Movie Review

Desert One

Reviewed by LCDR Chip Lancaster, USN (Ret.)

I chose this movie because it dovetails with the book, The Dream Machine in that the Desert One incident was one of the case studies referenced for proponents of the V-22 Osprey. Desert One is a historical documentary produced and directed by academy award winning documentarian, Barbara Kopple, and released in 2020 on the 40th anniversary of the incident. The movie is an account of Operation Eagle Claw and the circumstances surrounding Desert One during an aborted attempt to rescue 52 American hostages being held in Tehran, Iran in 1980.

The film starts with introductions to the key players and the situation: President Carter, the Shah of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, and what brings them all together. When the extremely unpopular Shah is given permission by Carter to come to New York City for cancer treatment in 1979, revolutionaries overrun Iran and bring Khomeini back into the country to rule Iran as an Islamic state. The American Embassy is overrun with 66 American staff, Marine guards, and employees taken hostage. Khomeini agrees to release 14 with 52 remaining, threatening to kill all of them if there is any military attempt to rescue them.

Carter is adamant to resolve the situation by negotiation. However, when it looks like Khomeini is going to refuse any attempts to negotiate, Carter agrees to the idea of a rescue mission. We're introduced to Army Colonel Charlie Beckwith and the Delta Force he created in 1975. Operation Eagle Claw is formulated for Delta Force to rescue the hostages. They need USAF C-130s and Navy RH-53s to make the plan work. The film covers the intricacies of the two day plan to get into the embassy, get the hostages, and get out of Iran. The plan is complex with lots of moving parts. One key component is fuel. The embassy is in Tehran, almost 900 miles from the Gulf of Oman where the 53s will be launched from. They will need to refuel. Aerial refueling is out of the question, so a land refueling will have to take place to accomplish the mission. They decide on an isolated dry lakebed in central Iran over 400 miles from the launch point. The location is designated Desert One. It becomes the Achilles heel of the mission.

Carter gives the rescue mission a green light to go. The C-130s pick up Col. Beckwith and the 123 man Delta Force in southern Egypt then fly to Oman for final refueling and preparations before leaving for the Desert One rendezvous. Before the 130s takeoff, eight H-53s under the command of USMC Col. Ed Seiffert were launched at dusk from the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) in the Gulf of Oman. Mission planning determined that a minimum of six 53s are needed to successfully complete the rescue. Shortly after crossing into Iran, one of the 53s gets a main rotor blade failure caution light. They land, determine that it's legitimate and return to the Nimitz. The weather is great initially, but they encounter a haboob dust storm enroute. The talcum powder fine dust interferes with cockpit instruments and avionics causing one of the pilots to get vertigo to the point that a return to Nimitz was necessary. The 53s are down to the bare minimum of six. Meanwhile, the 130s have arrived at Desert One. An Iranian family in a bus happens upon the 130s. The bus is stopped, and the family held with the intent of flying them out on the 130s to be returned to Iran later. A truck then comes down the road and is taken out by an anti-tank round when it won’t stop. The truck turns out to be a gasoline tanker that explodes in a giant fire lighting up the place. The driver jumps out and into another truck behind it, rapidly driving away from the 130s without being stopped.

The 53s arrive about an hour later. They start refueling, but one of the 53s has a failing flight control hydraulic pump and Col. Seiffert downs the bird. With the mission down to five 53s, Col.Beckwith is forced to recommend aborting the mission. The word is passed back to POTUS who orders to abort the mission. As one of the 53s is repositioning, the blowing dirt and sand disorients the ground controller and pilot causing it to drift into one of the C-130s, the crash igniting both aircraft in a fireball. The resulting inferno kills five of the Air Force crew in the 130 and three Marines in the 53. Everyone gets into the C-130s and flies out leaving five 53s and the burning 53/130 crash behind.

The family being held hostage is returned to their bus, and it’s disabled before the last 130 leaves. The dead servicemen’s bodies are taken back to Tehran and put on display for international news media before they are returned. Carter continues negotiations despite losing the 1980 presidential election to Reagan, reaching an agreement to return the hostages, but not until he’s out of office.

Today, the Desert One site is fenced off and enshrined. The mission failure is celebrated annually in Iran as a victory over the Americans. The members of the task force hold reunions. In a closing shot at a recent reunion, a C-130 accompanied by two V-22s flies over the ceremony. Final words on the end credits are, “Thank you to those on the mission for having the guts to try.” My review only covers the highlights of the mission and the mishap, there is much more covering the politics, the joint task force training, and the hostages themselves before and after the incident. This is an emotionally hard movie to watch. However, I recommend it, if only for the historical context highlighting the complexities of geopolitical military operations. In the words of philosopher and poet George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” You can see the movie on ROKU so check it out.

In this issue "Mastering the Machine, " tactics, techniques, procedures, and technology have all developed immensely since the beginning of rotary wing aviation. We develop with the times, technological advancements, and to the adversary we are facing to name a few contributing factors.

What groundbreaking advancements have you seen in your time? How have you seen mission sets develop over the course of your career? Where do you see room for improvement in how we operate today?

From: LCDR Reed Carr, USNR (Ret.)

In 1961, I'm flying a HUP-3 (H-25) across West Texas to deliver it to Helicopter Utility Squadron One (HU-1), Ream Field, flying under the cloud cover, about 75 ft, when I inadvertently enter the clouds. It's terrifying, as the HUP is unstable. Soon my crewman says, “we've lost the forward transmission,” as oil poured onto the leg of his flight suit. Suddenly, in front of us is the ground, we're heading down. I do a quick pull up, set the helo down, and we secure it, walk a half of a mile back on the road, and spend the night in Kent, TX. We had (I had) dumped the nose enough that the pan under the transmission had spilled all over my crewman. It was an unnerving experience, flying an unstable machine, inadvertently entering the clouds, recovering control, and landing safely.

From: CAPT Doug Yesensky, USN (Ret.)

Let us not forget..."flying the beast." I investigated several aerial accidents in my time and "pilot error" often sounded loud and clear.

From: Col Howard Whitfield, USMC (Ret.), former Executive Director of NHA 2000-2012

My first squadron was HMM-361. We were based at MCAH Tustin, California in one of the blimp hangars. We had 24 UH-34Ds. We were anticipating orders to South Vietnam, but we were interrupted by the Cuban Missile Crisis. We were ordered to deploy out of San Diego aboard the USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7). We sailed down the West Coast, through the Panama Canal, and sat off of Haiti preparing for a possible assault of Cuba. Thankfully it didn't occur as casualties were estimated to be high. After the squadron returned to Tustin, we intensified our flight training, flying various simulated assault missions. Our skipper got a kick out of calling El Toro Tower that he was inbound with a helicopter flight of 24 UH-34s!

We deployed to South Vietnam in 1963 on a KC-135 out of El Toro, stopping in Hawaii to refuel, and then Cubi Point, PI. After a few days, we were flown to DaNang, South Vietnam aboard a Marine KC-130. At the time, there were no jet aircraft operating north of Saigon due to runway limitations and very few other aircraft. The squadron was billeted in an old French Base about a mile from the runway. Our UH-34s had been delivered by a sister squadron which rotated back to Cubi Point. We were only in South Vietnam a few weeks when the U.S. Air Force lost a T-28 on a mission west near Laos. We launched two UH-34s with a rescue crew at dusk. The two UH-34s didn't return, and our skipper flew out to the area the T-28 went down the next day and searched. He located remains of the two UH-34s next to a steep river gorge. My skipper came back and initiated a rescue/recovery mission with Vietnamese troops and U.S. special forces. We lost four pilots. two aircrew, a flight surgeon, and a corpsman. The recovery was difficult because of dense jungle and just a small island to land on in the river.

The next time I went to South Vietnam in 1969, I was flying CH-46s and the war had totally changed. The squadron I joined was at Quang Tri, 15 miles south of the DMZ.

Next Radio Check Question:

No legends started out that way and most never intended to be legends at all. Some are world renown, while others are only recognized in their own spheres of influence.

Who are those individuals that made our naval rotary wing community what it is today? What qualities make a legend? Have the qualities we value in those we hold at the highest regard changed over the years? Who are our modern-day legends and how do they differ from our legends of the past?

We want to hear from you! Please send your responses to the Rotor Review Editor-in-Chief at the email address listed below.

LT Annie “Frizzle” Cutchen Editor-in-Chief, Rotor Review annie.cutchen@gmail.com