Decision at Sea

by Symonds, Craig L.

  The badly damaged Sassan GOSP occupied by U.S. Marines who rappelled down from helicopters from the USS Trenton to search for intelligence and set explosives. (U.S. Navy)

  After the Iranians cleared the area, helicopters from the Trenton hovered over the target, and Marines fast-roped down onto the platform. In thirty minutes the Marines recovered whatever papers might be of value and planted their charges. The ships of SAG Bravo moved away from the platform, and the Americans “pulled the trigger.” Those standing on the bridge of the Merrill felt the air concussion from five miles away. It was, one recalled, “the most powerful explosion I’ve ever seen.”60

  The attack on the Sirri platform by SAG Charlie unfolded similarly. This task group was headed by the Belknap-class cruiser Wainwright, a sister ship of the Fox, which had participated in the first Earnest Will convoy. The Wainwright, a guided-missile cruiser with a two-armed missile firing system forward and a five-inch gun aft, was a handsome vessel with a bluff-faced superstructure. Unlike the Spruance-class destroyers, the Wainwright had not been designed for ASW. Its basic mission was antiair warfare, but its triple-ring missile battery and Mark 76 control system could also fire the Navy’s standard missile (SM-1 or SM-2) at surface targets, which made it a ship-killer. SAG Charlie also had the small frigates Simpson (a sister ship of both the Stark and the Roberts) and Bagley, a slightly larger vessel with similar armament. The senior officer of SAG Charlie was Captain James Chandler, a career Navy officer who had spent nearly all his professional life in cruisers and destroyers. In war gaming exercises at both Newport and Norfolk, Chandler had specialized in missile warfare.61

  The sailors on the Wainwright had heard rumors for days of a forthcoming mission, and they looked forward to it. “We knew something was going to happen,” recalled a first-class petty officer. “There was a lot of tension. . . . The crew all around the ship were all pretty, you know . . ., well, they were mad actually. Because of what happened to the Roberts. And we hadn’t done nothing about it.” Then on the afternoon of April 17 Chandler held a “captain’s call” on the helicopter deck of the Wainwright. With the crew gathered around him, he explained the coming operation, telling his men exactly what their jobs would be and how he intended to execute his orders. Then he invited questions. At the end of it, he told them to “make sure your battle stations are ready to go to war in the morning.” He told them he was confident in them, that he was sure they would “carry the day.” Then he asked the ship’s chaplain to lead a prayer.62

  The guided-missile cruiser USS Wainwright shown with a missile “on the rail,” ready to shoot. The missiles loaded without being touched by human hands from the wedge-shaped magazine astern of the missile firing arms. The ship’s 5-inch gun is aft, astern of the helicopter deck. (U.S. Navy)

  Reveille on April 18 was at 5:30, and when general quarters sounded at 7:00, one officer recalled that “it was the fastest muster we ever had.” Chandler himself went down into the darkened CIC, where more than sixty people crowded around the various screens and monitors. During combat operations, it was Chandler’s policy to turn the bridge over to his executive officer, while he took the chair of the tactical action officer in CIC. To his right was Lieutenant Marty Drake, the ship’s weapons officer. In front of him, sitting at an elaborate panel of screens and switches, including the launch key for the ship’s Harpoon missile system, were the senior enlisted men who operated the electronics. That morning, the petty officers on duty were Operations Specialist Chief Paul McCullough and thirty-two-year-old Operations Specialist First Class Reuben Vargas, who had enlisted in the Navy as a teenager in Puerto Rico. Now Vargas sat with his fingers literally on the trigger, so close to Chandler that, as he recalled later, “his hand was actually on my shoulder.”63

  The Wainwright and its consorts slowly circled the Sirri platform. At precisely 7:55 a U.S. intelligence officer on board radioed the first warning to the Iranians: “Gas and oil separation platform, this is U.S. Navy warship. You have five minutes to evacuate your platform. Any actions other than evacuation will result in immediate destruction.” This announcement was duplicated in Farsi, and repeated. Then, in mocking imitation of the Iranian captain of the Sabalan, he intoned: “Have a nice day.” The Iranians on the platform radioed back excitedly that five minutes was not enough time, but they began to evacuate at once. Three American helicopters were aloft, and the pilots reported that they could see men making their way down the ladders onto a small tug. “It was clear they were abandoning the GOSP,” Chandler said later, “but they just needed more time. I called the Bagley and the Simpson and told them to hold fire.”64

  The tug pulled away from the GOSP at about 8:15, but not everyone had evacuated; the helicopter pilots reported that there were uniformed men manning the guns. Some of the Iranians, at least, intended to fight it out. The three ships of SAG Charlie opened a coordinated fire just after 8:30 with five-inch and seventy-six-millimeter guns. The Iranians returned small-arms fire for a few minutes until one U.S. shell hit a compressed gas tank, which ignited a secondary explosion that incinerated the gun crew and set the whole platform ablaze. After that, the Iranians lost the will to fight and agreed to leave. The ships of SAG Charlie held their fire while the Iranian tug returned to pick up the survivors. By now the platform was burning so ferociously it was impossible (and unnecessary) to insert the SEAL team.65

  So far the mission had been a success: both of the targeted platforms had been completely destroyed, U.S. forces had suffered no casualties, and the earlier embarrassment of expending a thousand rounds to destroy an immobile target had been expunged. But the operation was not yet complete. From the beginning, the senior American officers had hoped that the attacks on the oil platforms would incite the Iranian navy to sortie. It had been almost half a century since U.S. surface combatants had tangled with warships from another navy, and almost to a man, the Americans hoped they would have a chance to retaliate for the Roberts by sinking an Iranian frigate. As one sailor expressed it, “We wanted to kick ass.” On the other hand, few imagined that it would happen, for surely the Iranians were aware that their tiny navy was no match for the U.S. squadron.66

  Then at 11:30, the signals exploitation team reported to Chandler in CIC that an Iranian surface combatant was closing the formation.

  The Iranian decision to sortie its surface navy on April 18 is inexplicable. It is possible that the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Mohsen Reza’i, demanded that Iran’s navy respond to the American attacks. If so, it suggests, as one authority has posited, “that the Guard was in de-facto command of the regular Navy.”67 Another possibility is that the Iranians concluded that the United States had finally decided to ally itself openly with Iraq, for, as it happened, Iraqi ground forces had launched a massive counterattack that same morning, and the Iranians likely believed this simultaneous assault was not a coincidence—that the United States had at last sided openly with the Iraqis. Whatever factors contributed to the Iranian decision, it was a horrible miscalculation.*

  Chandler radioed Admiral Less to apprise him of the situation. Less ordered him to get a positive identification on the approaching vessel, and Chandler ordered the Simpson to send its Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System (LAMPS) helicopter up for a visual ID. The LAMPS pilot radioed back that the surface contact was “a frigate-sized Iranian warship with a mast and radar amidships and two missiles astern of the mast.”68 It was, in fact, the Joshan, a 154-foot Iranian gunboat. But small as it was, the Joshan packed a punch, for it carried a seventy-six-millimeter gun amidships (the same size gun as on the American frigates), as well as a forty-millimeter machine gun. More importantly, it could fire both surface-to-air missiles and the deadly surface-to-surface American-made Harpoon missile.* Chandler knew this because, as at Midway, the United States had superior intelligence about the enemy. In fact, the intelligence team that had been put on board for this operation had a complete file on every Iranian ship. Chandler recalled, “The officer in charg
e of the signal intercept group came down with his book and showed me just what the Joshan was—gave me a short bio of the commanding officer, and showed me his picture.”69

  Before challenging the contact, Chandler ordered the Wainwright’s weapons officer to put an SM-1 on the rail and advised the ships in his command “to prepare for an SM-1 engagement.” Then he sent the Joshan a radio message: “Iranian patrol frigate, this is United States Navy warship. Do not interfere with my actions. Remain clear or you will be destroyed. Over.” When the Joshan did not respond to that challenge and continued to close, Chandler tried again, demanding that the Joshan send its hull number. This time the Joshan replied, giving its hull number (255) and declaring that it would “commit no provocative acts.”70

  To Chandler, however, actions were louder than words, and the Joshan continued to close at high speed. Chandler radioed the Joshan twice more, ordering it to stop its engines. There was no response either time. Chandler then notified the other ships in the task group: “He has not stopped his engines. And those canisters [on the stern] are probably Harpoon canisters, and I believe that there is one Harpoon remaining that is operational. He has it on board.”

  He warned the Joshan again: “Heed my warning. Stop your engines. If you do not stop, I will take you under fire.” Receiving no reply, he tried again: “If you do not stop, I will take you under fire.” Chandler’s next message was terse: “Iranian patrol ship, this is U.S. Navy warship. Stop and abandon ship. I intend to sink you.”71

  At that moment, Chief McCullough, sitting just in front of Chandler in the CIC, announced, “Captain, I have separation!” Simultaneously, the electronic warfare specialist announced, “I have an emitter!” A homing device had locked onto the Wainwright. “After that,” Vargas recalled, “all hell broke loose.” Marty Drake, the TAO, called out, “Launch chaff!” though the electronics warfare technician, Petty Officer Third Class Hall, had already anticipated the order, punching the button that fired a cloud of aluminized plastic confetti off to the starboard side. Chandler ordered the task group to open fire: “This is Wainwright. I am launching chaff. I am being locked on. Batteries released! Batteries released! Fire!” The weapons officer ordered: “Let’s go. Launch ’em.”72

  Then every man on board heard what one called “this big whoosh going down the starboard side from forward to aft.” The Harpoon missile from the Joshan flew so close to the Wainwright that the men on the bridge could feel the heat of the propellant as it passed. It missed the Wainwright by a matter of feet before splashing harmlessly into the sea some seventy-five yards astern. Down in the CIC, the weapons controller turned the key on the ship’s weapons console. “Birds free,” he reported.73

  A U.S. Navy standard missile (SM-1) being launched. (U.S. Navy)

  The Wainwright’s first missile blew the mast off the Joshan, while the Simpson’s smashed into its superstructure. On the radar screen, however, the Joshan still appeared to be moving. “I think I’m gonna have the Simpson feed him another,” Chandler announced.

  “Simpson, this is Wainwright. Are you prepared for another attack?”

  “That’s affirmative.”

  “Birds free.”

  “Roger out.”

  “This is Simpson. Evaluate a hit.”

  Altogether, SAG Charlie fired four missiles into the Joshan, and all four were hits. By then the Joshan was on fire from stem to stern and sinking.74

  For Tony Less on the Coronado it was both electrifying and frustrating. Like Nimitz at Pearl Harbor during the Battle of Midway, he had to monitor unfolding events by interpreting the calls he overheard on the radio. “The most tense moment of my tour,” he recalled later, was “when I received the transmission . . . that the Joshan had fired a Harpoon missile.”75 All he could do was wait for the next transmission that told him “the Harpoon had missed.” Then Less contacted Chandler again:

  “Did you sink him?” he asked.

  “Negative,” Chandler replied. “He’s dead in the water and on fire.”

  Less switched phones and spoke briefly to Admiral Crowe in Washington. Then he got back on the phone to Chandler to order him to sink the Joshan—it had not been the original target of the operation, but a ship was a ship.76

  Crowe had been monitoring the radio chatter himself from the basement Navy Command Center at the Pentagon along with Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci. They heard Chandler’s report that the Joshan had fired a Harpoon and the report that SAG Charlie was engaging. “We heard the message traffic all day,” Crowe recalled. “But we didn’t interfere much.” As he put it, “I’ve always had an aversion to the Pentagon giving orders to operational commanders.”77

  With orders to finish off the Joshan, Chandler closed to within gun range of the smoking hulk and ordered each of the ships under his command to open fire. With Marine spotters in helicopters to report the fall of the shot, the Wainwright fired one round long, one short, and landed the third on target. Then the ships of SAG Charlie fired for effect. The Wainwright aimed six rapid-fire five-inch rounds into the burning hulk. After the sixth round, the spotter in the helicopter radioed for the task group to cease fire. When Chandler asked him why, the spotter reported that the Joshan had disappeared. “There were bodies everywhere,” Vargas recalled. “The hardest thing was shutting it off.”78

  On the bridge of the Wainwright, someone asked Chandler if they should sweep the area for survivors. Chandler was quiet for a moment, then replied: “No.” There were a number of Iranian fishing dhows in the area that could pick up any survivors, and Chandler feared that if he closed the wreckage, the Iranians might later claim that it was for the purpose of killing the survivors. As it happened, they made this claim anyway, reporting that American ships had machine-gunned survivors in the water. “It certainly wasn’t a brilliant move on my part,” Chandler said later, “but I still think it was the smart thing to do.”79

  In response to the panicked calls from the two GOSPs and the sinking Joshan, the Iranians had scrambled a few F-4 fighter aircraft from the airfield near Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz. In midafternoon, as the one-sided fight with the Joshan was winding down, the Wainwright got a report that an F-4 was approaching at high altitude. Chandler warned the F-4 to stay clear; getting no response, he fired two standard missiles in air mode and scored at least one hit, though the crippled F-4 managed to make it back to its base, missing part of its wing.

  That proved to be the last encounter of the day for SAG Charlie. After ten hours of combat, the men could finally stand down. They had been at general quarters since seven that morning; some had been at their posts since midnight the night before. “It was pretty tense to be sitting in that seat for seventeen hours,” Vargas recalled later. “It was something you don’t ever forget.” Almost as soon as it was over, the men on the Wainwright began to appreciate how close they had come to being on the receiving end of a Harpoon missile. “The chaplain was very busy that night,” one officer recalled. “We had a lot of scared young sailors who [realized that] they’d almost bought it.”80

  The reality of that came home to the crew of the Wainwright when they learned that a Cobra helicopter gunship that had refueled on their after deck that afternoon was overdue—long overdue, and presumed missing. Much later, long after the fighting was over, the Navy employed sonar technology to find the wreck of the missing bird, resting on the bottom of the Persian Gulf. Navy divers sent to explore the site discovered the pilot and copilot still strapped into their seats, victims, apparently, of vertigo: a sense of dizziness and loss of balance that occasionally strikes helicopter pilots. Though not the consequence of hostile action, they were the only American casualties of Praying Mantis.

  A smiling Admiral William Crowe, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (left), congratulates Captain James Chandler, commanding officer of the Wainwright, for his ship’s performance in Operation Praying Mantis. (Courtesy James Chandler)

  All this time, the men of the first group—SAG Bravo—were l
istening in on the radio net but also keeping a close watch on their own electronic sensors. In the middle of the battle between SAG Charlie and the Joshan, the surface search radar on the Merrill identified a high-speed surface contact with the signature of a large surface combatant. It had a profile similar to the Iranian frigate Sabalan and was approaching at twenty-five knots. Perkins decided to send up a helicopter and “get a visual.”81

  The morning had been clear and sunny, but by midafternoon the weather had turned hazy over the Gulf as the heat mounted. The Marine helicopter pilot from the Merrill could not positively identify the contact. It was a warship and had the general size and configuration of a destroyer or frigate, but in the thick haze he could not see more than that. Perkins tried raising the contact on the radio, but for whatever reason it did not respond. After that, while Perkins stayed on the bridge, the Merrill’s captain went down to the CIC to take the chair of the tactical action officer. “Now we were getting excited,” the Merrill’s executive officer remembered. “We needed to prep the Harpoon, because if this is what we think it is, we don’t know if he had a Harpoon or not.” Perkins, however, still wanted a positive identification, and he ordered the Marine helicopter to move in closer. At this, Colonel Bill Rakow, the senior Marine officer, expressed his concern that the men in the helicopter might be sacrificed. “We had a kind of discussion,” Sanford recalled. “The captain is down in combat plotting Harpoon solutions. He had the key around his neck, and was getting ready to go.” But the Marine colonel did not want his pilots to be placed in more danger than necessary.82

  Sanford got on the radio to the helicopter pilot and asked him if he could see a hull number.

  “Well,” came the reply, “it’s three numbers, but it’s back a little bit.”

  American warships carried their hull numbers on the bow, so this was clearly not an American vessel. The bridge team pulled out a copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships and quickly thumbed through it looking at the Iranian order of battle. The Iranians didn’t have any ships with a three-digit hull number either.