Planning and Preparation
The operation was designed as a complex two-night mission. The first stage of the mission involved delivering a U.S. Army Delta Force rescue team to a small staging site inside Iran, near Tabas in Yazd Province (formerly in the south of the Khorasan province). The site, named Desert One, was to be used as a temporary airstrip for the three USAF special operations MC-130E Combat Talon I penetration/transport aircraft and three EC-130E Hercules, each of the latter equipped with a pair of collapsible fuel bladders containing 6,000 U.S. gallons of jet fuel. Desert One would then become a staging base for eight Navy RH-53D Sea Stallion minesweeper helicopters. The RH-53s, flown by US Marine Corps personnel off the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) in the nearby Indian Ocean would then transport the rescue team to Tehran. These operations were covered by Carrier Air Wing 8 (CVW-8) aboard Nimitz and CVW-14 aboard the USS Coral Sea (CV-43). For this operation, the aircraft bore special black-red-black identification stripes on their right wings.
After flying in under radar and landing at Desert One, the C-130s would off-load men and equipment and refuel the arriving helicopters, which would, in turn, undertake the rescue operation. The helicopters would fly the ground troops to the Desert Two "hide site" near Tehran the same night, where the helicopters would be concealed. The next night, the rescue force would be transported in trucks to the embassy by CIA agents, overpower the guards, and escort the hostages across Roosevelt Boulevard (the main road in front of the embassy) to Shahid Shiroudi Stadium, where the helicopters would retrieve the entire contingent. The Joint Task Force commander was U.S. Army Major General James B. Vaught, while the fixed-wing and overall air mission commander was Colonel James H. Kyle, the helicopter commander Marine Lieutenant Colonel Edward R. Seiffert, and Delta Force commander Col. Charlie Beckwith.
The Tehran CIA Special Activities Division paramilitary team, led by retired Special Forces officer Richard J. Meadows, had two assignments: to obtain information about the hostages and the embassy grounds, and to transport the rescuers from Desert Two to the embassy grounds in pre-staged vehicles. In reality, the most important information came from an embassy cook who was released by the Iranians. He was discovered on a flight from Tehran at the last minute by another CIA officer, and confirmed that the hostages were centrally located in the embassy compound – this was a key piece of information long sought by the planners.
The assault on the embassy was to occur after eliminating electrical power in the area to disrupt any military response by the Iranians. AC-130 gunships were to orbit overhead to provide supporting fire. The helicopters were to transport the rescuers and hostages from Shahid Shiroudi Stadium to Manzariyeh Air Base outside of Tehran (34°58′58″N 50°48′20″E / 34.98278°N 50.80556°E / 34.98278; 50.80556). There a Ranger force would seize the airfield to permit C-141 transports to land in advance of the rescue to transport the contingent from Iran under the protection of fighter planes.
On 1 April, three weeks before the operation, a USAF combat control team officer, Major John T. Carney Jr., was flown in a Twin Otter to the Desert One site by two CIA officers for a clandestine survey of an airstrip. Despite their casual approach to the mission, Carney successfully surveyed the airstrip, installed remotely operated infrared lights and a strobe to outline a landing pattern for pilots, and took soil samples to determine the load-bearing properties of the desert surface. At that time, the floor was hard-packed sand, but in the ensuing three weeks, an ankle-deep layer of powdery sand was deposited by sandstorms.
Read more about this topic: Operation Eagle Claw
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