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World War III
Chapter 2 - Carter Flinches
By Adam Yoshida
In Washington and aboard the USS Nimitz (command ship for Operation Central Run) the men of the United States Armed Forces suddenly were overcome with a wave of fear. After authorizing the assault in mid-January the White House had been silent, except to order that a reasonable distance be kept from the border between Iran and Afghanistan, so as to not provoke the Soviets.
Fig. 1. USS NimitzNow, five days before the operation was set to commence the White House had issued a top-secret memo to the JCS which was being passed around. Among the more concerning elements:
- No Air to Air engagements to take place without visual identification
- No air attacks within a mile of a residential area
Upon seeing these restrictions it is reported that Commander Jay Johnson, then commanding an F-14 Squadron on the Enterprise, is reported to have commented, "God, we couldn't beat the North Vietnamese doing this… and they weren't flying American aircraft." Nearly every level of the military command fired protests to Washington, which were pointedly ignored.
2.1: The Magnificent SevenFaced with the new situation the Joint Planning Staff (established especially for the operation) faced a need for a drastic change in plans. The landing at Bandar Abbas was modified to occur after the Iranian Navy had been eliminated. Most officers would privately agree that it now had no real point since it would take place after the 82nd had landed, but they'd worked so hard to plan it that few wanted to abandon it. Besides, the White House directive hadn't said anything about naval gunfire support…
One LGOP was formed by the command staff of the Ranger unit. Led by Lieutenant Colonel William James with six other men (all officers) they did what Paratroopers are supposed to do, they fought. Abandoning their downed helicopter they made their way by road towards Qom. They began by hijacking a fuel truck. Taking the truck down the road they proceeded towards the city at maximum speed (apparently someone had gotten the brilliant idea to assassinate the Ayatollah who they figured would be there). However they soon came upon a roadblock. Totally out of touch and suffering more than a little from dehydration the men came upon a wacky idea, namely to put something on the gas pedal about a mile away from the block, and then fire a rocket at the truck to blow up the roadblock.
Needless to say the plan failed and the men, mostly out of frustration, came upon a new idea. Namely to charge the post and seize it. This new plan worked fairly well and the men used the radio to call the navy for a pickup (having lost their radio when their chopper went down). Two hours later a CH-47 arrived to pick up the men. This story really has nothing to do with anything else, but many people like to tell the story, especially since the famous movie based upon their story came out in 1992. Since the movie came out (starring Mel Gibson) the popular myth that these men made a real contribution to the battle in Iran has been taken by many as fact, and I thought it necessary to dispel it a little.
Elsewhere, the survivors of the earlier raid who weren't acting in an insanely irresponsible manner achieved a number of successes, including a spectacular raid on an Iranian Air Base.
