The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (60 page)

A Marine radio team monitoring Sassan’s communication with Bandar Abbas learned that several Iranian marines—between three and six—remained on board to “interdict” the Americans in a last, desperate suicidal mission. Neither Perkins nor Rakow wanted to take any chances. After another fusillade, four attack helicopters fired antitank missiles into a multistory structure that served as the workers’ quarters. Then, banking hard, they came back raking the facility with 20-mm gunfire, starting a small fire on one of the catwalks. One of the missiles ignited the wood-framed structure, and soon flames engulfed the entire structure, burning furiously, sending black smoke high into the air.

With no more return fire, Rakow sent in the marines, who approached in two helicopters fast and low.
⁴
As the two attack Cobras peppered the target one last time with fire, the two twin-engine CH-46s popped their noses up slightly and came to a quick hover over their assigned platforms, immediately dropping a rope off their rear ramps, which marines began sliding down.
⁵
Within thirty seconds, each disgorged its passengers and quickly pulled away.
⁶
The marines immediately set about clearing their respective platforms, covering each other as they worked their way from top to bottom through a labyrinth of pipes and machinery. Captain Thomas Hastings, a smart, charismatic marine with a background in unconventional warfare, commanded the assault force.
⁷
Moving gingerly across the smashed and broken catwalks, they
searched the remaining platforms. Finding no Iranians, alive or dead, the marines declared Sassan secured shortly after ten a.m. Then one marine climbed up a tall radio tower, the highest point on Sassan. He fastened the Stars and Stripes and, beneath Old Glory, a U.S. Marine Corps flag, to the wild cheers of those looking on below.
⁸
After a couple of hours, a marine sergeant set two timed fuses on thirteen hundred pounds of explosives placed around the seven platforms and flew back to the
Trenton
. Ten minutes later Sassan erupted in a massive explosion, briefly obscuring the oil facility in a brownish black cloud of smoke and debris.

W
hile the marines stormed Sassan, other navy ships and embarked elite SEALs struck the Sirri oil facility. Much smaller, it comprised just three platforms connected by a long catwalk, with a small natural gas burn-off at one end. U.S. intelligence knew of at least one crew-served twin heavy antiaircraft gun and perhaps ten Revolutionary Guardsmen and twenty civilian workers.
⁹

The senior commander for this group, SAG C, was David Chandler, captain of the large cruiser
Wainwright
; a Southerner, he had an easy manner and spoke with a slow drawl.
¹⁰
At six a.m., general quarters sounded on the
Wainwright
. The executive officer, Craig Vance, took position on the bridge while Captain Chandler took his seat in the combat information center (CIC). To his left sat Lieutenant Martin Drake, the ship’s weapons officer, surrounded by the missile and main gun control consoles.
¹¹
At seven fifty-five, with a haze hanging over the water, a sailor issued the same warnings to the Iranians on Sirri as had been given to Sassan, adding, in sardonic humor, Captain Nasty’s famous line: “Have a nice day.”
¹²

Just before eight fifteen, Captain Chandler gave the order “batteries release.” A rapid succession of deafening
boom-boom-boom
s followed. Within a minute, twenty-three shells burst around Sirri, sending the defenders running for cover from the rain of shrapnel.
¹³
Observers on the
Wainwright
could clearly see uniformed Iranians moving to man an antiaircraft gun. Chandler called off the SEALs and ordered the ships to open fire once again. The American warships opened up, and the first salvo from the
Wainwright
burst directly over the antiaircraft gun, killing two Iranians and wounding several others. One of the
Wainwright
’s next rounds exploded near Sirri’s main gas separation tanks, sending a huge fireball mushrooming into the air, with the
ensuing conflagration cooking off ammunition as heavy black smoke engulfed the main platform and fires spread down to consume the main platform’s lower level.
¹⁴
Fatigue-clad soldiers leaped into the water while others were incinerated. As fires raged, setting off secondary explosions, Captain Chandler and senior SEALs agreed not to try to occupy the platform. Instead, the Americans dropped a life raft and medical kit to the Iranians in the water, six of whom managed to climb in. Sirri had been neutralized, but any intelligence had gone up in the flames.
¹⁵

T
o the east, Captain Donald Dyer’s three ships of SAG D hovered near Abu Musa Island. A big man, bald, ever quiet, and supremely self-confident, Dyer used the USS
Jack Williams
as his command ship, eager to put twenty years of training to work in his first combat operation. His mission was to find and sink the
Sabalan
, so Dyer monitored the intelligence traffic on the ship’s location. About two a.m. that morning, Captain Nasty, Lieutenant Commander Abdollah Manavi, had radioed back to headquarters in Bandar Abbas that his ship needed to head back to port due to a broken freshwater condenser that prevented the ship from making palatable water. Dyer had his doubts about getting Captain Nasty. “We stirred up a hornet’s nest with the
Roberts
, and they are not going to come out,” he told his staff.
¹⁶

At precisely eight a.m. Dyer’s ships nevertheless headed north toward the Strait of Hormuz in search of her quarry. “General quarters!” sounded throughout the task force. The electronic
bong, bong, bong
sent the sailors scurrying to their battle stations, donning their white balaclavas, glove flash protectors, and olive-drab helmets. On board the command ship
Jack Williams
, crew hoisted a large battle ensign, and the Stars and Stripes snapped straight out in the strong wind. The three ships headed in a column north at nearly thirty knots, generating great white “rooster tails” off their bows as they cut through the calm, flat waters of the Gulf.
¹⁷
As Dyer’s ships moved northward toward the strait, they detected nearly forty radar contacts ahead of them: fishing boats, dhows, and merchant ships all crowded the narrow strait. He ordered a helicopter aloft to scout ahead. An hour later, Dyer learned that the
Sabalan
was indeed in Bandar Abbas, straddled by two tankers, either, as some speculated, to protect herself from American Harpoon missiles or, more likely, to take on needed freshwater due to her mechanical problems.
¹⁸
Either way, as long as Captain Nasty stayed in port, he was safe
from U.S. attack. A frustrated Dyer continued moving north in column, up into the traffic separation scheme, where, due to the narrows, ships are required to stay in a tight two-mile-wide lane either to the right or left depending on whether they are entering or leaving the Gulf.
¹⁹
The ships slowed and loitered before turning around and heading back south, retracing their steps.

Shortly after ten a.m., U.S. intelligence learned that the Iranian missile boat
Joshan
, about forty nautical miles north of Chandler’s SAG C, had been ordered south to assist their forces at Sirri. The French-built missile boat had a crew of around thirty. Commanded by Captain Abbas Mallek, the
Joshan
served as an Iranian squadron flagship at Bushehr and was a near legendary boat in the Iranian navy, having executed some of the first attacks on Iraq at the outset of their war, including an attack on Baghdad’s two offshore oil terminals, briefly knocking them out of action. The
Joshan
packed a powerful punch, in the form of the only remaining American-made Harpoon missile in the Iranian inventory. While no one could determine the missile’s condition or whether it even functioned, its mere existence made American commanders nervous.

As news of the attack on Sirri reached Captain Amir Yeganeh, commander of the 1st Naval District in Bushehr, he immediately ordered Mallek to head south to reinforce Sirri. Mallek had just completed an escort of an Iranian tanker and was steaming leisurely back to her home port of Bushehr. Mallek, like his American counterparts, operated under a set of standing rules of engagement. In fact, the Iranian navy was even stricter than the United States’, specifically prohibiting firing first at a U.S. warship. What exactly Mallek was supposed to do once he confronted U.S. warships at Sirri remained ambiguous, but he ordered his helm hard over, increased speed, and brought his ship on a southerly course toward Sirri and Chandler’s three ships.

The
Joshan
’s communication with Bandar Abbas was dutifully reported to the
Wainwright
’s embarked intelligence detachment, whose officer in charge brought the flash message to Chandler in the CIC along with an intelligence packet about the
Joshan
, including a profile of her captain. Half an hour later, Chandler arrayed his three ships for the impending confrontation.
²⁰
He formed his flotilla in a line abreast with the
Wainwright
to the west, the
Bagley
in the center, and the
Simpson
to the east, each separated by three nautical miles—close enough to maintain visual contact with each other but still provide a broad enough electronic triangulation to better fix the
Joshan
’s
location. Heading northeast at twenty-five knots, the
Wainwright
began a broad weaving movement, zigzagging from side to side to make it harder to hit with an incoming missile.
²¹
Chandler ordered both the
Simpson
and the
Wainwright
to put a surface-to-air missile, a Standard Missile 1, or SM-1, up on the missile rails, but set for a surface-to-surface mode. The SM-1 did not pack a large warhead, but was a fast, accurate missile, capable of supersonic speeds. Chandler also sent a helicopter aloft to help locate the
Joshan
.
²²
About half an hour later, the helicopter found the missile boat forty miles from the three U.S. warships and closing fast.

He relayed this back to Less, requesting further guidance. Amazingly, he received an unusual order directing him to “warn the
Joshan
away.”
²³
In an attempt to save Iranian lives, and perhaps unable to comprehend that any small patrol boat would single-handedly try to take on the full might of the U.S. Navy, Less directed Chandler to tell the Iranian patrol boat to keep her distance. He was caught in the strange condition of being between peace and war; this directive meant that he should try every means to warn the
Joshan
away. As Captain Chandler later said, “I would have shot him at thirty-five miles had I not been told to warn him away.” The
Wainwright
raised the Iranian boat on the standard commercial frequency, and Captain Chandler grabbed the microphone: “Iranian patrol frigate,” he began, giving the boat’s location, direction, and speed, “this is United States Navy warship. Do not interfere with my actions. Remain clear or you will be destroyed.”
²⁴

Mallek responded in his heavily accented but adequate English. “I am doing my duty,” he said, adding that he was in international waters and “would commit no provocative acts.” All the while the two forces closed at fifty miles an hour.
²⁵

Tension mounted both on board the
Wainwright
and up the chain of command. The
Wainwright
’s weapons officer, Marty Drake, could not understand why they did not fire. “Sir,” he cautioned, “he’s got the last remaining Harpoon.” But Chandler still had it in his mind that he needed to warn her away, and he maintained this even when the
Joshan
locked on with its fire control radar.
²⁶
Listening in over the net back on the
Coronado
and in Tampa, Less and Crist grew increasingly concerned. Less liked the idea of giving the Iranians a warning in hopes of sparing lives, but after repeated warnings he wondered why Chandler had not opened fire. General Crist turned to a senior staff officer sitting next to him and asked apprehensively, “Why doesn’t he just blow him out of the water?”

Finally, with only thirteen miles separating the two forces—close enough for the
Joshan
’s captain to see the
Wainwright
’s mast peeking just above the horizon—Chandler issued his fourth and final warning to the
Joshan
: “Stop and abandon ship. I intend to sink you.”
²⁷

With this Mallek decided to act. If the Americans were going to attack him, he would not take the first hit. He launched his one Harpoon missile. The U.S. helicopter pilot looking on shouted into his headset microphone, “I see a cloud of white smoke!”
²⁸

“Launch chaff!” Lieutenant Drake yelled. It was an unnecessary order, as the petty officer charged with the duty had already pushed the button, sending a plume of aluminum strips into the air. At the same time, the crew initiated electronic countermeasures to jam the
Joshan
’s radar.
²⁹
Chandler immediately ordered his ships to open fire. The
Simpson
sent a missile streaking back, low and arrow-straight toward the
Joshan
, leaving a slight trail of white smoke. Onlookers standing on her bridge wings to watch the missile launch scrambled to get back in the ship as the missile left the rail with a deafening roar, coating some with a powdery residue.
³⁰

The Iranian Harpoon caught the
Wainwright
off guard. Her fire control radar had been set in surface-to-surface mode and, perhaps spoofed by all the chaff in the air, had difficulty switching to fixing onto the incoming missile. Drake tried to engage the missile with the ship’s main self-defense system, the 20-mm antimissile weapon, but it would not engage as it was blocked by the captain’s gig. In keeping with standard procedures, the
Wainwright
’s executive officer on the bridge ordered, “Turn to port!” to unmask her full complement of weapons.