Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is
retired US Air Force Colonel George Ferkey's. He served more than three decades in
uniform, much of it in special operations. He was also part of Operation
Eagle Claw. That's the daring nineteen eighty mission designed to rescue American hostages in
Iran. And Colonel Ferkey's thanks so much for being with us. Oh my
pleasure. Where were you born in ranks, sir? I was born in
littletown in Indiana called Noblesville, Indiana, just north of Indianapolis. And was
there a history of military service in your family? Oh no, not really.
My dad wasn't didn't serve in World War Two, but he supported He
was in the industrial firestone plant working. So did you have an interest in
flying as a kid, No, not really. Surprisingly, it was one
of those things where the opportunity came along. It looked exciting and something.
You know, I was gonna look like I was gonna get drafted anyway,
So I volunteered to become an Air Force officer and uh and go to flight
school. Tell me about flight school. It was it was a unique experience.
I think anybody that has been through whether air Force flight school or naval
flight school, will tell you that it changed your life. I mean that
as a student. You know, you're some people are already attuned to flying.
I hadn't done much flying at all, and so it really a whole
new perspective. You know, you're doing things that you never thought you would
do. You're faced with challenges on uh, you know, first thing,
attaining your your going solo and in the different airplanes, and it's a huge
step to all of a sudden be given, especially as you get towards the
end, and given this high powered jet aircraft to go out and do kinds
of acrobatics and maneuvers and there's there's nobody there but you and then you're you
know, thirty thousand feet and you're free as a bird. What was the
most challenging part for you? Oh, you know, the academics sort of
came naturally. I was mechanically and mathematically inclined, so that wasn't bad.
I think, just to learn the stick and rudder stuff of it, you
know, the aerodynamics uh uh, you know what what all the and the
procedures. You know, you have to memorize procedures. So it's a it's
a you know, there's a routine that you have to go through and that's
a regiment and you've got to know that regiment, you know, by heart
and boom boom, boom boom, and and that's that's sort of a different
approach than when you're a kid and growing up and uh, you know,
not not worried about going out and driving a car. This is an airplane
and you have to know every step of it and be prepared for emergencies and
and the loss of engine and all kinds of different things. So that was
the part of it that was, you know, you really had to hit
that hard. What were you flying in training? We started out in the
T forty one, was just a high wing, single engine Piper cub type
thing, and then we went to the T thirty seven, which is a
little low wing uh jet, side by side seating in it. They're still
I think they've gone away from that now. And then the candy coded training
aid was the T thirty eight. It was a supersonic basically a low end
fighter, and that was a tandem cockpit and that was the one that when
you got to solo that and go out and do you know, you could
do acrobatics on it and all kinds of things. And once you did that,
and you are on your way to putting those silver wings on and so
that of course it's still well in Vietnam. War is going on. So
yeah, so what happened after you finished flight training? So every once you
finished flight training, the students in the in the class are rated, you
know, one through the end of the class, and the first one gets
there's a block of airplanes that come down and everybody gets to choose and in
the rating and and uh there was some some selection also by the instructor pilots.
But but that's where you ended up with an airplane that you go that
you got and I ended up with a O two a Super Skymaster, which
was a forward air controller. There was about six of them in the class,
and we all went obviously go right to went out right to Vietnam.
We did both general survival training and then we went through jungle survival training on
the way to Southeast Asia. And then then en route we learned to fly
the the O two A here at four Wall Beach at Harvard and then we
got over there and we were assigned to a location and uh either southeast at
some place in Southeast Asia, either Vietnam or some of them were over in
Thailand. Explain what a forward air controller does. He Basically, back in
the those days, we didn't have all the high end communications with the ground
troops, so we were the We were the communications link between the fighters and
the ground troops. Our job was visualqu connaissance, close air support, battle
damage assessment. Uh. Uh you know anything. We had an area and
we were basically responsible for all the activities are going on when uh. And
we stayed in contact with the troops that were underground in the movement. So
we were the link if they wanted to close air support or artillery and they
couldn't reach them with their radios. We were overhead and that's what we did
day in, day out at night. Uh. That was the end country
mission where we had troops underground out the facts that the outcountry were flying over
the ho Chi Min trail day and night and doing interdiction mainly of the convoys
coming down. So it was a sort of a different kind if you were
in country or out country. Tell me a little bit about the O two
what'd you like about It was about, well, it's a push pull airplane.
It's got a twin boom. It's a fairly maneuverable, it's not real
fast. It didn't have a lot of armament. Uh. It carries h
T two pods of rockets, seven on each side, and also as a
station where you can carry uh flares or other things like that. And there's
no guns. The only gun was what we shot out the window if we
decided we wanted to shoot our air fifteen out the window. UM. And
it's pretty slow, I mean, you know, one thirty one forty UM.
And it was good observation. I had very good observation. The windows
came all the way down to about your below your waist, so you could
see out of it. Uh. It was twin seats and actually it was
a third seat in the back of it. We had five radios in it.
But it wasn't irrefuelable. So our missions were about the long mission was
four and a half hours. You were you are in fumes by the time
you did it there, but most of our missions ran two and a half
to three hours. Through the major operations, you were connected with Dewey Canyon,
two and support of fire support based Fuller, So tell me a little
bit about those operations. Dewey Canyon two was also known as Lamps On seven
one nine, and it was an early nineteen seventy there was a decision made
for the South Vietnamese to make an incursion into Laos and cut the coaching men
trail at a town called Hippone. Chapone was highly defended by the North Vietnamese.
The plants were made in secret. They were going to supply five five
divisions, had an armored division, an infantry division, a paratroop division,
a marine division, and there was one other division. And they reopened Cason
to do that. All the airlift for the insertions were by US Army helicopters
which all came from basically the northern part of South Vietnam, and we reopened
Cason and that's where they did the transce load to it and put them into
all these different fire support bases that they reopened or made during that time.
We went from having four O twos and four OV tens a Quang Tree where
I was stationed, to having forty of each. So it was an unbelievable
large exercise. We provided all the day and night air cover as FOURD air
controllers and generally directed all the air strikes that came in. It was unfortunately
not very successful. They did reach Hippone but turned back immediately. The casualties
for the South Vietnamese were tremendous. Most of those divisions never came back in
any more than in pieces and parts. It was a huge defeat, though
they claimed a victory and that was sort of the beginning of the end uh
for the that that era for Fire Support Base Fuller was again. By that
time the South Vietnamese Army was Second Regiment, First Arvan Division owned the DMZ.
They took over from Marines there and so we were there forward air controllers
and they and we worked with the either US Special Forces or US Marine Advisors
or the Australian Army Advisors, which are the Australian let's see what ATTV Australian
Army Tachnical Training Team Vietnam. And actually I'm still in contact with one of
those guys. But the base of the Fire Support Base base was getting overrun.
We were covern at night and day. There was a Special Forces advisor
with them, and we ended up talking to him quite a bit. We
put in I think the h that for that se age over three days.
I myself put in forty forty three air strikes one day twenty three and that
was the day we finally broke the assault on it. And so they did,
they got pushed off of it and then they reclaimed it at the end.
But it was probably one of the more fierce firefights and um, you
know things. But it was at the end of the war. It was
that was April of May of seventy so the war was coming to a close.
But it was it was you know, they wanted they wanted to push
down on the DMZ in in seventy one seventy two they did. They put
came right across the DMZ. So that was one of the first probes down
there, and it was it was a fierce battle. They put brigade after
brigade and battalion after battalion into that overrun that firebase and and unfortunately we lost
to sell out of South Vietnamese. We lost a couple of advisers during that,
uh that siege. What's it like to be in the middle of that.
It was crazy, I mean, it was it was tents. It
was. It was one of those things where there was It wasn't a moment
where you didn't know that there was. You needed to be there. I
mean we we were put in continuous air strikes, army, helicopter, gun
ships, artillery. It was non stop activity. And uh and that whole
time that the North Vietnamese were pouring across the dam Z and they set up
fifty one cow guns all around the base and trying to shoot down the helicopters
and in the forward air controllers and in the fighters and uh. And I'm
talking to the to the special Forces captain I was talking with, and he's
whispering because he's hunkered down in a in a tunnel or just a part of
the fire sport basis still there. With what's left of the South Vietnamese.
It was pretty tense. Fortunately he survived and the number of the South Vietnamese
did, but there were casualty, large casualts on both sides. You were
awarded a silver Star. The captain who was down there was put in for
a silver Star. I knew him very well, Dave Dickinson, and and
he in turn submitted me for a Silver Star. I was just you know,
you don't go out there and that stuff. You right place, right
time and doing the right thing. And fortunately we were he survived and we
were able to save some of the South Vietnamese troops. And but that was
the essence of that. I mean, everybody, everybody got involved in it.
We put, like I said, three or four days of constant air
and artillery and gun ship in there, and it was pretty amazing that he
was, like I said, when I was talking to him, he was
hunkered down in a tunnel someplace whishpern into, just like in the movies.
And so, I mean, it was it was the real thing. And
I still can still have a little few thoughts about that. George. Let's
take a quick break. When we come back, we'll tell much more of
your story here on Veterans Chronicles. Our guest is George Furkeys. He is
a retired US Air Force colonel. When we come back, we'll talk about
his role in Operation Eagle Claw, the attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran
in nineteen eighty I'm Greg Corumbus. This is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans
Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Honor to be joined today by George Furkeys.
He has a retired US Air Force colonel. He is a Vietnam veteran.
He is also a veteran of Operation Eagle Claw, that's the daring nineteen eighty
mission designed to rescue American hostages in Iran. And so, George, before
we get to that, just tell us a little bit about what you did
after Vietnam and before Operation Eagle Claw, or what kind of assignments did you
have in between. You know, after Vietnam, it was a boy.
The time I got back here, you know, I was starting to roll
down, and I did a little bit of flying at the Tinker Air Force
Base. I was flying T T twenty nine at T thirty nine, supporting
a maintenance teams that came out of there to the different places around uh the
US for about three years doing that, and then the Latin the next three
years. Since the Air Force was drawing down, I got I was assigned
to the Rated Supplement. So for two of those three years I was in
the Rated Supplement. I was a headquarters squadron section commander, learned all about
taking care of the young troops and what first sergeants do to make the commander's
job easier, and at that time there were a lot of drug things going
on, so discipline was was a big issue. It taught me a lot
about command and uh and discipline and you know, taking care of the young
troops and what works and what doesn't work and uh. Fortunately I had a
chief who was my first sergeant, and he taught me a lot about how
to manage on and command and lead. And so I did that for two
years and then last year I was the aide to the two start at Tinker
and from there I went on to Combat Talents and Herbert Field. Well,
the American hostages were taken on November fourth, nineteen seventy nine, and from
what I've read, planning for a rescue started just a couple of days later.
So at what point did you start hearing about plans for a mission?
It bubbled up a little bit around the squadron that you know something was going
on, and obviously they just opened the doors to everybody right away. The
senior leadership and the squadron was sort of huddled up. You know, what
we're going to do. What do they want us to do? Because I
don't think they knew at that time exactly what the deal would do. But
we had, you know, a state side. We were the only special
operations see one squadron in the state side. We did had a squadron of
gunships, but for infiltration expiltration, we're the only one. So we got
initially tapped to do that. Started out with just our senior senior crew guys
figuring out what we're going to do, and they're sitting behind closed doors and
obviously it was going to be more than just a few of the senior instructors
and evaluators, so they started forming former cruise. We ended up with the
i think three crews full up cruise and some spares and some other special things
that we were doing. So about three two thirds of the squadron was involved.
But it was all very very kept, very very close hold. I
mean, it was like you can't say a thing, and when when the
boss brings you in, closes the door and said, I'm going to bring
you on board. But here's the deal. Don't ask questions. You know,
when you when you told do something, go do it. And that's
when we got got acquainted with the night vision goggles and uh. But it
was a it was a selection basically a selection process of of who wanted to
who was ready to. I mean, obviously some of us had been We
had some gunship guys had been flying AC went thirty gun ships in Vietnam.
We had, you know, a missionash. Almost all the one thirty guys
and had had been in Vietnam. I mean it was you know, only
six or seven years since then that we'd quit flying over there. So it
was fairly experienced a bunch of guys. But slowly we built the crews who
was going to be on what And actually that even changed, you know,
I started on one crew and ended up as a co pilot on the on
the your first airpoint. Only by you know, that's just the way that
the cards fell. How much experience had you had with the gun ships by
this time I had my own experience with them, was was being associated a
little bit with them in Vietnam A one thirties, we got the AC one
nineteens or the forty seven's in country. The AC one thirties were all flying
out country on the trail, supporting the trail facts out there and that sort
of stuff. And most of them were coming out of fine out of time
end. But Yeah, the gunship was awesome. Awesome weapons still is today.
Now, this is an operation that involved four different branches of the military.
Any turf wars in the planning process, Uh no, you know,
we were too focused on just our little piece of it. We were probing
brand new ground the whole time. I mean, we knew what our partner,
but we knew that, we knew that the uh the rotary wing guys
were, they were it was different for them. They didn't all come from
the same unit they were. They were struggling with it. They didn't couldn't
always make their roots and times on the on the on the practices we were
doing, and you know, all of us, even even we had some
issues when things went wrong. I mean, for example, one time we
got a three ship of air planes going out all the way across the country
and had to hit a casey one thirty five tankers to get it. Well,
we take off, we get to the tanker route and no tankers.
We had dedicated tankers for those, and so we turn around, where are
they? Where are they? So by track it down we're headed back home.
We find out the two tankers one of them had an issue, so
the other one sympathetic aborted. We could have done it with one tanker and
continued the training exercise and done at all, but now we had zero,
so the whole thing crashed. So we'll think, you know, and it
was like, why that never never happened again. In a matter of fact,
I think they changed that leadership then. But those are the kinds of
things you run, you know, just things that you don't come expect and
then it happens, and you know, the process of learn how to fly
on night vision goggles. It was an interesting one because you know, most
of us hadn't seen night vision before. Now I'd seen it because we used
starlight scopes out of the fort the forward air controller at night, and the
guys on the trail used them every night. And basically it was a sighting
device for a recoilist rifle is about this big and weighed about twenty pounds,
and you had putting on a strap and hung out the side of the the
O two and looked at for lights and that would actually you could see those
stin lights of the of the North Vietnamese trucks going down the trail. And
that was one of the one of the ways they found them, and we
had one in our little element of to use at night if we need it.
So I'd seen it a couple of times. But then you get them
and we've got the full face goggles on, and I'm saying, I've seen
this picture before. Oh yeah, I remember when. But but putting it
on your face, putting in the cockpit, which is the cockpits lights are
made so you can see them with the naked eye. You put on the
night vision goggles and they just blow them out. They basically shut them down.
So that process, I mean, every night we're learning new things about
it. What light we have to tape over, and how many layers of
tape we have to put out, how long it's going to take to do
this stuff before we can't even go fly with it. We're going out and
walking around with them, We're you know, we're taking them home and sleeping
with them. I mean, it's it was a huge step forward and we
did, you know, and actually it wasn't wasn't one big step. It
was little baby steps. And so in the other unit that participated over in
the Pacific, they had they got some also, and they were doing it
parallel to us, but not necessarily in the same step. So when we
came together, it was what are you guys doing or how do you have
a set up? And finally we got meshed together and we all did it
the same way by the time we were heading down to to do the admission.
And to this day there's still you know, they've got beautiful new goggles
and they're still learning ways to the cockpits are now vg comal compatible. Even
the fighters should have done this, I mean it was. It was a
leading in technology then, but we were doing it without a well, without
the scientists, without all the R and D. We were just doing it
by sitting out and the we'd take the air points on at night and sit
out on a ramp and just fiddle with lights and the see what worked and
what didn't. When we come back, we'll talk about the mission itself.
George, let's pause one more time. Here we're talking with George Ferkeys,
retired US Air Force colonel. He is a veteran of Vietnam, recipient of
the Silver Star, and veteran of Operation Eagle Claw, the nineteen eighty mission
designed to rescue American hostages in Iran. And we'll talk much more about that
when we come back. I'm Greg Corumbas and this is Veterans Chronicles. This
is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corrumbus. I'm honored to be joined today by
George Ferkeys. He has a retired US Air Force colonel. He's a veteran
of Vietnam who's more than three decades in uniform. And he was also a
significant part of Operation Eagle Claw, the nineteen eighty mission designed to rescue American
hostages in Iran and sou George. This was I've called it a daring mission.
There were so many different components to it. So explain if you can,
what the design of the plan was, How was it supposed to go?
Well, the design of the plan when the final plan was after many
different well, I say possibilities, because we had no eyes on the target
we had we had no friends in Iran, so we were there were no
friendly airfields to go into and the distances were huge. So the final plan
was to do a landing of six airplane six C one thirties at a desert
landing strip that was not really an airfield but a just basically a hard packed
area that had been surveyed a clandestine mission to make sure that would take the
weight of the airplanes and there was no obstacles in it, and that was
known as Desert one. So the plan was for the six airplanes, three
MC one thirties which were special Ops airplanes, and three borrowed airplanes that had
big cargo compartments but also had avery fueling capability, which we needed. They
were EC one thirties, but they were flown by special Ops crews, so
we had in those aircraft. We had the Delta force was in three of
the they were in the MC one thirties and in the EC one thirties we
had the fuel bladders with the h that we called them far forward Airy fueling
crews, so and their job was to set up a forward every fueling point
for the six. So actually it was supposed to be eight Navy helicopters flown
by a mix of Navy, Air Force and Marine pilots and crew off a
carrier and fly and rendezvous at Desert one. The helicopters would be refueled,
the troops would be cross loaded to the helicopters. They would take off and
go to a hide sight for night one. That see one thirties. All
of us would depart Desert one and go back to massirah Oman and then the
Night two would start. Some of some of the Night one crews would transition
to Egypt and fly Night two. So that was that was, and that
became known as Desert one, and it was a it was like I said,
it was a barren piece of ground that had been looked at prior when
we made the decision to do that with. Our plan was for for lead
airplane, which I was a co pilot on, would be a good our
head of the other five airplanes. We would make the approach and land on
this desert area which had been surveyed. And also they had buried some ir
lights that could be triggered to pop up out of the ground. And that
was the first thing. So we kind of as we made our cross of
the I came in found found the area. We had very good radar,
very good navigators. We found the area. So it was a moment of
well should I say, you know what was going to happen. We take
out the overhead escape patch which you can do on a one thirty, took
out the antenna to the the vice and hit the switch and the lights came
on so we could see it. We knew there was a box one,
two, three, four and at the end of the boxing one is what
we called it, and it was set up, so we knew we had
the right place. We knew we had a place that had been surveyed.
So we now we make our circuit to come back around and land, and
it took us three more times before we landed, because one time we were
misaligned, another time there was traffic coming down there. It came down there.
So we've been across it now three times and we have delta for in
the back, so they're they're getting nancy because it was supposed to be only
just one time around in land. So we landed and when when we came
down, you know, it put down pretty pretty firmly, and all of
a sudden there's dust everywhere. And in route to the Desert one, we
had experienced suspended dust in the air, and we went through about two sections
of it, and we were I was sitting at the copilot and I'm looking
out there and it's got dusty, it got a real hot and we're looking
around. I'm sort of talking on the intercommon the airplane and what is it?
What's going on? And then actually the guy that put in those lights
with the with the clandestinely said, oh, that's a haboob. We're going
on. What's a haboob? And it's a big cloud of suspended dust and
that different from a sandstorm. It's the same as except it's real, real
fine. Okay, I mean it stays in the air. Sand sands is
heavier and bigger. It's it's like talcum powder. It is that fine.
So so we went through two areas of it, and by the time we
got to the landing area it was clear. Little did we know that was
also covered this deep. It's like about five six inches of it all over,
maybe in some places where it drifted a foot or more. So when
we landed the airplane and put it put the props in reverse to slow down,
it just completely covers the airplane in this huge cloud of dust. And
we're going, oh, no, you know, we got and we lowered
the ramp and the guards go out. The team goes out, and I'm
talking on the intercom to the loadmaster and back he said, you won't believe
it. And it's it is over my boots. I said, what's over
your boots? He said, the dust. The dust is over, So
that's how deep it was, and that, in the end was one of
the reasons that we probably the main reason we had the accident later on.
So now we've we get there, we set up the other side of the
runway. Because we have the special tactics, guys with us can set up
another one way just like the one we landed on the box and one,
so now we have two of them. They also set out a portable navigation
called a tac an and they set that up and powered that up, so
now there is a navigation aid as well as a two runways. So now
the other five airplanes come in and the sequence that we want. We got
six air planes on the ground. We're ready to go, waiting for the
helicopters. Helicopters are supposed to be like twenty minutes or thirty minutes behind us.
We know they're airborne. We can hear them, but we can't talk
to them, so we're waiting for him. We set up the forward every
feeling points. We're all set to go of everything seems to be going good.
Unfortunately, when we landed, I sort of should have hit this beginning
when we landed. Just as we rolled out, a Iranian bus full of
tourists comes down the road and the security guys stopped it, and so we
now have forty Iranians under guard. We aren't sure what we're going to do
with them. We got to work that out. One of the thoughts was
we'd take them back with us and then night to take them to the other
place and drop them off. But we would have figured it out before.
It's not all the airplanes got down. A rogue fuel truck came down the
road and we had road guards out. You know, they're trying to stop
him. He didn't stop, so they so they launched a law which is
a like a little rocket, blew him up. So now we have a
huge fire. So we got a fire, we got a bus, we
have the runways set up, we got dust up to our knees. But
we're still a go. There's no reason why we can't make this work.
Because the guys on the truck jumped off the truck and there was a little
pickup behind him. It was a big tanker truck and it's burning like crazy.
There was a little pickup behind him. They run back to that and
off they go. And the intel guys that were there said, you know,
they're probably black market fuel guys. They probably aren't going to go tell
anybody, So we'll roll the dice and let that go. We aren't going
to go chase him down. We'll probably never find him anyway. So that's
the scenario of that's the picture of the of the Desert One with the fuel
truck burning, the two venway set up, the six airplanes on the ground
waiting for the helicopters to come in, and we also with the with the
portable Native aid. So helicopters come limping in. They've they've had issues holding
formation, they're flying little level. They through the hubbub, they're down too.
By the time they get there, they're down to six helicopters. We
need six to do the mission. Six have to leave the night one Desert
One before they can continue on the mission. So we finally get six down
there by then says the lead airplane, we left to make room for him.
So we had taken off just after I think the sixth airplane got there.
We're out of the way, we're going home, and we're calms out.
We don't we aren't. We aren't underground. But that started the whole
whole process of finding out that one of those six helicopters not fliable. It's
got a hydraulic problem. Main hydraulic pump is out and it's not good to
fly with this one. Whatever the issue, was not going to tell the
helicopter guys, but you know, anyway, they made the decision it was
not fliable. So now they're down to five and the ground forces. You
know, we cannot do this mission with just five. We have to leave
here with six. Is there any way you can fix it? Obviously they
went through all the possibilities, etc. The other two one had stopped and
left in the desert on the way because of a bad rotor blade, and
one of them had turned back and gone to God, back to the carrier
because he was disoriented and couldn't couldn't fly anymore. So we by then the
mission has been scrubbed. The decision was made reluctantly that we're gonna have to
call it off. So we started re transloading and reconfiguring to leave desert one
and moving helicopters around and see where everybody's going to go. And as we
were moving one of the helicopters. Uh it lifted off from behind one of
the EC one thirties that came up, hit the tail and rolled over on
the top of it. We lost the three five guys in the cockpit and
three off the helicopter. That's eight guys that we lost there. And we
were airborne during that time frame, and we were we were communications out.
We didn't we weren't talking to them. We were really we being the first
airplane, we didn't find out till we landed back at Massirah just as we
we were found out the missions have been canceled and that we lost eight guys
and it was devastating. So we you know, got off the airplane,
waited for the other guys come back. There were casualties. By then the
whole process started. We got airback one forty ones in there to take care
of the burnt guys that had burns on them and get the uh the depth
force out of there. And it was you know, didn't just you didn't.
You don't just stop and just quit. You gotta finish it. So
we you know, lift our wounds, got got got everybody taken care of
that we could had a got everybody together had a roll call, identified officially
who was who is missing from our Air Force crews and uh and then started
packing up and getting ready to come home. That was that was it.
That was a mission was scrubbed. Obviously, George, I can see the
emotion still on your face and your voice as you discussed that. And obviously
you're very desirous to free these Americans who are in Iran. So how do
you go on not only from the fact that the mission had to be called
off, but that you lost those eight personnel. You sort of get back
into the mode that you know you were taught to do. You go back
and you know, you know, you gotta get the airplanes home. You
got to get back to your families, you have, you got to take
care of those other families, got to bury your buddies, and then you
know what's next. And there was something next. You know, we said,
you know, we're gonna gonna do continue to perfect us, you know,
try to try to get them home. So we had called an Operation
Honey Badger, and the armada was huge, but we were still involved.
We were still the leading MC one thirties. We're leading the way and some
kind of seizure and it was now the whole nation is going on, My
goodness, you know, why didn't we have this? Why didn't we have
that? And you know Defense Department's going you know what all do you want
the why didn't we got to have this in beforehand? And you know they
stood up the Army, UH, Special Obs Aviation and um the whole deal
with you know lots and then we had the Holloway Commission that examined it in
detail. We all got to say, say a few things so that most
of that was pretty straightforward if you read it. Deal. They had a
few few conclusions, most of which I agreed with. Some they were I
think political, but they but it changed. It changed how we're how the
um US Defenses Department is organized. It started to joint Special Operations Command,
and it's set up the Army, Navy, and Air Force Special Operations Commands
and the United States Special Operations Command down to Tampa. All that was a
result of the Evil Claude Desert Won mission failure. I want to bring up
a couple of reactions to the mission, one of which I know you know
about. In one you probably don't, but you might. First of all,
tell us about the message and the gift you got from British commanders.
Oh, yes, that's to this day. It's a I guess I bad
you, honor. So we're going through the process of of licking our wounds,
if you will, trying to figure out what we're gonna do, where
we're gonna go, how you know, starting to get our gear together and
head home, and little British jeep pulls up besides one of the tents I
mean you t flap was halfway up, and you see these two men get
out and these two legs come over here and they pop down two cases of
didn't know at time, but two cases of cold beer, and they get
back in their jeep and go. They don't say anything, and somebody said,
hey, but oh we got cold beer. And then on the flap
of it, it's from us all to you all for having the guts to
drive. What a gesture. I'm going to tell you one more about four
years ago I spoke with one of the Iranian hostages. His name was Kevin
Hermaning. He was a young marine guard at the embassy when it was overrun,
and I talked to him around the fortieth anniversary of him and the others
being taken hostage. And as we got towards the end of the conversation,
I asked him what it was like to come home to this rapturous welcome from
the American people. And when I asked him about that, he said,
as nice as that was, it was the men on Eagle Claw who are
the ones who deserved it the most. And here's what he said, it's
the three Marines and the five airmen who gave their lives selflessly so that we
might be freed. Just the very idea that people will step up to volunteer
to rescue people they don't know because they consider it their duty and their responsibility
and they love their fellow man. It's something that has stayed with me for
forty years. What do you think of when you hear that kind of appreciation,
Well, you know I have. I have met Kevin on a number
of occasions. We've had him down here for as a speaker at our memorial
dinner, and he is a super dude, is a super troop. He
supports us continues to this day. And in those those words obviously made a
lot to me and to all of us that are involved, and and they're
from his heart. I know that I've played golf with him, I've you
know, drank beer with him, and he is Yeah. I mean,
there's it's hard hard to say anything else. Just a few minutes left in
our conversation here, George. After Eagle Claw and the preparations that went into
Operation Honey Badger, um, there were other operations you were part of,
and including Granada and then a couple other major headline that folks may remember from
the eighties when twa flight A forty seven was hijacked and the cruise ship A
chille Laro was hijacked. You were involved in planning responses to all three of
those. So yeah, I mean after we finished Honey Badger, I went
off to Internet at Service School for a little bit and then came back and
was a in the J three Air Shop up at Operational Airshop at Jaysack.
Spent three three years. There was the early days of Jaysok. Those three
events happened. We were busy day and night. We were not only real
world but also trying to do training and new equipment, I mean, the
whole gamut. And it was one of the I mean, it really was
an exciting time. I mean money was not an issue. No, there
were no barriers. If there was a barrier, we found a way around
it. We'd either climb over or blow it down, you know. And
it was the beginning of of the jointness for the whole Department of Defense.
I remember Grenada. I mean we put together the whole uh what we called
the execution Checklist, the sequence of events, and General Schults went up to
brief the Chairman and the Joint Chiefs and came back. We were all ready
to go. We were putting it all together, and he turns to us,
he said, not so fast, guys. We're moving the eah hour
ahead. I think it was one hour. So it's a daylight because the
Marines have been told, have asked to play, and the Joint Chiefs says
that they will play, and they had not been in any of the planning.
So here we are. I've got two hundred sheets of the Execution Checklist,
which has got three hundred events on it, each of them with a
code word, and it's getting ready to go on the airport to the cruise
down in the Savannah. I think they were picking up the rangers down there.
So I grabbed it grabbed it, I said, burn knees, grabbed
the grabbed the master, putting on the top, changed the eh hour plus
one hour, make an adjustments as required. Put they flapped it onto him.
Made you know, five hundred new copies. The airplane sitting out there
on the ramp, did them put them on that and off we go.
And then obviously the uh the the drop. I knew the guys flying the
cruise that did the drop on the on the on the airfield. And my
good friend Jim Hopson made the air drop after the first one aboarded, and
I got the got the Air Force Award for that and got those gay dropped
him I think at five hundred feet I mean right underneath the guns. I
mean it was. It was an exciting adventurer and I mean it's like grenade,
but it's I was at I visited Grenada later and they have a different
story at how it all went, but anyway, it was. I mean,
those are the kinds of things. I mean A twa forty seven.
Uh No, it's Achille Laurel. So we've got force deployed all over the
med most of them are at Acritari. We got two one forty one's full
of troops. I'm at Sigonella as the liaison to the Navy base there because
we've been staging out of there. We had a couple of I think a
squad of seals were still there. They were headed home. So who were
sitting around watching this? And then you know, oh no, Now they're
on an airplane coming out of Egypt. And I'm talking to the bosses telling
me, okay, but we've got a plan. They're gonna the Navy is
going to force that airplane down at Sigonella. Okay, And he says,
make sure it doesn't take off and we will will be right behind it in
the one forty one. He's teld me this on them, you know radio.
Okay, So I go. I briefed the beef to the base and
they said okay, and and the and I said then to the seal h
platoon commander, I said, okay, you guys, you guys are going
to be the first one on the airplane because that one forty one can't get
the shooters off in time. You'll have to to be there with the vehicles
to take it down. It was a corporate jet, okay. So they
said, we need some help though. I said, what's up? He
says, our everything is packed away into connects, all our weapons, all
our gear. So okay. So I turned to the to the deputy I
was working with there, and I said, I need guns and I need
vehicles. He said, you got him. So he brings out. He
goes over the marine barracks, He gets all the all the weapons of the
seals need. He goes to the to the airfield said what what weapons do
you or what the vehicles do you want? I want all these step vans
because we can drive him out on the airfield. And they know these guys
are trained to do this, and so they got them all lined up.
They're getting ready to it. And and I'm looking over there and here's this,
this young lieutenant. He's got the butt of the rifles of boom boom
for all them. Every light on that that vehicle is broken out. And
I said, well, what's going on? He says, we don't have
time to find diffuse this for him, and we have we're going out with
him. We have to have the lights out. So I mean, those
are the kinds of things you remember from from those kinds of operations. So
the guys in the one forty one that they were in them for hours and
the remember and the boss finally said, General Stinify said, quit bringing them
food. There's no place for him to poop. And then and finally the
corporate jet took off and um no, it was actually I'm sorry it was
the seven seven twenty seven, seven thirty seven. It took off and they
followed it in a T thirty nine, the Navy T thirty nine. They
had three of our jay Saw guys on it, and they're following them and
headed back to Italy off the boat and they're gonna go I end up in
Yugoslavia. So they're up near Rome and the T thirty nine two navy pilots
and got three of the Jasak guys in there, and they're hoping they can
get him to land and they'll arrest them or whatever. So out there,
all of a sudden, two Italian I think they had one oh fours at
that time comes up beside him. So they're intercepting the T thirty nine,
and they wiggled their wigs, said you must land now or we're going to
shoot you down because they said you are not authorized to follow this airplane.
So they landed in Rome and the and the airplane went on and Abou Abas
I think was the name of the guy, and uh he went on to
I believe in the Yuoslavia. He finally passed away. But yeah, I
mean, those are the kinds of things that you remember. The it was.
It was a wild time. I mean, it is it was,
you know, find a way to do it. I mean, there was
not a lot of red tape. Final couple of questions here, George.
First of all, after such a distinguished career with so many different facets to
it that we've discussed, what are you most proud of? And you know,
it's hard to say, you know, I was. I was happy
to be able to do the things I did, you know, the flight
school and the flight school and and and doing you know, each of those,
each of those steps in my career were good times. And you know,
being and and and I like, you know, I like being with
the troops. So you know, I'm it's not just aviation, you know,
I enjoyed being with the ground guys, I mean the shooters and rubbing
elbows with them and tell them war stories and and and you know, you're
you're part of a pretty special organization and I and I think that's that's what
stands out for me is being able to do the things and and uh,
you know, and then the following onto that is that, you know,
we love lost the eight guys, and there were seventeen kids left behind,
and we said we're going to take care of them. We've done that and
more with the Special Ups Warrior Foundation. You know, we're to we put
over five around five hundred kids through college. We've got a thousand weight and
every one of them is going to be wherever they want to go to school.
We've got to pay for everything. We pay for for tutoring, we
pay for preschool, we pay I mean, the Special Opportunations Warrior Foundation is
just a continuation of that that, let's get it done. We have a
way to day this. We can take care of this, we can we
can make it happen. I'm so glad you mentioned the foundation. That was
going to be my next question about guys. I know you're very very active
in it, uh, not only taking care of the children of the fallen,
but promoting and making sure we know about the record of them. And
you know, also the severely wounded. When they come back, we make
sure they get connected with VA and and to get their families there early on,
and that sort of thing too. It's sort of the we sometimes forget
about that, but that is that's another big thing that we do, and
we work. One of the things we do is we work directly with it's
called the Carol Coalition at the United States. Special Operations come in so we
know when when it gets to a point that those families are ready to engage
with us at the word round nation and boom we're there. So last question,
sir, what does it mean to you to have the American Veteran Center
collecting stories like yours and others? Well, I'm glad. I'm glad you're
doing it, because you know, we aren't here forever. Sometimes, you
know, we just we tell war stories with my my buddies who've all been
part of this at the at the bar or at the you know, we
are luncheons or wherever. But now we've got it captured in a little bit
of a more more formal way, and and it makes me happy, it
really does. And I appreciate you guys doing it. Well, Thank you,
sir, thank you for your time today and most of all, thank
you for your tremendous service to our country. My pleasure. We've been speaking
with retired US Air Force Colonel George ferk Is, a Vietnam veteran recipient of
the Silver Star and then for many, many years and special operations in the
Air Force, including Operation Eagle Claw, the mission designed to rescue American hostages
in Iran, but as you've heard, many other operations as well. I'm
Greg Corumbus. This is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus,
and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of the American Veterans Center.
For more information, please visit American Veterans Center dot org. You can
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Four Veterans Chronicles