Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces

On Wednesday evening, after the terrorists had left the ship, the truth about the Klinghoffer murder came out when a distraught Captain de Rosa announced to Marilyn Klinghoffer that her husband had been shot and his body dropped overboard. The rickety structure of Egyptian and Italian whitewash and deception was tumbling down.

When Nicholas Veliotes, the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, learned of the murder, he immediately contacted Meguid to insist 'that they prosecute those sons of bitches.'

Meguid dodged, claiming — once again — that the terrorists were already out of the country, a claim confirmed by President Hosni Mubarak the next day. 'The terrorists have already left Egypt,' he announced. '1 don't know where they went, but they possibly went to Tunis.

'When we accepted the hijackers' surrender,' he continued, 'we did not have this information. This information emerged five hours after the surrender. In the meantime, the hijackers had left the country.'

This was a lie. The terrorists were then sitting in an Egypt Air 737 at Al Maza air base near Cairo waiting for a place to fly to. Nobody wanted them.

American intelligence was on the ball, however, and had the tail number of the plane—2843.

Late in the evening of October 9, Vice Admiral Moreau informed me that the terrorists had surrendered and left the Achille Lauro. That meant there was no longer a requirement for an assault on the ship, he concluded, and I could begin my redeployment to home bases.

Shortly after that, I ordered Captain 'Bob' to prepare for redeployment. Meanwhile, our airlift, which had remained at their dispersal bases since our arrival, began arriving at the Cyprus base; and starting at around 2200 hours, we began a phased redeployment back to home bases.

Standard operating procedure was to deploy and redeploy as combat-configured entities (task forces) should any requirement for our services develop while en route. The planes all stopped in Sigonella to refuel and then proceeded on back to the States.

By the time daylight Thursday was approaching Cyprus, only three aircraft were left — a C-5 and two C-141s. The C-5, loaded with UH-60 Blackhawks, had developed a bad hydraulic leak from a busted hose. It could not retract its main landing gear and was losing an alarming amount of fluid.

The problem was not the leak itself, but the continued presence of the aircraft at 'our friends' ' base in daylight, where it would be visible to Soviet spy satellites. Two colonels from our host nation were really getting nervous. They could accept a couple C-141s, but the C-5 would attract too much attention and cause political problems. They wanted it gone.

It was a touchy situation.

The only thing I could think to do was to take a look myself to see if I could come up with something that might help. I crawled up into the C-5's wheel well to look at the broken hose, and as soon as I did, I realized that the 'Docs' had some surgical tubing that might work. Sure enough, they had a hose that looked about the right diameter, and the pilot, an experienced older Air Force Reserve lieutenant colonel, agreed to fly the plane if we could stop the leak.

He shut the engines down to take the pressure off the hydraulic system. Then he, a mechanic, and I climbed up in the wheel well, and with hydraulic fluid spraying all over us, repaired the hose well enough so the plane could fly with its wheels down.

They took off just at the break of day and flew at low level to Sigonella, where the plane was fixed properly.

WASHINGTON

For all of Thursday, the four hijackers remained at the air base northeast of Cairo, but now they had a destination. They were to be flown to Tunisia (the new location of the PLO headquarters after they'd been forced out of Beirut by the Israelis).

While this drama was playing out in Cairo, a few members of the NSC staff in Washington came up with a brilliant idea. They were aware, from intelligence intercepts, that the Egypt Air aircraft had not yet left the ground. So why not use planes from the aircraft carrier Saratoga, which was nearby in the Mediterranean, to force the plane down at some friendly airport and take the terrorists into U.S. custody?

After some discussion, the NATO base at Sigonella was chosen as the friendly location that would cause the fewest potential problems. Sicily was Italian, and so was the Achille Lauro. After further discussion, it was determined that intercepting a civilian airliner was indeed physically possible. The President was contacted, and Reagan gave his approval.

Meanwhile I was still on the ground on Cyprus with my two C-141s, awaiting darkness so I could launch for home. I had with me my battle staff, my communications (including my low-level intercept capability), and my medical unit, as well as Captain Bob and two of his SEAL platoons — my reaction team, in case anything unforeseen happened en route.

I was just about to launch Bob's C-141, when I received a call from Vice Admiral Moreau, who briefed me on a concept plan — approved in principle by President Reagan — for capturing the terrorists should they be flown from Egypt to Tunisia. 'F-14s from the Saratoga will be responsible for intercepting the Egypt Air plane and forcing it down at Sigonella. You are to follow the plane into Sigonella, capture the terrorists, and fly them back to the U.S. in chains to stand trial. Stand by for word to launch in order to link up with the F-14s that will make the intercept.' And then by way of conclusion: 'The Italian government has given its approval of all this, both for the landing and for our taking the terrorists.'

This last proved to be over-hopeful. At this point the Italian government had no idea that we were going to do anything of the kind, and it's doubtful that they would have approved it if they had known. The mistake was a screwup — a mixed-up communication somewhere along the line. But as it turned out, it was a welcome failure, since it afforded an opportunity to capture the terrorists who had hijacked the ship and killed Leon Klinghoffer.

After my conversation with Art Moreau, I walked over to brief Bob and his men. The first thing I noticed was the look of disappointment on all their faces — disappointment that they'd missed the opportunity to conduct the ship assault and deal appropriately with the criminals who had brutally killed an American. But as soon as I got to the part of my briefing that said we had another opportunity to capture the terrorists, several of the SEALs began forcing themselves to puke out the sleeping pills they had taken so they could sleep on the way home. they were ready for the new mission.

THE INTERCEPT

A secure — and urgent — call came to Rear Admiral Dave Jeremiah on the USS Saratoga from 6th Fleet headquarters. They were to change course and prepare to launch what was called their 'alert CAP' (the Combat Air Patrol consisted of two F-14 Tomcat interceptors and an E-2C Hawkeye radar plane, which would direct the fighters). Though the Saratoga's captain had no idea what was going on, or why they were changing course, he couldn't miss the 6th Fleet's urgency, and he launched the alert CAP.

At 7:10 P.M., local time, an F-14 took off, soon followed by an E-2C radar plane. Moments later, the mission came through: 'To intercept and divert to Sigonella, Sicil, a Boeing 737 charter with the Achille Lauro hijackers on board now en route from Cairo to Tunis.' More F-14s were launched. Eventually, six of them (supported by aerial tankers) made a fence over the Mediterranean between Crete and Egypt.

As I was preparing to launch from Cyprus with my two C-141s shortly after the F-14s had launched, shit once again happened: The pilot informed me that one of the engines on my plane would not start. It was probably a 'glow plug' problem, he told me.