Then, Wade Ishimoto saw another set of headlights coming and ordered one of his men to stop it with an anti-tank weapon. As illustrated in the documentary, Delta Force stopped it with a grenade round, and detained the passengers.
#NEGATIVE PRESS ON HOSTAGE RESCUE TEAM FULL#
A bus full of Iranians had appeared on a dirt road that ran through the landing zone. The remaining six finally made it to Desert One, where Delta Force was having its own problems. We were about 300 feet and we couldn't see the ground at 300 feet."ĭisoriented, another helicopter turned back. At first, Jim Schaefer thought it was fog: "I licked my finger, stuck it out the little window on the side, brought it back in, and it was full of dust," he said. The remaining seven had to grope their way through unexpected clouds of dust. But one helicopter dropped out because of an impending blade failure. Jones: "They have passed the point of no return, and they are only within 30 minutes out from the landing point."Įight helicopters had to fly nearly 700 miles to a desert landing strip, where they would rendezvous with Delta Force, flying in on C-130s. David Jones.Ĭarter: "Do you have any reports on the helicopters' location?" What happened on that high-risk mission is relived in a new documentary by Oscar-winning filmmaker Barbara Kopple, "Desert One." It includes never-before-heard conversations between President Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. "Jerry Boykin lead us in prayer and then I led us in singing 'God Bless America,' and off we went." Beckwith gave us a pep talk," Burruss recalled.
Jerry Boykin was one of his squad leaders, and Bucky Burruss was his deputy. "You either loved him or you hated him – and sometimes you did both on the same day," Ishimoto said.īeckwith and his force of 123 men took off from an isolated airstrip in Egypt. The hostage rescue team was led by a charismatic Army colonel, "Charging Charlie" Beckwith.
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