Today marks the anniversary of Operation Eagle Claw. In the early morning hours of 25 April, 1980 President Carter announced to a stunned world that the United States had undertaken an ambitious raid into Iran to liberate 52 American hostages held illegally at our Embassy compound in Tehran. The assault force can be seen here, loading C141s.
Unfortunately, Operation Eagle Claw was unsuccessful and we lost eight American servicemen in a horrible aircraft ground collision.
However, their deaths were not in vain. The hostages were eventually repatriated and the accident was the watershed event that created, over the next several decades, the world’s preeminent Special Operations capability; USSOCOM and its components. We wouldn’t be where are today without the determination of that fledgling task force. Join me in remembering those that had the guts to try.
Thanks for remembering this! I was just a kid but remember this very well. Very sad how it turned out and regretful loss of life! But like you said it was a great post-Vietnam wakeup call and greatness emerged from the seeds of tragedy.
so from that picture, was the assault force going in sterile?
They had American flags on their jackets which were to be covered with tape until actual actions on the objective.