Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces

construction, a helicopter pad, and plenty of space. It seemed tailor-made for the mission. Wimbrown VII, at about half the Hercules's size, was a tighter squeeze, but it, too, met the mission requirements.

The SEALs went to work converting the craft, adding hangars and skids for the boats as well as defenses and radar. With a Navy frigate providing escort, the Hercules set sail from Bahrain at the southern end of the Gulf on September 21. Wimbrown VII, in need of more work, followed in October, though for several reasons it was not actually deployed in hostile waters until November.

As the Hercules put out to sea, an Iranian cargo vessel that intelligence had tagged as a possible minelayer was sailing southward from Iran. The vessel was called the Iran Ajr

At about 1830 on September 21, the Iran Ajr veered from its normal course near Iran into international waters east-northeast of Ra'Rakan, a small island off the northern tip of Qatar. Meanwhile, the Navy frigate Jarrett was sailing about fifteen miles away, with three Special Ops helicopters aboard. The MH-6 and two AH-6s took off to monitor the Iran Ajr.

They found her forty-five minutes later. The MII-6, equipped with sophisticated night-flying and surveillance gear, took a quick pass. The Little Bird's pilot spotted 'a bunch of fifty-five-gallon drums down the port side, a canvas-covered area in the middle, and a Zodiac-type boat.' The Iranian vessel was apparently not carrying mines, but this was not standard cargo for a merchant ship, either. The pilot pulled back and joined the other helicopters, which shadowed the vessel for about an hour. There was no sign that the Iranians were aware of their presence.

At 2250, the Iran Ajr turned off its lights and reversed course. The MI I- 6 went in for another look. This time the pilot saw the cylindrical-shaped objects being pushed over the side and realized he was looking at mines. He radioed back for instructions.

'Take them under fire!' came the order from the frigate. The AH-6s closed in. 'Inbound hot,' warned the pilot, as the Little Bird's minigun opened up, spraying the deck near the mines with machine-gun fire. The attack helicopters launched 2.75-inch high-explosive rockets and raked the ship with gunfire. An exploding paint locker sent fireballs skyward. Soon, the engine room and the steering and electrical systems were disabled. The ship went dead in the water. The helicopters were ordered to cease fire.

Fifteen minutes later, the ship's crew managed to restore power; the ship began moving again. They also tried desperately to deploy the mines.

More rockets and machine-gun fire from the AI I-6s changed their minds. As the flames stoked up and the lights died again, the Iran Ajr's crew began to abandon ship. Their Zodiac pulled away, attempting a high-speed escape. An AH-6 pursued in the darkness. As the helicopter closed on the small boat, someone on the craft 'jumped to his feet in a threatening manner,' according to a SOF crew member. Unsure whether the Iranian had a man-portable antiair missile or some other weapon, the helicopter pilot fired his pistol out of the open door. Incredibly, he not only 'neutralized' the Iranian but punctured the boat.

SEALs, meanwhile, were preparing to take the ship. Despite planning and communications snafus, a SEAL platoon approached it just after first light in a shallow-draft landing craft, chosen because it was unlikely to set off a contact mine. However, it exposed the assault team to other dangers.

'As we got closer, we hunkered down behind the gunwales,' a team member said later. 'The coxswain was inexperienced, and it took him five minutes to get us in position before we could board. One grenade lobbed into the well deck… and we all would have been history.'

As the SEALs scrambled aboard and secured the enemy ship, they realized that all the Iranians aboard had fled. In fact, they'd left so quickly, the teletypes and radios were still on.

The capture of the Iran Ajr stopped its minelaying operation, and saved ships and lives. Perhaps more important, the boarding team discovered a number of intelligence documents, including a chart showing where it had already laid mines.

The Iran Ajr was eventually sunk by SOF personnel — but not before U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, in the Gulf to inspect U.S. forces, had taken a personal tour.

The Hercules and its force of patrol boats and helicopters began operations in the area of Farsi Island on October 6. Within hours, they had discovered the Iranians' patrol pattern and devised a way to disrupt it.

Using a buoy navigational aid as a precise checkpoint in the open water, the SEALs and three Little Birds set up an ambush. Vectored toward a radar contact by a Navy LAMPS helicopter, an MH-6 pilot picked up an object on his FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared Receiver, for night vision). He pressed forward for the attack.

'We've got some vessels dead in the water at twelve o'clock,' he told his flight. 'Approximately one-half mile, no movement, no hostile intent at this time.

The helicopters closed in fast. The image in the FLIR sharpened. A 12.7mm machine gun and its telltale tripod sat on the deck of the largest vessel in the screen.

Not an American weapon. Not an American boat.

'We have Boghammers,' shouted the pilot over the radio, alerting the others to the enemy. There were actually three boats — two smaller Boston Whaler types as well as the 'Boghammer,' a potent and fast patrol craft forty-one feet long and displacing about 6.4 tons. Boghammers were used for a variety of purposes by the Iranians, none of them benign. The sky lit up with tracers as the Iranians spotted the Americans. The MH-6 ducked left, and an AH-6 put two rockets and a barrage of machine-gun bullets into the cluster of boats. The Boston Whalers caught fire.

The Boghammer, however, had only just begun to fight. As he closed to attack, the AH-6 pilot saw the telltale flash and spiral of a shoulder-launched SAM spitting into the air; he immediately began defensive maneuvers.

'It went right by my door, off the right side of the aircraft,' he recalled. The missile proved to be an American-made Stinger heat-seeker. Fortunately, it, and probably a second, were launched without definite locks on their targets. The Little Birds were unharmed.

Obscured by the smoke from the other two boats, the Boghammer took off. But it's hard for a boat to outrun a helicopter, and the second AH-6 took it out with a rocket from extremely close range. The craft sank within thirty seconds.

Meanwhile, two American patrol boats closed in at full speed. The SEALs got to the wrecked boats just as the flames were dying out, and began picking up survivors amid six-foot swells. But the danger had not completely passed.

'Several prisoners were pulled out of the water armed,' said a SEAL team member later. 'One petty officer actually wrestled a guy for his gun — I mean actually wrestled him on the deck for his gun. The gun went over the side.'

Meanwhile, a force of twenty or so Iranian small boats massed in the distance. Had they come forward, they might have overpowered the patrol craft; the helicopters, low on ammunition and fuel, would have been hard- pressed in the attack. The SEAL commander nevertheless turned his two patrol boats in the Iraqis' direction. The bluff scattered them.

Only six of the thirteen survivors from the three Iranian boats lived. The wounded Iranians were treated by the Americans and eventually returned home.

The Special Forces operations demonstrated to the Iranians that further patrol boat operations would come at a heavy cost. So they turned to a new tactic — Silkworm missiles.

Essentially a Chinese copy of the Russian SS-N-2, Silkworms are relatively slow, sixties-era weapons with primitive guidance (though they use active radar on final approach), an explosive warhead of nearly nine hundred pounds, and a range of twenty-five to fifty miles. Despite their limitations, they remain a potent threat against unarmed or lightly armed ships. In 1967, the original Soviet version was used by Egyptian patrol boats to sink an Israeli destroyer, the first time in history that a ship was sunk by a surface missile.

On October 15, the Iranians launched an attack against tankers loading oil at Kuwait's Sea Island terminal. The British-owned Sungari suffered a direct hit, and an American-flagged Kuwaiti tanker