by David Crist
To prevent any mistake of attacking the wrong ship, Langston put the A-6 down in a steep dive and came up behind the frigate. Flying fast just above the wave tops, he blew down the side of the ship. He could clearly see a large number 7 painted near her bow, meaning it was in fact the Sahand. As the A-6 streaked by, Langston clearly saw large-caliber tracer fire from the frigate’s 35-mm gun and two shoulder-fired missiles launched off the stern in his general direction.
Langston pulled the aircraft up into a steep climb and banked away. He called back to the carrier, “I’ve got positive ID on them!”
“How do you know?” he was asked.
“Because they fired on me!”
Langston swung out about fifteen miles from the Sahand and armed his Harpoon missile. In keeping with Defense Secretary Carlucci’s requirement to warn the Iranians before opening fire, over the open international distress frequency Langston broadcast, “Iranian ship that just fired on U.S. Navy A-6, you have five minutes to abandon ship.” Whether the Iranians heard him is not known, but Langston received no response and the Sahand continued heading south. Langston put his Intruder into a shallow dive and launched his Harpoon antiship missiles. The missile dropped down, skimming just above the water and rapidly covering the distance to the Iranian frigate.
Captain Shahrokhfar never stood a chance. The sleek missile slammed into the starboard side near the bridge, igniting an inferno inside and sending black smoke billowing into the clear blue sky. Then Langston added his five-hundred-pound laser-guided bomb, which hit amidships on the frigate.
Back on the carrier, seven more jets launched all headed toward the Sahand. Unfortunately, none of the aircraft bothered to check in with any of the surface ships. Dyer had no idea that Enterprise had launched any aircraft. One of the inbound jets was not displaying the proper identification friend or foe, or IFF, which sends a coded message denoting it as a friendly aircraft. As the plane rounded the strait and headed into the Gulf, it looked to Dyer’s ships menacingly like an Iranian aircraft out of Bandar Abbas.
The captain of the USS Joseph Strauss requested permission to engage. Her skipper was an aggressive officer named Samuel Anderson, a forty-four-year-old mustached Hawaiian who bore a resemblance to the actor Edward James Olmos. Since taking command in June 1986, he’d earned both admiration and head shakes of amazed disbelief from his superiors. Reputedly, on one occasion when the ship pulled into Sydney Harbor on a port visit, it ran over a Greenpeace sailboat. Anderson proudly painted a sailboat with a slash through it on the bridge wing. These and similar actions earned him the nickname “Slamming Sammy” by an admiring crew.49
Something about the plane just did not look right to Dyer, and he held Anderson off for the moment. On board the Wainwright, Chandler too had his doubts about this inbound aircraft that appeared as a blip on his radar screen; he suspected it might be from the Enterprise. After consulting with Dyer, he decided to hold off Slamming Sammy as well. A short time later, the aircraft’s IFF was finally detected, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief knowing they had narrowly avoided shooting down one of their own aircraft.50
Dyer too decided to finish off the Sahand. With his three ships in a line abreast some twenty miles south of the burning Iranian ship, he ordered the Joseph Strauss to put a Harpoon of her own into the Sahand. The U.S. destroyer slowed to five knots and fell out of formation, as Anderson turned the ship broadside to unmask his weapons and obtain a firing solution. Crewmen on the other two ships and the press pool on the Jack Williams poured out onto the upper decks to catch a glimpse of the impending launch. As a CNN camera crew recorded for posterity and the evening news, the Strauss sent her missile streaking skyward, momentarily covering the ship in a white cloud of exhaust. It impacted thirty seconds later, blowing a large hole in the Sahand’s starboard side.
Two minutes later, the Enterprise aircraft began dropping bombs on the hapless Iranian ship. Another missile hit the ship, followed by Langston’s adding two thousand-pound bombs, one of which hit the ship squarely.51 But the punishment inflicted upon the Sahand had only just begun. Her captain, wounded with shrapnel and a fractured leg, ordered the crew to abandon ship. They scrambled down into bright orange life rafts floating nearby as over the next fifteen minutes bombs rained down on the Sahand. The unguided “dumb” bombs had as many near misses as hits, leading the Sahand’s captain later to accuse the U.S. pilots of deliberately targeting the survivors in the life rafts. While these charges were without merit, one can only imagine the terror experienced by captain and crew as they floated helplessly with the water erupting in massive explosions all around.52
The Sahand was wrecked; it listed heavily to starboard and fires raged from end to end. Pilots detected hot spots along her hull, indicating uncontrolled fires within. Smoke poured out from large gaping holes and fissures in the hull and deck, which had been perforated by the U.S. bombs.53
As the aircraft landed back on the carrier, the ground crew and the ship’s complement ecstatically cheered their arrival. “It was like the final scene from the movie Top Gun,” Langston thought.54
In the northern Gulf, protecting the two mobile sea bases fell to the USS Gary.55 The Gary and the two barges spent most of the day at general quarters, but while fighting raged to the south, the northern Gulf had been quiet thus far. Suddenly she detected a Silkworm missile launch on al-Faw some 120 miles away. Shortly thereafter, her radar detected the inbound missile. The Gary went to full speed, turning hard to unmask her weapons, firing off chaff and decoy flares; she began firing her 76-mm gun in the direction of the missile, still showing on the radar screen.56 Witnesses saw an object pass by the Gary, perhaps through the chaff bloom, then impact about one mile astern of the frigate.57
In the Jack Williams’s darkened CIC, Dyer listened intently to radio reports from the USS Gary of the Silkworm missile headed toward the U.S. frigate, mindful of the fact that his own ships remained within the Iranian Silkworm envelope at Qeshm Island. Suddenly his ships detected an incoming Silkworm missile. Simultaneously, a report came in from one of the U.S. aircraft of an incoming missile. Dyer ordered the three ships to fire chaff and head at flank speed south in an attempt to get out of the range of the Iranian missiles. The ships accelerated repeatedly, sending rockets aloft that exploded with the sound of firecrackers in white puffs, seeding the skies with magnetic strips.
A minute later, the lookouts on the deck of the Jack Williams suddenly got everyone’s attention: “Missile inbound, port quarter!” With the late afternoon sun low on the horizon, casting a golden glow over the calm blue water, the embarked CNN camera panned around to the port side and captured a bright glow low in the near distance. One of the embarked Stinger missile teams briefly locked on to the inbound missile, but could not hold the target. Lookouts topside ducked down, shouting a few expletives as the missile streaked by aft of the ship’s stern. Witnesses reported it striking a platform in the distance, clearly visible in the golden light of the setting sun.
At this moment, Dyer’s ships detected radar emissions from an Iranian four-engine C-130 twenty-five miles away. Fearing the aircraft might provide targeting data on U.S. ships for the Silkworm sites, Dyer ordered Captain Anderson to engage the Iranian aircraft. Just as the Jack Williams dodged its missile, Anderson wheeled his ship about to close the distance with the Iranian C aircraft. The Joseph Strauss sent five surface-to-air missiles in quick succession streaking into the sky toward the Iranian airplane. One missile malfunctioned and deviated from its flight path. Anderson ordered it destroyed in flight, filling the blue sky with long white streaks as its pieces rained down on the Gulf waters below. But each thrust by Anderson was parried by a lumbering four-engine aircraft whose skilled pilot managed to keep his aircraft just beyond death’s grasp.
“Enough of this bullshit,” Dyer said, as he ordered one of the F-14s to close and take care of the problem. The C-130’s pilot evidently decided not to push his luck and exited the Gulf, likely flying back over the Ira
nian mainland.
Having sunk the Sahand and dispatched the Boghammers, Engler’s and Webb’s planes topped off with fuel from an air force tanker over Oman and went looking for some reported Boghammers, which turned out to be only fishing boats. Dyer requested that they head up near Larak Island to look for the Sabalan. Looking through the black-and-white images displayed on his aircraft’s radar, he and his wingman investigated an endless string of contacts, from junked vessels to fishing dhows that pervaded the Gulf waters southeast of Qeshm Island.
At four thirty p.m., Captain Nasty finally came out to fight. Engler and Webb immediately closed in to attack.58 The Sabalan saw the approaching American aircraft and fired a surface-to-air missile (likely a shoulder-launched SA-7) at Engler’s A-6. It never came close, but Webb radioed back that they had been fired upon. Each A-6 still carried a Harpoon surface-to-surface missile. However, Larak Island silhouetted the Sabalan, and Engler feared that the Harpoon might not track with this background clutter, leading to the missile’s inadvertently hitting the Iranian mainland. He reluctantly decided against using his Harpoons—a decision he would later lament. This left Engler with a single five-hundred-pound laser-guided bomb with which to dispatch the Iranian frigate.59
Engler pushed his yoke forward and put his plane into a steep dive. His bombardier, Lieutenant Mark Herath, released their one laser-guided bomb, which went straight down the Sabalan’s smokestack. The bomb exploded deep inside the ship’s engineering spaces, giving the appearance of the ship “belching,” followed by plumes of heavy black smoke and a large oil slick on the surrounding water. The Sabalan’s captain, Abdollah Manavi, radioed over the international radio channel in heavily accented English, his voice near hysterical, “I’m sinking! I’m sinking! Send help!” For a man who had deliberately inflicted so much misery upon defenseless merchant seamen, it seemed fitting.
With the Sabalan dead in the water and no other effective ordnance, Engler and Webb reluctantly headed back to the carrier. Back on the Enterprise, the crew began spinning up another strike package to finish off the Sabalan and to address a new intelligence report of a third Iranian frigate getting under way at Bandar Abbas. The flight deck hurriedly began bringing up more munitions, and two more aircraft were readied. With the main target of Operation Praying Mantis now immobilized, the U.S. commanders itched to finish her off. Less called Zeller and asked how long before they could get aircraft back up to finish off the Sabalan. Zeller responded that it would take time, perhaps an hour. As the Sabalan had been attacked out of “self-defense,” this long delay stretched the intent of the rules of engagement. General Crist picked up the open phone and talked to Crowe. “It would be nice to sink her,” he told Crowe, “but it’s hard to say it’s self-defense at this point.”
Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci had left the Pentagon for a morning swim in the small pool of the dingy labyrinth of the Pentagon gym. A brigadier general came down to grab him, and Carlucci quickly arrived back in command center.
Crowe updated him on the situation. “We’ve got the Sabalan dead in the water and planes circling overhead. What do you recommend?”
Carlucci replied, “Well, what do you think?” Crowe, who had pushed to specifically target the Sabalan, responded, “Mr. Secretary, I think we’ve shed enough blood today.” Carlucci, who had always wanted to keep casualties to a minimum, nodded his head. “I agree with you. Tell the planes not to attack.”60 A tug and then the Iranian lighter Chiroo took the Sabalan under tow back to Bandar Abbas, and removed her many casualties.
Just before sunset, Less picked up the radio and called Rakow over on the Trenton, ordering him to dispatch two of his Cobras over to the Wainwright to provide Chandler with some helicopter gunships in case the Iranians staged a small-boat attack during the night. Rakow and his air officer Lieutenant Colonel Larry Outlaw strenuously objected. His pilots, he argued, had been flying for nearly twelve hours; most had not slept the night before. They were exhausted. But the order stood, and Outlaw dispatched his executive officer and one of his best pilots, Lieutenant Colonel David Dunkelberger, along with Captains Stephen C. Leslie and Kenneth W. Hill.
The two sleek gray Cobra helicopters arrived over the flight deck of the Wainwright well after sunset. Dunkelberger was lowest on fuel so he went in first, landing on the small aft flight deck. As his rotor came to a gradual stop, the crew moved it into the aircraft hangar to make room for his partner, dogging down the Cobra with hooks and metal wire.
The Wainwright’s radar suddenly detected a ship directly off the bow some fifteen miles distant. It appeared to be the Iranian logistics ship Larak, certainly capable of laying mines or other mischief. Chandler asked if Leslie and Hill would investigate. The Cobra moved swiftly away, the distinctive whop-whop sound of its rotors fading away into darkness. Suddenly, a brief voice from one of the pilots broke in over the radio net: “Radar lock on!” Whether it was Iranian or American remains unclear, but Leslie banked his Cobra hard, taking it down low to the water in a sudden maneuver intended to evade an inbound missile. But on night-vision goggles, depth perception flattens; over water, the horizon blurs with the water in a green hue. Even the most experienced Army Special Forces pilot found it challenging, and neither Leslie nor Hill was up to that level of night flying experience. The fast-moving twin-blade Cobra slammed into the ocean, killing both pilots instantly.
As night settled in over the Gulf, Less ordered the three surface action groups south, away from the Iranians into a more defensive stance. Crist called Crowe to provide him an update. Numerous small boats manned by the Revolutionary Guard seemed to be poised to attack the next day. He added, “I think tomorrow may be a tough day.”61
But the Iranians did not attack. April 18 proved costly to Iran, with nearly sixty Iranians killed and more than one hundred wounded. In the two days following Praying Mantis, tension remained high, but Iran kept its remaining boats safely in harbor and the Revolutionary Guard showed little interest in tangling again with the United States. On April 20, four Iranian boats from Bushehr closed on the two northern mobile sea bases, but they turned away and headed back toward Farsi.
The navy commissioned a team to look at the Silkworm missile firing. While the team suspected that Iran had fired one in the northern Gulf as Iraqi forces were overrunning the battery, the analysts found no evidence of any missile having been fired in the southern Gulf at Dyer’s forces. The Silkworm reconstruction team summed it up as radar anomalies, false reporting, and errant missiles from Sammy Anderson’s attack on the C-130. When asked about the lack of evidence of Silkworms being fired at his ships, Dyer quipped, “Well, whatever it was, it was big and fast and came from Iran.”
Shortly after the fighting, General Crist wrote to the secretary of defense: “The proof of the planning was in the pudding, and we dined rather well on the 18th.” Praying Mantis was an unqualified success for the United States. In addition to the material damage done, it greatly reduced the Iranian navy as a major threat to tanker traffic. Attacks by Revolutionary Guards in speedboats ceased for the next month. The combination of the disaster of Praying Mantis and the ease of the Iraqi recapture of al-Faw stunned Tehran. The Revolutionary Guards defending al-Faw had not simply been defeated; they had collapsed. An examination of their positions after the battle revealed that many had fled from the moment of the first Iraqi assault. Hashemi Rafsanjani said afterward that Iran could not stand up to both the United States and Iraq, and time was no longer on the side of Iran. Iran later accused the United States of ferrying Iraqi troops to al-Faw; though it was untrue, Tehran believed it.62
After the fight, Less met with the emir of Bahrain. “The Iranians don’t understand anything but power,” the royal leader told him. “Next time give it to them one thousand times harder!” As it turned out, Iran would not need another beating. The ayatollah was about to fold.
Nineteen
THE TERRIBLE CLIMAX
Conspiracy theories abound in the Middle East in part becaus
e there frequently are so many conspiracies. To leaders sitting in Tehran, the seemingly combined American and Iraqi offensives on al-Faw and in the Persian Gulf reinforced their long-held opinion of collusion between their two enemies. The accurate Iraqi attack and newfound proficiency of Saddam Hussein’s army all showed the handiwork of the Great Satan. American spies appeared everywhere. Iran had uncovered the CIA’s paramilitary schemes, and a spy in their military had compromised the punitive attack on Saudi Arabia. New American-led efforts had made it increasingly difficult for Iran to purchase weapons and spare parts for its American-made equipment. Heavily in debt and its economy in shambles, Iran had been pushed to the breaking point by the combined force of Iraq and America. The war was nearing a tragic climax, and neither side would emerge unscathed.
The Pentagon’s own intelligence organization is housed in a massive gray building-block-shaped structure at Bolling Air Force Base, across the Potomac River from the Pentagon. The Defense Intelligence Agency reports to the secretary of defense and focuses its intelligence collection on foreign military forces, working in tandem with its sometime rival at Langley. In the mid-1980s, Colonel Walter Patrick Lang headed the DIA’s Middle East and South Asia section. An Army Special Forces officer who served two tours in Vietnam, Lang transitioned to become a foreign-area officer, studying the Middle East and becoming the first Arabic studies professor at West Point. A skilled intelligence officer, he eventually rose to become the first director of the Defense Human Intelligence Service, which controlled all the Pentagon’s own spies. Pat Lang was an opinionated contrarian, especially regarding the Middle East. Acquaintances viewed him as too cynical to be a true Arabist. A frequent critic of Israeli actions, he had no great regard for Iran either, having found the Iranian students he met around the commons while in graduate school at the University of Utah to be pushy and arrogant—a view he held of the Islamic Republic’s leadership too.