Toward midday on April 18, the Iranians began reacting to the American attacks by launching their own attacks against oil and gas facilities in the southern Gulf that had some U.S. ownership association. “We are under fire!” shouted scared oil field workers over the radio. Iranian boats rampaged around offshore oil and gas facilities, firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. “It was a non-stop bloody scenario,” said an executive of a Texas-based marine service company operating in the area. A helicopter pilot flying over the oil fields reported, “They are firing at anything and everything that moves.”
The Iranian attack began around 11:00 A.M. when three Revolutionary Guard gunboats sortied from Abu Musa Island and approached the oil storage tanker York Marine, which was anchored in nearby Mubarak field. The field was located to the southeast of Abu Musa, between that island and the United Arab Emirates. When the tanker crewmen first saw the Iranian gunboats, they weren’t particularly worried since they assumed the craft were out on a training exercise.
They soon found out otherwise. One of the boats sailed to within 100 feet of the tanker’s portside and stopped opposite the aft accommodation section. Revolutionary Guard sailors on the boat stood up, hoisted shoulder-mounted rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers and began firing anti-tank rockets at the ship. At such close range, it was hard to miss. Rockets streaked across the water and exploded on the aft deck and in the engine room. Two of the ships’ oil storage tanks were punctured. A rocket that hit the engine room ignited a fire.
Another Revolutionary Guard gunboat sailed leisurely alongside the tanker, firing rockets into the forward section. About 45 minutes after the attack started, the gunboats broke off and headed back in the direction of Abu Musa. With the Iranian boats at least temporarily gone, the battered York Marine’s workers were able to transfer to crew boats, which had been summoned from the U.A.E.
The U.S.-based Crescent Petroleum Company operated Mubarak field. Concerned with the possibility that the Iranians might make further attacks, Crescent’s Field Superintendent ordered that the company’s “A” platform, located not far from the York Marine, be shut down and evacuated. Workers began bleeding off and flaring gas stored in production pressure vessels prior to abandoning the platform. It was too late. While the work was going on, the Iranian gunboats returned. This time, some of them headed for the “A” platform. They began firing shoulder-launched rockets at the structure. Initially, their aim was off. Three rockets splashed into the water in front of the platform. Then, raising their sights, the Iranians sent a rocket sailing over the structure’s top. When the evacuation helicopter flew into the vicinity the Iranians greeted it, too, with a rocket. Fortunately, it missed.
It was at this time that the Iranians broadcast an ominous message in English over Channel 16: “Evacuate the field because we are going to destroy it.” The gunboats broke off their attack and sailed about halfway back to Abu Musa, where they met a supply boat and took on a fresh load of ammunition. There were now seven IRGC gunboats in the area. Four of these could be seen heading back toward the “A” platform. The workers hurriedly jumped into a boat and pulled away before the Iranians returned to the structure.
The four IRGC boats subjected the now-deserted platform to another rocket barrage. This time, their aim was better. They were able to score some hits, with one rocket igniting a fire near the platform’s control room. Two crew boats, loaded with tanker and platform workers, headed toward Sharjah. As they cleared the field, they could see the Iranian gunboats swirling around in the area, continuously firing rockets and machine-guns at the facilities. One gunboat loosed a warning burst after the departing crew boats.
The American-flagged Willi Tide was a 180-foot long, 283-ton, towing supply vessel working in the field for Crescent Petroleum. It had received the distress call from the York Marine and the New Orleans based Willi Tide now headed to the assistance of the storage tanker. By then, the Iranian boats, ripping through the area at 30 to 40 knots, had also hit the “A” platform and started the fire. The Willi Tide changed course and headed to the platform to try to fight the fire. The Willi Tide held off while the Iranians continued to attack the rig, but went in when they departed. The Iranian boats later returned for another visit, this time firing rockets at the Willi Tide itself. The Iranian fire missed the vessel, but came close enough for Captain Robert Bavle, the only American on the ship, who said, “We fought the fire at the complex and ran like hell.” The Willi Tide had requested help from American warships. However, none was forthcoming since U.S. ships or aircraft were not in a position to respond at the time. Luckily, no one aboard the oilfield craft was hurt in the attack.
Shortly after noon, the IRGC boats again attacked in Mubarak field. This time the target was the Scan Bay, a Panamanian-flag jack-up barge rig with six Americans among her 70-man crew. Bob Jackson, a 55 year-old Odessa, Texas man who worked as a consultant to the UAE’s government-owned petroleum company, was aboard the Sca Bay. He had earlier witnessed the Iranian gunboat attack on the York Marine. The boats then left the area, departing in the direction of their Abu Musa Island base located about 10 miles away. On their way out, one of the IRGC boats had fired two shots at the Scan Bay, but missed. The threat was obvious, and workers were issued life jackets. Some were told to go to the helipad area to wait for eventual evacuation. Several men on the rig were using their binoculars to keep an anxious lookout for the Iranian boats. “I kept scanning over the horizon and looking that none came back before we went back to work,” Jackson said. “We’re out there trying to make a living, that’s all.”
Then he saw a white wake coming over the horizon and knew it was the gunboats coming back. Workers were told to come down from the helipad and to try to hide out of sight on the rig. The Iranian boats looked like they were en route to hit the storage tanker again, but they made an abrupt 90 degree turn and headed for the rig. One boat came to a stop about 200 meters away and, for a while, just sat and observed the Scan Bay. Then it slowly swung around, pointing a bow-mounted multiple rocket launcher at the rig rising some 80 feet above the water. “Boy, this is it,” said Jackson.
Unlike the American Navy, which had warned the Iranian dual-use (civilian/military) platforms of their pending attacks, and had allowed time for evacuation of personnel, the IRGC went straight into the attack against what they had to know were purely civilian facilities. Some of the IRGC boats fired rockets into the galley area on the rig. Another American who was present said, “The attack was a deliberate attempt to inflict the heaviest possible casualties…. They knew where the galley was and the timing. If we had not gone to general quarters, we would have had a galley full of people.”
The Iranian boat with the multiple rocket launcher fired 10 or 12 large artillery rockets, mostly aiming at the rig’s legs in an apparent effort to topple it. They didn’t have any better luck with rockets than the American warships had had with their cannon during operation Nimble Archer. Still, fired at very close range, six to ten of the rockets hit the moveable three-legged rig. “When they hit the rig, it bounced me off the floor about two feet,” said Jackson. One rocket flew high and went spiraling away after it deflected off the derrick structure. Fortunately, the rig was solidly built and none of the legs failed. Unfortunately, the Iranians weren’t about to call it quits.
The gunboats now circled the rig, opening fire with their heavy machine guns. “They would rake the deck trying to kill people,” said Jackson. The Iranians and the rig workers played a potentially deadly game of cat and mouse. Whenever a worker exposed himself, the Iranians tried to machine-gun him. As the boats fired on the platform, some crewmen would run to the opposite side as the boats circled, trying to keep equipment and structures as shields between themselves and the gunfire.
“I think they were trying to kill all of us,” said Jackson. “They were going to kill anything that moved.” At one point, a gunboat stationed itself directly under the rig and fired straight up at it. The rig crew was shocked by the unexpected and violent attack. However, most managed to maintain their composure in the face of the Iranian fire. Two men panicked, but the others helped get them under control. A workboat chartered by Crescent tried to evacuate the rig earlier but had been driven off by rockets and machine-gun fire. The only other method was by helicopter. Crescent chartered four helicopters from Aerogulf and dispatched them to the rig. When the helicopters first arrived to evacuate the rig crew, the Iranian fire seemed to lighten. “They were having fun, like children,” observed Jackson. “But when they saw the helicopters there, they let up.”
Two small helicopters each pulled out four workers. Next in was a larger helicopter capable of taking off fifteen personnel. As the larger helicopter came in, the Iranians resumed heavy firing. Some of the machine-gun fire was aimed at the helicopter itself. Ignoring the bullets, the commercial pilot courageously put the aircraft down on the landing pad and shouted for the passengers to board. Men scrambled on and the copter lifted off under continuous fire from the gunboats. For several hours, the four choppers would make round trips to the rig, evacuating its workers. The patter of bullets striking their hulls could be distinctly heard. When the last load of evacuees lifted off, the Iranians were still shooting at the helicopter. One American on the rig observed, “I must say that Aerogulf conducted themselves magnificently, and I feel that personnel aboard the Scan Bay owed their lives to the pilots.”
The Iranian choice of targets for their retaliatory attack was distinctly odd. Mubarak field was run by the U.S. Crescent Petroleum Corporation, but on behalf of the Arab Emirate of Sharjah, described by some as the closest thing to a friend Iran had in the Gulf. The field was closer to Abu Musa Island than the UAE, and actually lay within the Iranian exclusion zone. The Shah had seized the island from Sharjah in the early 1970s. Iran owned an interest in and shared in revenues from the field. Until the previous year, the field’s operating headquarters was actually on Abu Musa. Iran was even obligated by its agreement with Sharjah to pay one-half of the cost of repairing the damage inflicted on the rig by its own gunboats. The Iranian attack on the facilities in the field caused as much puzzlement as anger and seemed to confirm the widely held local opinion that the IRGC were crazies. In any case, the Iranian tear through the oil fields was about to come to an abrupt end.
U.S. Navy aircraft from the carrier Enterprise had flown into the Gulf proper and had arrived overhead. The Enterprise had been keeping the groups of surface combat air patrol and combat air patrol aircraft operating continuously near the Strait of Hormuz from about 8:45 A.M. on. To stay aloft for extended periods, the aircraft were refueling from Navy KA-6 tankers and A-7E strike aircraft carrying “buddy” refueling pods. A large Air Force KC-10 tanker was in turn, refueling these. The KC-10 also refueled some Navy aircraft directly.
The planes that responded to the IRGC attack included two A-6E Intruder attack bombers and an F-14 fighter. Lieutenant Commander Jim Engler piloted the lead A-6E; his bombardier/navigator was Lieutenant Commander Joe Nortz. Paul Webb piloted the other A-6. Each of the strike aircraft carried a single Harpoon anti-ship missile, a MK-82 500-pound laser-guided bomb, and five Rockeye cluster bombs. The aircraft had not been on station outside the Gulf long before they were contacted by the Navy E-2C Hawkeye, call sign “Banger,” and directed to fly inside the Gulf to search for an Iranian Hengham-class LST thought to be in the vicinity of Abu Musa Island.
So far that day, U.S. strike aircraft had not flown into the Gulf, and Commander Engler thought to himself, “Holy cow, something big is up.” Flying at 14,000 feet, the two A-6E’s and the F-14 proceeded down the middle of the Strait of Hormuz and into the Gulf. The F-14 was escorting the strike aircraft to protect them from Iranian fighters. The E-2C was putting out continuous reports of Iranian fighters lifting off from Bandar Abbas. Many of these reports turned out to be false, but there were some Iranian F-4’s in the air. The Navy jets were approaching the vicinity of Abu Musa from the southeast when the E-2C called and told Commander Engler that Americans on an oil platform near the island were under Iranian attack. The E-2C was stationed outside the Gulf, but was working with the Air Force AWACS orbiting over the UAE, and relaying reports from it.
The sun was behind them and visibility was good as the jets flew into the area. Commander Engler could look down and pick out the platform under attack without much difficulty. The curling white wakes of the Iranian speedboats were easy to see against the blue water, and the wakes were clearly converging on one of the structures below. Commander Engler called the E-2C and asked, “Please confirm cleared to engage Boghammers.”
The request was relayed to the Enterprise. Upon receipt of the request, the commander on the Enterprise picked up a red scrambler phone and called in the request to Admiral Less, the Commander of the Joint Task Force Middle East on USS Coronado. Admiral Less relayed the request by satellite to the U.S. Central Command in Florida. From there, Lieutenant General George Crist sent it to the National Command Center in the Pentagon, where Admiral Crowe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, received it. Admiral Crowe handed it off to Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, who queried President Reagan. The president gave his OK. The E-2C responded to Commander Engler, “Roger that, cleared to engage.” Despite the seemingly cumbersome process, the President’s permission to attack was relayed to the A-6’s less than three minutes after their initial request to the Enterprise. The President had to be consulted because no American ships or facilities were under immediate threat of attack at the time of the request.
The F-14 “held high” to provide air cover while the A-6’s went in to engage the Boghammers. The small, very fast Iranian craft were not the easiest targets for aircraft. However, the Enterprise’s air wing had worked up for its Gulf deployment by practicing on high-speed surface targets at the Navy’s Pacific Missile Test Center. Commander Engler picked the boat closest to the platform as his target. He figured it was the most immediate threat to the men on the structure, and hitting it would send a “keep away” warning to the other boats.
Commander Engler dropped to a little below 500 feet for a low level run with Rockeye cluster bombs. He selected two Rockeyes for release as he swooped in at 450 knots air speed. He did a manual bomb release and turned to watch the impact of the bomblets, which looked much like a large handful of pebbles thrown into the water when they hit. The bomblet pattern actually covered a football field-sized area. The Boghammer he had aimed at was clearly in the pattern. However, the bomblets were relatively small, and the speedboat did not sink or even appear to be heavily damaged. The boat may have been hit though, because it immediately broke off the attack, turned 180 degrees, and headed back toward Abu Musa.
Engler then cleared his wingman for a run. The other A-6E came in with its laser-guided 500-pound bomb. The laser-guided free-fall weapons could be very accurate when used against stationary or slow moving targets. However, they had limited maneuverability once released. The one dropped by the other A-6E was unable to follow the fast moving Boghammer it had targeted, and missed. Engler then made a second run using two more Rockeyes, but was unable to get any hits on the twisting boats.
The Iranian craft were proving to be difficult targets, more difficult than the remote-control target boats used at the Navy’s Pacific Missile Center. The workup there had been useful, but the Boghammers now skittering around the platform were moving nearly twice as fast as the “high speed” surface targets the aircrews had practiced on. The other A-6 made its second run using three Rockeyes. This time, the pilot correctly anticipated the course of a Boghammer and was able to put his bombs in the area the boat turned into. The Boghammer took multiple hits, slowed, and lost heading control. It finally stopped dead in the water and began to sink.
This was too much for the surviving Boghammers, and they sped away in a panicky retreat toward Abu Musa. Commander Engler followed them back, flying overhead. The intelligence briefings he had received had painted in his mind the image of fanatical Iranians bent on martyrdom. Now, instead, he was watching them “run like rats.” The three U.S. jets flew towards Abu Musa and saw three of the boats reach the island. Apparently frantic to escape their aerial pursuers, they just kept on going, beaching themselves hard on the eastern shore. One boat stayed in the water and sought refuge in the Abu Musa port facility. The U.S. jets flew around the island, attracting heavy anti-aircraft fire from Iranian 23mm and maybe also 37mm guns.
The jets made a left-angle turn at an altitude of 3,500 feet and a range of more than three miles. As they circled, they could see the muzzle flashes of Iranian anti-aircraft sites light up in sequence as the jets flew opposite them. Commander Engler didn’t feel particularly threatened since they appeared to be out of range of the Iranian guns. After the run around the island, he called the E-2C and told it the strike group was egressing. The aircraft flew over the UAE and returned to station outside the Gulf.
While the IRGC were hitting the oil fields, the regular Iranian Navy and Air Force made their appearances. After it had completed its action against the Sirri platform, Surface Action Group “C” was ordered to withdraw to the west and await instructions. The ships steamed away from the burning platform in column formation. The ships were proceeding slowly in a northwesterly direction when the JTFME called and reported it had picked up an Iranian navy surface combatant heading their way. The Wainwright had a great deal of electronic intelligence equipment onboard and was itself picking up the same information through radio intercepts. The surface action group was instructed to locate the Iranian ship.
