the idling engines of the four parked C-130s.

Fifteen minutes passed. No sign of the helos.

I walked among the men as they sat in small groups. The night had gotten a little cooler. Some, with their jacket collars turned up, were munching C rations.

Everyone was checking his watch. The choppers were five minutes late.

Fast Eddie, I noticed, was in a group that contained members of White Element. He is a big man and with the packs of explosives he was carrying he looked in the desert larger than life. He was beaming. Next night, about this same time, at the wall, he'd be even happier.

Boris, also a member of White, was sitting close by. His machine gun was wrapped and lay next to him. Twenty-four
hours from now, he and his HK21 would be guarding the southern approaches to Roosevelt Avenue.

I looked into the night. I couldn't see or hear the choppers. They were ten minutes late.

Walter ambled over to me. “Well, Boss,” he said in pure West Virginia twang, “I guess this'll be our last one. We're both getting old. We do this one, do it right, we'll be finished.”

I knew that if anything went wrong at the embassy, Walt Shumate was the kind of man who would try to fix it, make it right. Plans are only so good; and when unforeseen events occur, people with experience are a great help at those times. In 'Nam I'd seen Walter in some tough spots. I was glad he was with me.