The Guts to Try: The Untold Sstory of the Iran Hostage Rescue mission By the On-Scene Desert Commander Hardcover – January 1, 1990

It has now been forty (40) years since Eagle Claw. The mission failed, but the hard lessons were learned. The failure of this operation was the seminal event that led to the establishment of U.S. Special Operations Command as part of the 1986 overhaul of the Department of Defense following the Goldwater-Nichols Act. Special operations requires highly trained and highly motivated special operators. It also requires specialized, and often very expensive, assets unique to the the Special Ops community. At the time of Eagle Claw, the conventional forces - Army, Navy, and Air Force - had no desire or interest to support Special Ops missions and was certainly not going to budget for Special Ops specialized equipment. It was not until Congress enacted new legislation via the 1986 reforms that required that level of funding and support. The ad-hoc nature of the Eagle Claw task force - partly Army, partly Air Force, and partly Navy/Marine - was probably the biggest fundamental flaw in the entire operation. This "thrown together" arrangement was a recipe for mission failure. The Army and the Air Force supported the mission well; the Navy/Marine Corps did not. [As one small, but telling example, the Task Force commander, MG Vaught, was prohibited by Navy brass to fly out to the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier to inspect the Navy helos prior to launch. Vaught was required to rely on Navy assurances that all was ready.]The weak link in the mission, as author Kyle points out repeatedly, was the helicopter support from the Navy-Marines. The Navy helos - RH-53D models - were poorly maintained from the start of the mission and the Navy pilots regularly assigned the aircraft were replaced at least once by Marine aviators, and in some helo crews twice, for deficient performance. While author Kyle does not castigate the Navy-Marine pilots, he offers little praise for their contributions to the very complex operation. Two of the eight helos had warning lights come on during the entry flight and both pilots elected to "turn back" and never made it the Desert-I landing site. It was the ground disorientation of the lead Marine helo pilot flying into the parked C-130 at the Desert-I landing site that caused the catastrophic failure of the mission. Further, and utterly astounding to any military member familiar with operational security, is the Marine pilots did not "sanitize" their classified data prior to launch, but took it along in the cockpit of the helos. In their haste to evacuate the Desert-I landing site, the highly classified data was left behind, jeopardizing the entire force including the covert operators in the hide location in Tehran.Colonel Kyle does an outstanding job in presenting the huge difficulties faced in trying to plan and organize a complex rescue operation in the heart of a major urban city, surrounded by hostile forces. Eagle Claw failed as a mission, but ultimately served as a 'red-flag' warning to Congress that the conventional leadership of the Armed Forces could not be trusted to speak the truth about the planning, conduct or funding of special operations. In that sense, Eagle Claw succeeded. Really worth a read!

Damn good read. If you really want to know why we failed to get the hostages out of Iran, this book explains why. Not knowing about the dust, not passing on info of the dust to the chopper pilots, BS fear of Iranian radar, and not including proper pilots in the CH-53Ds. USAF Search and Rescue pilots should of been included on the choppers. They were more familiar with all the eccentricities of that particular model. Had they been included, we wouldn't of abandoned one due to a warning light for a main rotor blade, and different pilots could of taken over when one got vertigo flying through the second cloud of dust. Plus they were flying way too low, should of went up to 10,000ft, to clear the dust. The C130's did. Also, the hydraulic system failure. They still had the main system. They could of pressed on after Desert One. At most they would of ended up with 7 choppers ready to go into Tehran. The final paragraph really surprised me, but made perfect sense. Sad, but hey, and least we tried, dammit!Update:I spoke with a friend who was deployed to a classified base in Egypt shortly after the mission. According to him, this book is all wrong. There never was a Desert One. An accident did happen and the mission was scrubbed, but it happened at that base in Egypt, as he saw wreckage still on the ground. So I asked him why would the author go into so much detail and everyone knows about the the operation. He says it’s the story they want you to believe to keep certain bases classified. Also the author did it just for money. But it seems pretty far fetched when there’s so much evidence to the contrary. I think his buddy’s just told him a story and he’s been believing it ever since.

This is a good accounting of the events leading up to and including the rescue attempt of the hostages held at the US Embassy by US Armed Forces in Iran.The writing style is direct and to the point, which I find refreshing. I also enjoyed the explanation of the training leading up to the actual rescue attempt. I found it interesting to learn about how the military solves problems and prepares their men to perform a task.My first criticism stems from my lack of military knowledge. I am not familiar with all of the varying types of military aircraft. I found it a chore to keep track of the varying aircraft and their roles. Right near the actual rescue effort it talks about EC-130s ,AC-130s, and MC-130s as well as others. These are explained in the back of the book but I found that it would have been nice to have a picture or two of the aircraft mentioned instead of just the letter-number designations. It would have allowed me something to visualize.My other issue with this book is that when a person is mentioned its a one sentence tag about their position and/or role and that is it. That might be okay in a report but it makes them hard to remember past one sentence. It would have helped me as the reader had the people mentioned been given a description that would have stuck with me a bit more.I don't think these two issues detract greatly from quality of the writing. The author does a great job explaining in detail many important points. I would recommend anyone who is interested in reading this book take some time to find a good website on the internet that shows pictures and descriptions of the relevant aircraft.

Would recommend to anyone looking to read a great military book.