Delta Force (34 page)

The helicopters were twenty minutes behind schedule. In rehearsals, we'd been working with tolerances of only ten minutes.

The troops did some grumbling. They were becoming tense, edgy. Somebody would look at his watch. The guy next to him would say, “Shit, what's new? Just like in training. Same old problem.”

I was now very concerned. Just looking at the time, we could see that the operation was going sour. Buckshot was worried with good reason: we would not have enough flight time to get to the hide-site before daylight. He asked Snuffy to do a map recon and pick some alternate sites en route—just in case we had to put down somewhere. Pacing, he said, “I wish to hell they'd get here. Come on. Let's go!”

I walked off to be by myself and to collect my thoughts. The stars above were very distinct. This load I was carrying was getting heavier. What would General Bob and General Shy do? Follow the plan and do what's right. I had learned a long time ago from Boppy Edwards a small truism: to make a simple plan, inform everyone involved with it, don't change it, and kick it in the ass. At this point I made up my mind! No matter when the choppers arrived—and no matter when we arrived at the hide-site—we would go ahead.

It was obvious now that Delta would land at the hideout after first light, not before. But that was only half of it. There
was the matter of the four DOD agents who were waiting for us outside of Teheran—two at the hide-site, two in the warehouse. How would they react when we didn't show up on time? How long would they wait? We had good communication with the hide-site. They were informed that the helos were late. But even so, they could wait only so long. There was nothing anyone could do. First light in Teheran was going to be 5:30
A.M
.

“Damn, damn, damn. Where are they?”

Thirty minutes went by. Then five more.

Jim Kyle was in contact with General Vaught during this entire time. Finally, a message relayed via Wadi Kena arrived, “The choppers are ten minutes away!” Buckshot smiled at me.

You could hear it before you could see it, that peculiar whop whop sound the rotors make. I went out to meet it as soon as it touched down. I expected to see Colonel Seiffert, the Marines' CO. The pilot wore his helmet and goggles. I walked around the chopper with him, because the first thing he wanted to do was relieve himself. Only after he took off his helmet did I realize I was speaking to Maj. James Schaefer. This officer had made an impression on Delta, especially the men who knew helicopters. He was one of the original pilots. Delta felt Jim Schaefer really had his act together. While he took his piss, I said, “Are we glad to see you! How you doing?” He looked at me. He said, “It's been a hell of a trip.” Then he spoke further, words to the effect that if we had any sense we would move the helos out into the desert and load everyone on the C-130s and go home. I slapped him on the back to assure him. I didn't understand how tough a time he'd really had; and he didn't elaborate on his statement. He was all business. Then, he went back up into the RH-53D's cockpit and moved his helo (designated Number 3) behind the northernmost fuel-bird and began refueling.

Shortly after Schaefer arrived, maybe ten minutes later, the second helo came in. Oddly, it came in from a different direction. The third arrived from still another direction. So, too, did the fourth. The fifth and sixth came in together and also from another direction. No two came through the same hole
in the sky. Spread out, an hour to an hour and a half late, and coming from different directions.

The seventh and eighth helos never arrived at all. Obviously, something had happened. There was now no room for any error. Already we'd lost our two backup choppers.

When the second chopper had landed, I walked over to it. The pilot, Captain Paul (pseudonym), stood out in front. He was as well liked as Schaefer, a hell of a good man. The Delta operators liked to fly with both of them. Now, on the ground, he began to walk away from his chopper. He spoke a lot, he was talking fast, and he was saying some pretty strong things. Buckshot, Major Snuffy, and Major Fitch were with me, listening.

“I don't know who's really running things at my level, but I'll tell you this much, that some very careful consideration ought to be given to calling off this operation. You have no idea what I've been through. The damnedest sandstorm I've ever seen hit us. It was tough! I gotta tell you, I'm not sure we're going to make it. I'm really not sure we can make it.”

I thought back to Schaefer. He hadn't said much, but he, too, seemed in bad shape. This shocked me. I comprehended what I heard, but the possible consequences of what I heard were drastic. Here were two very strong officers whom we'd observed and knew, who now were pretty well shattered.

Major Snuffy, the man who had read Samuel in the hangar at Wadi Kena, said, “Holy mackerel, you know, this guy—Gol' darn, it doesn't look good.”

But we felt there was nothing to be done about it. Now, with six helos on the ground, Kyle was very busy handling the refueling traffic. Schaefer's (#3) and Paul's (#4) helicopters were positioned behind the fuel-bird farthest north of the road. Seiffert (#1) helicopter and another one (#8) were behind the EC-130 nearest the road, and the other two (#2 and #7) were refueling from the 130 south of the road.

Delta began, as the choppers arrived one by one, to line up behind them in helicopter loads. Everyone knew the drill; take your equipment, get in line, wait for orders to board.

Ninety minutes late, Ed Seiffert, the skipper of the helo unit,
had been the last to land. I went up to him at once. He was late. I was frustrated. I was thinking, “We'll land at the hideout no earlier than dawn, maybe later, in full daylight. Delta needs to on-load and we need to get the hell out of Desert One. The longer the refueling takes the more daylight I'm going to be confronted with at the other end. I want to load and go.”

I jumped aboard Seiffert's helo as soon as he had repositioned it for refueling. Seiffert and his pilot were talking to the other helos when I sat down on the jump seat near them. Seiffert was on my right. The rotor blades overhead made a racket. I hollered, “Glad you're here. Request permission to load, Skipper. We need to get on with it.” He was too busy checking with his pilots to pay me any mind. Time continued to tick away. I waited as long as I could before shouting in his ear, “Hey, remember me! What do you think? When can I load?” He continued to ignore me. I was getting very anxious, not to say pissed. I'd been sitting now four or five minutes. To get his attention I rapped his helmet with my palm. I got it.

He took off his helmet, leaned over in his seat, and shouted so I could hear him. “I can't guarantee we'll get you to the next site before first light.”

“I don't care.”

“There's no guarantee, Colonel, we'll get you there during darkness.”

“I know that.”

“O.K. You've got permission to load.”

Finally! I jumped off and grabbed hold of the Delta officers, “Let's get cracking and load.”

Twelve helo rotors whirred and sixteen C-130 engines roared. The sound was nearly deafening. To communicate it was necessary to put your face right up to the other person's and yell—or use hand and arm signals.

The helos, as they changed the pitch of their blades while they repositioned behind the fuel-birds, created whirlpools of wind. Through blowing sand and dust, Delta started to move forward.

The first unit, in two files, lugging its equipment, began to
climb aboard their assigned helo. It was Seiffert's. I ran to the second helo, maybe twenty-five yards away. Over half of that unit was already on board. Two other choppers, the ones south of the road, were another 200 yards away.

The noise was numbing.

I walked very fast. As I crossed over the road, through the swirling dust I saw that the Delta units assigned to these choppers were already in the process of boarding.

About the time I arrived, one of the pilots climbed out of his cockpit and walked over to me. He said, “The skipper told me to tell you we only have five flyable helicopters! That's what the skipper told me to tell you.”

“Jesus Christ Almighty!” Did these pilots want to go, really want to go?

I immediately began looking for Jim Kyle. He wasn't far away. “Hell, Jim, we only got five flyable helicopters. Go talk to Seiffert. I've already got his permission to load. You understand this bloody air lingo. Go talk to him. Let's get cracking. I'm losing valuable time.”

Jim and I took off. Kyle was all business as he climbed aboard Seiffert's helicopter. I waited outside in the noise and wind trying to control my impatience. I suspected Ed Seiffert was in no mood to talk to me.

Eight to ten minutes went by. The operation was now over ninety minutes behind schedule, yet I was hoping against hope that Kyle would come off and say, “Climb on board. Good luck, you're on your way. I'll see ya, and God bless.” Instead, he said, “Charlie, there's only five flyable helicopters. Let's go to the radio. Helicopter Number Two has hydraulic problems and Seiffert feels it's unsafe to go with it.”

I was totally pissed. “This is a hell of a state of affairs. Those goddamn pilots know we can't go forward with five helicopters. Jim, I can't go forward with five. We gotta go back.”

Kyle and I talked for a few minutes and reviewed the plan. “How in the hell am I going to lighten the loads? These helicopters can only carry so much weight. To get to the hide-site I need to lighten their loads. This means I gotta leave
behind eighteen to twenty men. Everyone's doing two jobs as it is, some of them three.”

At the radio, Kyle called General Vaught and explained the situation. General Vaught came back, “Ask Eagle”—my call sign—“to consider going on with five.” This made me even angrier. I flashed back to the meeting, the one of January 4th, when Pittman and I had recommended we not go on with fewer than six. General Vaught had accepted that recommendation. No more questions remained. It was final! I can't ever remember, now that I have the time to wrestle with this, anyone saying during the JCS brief, that if we went to five helos we'd abort. But General Vaught knew this. So did General Gast and Colonel Kyle and Colonel Pittman. At the Stockade, in early January, it was inserted into the plan. The pilots knew we couldn't go with fewer than six. Everyone in Delta knew.

“Ask Eagle to consider going with five.” I lost respect right then for General Vaught. Damn, I thought, how in the hell can the boss ask me that! He should know it will be a disaster if we go forward with five. There isn't any way. I'd have to leave behind twenty men. In a tight mission no one is expendable
before you begin!
Which twenty would I leave?

With five helicopters, Delta, minus twenty men, lands at the hide-site in daylight and then the helos fly to their location in the mountains, but hell, we all knew the eccentricities of choppers. There was a good chance that two of them would not crank tomorrow. That would leave three helos to pick up fifty-three hostages, Delta, the DOD agents, and the assault team and their three hostages freed from the Foreign Ministry Building. What if one of them got hit with small arms fire as it comes in? That would leave two. Two for 178 people. It was just too close.

But! But! If I go with five, which men do I leave behind? I can pull the drivers. But they're the only ones who speak Farsi. Beckwith, you're crazy. This is ludicrous. It doesn't make sense. Stay with the plan.

Kyle asked me again, “What do you think?” “Ain't no way, Jim. No way! You tell me which one of those 130s you want me to load up. Delta's going home.”

“Don't worry about that, Charlie. Scatter them out and load on any of the aircraft.”

Whether Jim agreed or disagreed with me I never knew. He didn't say. He's that kind of an officer. My message was passed on to General Vaught. Kyle then called Ed Seiffert over to us. The other helo pilots stood around us in a circle. “What's your recommendation,” Kyle asked, “about these helicopters?” I said, “I hope to hell we don't leave them here.” There was a short discussion. Seiffert said, “We need to turn them around and take them back to the carrier.” This was agreed on.

Before Major Schaefer could return to
Nimitz
, he needed to top off his tanks. He'd been the first to refuel and had sat on the ground the longest, his engines idling, while he waited for the rest of the squadron to arrive. Receiving permission, Schaefer, who had repositioned his chopper to begin loading Delta, ran off to move back up behind the fuelbird.

“Let's break it down. Get everyone off the choppers. We're going home as soon as we can clean this place up.” Delta began loading onto the C-130s. Major Fitch's element, the forty guys of the Blue Element, began loading on the EC-130 farthest north of the road—the one which was going to refuel Schaefer.

All the aircraft would leave on Colonel Kyle's orders. Nothing would leave on mine.

I went from one C-130 to another, working out in my mind the number of men who had to be put on board each one. I also wanted to make sure none of the C-130 pilots took off on their own. “Hey, don't leave here on your own initiative. We gotta get Delta on board.”

I grabbed one pilot by the arm and shouted over the noise of his engines, “For God's sake, don't leave.” He leaned toward me, “Ain't nobody going to leave here, Colonel, until we got everybody.” I wanted to hug him! I hadn't had time to sit or to cry. There was too much to do just drying up Desert One.

I turned around and began to walk quickly toward the head of the line. It was nearly 2:40
A.M
. Some of the C-130 pilots
had started to gun their engines. Dust was blowing all around. Between wind gusts, I saw one of the choppers lift off and bank to the left. It slid slightly backward. Then, BALLLOOEE! It wasn't a bomb, not a CRACK! It was a THUMP! A gasoline explosion. A blue fireball ballooned into the night. Obviously, the chopper I'd just seen lift off—it had been Major Schaefer's—had struck the northernmost EC-130, the one on which Blue Element had just boarded.