Wild Weasel Fighter Attack: The Story of the Suppression of Enemy Air Defences by Thomas Withington

Author:Thomas Withington
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781848849563
Publisher: Pen and Sword

Lebanon 1983

As the British and Argentines were locked in combat over the Falkland Islands, tensions in the Middle East continued to escalate. Israel was not the only country feeling the heat from the fire of Lebanon's civil war. The United States sent a peacekeeping force which included French, British and Italian troops to supervise the PLO withdrawal from the country following a truce between the former and the Israelis which would see both sides withdrawing from Lebanon.

F-14 Tomcats which were performing aerial reconnaissance to keep tabs on the situation on the ground were fired upon by Syrian AAA positions. The repeated attacks against US aircraft tried the patience of President Ronald Reagan. The result was that the President ordered the US Navy to perform a series of strikes against artillery positions and SAM systems which were located at Hammana to the south of the Beirut-Damascus highway and Falouga, Mghite and Jabal al Knaisse to the east of the Lebanese capital.

The Grumman A-6Es of the VA-85 Black Falcons would be catapulted from the USS John F. Kennedy with sixteen Intruders taking to the skies. These aircraft would be joined by the Intruders from the VA-176 Thunderbolts which were armed with Mk.82 free-fall bombs. These two squadrons were in turn accompanied by twelve Vought A-7E Corsairs of the VA-15 Valions and the VA-87 Golden Warriors squadron; both carrying Mk.82 Rockeye cluster weapons.

As night turned to morning on 3 December, the flight decks of the carriers were a maelstrom of activity as aircraft were armed, fuelled and elevated to the flight decks ready to be flown off the carrier into a Mediterranean morning. From 05.45 the aircraft were catapulted from the decks. The first strike package, Alpha, was earmarked to be over its targets at 08.00 at an altitude of 20,000 ft (6,100 m).

The strikes were not cost-free and the US Navy lost two aircraft; the first being an A-6E which was downed by an SA-7 that hit the aircraft as it was preparing to attack an SA-9 site located at Hammana. One of the A-6E crew, Lieutenant Mark A. Lange, was killed in the attack, but his weapons systems officer Bombardier/Navigator Robert Goodman did survive, although he was captured. Efforts to locate and rescue Goodman immediately swung into action and an A-7E pressed home attacks on Druze militia gun emplacements in order to suppress fire which might interfere with the rescue, but this aircraft was hit by a missile causing Commander Ed Andrews to eject, although he was later rescued by a US Navy SH-3H Sea King.

The losses suffered by the US Navy during this operation prompted some major soul searching. A pilot had been killed and two aircraft had been lost. The air defences that the Navy had faced that day were robust and able to inflict serious damage. Several lessons were taken on board by the US Navy aviation community. The first was that SEAD aircraft would from now on accompany all daylight strikes and the SEAD support would always

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