Operation Earnest Will Remembered

In 1986 I was part of the team that set up a reconfigured derrick barge as a support platform for the US Navy as part of Operation Earnest Will.

Most people don't remember that one. The Iraqis and Iranians were engaged in a brutal bloodletting in the Fao Peninsula that was started by Saddam Hussein invading a weakened Iran. The Shah was gone, Reagan was in office and the Iranians were on their heels. Saddam thought he could waltz in and grab some land, sea access, and maybe crush the home of Shiites. How wrong he was.

He forgot one thing. No one likes an occupier. We are learning that lesson now. No matter how bad Saddam was, at least he was a home boy. The Iranians felt that way too. They may have had no love for the Mullahs but they fought like Tigers for Iran.

I was responsible for navigation to the set up area and then we had to leave the barge to a US Navy crew. They were afraid we might be in harms way if the Iranians let fly with an Exocet. Funny how times change. Everyone is a target now!

I snuck this shot of the radar screen as we steamed up the gulf from Bahrain. This Furuno was state of the art in 1986 as it had an effective 60 mile range! Every blip you see is either a platform or a moving target. We did not have motion acquisition software or computers of any kind so we had to manually track each moving target by assigning an alphanumeric to it and watching it. This took constant monitoring and attention. The modern day stuff does it all for you, you just sit back and relax.

We re-flagged 7 tankers, put American crews on them and then we split. I didn't think about this one until the other day when I was talking with some Naval officers and one mentioned he was being assigned to an Amphibious Assault Ship. Every time I hear the term "Amphibious Assault Ship" I think about the USS Coronado and the USS LaSalle. These were AAS that were the flagships for US Navy ops in the Persian/Arabian gulf back in the 1980s. They were painted white. The official nickname of the Coronado was "The Great White Ghost of the Arabian Coast". Of course the Navy has wags just like the Army and the crew quickly renamed her "The Great White Whore of the Arabian Shore." God, I love soldier/sailor/marine humor.

The Navy brought PBRs (Patrol Boat River) to the barge to escort the tankers as well as provide screens for the Frigates who stayed a little further out. These were 1950s technology vessels that did about 35 knots on a good day in flat water. They were armed with a twin .50 caliber Ma Deuce up front and a 20mm on a stand in the stern. The crew carried the old style M-16s.

They bravely called themselves "Boghammer Hunters". Boghammers were Swedish built patrol boats that were modern versions of the old PT Boats from WWII. They were three times the size of the PBRs, made 70 knots in choppy seas, were armed with a litany of large and medium caliber weapons and , oh yeah, had Exocets! In other words, the PBRs would have been toast if the Boghammers had ever engaged them. The PBRs were bait so that the Frigates could rush in and blow the Boghammers out of the water. They should have been "Boghammer Bait".

Most of us have forgotten about this little chapter in Us/Kuwaiti relations. I had for a long time but now I remember.