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Iran Hostage Crisis - U.S. rescue attempt fails...
Iran Hostage Crisis - U.S. rescue attempt fails...
Item # 725244
April 26, 1980
SUN-TIMES, Chicago, April 26, 1980
* Operation Eagle Claw
* Iran Hostage Crisis
* U.S. rescue attempt fails
The front page has a headline that reads: "Won't give up efforts on hostages--Carter" and more with two related photos. Much more on the following pages, loads of text.
Complete in 84 pages, tabloid size, nice condition.
background: Operation Eagle Claw disintegrated at the "Desert One" staging site due to a catastrophic alignment of environmental hazards, mechanical failures, and coordination gaps. The mission’s complexity proved its undoing when the task force encountered unforecasted haboobs—massive, blinding dust storms—which disabled two helicopters and forced a third to retreat, leaving the team below the six-helicopter minimum required for the rescue. After the decision was made to abort, the disaster turned lethal during the frantic refueling and extraction process; an RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter drifted into a parked C-130 transport plane while repositioning in the dark, triggering a massive inferno that killed eight servicemen and forced the remaining elite operators to abandon their equipment and several intact aircraft in the desert. This public humiliation not only paralyzed the Carter administration and contributed to his 1980 election defeat, but it also exposed deep-seated flaws in how the U.S. military conducted joint-service operations, eventually forcing the creation of the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) to ensure such a "debacle" would never happen again.
Category: The 20th Century
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$58.00
