Video: 20 Years Ago Iran Fucked With Us In Hormuz - Op Praying Mantis
They would do well to study their recent history.
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3 Responses
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Be respectful of others and their opinions. Inflammatory remarks and inane leftist drivel will be deleted. It ain’t about free speech, remember you’re in a private domain. My website, my prerogative.
If you can't handle using your real email address, don't bother posting a comment.
No doubt the Iraniacs remember this too. They’re looking for some payback. Hence, the testing of our defenses the other day….
No probs. Give them what they want: a certain firey send-off to a certain firey after-life.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:17 pmOkay, that sounds good … and this time let’s also include their only refinery.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:43 pmThroughout the mid-1980s Iran, with its indiscriminately laid mines and fleet of patrol boats, was the scourge of oil tankers transiting the Persian Gulf. Eventually, Iran’s policy of harassment would prompt the U.S. military to take action.
In July 1987, the Navy began escorting Kuwaiti-flagged tankers through the gulf, though that was not enough to stop a tanker from striking a mine on July 24. With that incident, the United States beefed up its presence in the gulf. The Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 24th Marine Amphibious Unit was ordered to the region initially, but in late November was relieved by Contingency Marine Air-Ground Task Force 1-88, from California, which was embarked aboard the amphibious assault ship Okinawa.
CMAGTF 1-88 was succeeded by another task force, CMAGTF 2-88, commanded by Col. William M. Rakow Jr., which sortied from North Carolina aboard the amphibious transport dock Trenton in late January 1988.
CMAGTF 2-88 consisted of its command element, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines (Reinforced), Combat Service Support Detachment 20, and a composite helicopter squadron equipped with two CH-46E Sea Knights, two UH-1N Hueys and four AH-1T Sea Cobra helicopters. Arriving in the gulf in early March, Rakow’s force immediately picked up the mission of escorting tankers through the gulf.
The situation came to a head in April, when the frigate Samuel B. Roberts, fresh from escort duties, struck an Iranian-laid mine near Qatar. No sailors died, but 10 were seriously injured and the blast ripped a 20-foot hole in the ship’s hull.
In retaliation, U.S. Central Command ordered Rakow to attack an Iranian sea-based oil platform called Sassan as part of a greater effort in the region called Operation Praying Mantis. The Sassan complex stood approximately 40 feet above the water on steel girders, and its seven partitioned structures were thought to be guarded by a small group of Iranian soldiers and a few medium-caliber anti-aircraft guns.
To counter possible international criticism, the Marines informed the Iranians at Sassan of the impending attack in the early morning hours of April 18. The Iranians responded with a burst of fire toward a Sea Cobra circling the platform. The task force’s attack helicopters responded with a torrent of rockets and missiles, and were joined by shellfire from the destroyer Lynde McCormick.
Even before the echo of gunfire faded, two helos carrying Marines from Bravo Company’s 1st Platoon and the task force’s Force Reconnaissance Platoon swooped in. Marines fast-roped onto Sassan’s primary platform and quickly secured the burning structure.
Capt. Thomas B. Hastings, commander of the raid force, spent two hours on the Iranian structure, stripping it of items of intelligence value and planting more than a thousand pounds of explosives. As soon as the Marines were airborne, the raid force detonated the explosives and the complex went up in a cloud of smoke and flame.
The infantrymen pulled off the raid without a casualty, but the aviators weren’t so lucky.
A Sea Cobra piloted by Capts. Stephen Leslie and Kenneth Hill crashed into the gulf after being targeted by Iranian air-defense radar. The families of the two aviators were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
The raid against Sassan, executed simultaneously with other attacks in the region, had the desired affect.
Over the course of the next few months Iran stopped interdicting oil tankers and the Navy eventually was able to sharply curtail its escort duties.
In June, the task force was replaced by another, 3-88, and when it left the gulf in the fall of 1988, the situation no longer required such a robust Marine presence.
January 8th, 2008 at 7:59 pm