FORTY-TWO

IN THE MORNING—it was Monday, 21 April—when we landed at Wadi Kena, Egypt; Dick Potter, Delta’s deputy commander, was there to meet us. The heat hit us like a wall. It felt like we were walking into a blast furnace. Everyone was beat; we had just flown halfway around the world. Because of all the Gatorade that had been consumed, a long line formed at the latrines.

Dick briefed me on the form; where we would base, sleep, train, and pointed out the location of General Vaught’s headquarters.

Lieutenant Colonel Potter is a professional officer who doesn’t miss the details. More important, he is the kind of officer who checks to make sure each task is accomplished in good order. If Dick Potter had not gone to Egypt, very little preparation would have been done before Delta’s arrival. I’m not sure I ever told Dick how much the Delta operators appreciated what he did for them.

A day or two before we arrived there had been a disagreement over the use of a generator. An Air Force lieutenant colonel responsible for setting up the base had wanted it to run the air-conditioning system in the headquarters area, and Potter had wanted it to run refrigerators that were going to store plasma and other medical supplies. The discussion had reached the shouting stage when General Vaught stepped in. Both officers explained their needs to him. “Now listen here,” General Vaught said to the Air Force officer, “let me explain the chain of command. There’s Jimmy Carter, there’s General Jones, there’s me, and there’s Dick Potter. Now, did you hear your name anywhere?” That was the end of the discussion!

North of the Aswan Dam, not far from the pyramids, the Russians had built an air base at Wadi Kena. The base consists of more than thirteen reinforced concrete hangars and support buildings, which range from one-story wood-frame buildings to ramshackle huts. Delta’s billets were in one of the large hangars and even at a distance the shoddy workmanship could be detected. A 250-pound bomb would have caved it in. When Potter arrived, he had found the concrete floor partially covered with broiled human feces. Only through his hard work, and that of some others, had the area been cleaned and made germfree.

Outside the base an endless desolate landscape disappeared into the heat of a cloudless sky. And there were the flies. There were clouds of them. They were everywhere, in, on, and about anything that moved or stood still.

Everyone tried to sleep, but whether it was because of the blazing heat of the day or the excitement of the mission, not many Zs were logged on Monday. Dick had acquired several trucks, which permitted us to work further with the drivers. It still needed to be determined whether the assault force would be driven to the embassy by Iranian or Farsi-speaking American drivers. I tried to sleep, but spent more time worrying than anything else. I was still afraid the mission would be canceled. My shirt was black with sweat.

The sun went down, but nothing cooled off. We worked with the drivers. One of the Americans was a Navy captain, Butterfield. He’d been on the faculty of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and when it was discovered he spoke fluent Farsi he was sent to Fort Bragg. He didn’t care what it was he was going to do as long as he got a chance to go. In Teheran, all these men had to do was drive or act as assistant drivers and at the appropriate time get out of their trucks and jump on a helicopter. But none of them had to go to Iran. They were all volunteers.

I’d gone over to see General Vaught. His SATCOM (Satellite Communications) package had been installed, but his headquarters, two command trailers that had been flown in from Europe, was nothing fancy.

Excitement, expectation, and energy were in abundance. You could almost touch it. The pucker factor was also in evidence. People were feeling the stress.

I asked General Vaught if Delta could test-fire its weapons before they left and arrangements were made to use a makeshift range the next night. In the early evening, which seemed as suffocatingly hot as the day, I continued to monitor the progress of the drivers. The four Department of Defense contacts, who were in Teheran and with whom Delta would link up at the hideout, would recommend how they thought the trucks should enter the city. This was not going to be a problem.

The three Delta Elements—Red, White, Blue—spent the night running over their tasks. The ground was laid out with white tape indicating the distances between the embassy buildings, and the men practiced their maneuvers. The next time they did this it would be for real.

All the operators were weighed again with their equipment to make sure no one exceeded the 270-pound-per-man limit. It was necessary that the weight not go over a certain mark or the helicopters would be unable to fly Delta out of Desert One. The formula between weight and lift had been carefully worked out.

The confidence level was right.

Everyone tried to get his metabolism turned around from daytime to nighttime.

All weaponry was stripped, cleaned, and reassembled; knives were given new edges.

The men took PT.

While we were still in Egypt an event occurred that might have had great impact on the mission. One of the U.S. Embassy’s cooks was permitted to leave Iran. Reportedly, on the plane a CIA agent managed to sit next to him. This cook not only knew where the guards were stationed but where all their prisoners were being held.

In the middle of the night, the last one we were to spend in Egypt, I was awakened and told of our good fortune. The information that was passed reported that all fifty-three hostages would be found in the chancellery.

Making use of this intelligence, and in consultation with Buckshot and the commanders of the Red, White, and Blue Elements, I modified the assault plan.

Blue would now pick up more security responsibilities leaving Red to concentrate its entire effort on cracking the chancellery. Because of the building’s size, the ninety rooms that needed to be cleared, and its hardened status, it would be a tough nut to crack. To help Red, I gave it two teams, eight operators, from Blue.

The plan now was for one of Red’s teams to force the staff door in the east end, then race down the darkened central corridor and open the main entrance, which faced south, to the rest of Red Element.

Blue would neutralize the guards’ quarters at the motor pool and power plant. This critical area would be covered by several well-placed machine guns.

No one felt sorry to leave Egypt. The dirt and flies were left behind as Delta was flown in two C-141s to an island, Masirah—which the men instantly, and predictably, nicknamed Misery—off the coast of Oman. As we had flown over the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, the thought that we would not turn back—that we were actually going to go and do the mission—sank in. If there ever was a chance for the operation to be canceled, it would have been while Delta was in Egypt.

Earlier on Thursday, the 24th, before we had left Wadi Kena, everyone had been high-strung. After troop inspection we’d gathered in one of the hangars. Flies were everywhere. Major Snuffy, standing on a small, crudely built platform, read passages from 1 Samuel: “And there came out a champion…named Goliath…his spear was like a weaver’s beam…. And David said, ‘The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the bear, will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.’ David…took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead and Goliath fell on his face to the ground.” We’d then prayed for guidance and strength. Suddenly, Buckshot began singing “God Bless America.” All the troops joined in. Their voices swelled in chorus filling the empty hangar with sound that echoed off the concrete walls. “From the mountains, To the prairies, To the oceans white with foam.” Everybody was really up. God, you could feel it, “God bless America, my home sweet home.” General Vaught turned to our psychologist, “Well, Doc, what do you think?” “They’re up higher, sir, than I’ve ever seen them.” Amen.

Delta landed at Masirah about 1400 hours. General Gast was there to meet us. Some tents had been put up. There were soft drinks and water and lots of ice. Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to make Delta comfortable. Some said it was unnecessary. People laughed. Most everyone went into the 16-man tents, the canvas walls were rolled up, and got off their feet. The night was going to be a long one.

Buckshot, Major Snuffy, and I went over on that sunbaked afternoon to the MC-130s and EC-130s to check the schedule one more time. We bumped into Jim Kyle, the commander of Desert One. There weren’t any problems. An Air Force colonel, one whom Kyle had selected to go along and assist him during the landings, refueling, and takeoffs, voiced his concern about the three troop-carrying 130s being overloaded. Tongue in cheek, he hoped we’d be able to get off the ground. This scared me. “Hells-bells, Colonel. It’s a little late to be talking like that.” Jim Kyle jumped all over him, “You don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about. This has all been worked out and there isn’t going to be any problem getting off the ground. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, keep your mouth shut!”

By 1630, the time selected to board the 130s, Delta Force was dressed for the mission. They wore Levi’s, unpolished GI boots, and field jackets that had been dyed black. On the right shoulder of each jacket was stitched an American flag, which had been covered by tape. When they reached the embassy, the tape would be ripped off. On their heads they wore knitted, dark blue Navy watch caps. No one wore any rank. There was no need to.