Mike Grimm, Father of the Night Stalkers

Michael Grimm, Father of the Night Stalkers

Conventional wisdom in aviation history points to the tragic debacle at Desert One in Iran during the hostage rescue mission as the watershed moment that culminated in the formation of the US Special Forces Command (SOCOM). While I do think that the story of the failed 1980 Iranian hostage rescue mission should be held near and dear to every military leader of this nation, there was actually someone else who sounded the warning bells three years before that fateful day in 1980. His name is legendary amongst US special forces personnel to this day, but I'd bet hardly any of us enthusiasts had ever heard of his name- Mike Grimm.

Long before he would make his mark on the history of US special forces, Mike Grimm was already a decorated hero of the Vietnam War when as a second lieutenant in 1968, assumed command of his platoon and managed to fight off through the night two entire companies of Vietcong before they could be extracted by helicopter from the battle zone. He stayed on with the US Army after the end of US participation in the war in 1973, eventually becoming a helicopter pilot and stationed in Hawaii in 1975. But serving in Hawaii was boring for Grimm, when the most serious decision they ever had to make was whether he would fly clockwise or counter-clockwise around Oahu. In 1976, the world was electrified with the stunning Israeli raid at Entebbe, Uganda, to rescue the passengers of a hijacked Air France flight. In less than one hour, Israeli commandos stormed the Entebbe Airport, killed nearly all the terrorists, rescued nearly all the hostages and only losing one commando. And they also manged to destroy most of the MiGs of the Ugandan Air Force in the process.

Mike Grimm realized that the United States lacked the capability to do what the Israelis managed to do- project power over 2,000 miles into hostile territory and effect a hostage rescue with minimal losses. Austerity was the key word in the post-Vietnam defense budget and even training exercises were canceled to save money. Once he had become the Divisional operations officer in 1977, he decided to use the Division's entire budget for training on a single exercise. He called it an Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise (EDRE) and in the training scenario, his men and pilots would have to fly 200 miles to the island of Hawaii where a select group of soldiers playing terrorists were holding hostages. Grimm's men would have rescue those hostages with minimal losses. The tactics he developed for the exercise would be the blueprint for all future missions to come, even to this day.

Men from the First and Fifth Infantry Battalions at Schoefield Barracks on Oahu were selected to be the "raiders." Their helicopter element consisted of 10 Bell UH-1H Hueys and two Bell AH-1G Cobra gunships from A Company of the 25th Aviation Battalion. After an alert and planning period, the men and their helicopters flew from Schoefield Barracks to Hickam AFB to be loaded aboard USAF Lockheed C-141A Starlifters to simulate strategic deployment. The men were flown to Hilo Airport which would function as the "intermediate staging base" for the exercise. On 14 November they arrived in Hilo where the helicopters were readied for flight and they flew onward to Bradshaw AAF in the Pohaku Trainng Area in the center of Hawaii. This would be their "forward operating base" for the mission exercise.

The "hostages" were being held in the fire station of Waimea-Kohala Airport just 30 miles north of their forward operating base. The raid would be carried out at dawn as no night vision equipment was available. At ten miles from the target, the "terrorists" heard the team coming and "executed" the hostages. When Grimm's raiding force landed, they were wiped out to the last man.

The next day at Bradshaw AAF the After Action Review took place and everyone but Mike Grimm thought their Army careers were over when the Division commander, Lieutenant General Willard Scott arrived. He began the debriefing with the statement "This exercise was a really bad idea." As he continued for several minutes on the inappropriateness of using helicopter-borne infantry on anti-terror operations. "Our Army will never enter into this area. This is NOT our role."

At that moment, Mike Grimm stood up and interrupted his commander.

"Respectfully, sir, that is NOT correct." Here he was, a newly minted major, holding a two-star general to task. "Not only do we need to create this capability, sir, but if we don't, we are going to find ourselves at some point in our history embarrassed as a nation!"

Emblem of the 160th SOAR

Three years later, on the morning of 25 April 1980, in the Iranian desert, that embarrassment took place. The wrecks of five Marine RH-53D Sea Stallions and one USAF C-130 Hercules lay smoldering in the desert with the bodies of eight American servicemen. That year Mike Grimm was the commander of A Company of the 229th Aviation Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division where he was working with a handpicked group of men to transform the Hughes OH-6 "Loach" into what would become the MH-6/AH-6 "Little Bird" for night time special forces missions. On the night of 7 October 1981, Mike Grimm was flying one of the unit's MH-6s at low level over the Cumberland River when he hit the side of a power line tower and was killed instantly. One week later, in memorial to Mike Grimm, the new 160th Aviation Battalion uncased its colors. It was the birth of the Army Special Force's aviation element (Special Operations Aviation Regiment, or SOAR), the "Night Stalkers".

Source: The Night Stalkers: Top Secret Missions of the US Army's Special Operations Aviation Regiment by Michael J. Durant and Steven Hartov. GP Putnam and Sons, 2006, p33-64. Photos: US Army, Wikipedia

Credible Sport, the Super STOL Hercules

Following the disastrous failure at the Iranian Desert One rendezvous point of the Operation Eagle Claw hostage rescue mission on 24-25 April 1980, a second plan was drawn up immediately after the failed Delta Force mission to use a specially-modified Lockheed C-130 Hercules to land in the Amjadien Stadium across the street from the US Embassy at which point Special Forces teams would retrieve the hostages and then fly out of the soccer field in the center of the stadium. Under the project name Credible Sport, the crash program would produce a highly modified C-130 Hercules that could land and takeoff from a soccer field with 30-foot high obstacles at each end. Authorized by the Secretary of Defense, the top secret Lockheed project modified three C-130Hs- two would be modified to what was called the XFC-130H configuration within 90 days with the third aircraft to be used for testing the retrorocket packages that were to be installed on the Hercules to give it "super STOL" capability.

The aircraft were modified with fully-powered flight controls along with a 35% increase in the control surface areas. The flaps were modified to be double-slotted to increase their lift and the leading edge roots of the horizontal stabilizer were increased along with a corresponding increase in the leading edge dorsal root fin to provide more stability at low speeds. An extended nose section housed the additional avionics for the mission, the nose section coming from a DC-130 drone controller aircraft. The radar from a Vought A-7 Corsair II attack jet was housed in the extreme nose and an under-nose FLIR package would allow night operations. To provide flight path guidance on the approach into the stadium, a laser altimeter and laser range finder were also fitted. As the mission would be flown directly from the United States, the aircraft were modified with the inflight refueling receptacle from a Lockheed C-141 Starlifter. Five inflight refuelings would be needed to reach Tehran. The inflight refueling system reached back to the wings and was plumbed into the wing tanks. Under the fuselage just forward of the aft cargo ramp was an arresting hook- the plan called for the Credible Sport aircraft to recover on an aircraft carrier in case any hostages or personnel needed medical attention. 

The most extreme modification for the Credible Sport program were the battery of rockets that would give the aircraft its extreme STOL capability. For the landing, eight retrorockets were housed in pairs in sponson fairings on the forward fuselage. Another four rockets on each side of the fuselage were mounted by the main landing gear fairings and were pointed downward. It's believed that the downward rockets were from US Navy ASROC missiles and the retrorockets were from AGM-45 Shrike anti-radar missiles. On approach, speed would be maintained at 85 knots but at 85% engine power to remain at least 5 knots above the stall speed. At height of 50 feet, the downward firing rockets were activated by the navigator for 3 seconds to arrest the descent rate and at touch down, the eight retrorockets deployed out of their fairings and fired with a thrust of 80,000 lbs, bringing the Hercules to a rapid halt. 

For takeoff, four main RATO units that came from the Navy's Standard RIM-66 surface-to-air missile were mounted on each side of the aft fuselage. In addition, six smaller rocket units were installed in three pairs- one pair under each wing mounted on the fuel tank pylon and one pair under the tail unit. The tail unit rockets prevented over-rotation and the wing-mounted units were to provide yaw stabilization should the main RATO units not shut down simultaneously. The ten rocket motors for takeoff provided 180,000 lbs of thrust! This was approximately twenty times the power provided by the C-130's four T56 turboprops.

An amazing series of flight tests proved the concept with the first flight taking place on 18 September 1980, but one problem encountered was hot gas ingestion by the T56 turboprops from the retrorocket packages. Despite this, the modified Hercules could takeoff after a ground roll of only 100 feet and was already 300 feet high just 200 feet after lift off. It was an impressive feat considering that the C-130 itself is about 100 feet long. On 29 October 1980, one of the C-130Hs modified, 74-1683, was conducting a landing test when the downward firing rockets failed to ignite and two of the retrorockets fired prematurely followed by the rest of the retrorockets. This slowed the Hercules prematurely and a high descent rate resulted that caused a hard landing that broke off the right wing by tne number three engine. Quick action by the Eglin AFB fire crews prevented loss of life, but the aircraft was a complete loss. 

With $30 million spent and only two of the three C-130Hs modified, Credible Sport was canceled when the Iranian revolutionary government indicated a desire for a resolution to the crisis with the change in US administration with the November 4th elections that put Ronald Reagan into office. Of the two modified aircraft, 74-1683 and 74-1686, they received the designation YMC-130H. As 74-1683 was a total loss in the 29 October crash, 74-1686 was partially demodified and donated to the Museum of Aviation at Warner-Robbins, Georgia. The third aircraft, 74-2065, was returned to active service. 

This test footage shows how impressive Credible Sport was in action and it also shows in slow motion the crash on 29 October 1980:

Source: Military Aircraft Monthly, Volume 9 Issue 9. "Credible Sport" by Keith Peckover, p46-48.