The FReeper Foxhole Revisits Operation Eagle Claw (4/24/1980) - Apr. 24th, 2004

http://www.afa.org/magazine/jan1999/0199desertone_print.html ^

[snippy_about_it]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

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Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

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for all those serving their country at this time.


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The FReeper Foxhole Revisits

Operation Eagle Claw
Iranian Hostage Crisis

For some, the current political debate over the combat readiness of today's American military stirs memories of a long-ago event that, more than anything else, came to symbolize the disastrously "hollow" forces of the post-Vietnam era.

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.

This failed attempt to rescue 53 hostages from the US Embassy in Tehran resulted in the death of five US Air Force men and three Marines, serious injuries to five other troops, and the loss of eight aircraft. That failure would haunt the US military for years and would torment some of the key participants for the rest of their lives.

One, Air Force Col. James Kyle, called it, "The most colossal episode of hope, despair, and tragedy I had experienced in nearly three decades of military service."

The countdown to this tragedy opened exactly 20 years ago, in January 1979. A popular uprising in Iran forced the sudden abdication and flight into exile of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the longtime ruler of Iran and staunch US ally. Brought to power in the wake of this event was a government led, in name, by Shahpur Bakhtiar and Abolhassan Bani Sadr. Within months, they, too, had been shoved aside, replaced by fundamentalist Shiite Muslim clerics led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.



On Nov. 4, two weeks after President Jimmy Carter had allowed the shah to enter the US for medical care, 3,000 Iranian "student" radicals invaded the US Embassy in Tehran, taking 66 Americans hostage. Chief of Mission L. Bruce Laingen and two aides were held separately at the Iranian Foreign Ministry.

The students demanded that the shah be returned for trial. Khomeini's supporters blocked all efforts to free the hostages.

Thirteen black and female hostages would be released later as a "humanitarian" gesture, but the humiliating captivity for the others would drag on for 14 months.

Rice Bowl

Carter, facing a re-election battle in 1980, strongly favored a diplomatic solution, but his national security advisor, Zbignew Brzezinski, directed the Pentagon to begin planning for a rescue mission or retaliatory strikes in case the hostages were harmed. In response, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. David C. Jones, established a small, secretive planning group, dubbed "Rice Bowl," to study American options for a rescue effort.

It quickly became clear how difficult that would be.



The first obstacle was the location. Tehran was isolated, surrounded by more than 700 miles of desert and mountains in any direction. This cut the city off from ready attack by US air or naval forces. Moreover, the embassy was in the heart of the city congested by more than four million people.

A bigger hurdle, however, was the condition of the US military, which had plummeted in size and quality in the seven years since it had staged a near-total withdrawal from Vietnam. Among the casualties of the post­Vietnam cutbacks was the once-powerful array of Army and Air Force special operations forces that had performed feats of great bravery and military skill in Southeast Asia.

The one exception was an elite unit of soldiers recently formed to counter the danger of international terror. This unit, called Delta Force, was commanded by Army Col. Charles Beckwith, a combat-tested special forces officer. Delta, which had just been certified as operational after conducting a hostage rescue exercise, was directed to start planning for the real thing at the Tehran embassy.

The immediate question was how to get Delta close enough to do its job. Directing the planners who were trying to solve that riddle was Army Maj. Gen. James Vaught, a veteran of three wars, with Ranger and airborne experience but no exposure to special operations or multiservice missions. Because of the need for extreme secrecy, he was denied the use of an existing JCS or service organization. Vaught had to assemble his planning team and the joint task force that would conduct the mission from widely scattered sources.



One of the early selections was Kyle, a highly regarded veteran of air commando operations in Vietnam, who would help plan the air mission and would be on-scene commander at Desert One.

When Beckwith ruled out a parachute drop, helicopters became the best option for reaching Tehran, despite the doubts Beckwith and other Vietnam veterans had about their reliability. Navy RH-53D Sea Stallions, which were used as airborne minesweepers, were chosen because of their superior range and load-carrying capability and their ability to operate from an aircraft carrier.

Even the Navy Sea Stallions could not fly from the Indian Ocean to Tehran without refueling. After testing and rejecting alternatives, the task force opted to use Air Force EC-130 Hercules transports rigged with temporary 18,000-gallon fuel bladders to refuel the helicopters on their way to Tehran.

Finding the Spot

However, that decision led to the requirement of finding a spot in the Iranian desert where the refueling could take place on the ground. That required terrain that would support the weight of the gas-bloated Hercules.

US intelligence found and explored just such a location, about 200 miles southeast of Tehran. In planning and training, this site was known as Desert One.



Because the RH-53s were Navy aircraft, the Pentagon assigned Navy pilots to fly them and added Marine copilots to provide experience with land assault missions.

That combination soon proved unworkable, as many of the Navy's pilots were unable or unwilling to master the unfamiliar and difficult tasks of long-range, low-level flying over land, at night, using primitive night vision goggles.

In December, most of the Navy pilots were replaced by Marines carefully selected for their experience in night and low-level flying. The mission ultimately had 16 pilots: 12 Marine, three Navy, and one Air Force.

Selected to lead the helicopter element was Marine Lt. Col. Edward Seiffert, a veteran H-53 pilot who had flown long-range search-and-rescue missions in Vietnam and had considerable experience flying with night vision goggles.

Beckwith described Seiffert as "a no-nonsense, humorless--some felt rigid--officer who wanted to get on with the job."

Delta and the helicopter crews never developed the coordination and trust that are essential to high-stress, complex combat missions. Possibly, this was caused by the disjointed nature of the task force and its training.



While the helicopter crews worked out of Yuma, Ariz., the members of Delta Force did most of their training in the woods of North Carolina. Other Army personnel were drilling in Europe. The Air Force crews that would take part in the mission trained in Florida or Guam, thousands of miles away in the Pacific.

The entire operation was being directed by a loosely assembled staff in Washington, D.C., which insisted that all the elements had to be further isolated by a tightly controlled flow of information that would protect operational security.

"Ours was a tenuous amalgamation of forces held together by an intense common desire to succeed, but we were slow coming together as a team," Kyle wrote in his account of the mission.

Meanwhile, Beckwith and his staff were desperate for detailed information on the physical layout of the embassy, the numbers and locations of the Iranian guards, and, most important, the location of the hostages.

Six Buildings

Without that data, Delta had to plan to search up to six buildings in the embassy compound where the hostages might be held. That required Beckwith to increase the size of his assault force, which meant more helicopters were needed.

No intelligence was coming out of Iran because Carter had dismantled the CIA's network of spies due to the agency's role in overthrowing governments in Vietnam and Latin America.

It would be months before agents could be inserted into Iran to supply the detailed intelligence Beckwith said was "the difference between failure and success, between humiliation and pride, between losing lives and saving them."

Despite all the obstacles, the task force by mid-March 1980 had developed what they considered a workable plan, and all of the diverse operational elements had become confident of their ability to carry it out.

The plan was staggering in its scope and complexity, bringing together scores of aircraft and thousands of men from all four services and from units scattered from Arizona to Okinawa, Japan.

Be sure to visit Freeper RaceBannon's site to get more info on
Operation Eagle Claw and the Iranian Hostage Crisis

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FReeper Foxhole Armed Services Links

[snippy_about_it]

The plan was this:

On the first night, six Air Force C-130s carrying 132 Delta commandos, Army Rangers, and support personnel and the helicopter fuel would fly from the island of Masirah, off the coast of Oman, more than 1,000 miles to Desert One, being refueled in flight from Air Force KC-135 tankers.

Eight Navy RH-53Ds would lift off the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, about 50 miles south of the Iranian coast, and fly more than 600 miles to Desert One.

After refueling, the helicopters would carry the rescue force to a hideout in hills about 50 miles southeast of Tehran, then fly to a separate hiding spot nearby. The C-130s would return to Masirah, being refueled in flight again.



The next night, Delta would be driven to the embassy in vehicles obtained by the agents. A team of Rangers would go to rescue the three Americans held in the foreign ministry.

As the ground units were freeing the hostages, the helicopters would fly from their hiding spot to the embassy and the foreign ministry.

Three Air Force AC-130 gunships would arrive overhead to protect the rescue force from any Iranian counterattack and to destroy the jet fighters at the Tehran airport.

The choppers would fly the rescue force and the freed hostages to an abandoned air base at Manzariyeh, about 50 miles southwest of Tehran, which was to be seized and protected by a Ranger company flown in on C-130s.

The helicopters would be destroyed and C-141s, flown in from Saudi Arabia, would then fly the entire group to a base in Egypt.

"Now a Reality"

After five months of planning, organizing, training, and a series of increasingly complex rehearsals, Kyle recalled: "The ability to rescue our people being held hostage, which didn't exist on Nov. 4, 1979, was now a reality."

The team still needed Carter's permission to execute.

Although the shah had moved to Panama and then to Egypt, the 53 Americans remained hostages and the public was getting impatient. Finally, in a White House meeting of his top advisors on April 11, Carter gave up on diplomacy. "I told everyone that it was time for us to bring our hostages home; their safety and our national honor were at stake," Carter said in his memoirs.

Five days later, Jones, Vaught, and Beckwith briefed Carter at the White House on the plans for the rescue mission and expressed their confidence in their ability to pull it off.

Beckwith recalled that Carter told them: "I do not want to undertake this operation, but we have no other recourse. ... We're going to do this operation."

Carter then told Jones, "This is a military operation; you will run it. ... I don't want anyone else in this room involved."

The audacious operation was code-named "Eagle Claw." The target date was April 24-25.



Almost immediately, forces began to move to their jump-off points. By April 24, 44 aircraft were poised at six widely separated locations to perform or support the rescue mission. The RH-53s already were on Nimitz, where they had been stored with minimal care for months, but a frantic effort brought them up to what Seiffert and Navy officials insisted was top mechanical condition by launch day.

Beckwith and Seiffert had agreed that they would need a minimum of six flyable helicopters at Desert One for the mission to continue. Beckwith had asked for 10 helos on the carrier to cover for possible malfunctions, but the Navy claimed they could not store more than eight on the hangar deck.

Delta and many of the Air Force aircraft staged briefly at a Russian-built airfield at Wadi Qena, Egypt, which would serve as Vaught's headquarters for the mission. While at Wadi Qena on April 23, the task force received an intelligence report that all 53 hostages were being held in the embassy's chancery. Because he was not told the solid source of that information, Beckwith did not trust it enough to reduce his assault force, which may have been a critical decision.

The next day, with Delta Force and support elements on Masirah and the helicopter crews on Nimitz, Vaught received the final weather report. It promised the virtually clear weather that the mission required.

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Today's Educational Sources and suggestions for further reading:

www.afa.org

[snippy_about_it]

"Execute Mission"

Vaught sent a message to all units: "Execute mission as planned. God speed."

"There was cheering, and fists were jammed into the air with thumbs up. ... This was an emotional high for all of us," Kyle wrote.

That emotional high would crash into despair in about 12 hours.

The mission started in the twilight of April 24 with barely a hitch. Kyle and Beckwith flew out of Masirah on the lead MC-130 Combat Talon with some of the Delta troopers and an Air Force combat controller team. At about the same time, Seiffert led the helicopter force--given the call sign of "Bluebird"--from Nimitz and headed to the Iranian coast, 60 miles away.

The choppers had been fitted with two advanced navigation systems, but the pilots found them unreliable and were relying mainly on visual navigation as they cruised along at 200 feet. "We were fat, dumb, and happy," Seiffert recalled.



About 100 miles into Iran, the Talon ran into a thin cloud that reduced visibility but was not a problem at its cruise altitude of 2,000 feet. The cloud was a mass of suspended dust, called a "haboob," common to the Iranian desert. Air Force weather experts supporting the mission knew it was a possibility but apparently never told the mission pilots. Kyle said he considered sending a warning to the helicopters but decided it was not significant.

When the MC-130 ran into a much thicker cloud later, he did try to alert Seiffert, but the message never got through. It was just one of the communications glitches that would plague the mission.

The dust cloud that was a minor irritation to the Combat Talon became an extended torture for the helicopter pilots, who were trying to fly formation and visually navigate at 200 feet while wearing the crude night vision goggles. Visibly shaken Marine fliers later told Beckwith and Kyle the hours in the milk-like dust cloud were the worst experience of their lives, which for some included combat in Vietnam.

Things had started to go wrong even before the dust cloud.

Less than two hours into the flight, a warning light came on in the cockpit of Bluebird Six. The indicator, called the Blade Inspection Method, or BIM, warned of a possible leak of the pressurized nitrogen that filled the Sea Stallion's hollow rotors. In the H-53 models the Marines were used to flying, the BIM indicator usually meant a crack in one of the massive blades, which had caused rotor failures and several fatal crashes in the past. As a result, Marine H-53 pilots were trained to land quickly after a BIM warning.

The Navy's RH-53s, however, had newer BIM systems that usually did not foretell a blade failure. To that date, no RH-53 had experienced a blade break and the manufacturer had determined that the helicopter could fly safely for up to 79 hours at reduced speed after a BIM alert.

Down to Seven

However, the pilots of Bluebird Six did not know that. Thinking the craft unsafe to fly, the crew abandoned it in the desert and jumped aboard a helicopter that had landed to help.

The mission was down to seven helicopters.



Further inland, the remaining choppers were struggling with the dust cloud, which dropped visibility to yards and sent the cockpit temperature soaring. Although all the pilots were having difficulty, Bluebird Five was really suffering as progressive electrical system failures took away most of the pilot's essential flight and navigation instruments. The pilot, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Rodney Davis, "was flying partial panel, needle-ball, wet compass--a real vertigo inducer," Seiffert said.

Fighting against the unnerving effects of vertigo-when your inner ear tells you the aircraft is turning while your eyes tell you it is not-and unaware of the location of the other helicopters or the weather at Desert One, Davis decided to turn back.

Davis did not know that he was about 25 minutes from clear air, which prevailed all the way to Desert One, because everyone was maintaining strict radio silence to avoid detection.

The mission now was down to the minimum six helicopters.

Meanwhile, the lead C-130 had landed at Desert One, and Beckwith's commandos had raced out to block the dirt road that traversed the site.

Within minutes, they stopped a bus with 44 persons at one end of the site and at the opposite end had to fire an anti-tank round into a gas tanker truck that refused to stop. The driver of the tanker leaped from his burning vehicle and escaped in a pickup that was following.

Despite fears the mission might be compromised, the combat controllers quickly installed a portable navigation system and runway lights to guide the other mission aircraft to Desert One.

Soon, the remainder of Delta Force was on the ground and the three EC-130s were positioned to refuel the helicopters, which were supposed to arrive 20 minutes later.



But, as Kyle discovered months later, someone had miscalculated the choppers' flight time by 55 minutes and the first Bluebird was more than an hour away. Finally, the Sea Stallions lumbered in from the dark, coming in ones and twos, instead of a formation, and from different directions.

After considerable anxiety, the count was up to six helicopters on the ground at Desert One and the hopes for a successful rescue soared again.

But as the helicopters struggled through unexpected deep sand to get into position behind the tankers, one shut down its engines.

Bluebird Two had suffered a complete failure of its secondary hydraulic system, which was unrepairable and left it with minimal pressure for its flight controls. Although the pilot appeared willing to try taking his sick bird on to the hideout, Seiffert overruled him.

Kyle tried to talk Seiffert into taking the helo on, but he refused, warning that flying with the one system at such heavy weight and high temperature could result in a control lockup and a crash that would kill not only the crew but the Delta commandos on board. Kyle then asked Beckwith if he could reduce his assault force to go with five choppers, but he was equally adamant about not changing his plans.

Failure of Eagle Claw

It seemed clear the mission had to be aborted.

Kyle informed Vaught of the situation by satellite radio and the task force commander relayed that to Jones and the Secretary of Defense, Harold Brown, at the Pentagon. When the word got to the White House, Carter asked Brown to get Beckwith's opinion. Told that Beckwith felt it necessary to abort, Carter said: "Let's go with his recommendation."

Eagle Claw had failed and the tense anticipation of success drained into frustration and anger.

Now Kyle was left with the unrehearsed job of getting everyone out of Iran. Because of the extended time on the ground, one of the C-130s was running low on fuel and had to leave soon. To allow that tanker to move, Kyle directed Marine Maj. James Schaefer to reposition his helicopter. With a flattened nose wheel, Schaefer could not taxi and tried to lift off to move his bird, stirring a blinding dust cloud.

As Kyle watched in horror, the helo slid sideways, slicing into the C-130 with its spinning rotors and igniting a raging fire. Red-hot chunks of metal flamed across the sky as munitions in both aircraft torched off.



Some of the Delta commandos had boarded the C-130 and they came tumbling out the side door as the Air Force loadmasters and senior soldiers tried to stop a spreading panic. Men were helping the injured away from the inferno.

The projectiles ejecting from the flaming wreckage were hitting the three nearby helicopters and their crews quickly fled.

Many of the people at Desert One that night credit Kyle with restoring order to the chaotic scene and getting all the living men and salvageable equipment out safely. But in the flaming funeral pyre of Eagle Claw's shattered hopes, they left the bodies of eight brave men.

On the departing C-130s, Delta medics treated four badly burned men, including Schaefer, his copilot, and two airmen. "We left a lot of hopes and dreams back there at Desert One, but the nightmares and despair were coming with us ... and would continue to haunt us for years, maybe forever," Kyle wrote later.



Holloway's Investigation

Although Carter went on television the next day to announce the failure of the mission and to accept the blame, Congress and the Pentagon launched inquiries to determine the reasons for the tragedy. The Pentagon probe was handled by a board of three retired and three serving flag officers representing all four services; it was led by retired Adm. James L. Holloway III. The commission's report listed 23 areas "that troubled us professionally about the mission-areas in which there appeared to be weaknesses."

"We are apprehensive that the critical tone of our discussion could be misinterpreted as an indictment of the able and brave men who planned and executed this operation. We encountered not a shred of evidence of culpable neglect or incompetence," the report said.

The commission concluded that the concept and plan for the mission were feasible and had a reasonable chance for success.

But, it noted, "the rescue mission was a high-risk operation. ... People and equipment were called upon to perform at the upper limits of human capacity and equipment capability. There was little margin to compensate for mistakes or plain bad luck."

The major criticism was of the "ad hoc" nature of the task force, a chain of command the commission felt was unclear, and an emphasis on operational secrecy it found excessive.

The commission also said the chances for success would have been improved if more backup helicopters had been provided, if a rehearsal of all mission components had been held, and if the helicopter pilots had had better access to weather information and the data on the RH-53s' BIM warning system.

And it suggested that Air Force helicopter pilots might have been better qualified for the mission.

However, the report also said, "The helicopter crews demonstrated a strong dedication toward mission accomplishment by their reluctance to abort under unusually difficult conditions." And it concluded that, "two factors combined to directly cause the mission abort: an unexpected helicopter failure rate and the low-visibility flight conditions en route to Desert One."

Beckwith openly blamed the helicopter pilots immediately after the mission. However, in his critique to the Senate Armed Services Committee, he attributed the failure to Murphy's Law and the use of an ad hoc organization for such a difficult mission. "We went out and found bits and pieces, people and equipment, brought them together occasionally, and then asked them to perform a highly complex mission," he said. "The parts all performed, but they didn't necessarily perform as a team."

He recommended creating an organization that, in essence, was the prototype of the Special Operations Command that Congress mandated in 1986.



Kyle, in his book on the mission, rejected the Holloway commission's conclusions and basically blamed Seiffert and the helicopter pilots for not climbing out of the dust cloud, for not using their radios to keep the formation intact, and for the three helicopter aborts.

He argued that the task force never had less than seven flyable helicopters. All that was lacking, he wrote, was "the guts to try."

Seiffert praised Beckwith and Kyle as professional warriors but disagreed with their criticism of him and his helicopter pilots. He equated his decision to ground the chopper with the failed hydraulic system to Beckwith's refusal to cut his assault force, and he refused to second-guess the two pilots who had aborted earlier.

Seiffert said he was confident that, had they gotten to Tehran, the mission would have succeeded. Kyle was equally certain, writing that: "It is my considered opinion that we came within a gnat's eyebrow of success."

Beckwith wrote in his memoirs that he had recurring nightmares after Desert One. However, he noted, "In none have I ever dreamed whether the mission would have been successful or not."

[snippy_about_it]

A six-member commission was appointed by the JCS to study the operation. Headed by Adm James L. Holloway III, the panel included Gen LeRoy Manor, who commanded the earlier Son Tay raid.

One issue investigated was selection of aircrew. Navy and Marine pilots with little experience in long-range overland navigation or refueling from C-130s were selected though more than a hundred qualified Air Force H-53 pilots were available.

Another issue was the lack of a comprehensive readiness evaluation and mission rehearsal program. From the beginning, training was not conducted in a truly joint manner; it was compartmented and held at scattered locations throughout the US. The limited rehearsals that were conducted assessed only portions of the total mission.

Also at issue was the number of helicopters used. The commission concluded that at least ten and perhaps as many as twelve helicopters should have been launched to guarantee the minimum of six required for completion of the mission.

The plan was also criticized for using the "hopscotch" method of ground refueling instead of air refueling as was used for the Son Tay raid. By air refueling en route, the commission thought the entire Desert One scenario could have been avoided.

[snippy_about_it]

The Foxhole Revisits...

The Foxhole will be updating some of our earlier threads with new graphics and some new content for our Saturday threads in this, our second year of the Foxhole. We lost many of our graphic links and this is our way of restoring them along with revising the thread content where needed with new and additional information not available in the original threads.

A Link to the Original Thread;

The FReeper Foxhole Remembers Operation Eagle Claw (4/24/1980) - Apr. 24th, 2003

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Good Saturday Morning Everyone.


If you would like added to our ping list let us know.

[SAMWolf]

Good Morning Snippy.

TSgt. Joel C. Mayo

TSgt. Joel C. Mayo died April 25, 1980, during the attempted rescue mission of the U.S. Embassy personnel being held hostage in Iran (b/w), Illustration by SrA Jason Luber

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks for the added picture and good night Sam.

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.

Active weather day yesterday. Tornado Warnings for Cotton and Tillman Counties. Flooding in Stephens County. Cars floating in 2 feet of water at the courthouse in Duncan. Picked up 2-3 inches of rain.

Things calm now.

[aomagrat]

Today's classic warship, USS H-1 (SS-28)

H-1 class submarine
Displacement: 358 t.
Length: 150’4”
Beam: 15’10”
Draft: 12’5”
Speed: 14 k.
Complement: 25
Armament: 4 18” torpedo tubes

H-1, (SS-28), originally SEAWOLF and renamed 17 November 1911 was built by the Union Iron Works of San Francisco; launched 6 May 1913; sponsored by Miss Lesley Jean Makins; and commissioned at Mare Island Navy Yard on 1 December 1913, Lt. Henry M. Jensen in command.

The new submarine was attached to the 2d Torpedo Flotilla, Pacific Fleet, and operated along the West Coast out of the submarine base at San Pedro. On various exercises and patrols she traveled the coast from Los Angeles to lower British Columbia, often in company with H-2 and sometimes H-3.

Sailing from San Pedro on 17 October 1917, she reached New London 22 days later via Acapulco, Balboa, Key West, Charleston and Philadelphia. For the remainder of the war, she was based there and patrolled Long Island Sound, frequently with officer students from the submarine school on board.

H-1 and H-2 sailed for San Pedro on 6 January 1920, transiting the Panama Canal 20 February via Norfolk, Key West and Havana. On 12 March 1920, as H-1 made her way up the coast, the submarine went aground on a tricky shoal off Santa Margarita Island, Calif. Four men, including the commanding officer, Lt. Comdr. James R. Webb, were killed as they tried to reach shore. VESTAL, a repair ship, pulled H-1 off the rocks in the morning of 24 March, only to have her sink 45 minutes later in some 50 feet of water. Salvage was abandoned. Her name was struck from the Navy List 12 April 1920, and her hulk sold for salvage scrap in June 1920.

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone.

[Valin]

On this Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on April 24:
1576 St. Vincent de Paul, French Catholic priest
1620 John Graunt statistician, founder of science of demography
1743 Edmund Cartwright England, cleric, inventor (power loom)
1766 Robert Bailey Thomas founded Farmer's Almanac
1769 Arthur Wellesley General/Duke of Wellington
1804 Thomas Oliver Selfridge Commander (Union Navy)
1807 Charles Ferguson Smith Major General (Union volunteers), died in 1862
1815 Anthony Trollope England, novelist/poet (Barchester Towers)
1815 James Edward Harrison Brigadier General (Confederate Army), died in 1875
1822 Erastus Barnard Tyler Brevet Major General (Union volunteers)
1828 Robert Brank Vance Brigadier General (Confederate Army), died in 1899
1829 George Peabody Estey Brigadier General (Union volunteers), died in 1881
1849 Joseph S Galliéni General (Battle of Marne)/military governor (Paris)
1856 Henri POBJ Pétain French marshal (Verdun/Vichy regime)
1874 John Russell Pope US, architect (Jefferson Memorial)
1892 Jack Hulbert Ely England, actor (Into the Blue, Bulldog Jack)
1905 Robert Penn Warren 1st US poet laureate (All the King's Men)
1911 Jack E Leonard Chicago IL, comedian (Disorderly Orderly)
1914 Justin Wilson cajun chef (Wise Potato Chips)
1922 J D Cannon Salmon ID, actor (McCloud, Ike, Call to Glory)
1934 Shirley MacLaine Richmond VA, actress/mystic/nutcase (Irma la Douce)
1936 Jill Ireland London, actress (Breakout, Assassination, Chino)
1942 Barbra [Joan] Streisand Brooklyn NY, singer/actress/hypocrite/poseur/award winner/pretender/dumber than a small pile of rocks (Funny Girl, The Way We Were)
1942 Richard M Daley (mayor-Democrat-Chicago)
1942 Valeri Abramovich Voloshin Russian cosmonaut
1943 Richard Sterban Camden NJ, country singer (Oak Ridge Boys-Elvira)
1945 Doug Clifford Palo Alto CA, rock drummer (Creedence Clearwater Revival-Proud Mary)
1955 Jack Kingston (Representative-Republican-GA)
1955 Michael O'Keefe Mount Vernon NY, actor (Caddyshack, Ironweed, Slugger's Wife)
1973 Melissa Short Kaaawa HI, Miss Hawaii-America (Top 10-1997)

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Deaths which occurred on April 24:
0709 Wilfried bishop of York, dies at about 76
0729 Egbert[us] English bishop/saint, dies in Iona at 89
1077 Geza I King of Hungary (1074-7), dies
1185 Antoku Taira emperor of Japan (1180-85), drowns
1731 Daniel Defoe English novelist (Robinson Crusoe), dies
1824 Herman Muntinghe theologist (History of Mankind), dies at 71
1891 Count Helmuth K B von Moltke Prussian General/fieldmarshal, dies
1948 Rosita Marstini actress (I Cover Waterfront, Big Parade), dies at 54
1952 Hans [Hendrik A] Kramers physicist (quantum mechanics), dies at 57
1961 Lee Moran actor (Circus Clown), dies of heart ailment at 72
1965 Louise Dresser actress (State Fair, Ship Comes In, Mammy), dies at 86
1967 Frank Overton actor (12 O'Clock High), dies at 48
1967 Vladimir M Komarov cosmonaut (Voshkod I), is 1st to die in space, aboard Soyuz 1 at 40
1974 Bud Abbott comedian (Abbott & Costello), dies at 78
1976 Mark Tobey US abstract painter, (Broadway Norm), dies at 85
1986 Bessie Wallis Warfield Simpson (Edward abdicated for her), dies at 89
1990 Tom Rolfing actor (He Knows You're Alone, Cliff-Another World), dies
1997 Pat Paulsen comedian/presidental candidate (Smothers Brothers Show), dies at 69

---

Reported: MISSING in ACTION

1966 COOPER WILLIAM E.---ALBANY GA.
1966 DRISCOLL JERRY D.---CHICAGO IL.
[02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1967 CHRISTIAN MICHAEL D., HUNTSVILLE AL.
[03/05/73 RELEASED BY DRV, DIED IN FIRE, SEPT 1983, VIRGINIA]
1967 KNAPP HERMAN L.---ROSEMONT NJ.
1967 TUCKER EDWIN B.---BALDWINVILLE MA.
[REMAINS RETURNED 11/25/87]
1967 WILLIAMS LEWIS I.---JACKSONVILLE FL.
[03/05/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1968 HELLE ROBERT R.---TOLEDO OH.
[03/16/73 RELEASED BY PRG, ALIVE IN 98]
1968 JOHNSON BUFORD GERALD---WINTER GARDEN FL.
[09/68 REMAINS RECOVERED]
1968 KAVANAUGH ABEL L.---DENVER CO.
[03/16/73 RELEASED BY PRG]
1968 PARKER WOODROW W.---ST PETERSBURG FL.
[REMAINS RETURNED/IDENTIFIED 10/01/98]
1968 SPARKS JOHN G.---CHATTANOOGA TN.
[03/16/73 RELEASED BY PRG, ALIVE IN 98]
1968 VINSON BOBBY G.---NEDERLAND TX.
[REMAINS RETURNED /IDENTIFIED 10/01/98]
1969 SHRIVER JERRY M.---SACRAMENTO CA.
1970 CROSS JAMES E.---WARREN OH.
1970 REESE GOMER D. III---SCARSDALE NY.
1971 CHAMPION JAMES A.---HOUSTON TX.
1971 MALO ISSAKO F.---SAN FRANCISCO CA.
[03/27/73 RELEASED BY PRG, ALIVE 99]
1972 CARTER GEORGE W.---APOPKA FL.
1972 YONAN KENNETH J.---CHICAGO IL.
[REMAINS RET. 04/88 ID 11/88]

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

---

On this day...
0858 Nicolas I succeeds Benedict III as Catholic Pope
1061 Halley's Comet sparks English monk to predict country'll be destroyed
1185 Battle at Danoura Yoshitsune Minamoto's fleet beats imperial fleet
1288 Jews of Yroyes France are accused of ritual murder
1311 General Malik Kafur returns to Delhi after campaign in South India
1547 Battle of Mühlberg Emperor Karel V vs ruler Johan F the Brave
1558 Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland marries French crown prince François
1596 Pacificatie of Ireland drawn
1792 "La Marseillaise" composed by Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle
1800 Library of Congress is established with $5,000 allocation
1801 1st performance of Joseph Haydn's oratorio "Die Jahreszeiten"
1833 Patent granted for 1st soda fountain to Jacob Evert & George Dulty
1863 Skirmish at Okolona/Birmingham MS (Grierson's Raid)
1865 Fire alarm & police telegraph system put into operation (San Francisco)
1867 Black demonstrators stage ride-ins on Richmond VA streetcars
1871 Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Aida" is produced (Cairo)
1872 Volcano Vesuvius erupts
1877 Last federal occupying troops withdraw from south (New Orleans)
1877 Russia declares war on Turkey through Romania
1880 Amateur Athletic Association, governing body for men's athletics in England and Wales, is founded in Oxford, England
1884 National Medical Association of Black physicians organizes (Atlanta GA)
1888 Eastman Kodak forms
1894 French cyclist Henri Desgrange rides 100km in world record 2:39:18
1897 1st reporter, William Price (Washington Star), is assigned to White House
1898 Spain declares war on US rejecting ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba
1898 US fleet under commodore Dewey sails from Hong Kong to Philippines
1901 1st American League game, Chicago White Sox beat Cleveland Indians 8-2, 3 other games rained out
1908 Mr & Mrs Jacob Murdock become the 1st to travel across the US by car, they leave Los Angeles in a Packard & arrive in NYC in 32 days-5 hours-25 minutes
1910 German Catholic youth movement Quickborn forms
1915 Massacre of Armenians by Turks (Armenian Martyrs Day)
1915 German army fires chloroform gas in Ieper

1916 Easter rebellion of Irish against British occupation begins

1920 British Mandate over Palestine goes into effect (lasts 28 years)
1920 Polish troops attack Ukraine
1923 Colonel Jacob Schick patents Schick shavers
1923 General harbor strike begins in New York NY
1925 88ºF highest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland OH in April
1928 Fathometer, which measures underwater depth, patented
1932 German national election (NSDAP 36.3% in Prussia)
1941 British army begins evacuation of Greece
1941 Dutch Prince Bernhard becomes an RAF pilot
1944 1st Boeing B-29 arrives in China "over the Hump"
1946 11 players Tinker, Evers, Chance, Burkett, McCarthy, Waddell, Plank, Walsh, Chesbro, Griffith, & McGinnity are named to Hall of Fame
1950 Independent republic of South Molukkas declared
1950 President Harry Truman denies there are communists in US government
1953 Winston Churchill knighted by Queen Elizabeth II
1954 1st American, civilian pilot, P R Holden, wounded in Indochina
1955 Conference of Bandung against colonialism/for self determination ends
1955 Gaullists lose elections in France
1956 American League umpire Frank Umont is 1st to wear glasses in a regular season game
1957 Chicago Cub pitchers walk National League record 9 Reds in 5th inning
1960 Heavy earthquake strikes South Persia, 500 killed
1961 JFK accepts "sole responsibility" following Bay of Pigs
1961 The Vasa, which sunk on her maiden voyage in 1628, is raised
1962 1st Lockheed A-12 is taxi tested
1962 MIT sends TV signal by satellite for 1st time California to Massachusetts
1962 Sandy Koufax's 2nd 18-strikeout game
1965 Military coup under Donald Reid Cabral in Dominican Republic
1968 Leftist students take over Columbia University, New York NY
1969 Paul McCartney says there is no truth to the rumours he is dead
1969 General Lin Piao succeeds Mao, is seriously wounded
1969 Lebanese army in battle with Palestinians
1969 US B-52's drop 3,000 ton bombs at Cambodian boundary
1970 People's Rebublic of China launches its 1st satellite transmitting song "East is Red"
1974 NFL grants franchise to Tampa Bay Bucaneers
1978 Angels Nolan Ryan strikes out 15 Mariners, 20th time he has 15 in game
1979 Rhodesian bishop Muzorewa wins general election
1980 US military operation to save 52 hostages in Iran, fails, 8 die
1981 Bill Shoemaker wins his 8000th race, 2000 more than any other jockey
1981 IBM-PC computer introduced
1982 150 Khomeini followers assault student dormitory in West Germany
1989 Massachusetts declares today "New Kids on the Block Day" (John Kerrey claims to love...no hate...no never heard of...no IS a "New Kid".
1989 Tens of thousands of students strike in Beijing China
1990 Security law violator Michael Milken pleads guilty to 6 felonies
1990 US 66th manned space mission STS 31 (Discovery 10) launches into orbit
1990 West & East Germany agree to merge currency & economies on July 1st
1993 1000 kg heavy IRA car bomb explodes in London, killing 1
1993 Firestone World Bowling Tournament of Champions won by George Branham
1994 Armando Calderón Sol wins El Salvador presidential election
1994 Bomb attack in center of Johannesburg, 9 killed
1995 Court orders Darryl Strawberry to pay back $350,000 in taxes
1995 Package bomb, linked to Unabomber, blows up killing Gilbert B Murray
1996 Highest scoring baseball game in 17 years - Twins 24, Tigers 11
1996 President Clinton signed into law a bill to fight terrorism.
2001 A New Zealand air force plane rescued four ailing Americans at an Antarctic research station.

---

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Armenia : Armenian Martyrs' Day (1915)
Alabama, Florida, Mississippi : Confederate Memorial Day (1868) (Monday)
US : National Lingerie Week Ends
US : Ambivalence Day (who cares)
US : Change Your Batteries in Your Car Alarm Buzzer Day
National Pigs In A Blanket Day
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month

---

Religious Observances
Roman Catholic : St Fidelis of Sigmaringen, priest/martyr (optional)

---

Religious History
387 Augustine of Hippo, 32, was baptized on this Eve of Easter. He told the story of his Christian conversion from a profligate life in his "Confessions," written between 397-401.
1576 Birth of St. Vincent de Paul, French Catholic priest. He founded several religious orders during his lifetime, including the Lazarists (or Vincentians) in 1625.
1870 At the Vatican I Ecumenical Council, the dogmatic constitution "Dei filius" was published. Explaining the relationship between faith and reason, it declared that God could be known by human thought processes.
1920 Death of Eliza P. Hewitt, 69, American Presbyterian S.S. teacher and hymnwriter. Many of her verses are still sung today, including "More About Jesus," Sing the Wondrous Love of Jesus" and "Sunshine in My Soul."
1944 In deciding the legal case "United States v. Ballard," the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the general principle that "the truth of religious claims is not for secular authority to determine."

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

---

Thought for the day :
"Toil is most pleasant when done."

---

Martha Stewart's Way vs. The Real Woman's Way...
Martha's Way #5: Wrap celery in aluminum foil when putting in the fridge and it will keep for weeks.
Real Woman's Way #5: Celery? What's that?

---

New State Slogans...
Wisconsin: Come Cut The Cheese With Us!

---

Male Language Patterns...
"My wife doesn't understand me." REALLY MEANS,
"She's heard all my stories before, and is tired of them."

---

Female Language Patterns...
My hubbie doesn't understand me." REALLY MEANS,
"The little creep has figured out more than 50 percent of my technique. Let's go shopping and charge everything to him just to piss him off."

[SAMWolf]

Morning E.G.C. Praying the weather stays calm there.

[SAMWolf]

Morning aomagrat.

H-1, (SS-28), originally SEAWOLF

Wonder why they changed from SEAWOLF to H-1.

[SAMWolf]

Good morning Feather.

[SAMWolf]

1996 President Clinton signed into law a bill to fight terrorism.

And did nothing, after attack, upon attack against the US, except talk.

[Soaring Feather]

Top Hat


Once, on a very windy day, a rabbi was on his way to
the temple. Suddenly a strong gust of wind blew his fur hat off his head.
The rabbi ran after his hat but the wind was so strong it kept blowing his hat farther and farther away. He could not catch up with it.

A young man, a gentile, witnessing this event and
being more fit than the rabbi, ran after the hat, caught it and handed it over to the rabbi. The rabbi was so happy and grateful that he gave the man five dollars and put his hand on the man's head and blessed him.
The young man was very excited about the tip and the blessing and decided to go to the racetrack and bet
his 5 unexpected dollars.

After the races the young man returns home and recounted his very exciting day at the races to his father. "I arrived at the fifth race," said the young man, "looked at the racing program and saw a horse by the name of
'Top Hat' running. The odds on the horse were 100
to 1... the longest shot in the field. Having received the rabbi's blessing and the 5 dollars and thinking of the rabbi's hat and the horse's name being Top Hat I thought this was a message from God, so I bet the entire 5 dollars on this horse.
An amazing thing happened, the horse that was the
longest shot in the field and who did not have the slightest chance to even show came in first by 5 lengths."

"You must have made a fortune," said the father.

"Yes, $500, but wait, it gets better," replied the son. "On the following race, I looked at the program. A horse by the name of Stetson was running.
The odds on the horse were 30 to 1. Stetson being
some kind of hat and again thinking of the rabbi's blessing and his hat, I decided to bet all my winnings on this horse."

"What happened?" asked the excited father.

"The horse Stetson won and I collected big money."

"You mean you brought home all this money?" asked
his excited father.

"No," said the son, "I lost it all on the next race.
There was a horse in this race named 'Chateau' so I bet all the money on it because the horse was
the heavy favorite and the name also means hat in
French and it all started with the rabbi's hat. But the horse broke down andcame in last."

"Dummy!" cried the father, "Hat in French is 'Chapeau' not 'Chateau'! You lost all your winning money because of your ignorance. Tell me who won the race anyway?"

"A long shot Japanese horse named 'Yamaka'.

[SAMWolf]

"A long shot Japanese horse named 'Yamaka'.

LOL! ya got me on that one I expected it to end with the french remark.

[Valin]

Modern Warfare: Special Operations, Operation Eagle Claw
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/6/30/141359/710
By thelizman
Mon Jul 1st, 2002 at 02:39:38 AM EST

The realities of war dictate that the face of war changes. Once upon a time, armies faced each other on battlefields, formed lines, and charged each other. As technology and tactics have advanced, so has the face of warfare. In the first of two parts of this installment of what I hope will become a series of articles examining aspects of modern warfare, we will examine the Special Operations failure of Operation Eagle Claw.

Part I examines the events surrounding the organization of the mission to rescue American hostages held at the US Embassy in Tehran, Iran. Part I will contain no analysis, but is still quite long (7 typed pages). It will also provide information behind the planning, and an overview of the equipment and units chosen.

[Valin]

LOL.
There's a lesson in this for all of us. Just what that lesson is...I have no idea.

Back later, there is a plate of bacon and eggs out there somewhere with my name on them, and I'll scour the world to find them.