off.
He turned to look back and saw two of the helicopters with their rotors turning. He was impressed. He figured they had stayed on the ground to see if anyone else needed to be picked up. The only people he saw remaining on the ground were Carney and his combat controllers, which was reassuring, because clearly they had some way out. He assumed the helicopters had stayed behind to do that.
Then Jessie Johnson, another member of Delta, pulled up in the jeep.
“What are you doing?” he asked Fitch.
“Well, I’m making sure everybody is out of here and then I’m going to get on this helicopter,” Fitch said.
“Look up in the helicopter, dummy,” said Johnson. Fitch did and saw immediately that it was empty. After the collision the pilots had hastily abandoned ship and boarded the C-130s. Fitch thought all the planes had taken off, but with Johnson and Carney and his men still on the ground he realized he must be wrong. Johnson pointed out the last C-130, waiting for them.
“Get in the jeep, we’re pulling out,” he said.
Beckwith was in the cockpit of the last plane, talking to Vaught at Wadi Kena, explaining the new calamity. There was thought given to leaving a small force behind in some low hills to the north to keep an eye on the scene—there was still a small chance all this would go unnoticed and they might be able to return and complete the mission—but that idea was quickly nixed. The only answer now was to clear out, and fast. The plane was low on fuel and they were running out of darkness. Burruss took charge of making sure everyone was accounted for, the able-bodied and the injured. There was some thought given to retrieving the bodies of the dead, but the fire was still raging and there wasn’t time. After consulting with Vaught, Burruss was told to turn loose the Iranian bus passengers. The Delta officer ordered one of his men to rip some wires from the bus engine to make sure it was disabled and, after locating one of the Farsi speakers, he boarded the bus and addressed the passengers.
He told them that they were leaving some snipers behind, and that if anyone tried to leave the scene before morning they would be shot.
“So make sure you stay on the bus until daylight,” Burruss said.
As he left and headed back to the plane, he took one last look at the flaming ruins of the plane and chopper and felt a stab of remorse over leaving behind the dead. But there was nothing to be done about it.
John Carney was the last man to leave Desert One. He climbed into Uttaro’s tanker and said, “Everybody is out of the desert now.”
There were so many men inside the last plane that they had to throw some of their rucksacks, mattresses, and equipment out to make room. The injured pilots and air force crewmen were being attended to by the Delta medics, who administered morphine and dressed their burns. As the plane accelerated across the desert floor it hit the lip of the road at full speed and with a frightening jolt was airborne. Inside it felt like Iran had delivered one last kick to the rear as they reached the sky, but then the plane hit the ground again hard. It didn’t have enough speed to stay airborne. Fitch managed to stay on his feet as the plane kept surging forward and then slowly urged itself off the ground. One of the propellers had clipped the rise by the road and had been bent, so the overloaded C-130 flew off toward Masirah with just three engines. Behind them on the desert floor was a giant flaming wreck surrounded by four intact helicopters, an amazed bus full of Iranian pilgrims, and the still-burning ruins of the fuel truck. It was hard to imagine that such a spectacular series of calamities had not caught the attention of any Iranian authorities, but there was no indication that the intrusion had been noticed.
As they got in the air, Fitch told Boykin. “We need to get some fighters over.” He was assuming that with all the commotion at Desert One the Iranian air force would be on them soon. They would not be out of Iranian airspace by daylight, and the overburdened, wounded, and unarmed C-130 would be a fat and easy target for a jet fighter.
“It’s already done,” said Boykin.
No fighters were necessary. All four C-130s limped out of Iran without being challenged by Iran’s air defenses—fighters on the
America’s elite rescue force had lost eight men, seven helicopters, and a C-130 and had not even made contact with the enemy. It was a debacle. It defined the word “debacle.” Meadows and his crew would be stranded in a very tight spot in Tehran as the country woke up to this ham-handed invasion. Still, the men in the departing planes clung to the hope that the disaster scene in the desert would remain a mystery long enough for them to try again.
What they didn’t yet know was that there would be one more disaster to add to the mortifying list. In their haste to clear out immediately after the collision, the marine crews and pilots had left behind in their Sea Stallions classified documents describing their failed mission in detail. It would all be there for the Iranian authorities to inspect, a veritable play by play. Kyle called for an air strike to destroy the choppers and the papers in them, but concern for the bus passengers, who had been so sternly instructed to stay put, ruled out that option. There would be no mystery, and there would be no second chance.
Word reached the White House at about that time, just before the force left the ground. Still in his study, surrounded by his advisers, absorbing the shock of the abort decision, Carter received a call from General Jones.
“Yes, Dave.”
Jordan watched the president close his eyes, and then Carter’s jaw fell and his face went pale.
“Are there any dead?” Carter asked.
The room was silent. Finally, the president said softly, “I understand,” and hung up the phone.
He calmly explained to the others what had happened. The men took in the awful news quietly. Then Secretary of State Vance, who had submitted his resignation earlier that day because he objected to the mission, said, “Mr. President, I’m very, very sorry.”
Jordan ducked into the president’s bathroom and vomited.
Iran found out about the failed rescue attempt the same way the rest of the world did; the White House issued a statement at one o’clock in the morning (nine-thirty in the morning in Tehran). It began, “The president has ordered the cancellation of an operation in Iran which was under way to prepare for a rescue of our hostages. The mission was terminated because of equipment failure.”
It went on to briefly explain without details that there had been “a collision between our aircraft on the ground at a remote desert location in Iran.”
This mission was not motivated by hostility toward Iran or the Iranian people, and there were no Iranian casualties…Preparations for this rescue mission were ordered for humanitarian reasons, to protect the national interests of this country and to alleviate international tensions. The president accepts full responsibility for the decision to attempt the rescue. The nation is deeply grateful to the brave men who were preparing to rescue the hostages.
PART FIVE
Haggling with the Barbarians
