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Desert Shield/Storm

In the liberation of Kuwait it showed the world its great power and professionalism, the Navy's air, land and sea forces pounded the enemy while maintaining complete control of the sea.

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) transits the Suez Canal en route to the Mediterranean Sea, 22 August 1990, following a deployment in support of Operation Desert Shield.

After the world's fourth largest army poured across the border into Kuwait on 2 August 1990, the United States deployed a major joint force which served as the foundation for a powerful 33-nation military coalition to stem Iraq's brutal aggression. The United States Navy provided the sea control and maritime superiority which paved the way for the introduction of U.S. and allied air and ground forces, and offered strong leadership for the multinational naval force.

At the time of the invasion, the Navy was already on station in the region. The ships of Joint Task Force Middle East, a legacy of U.S. Navy presence in the Persian Gulf since 1949, were immediately placed on alert. Battle groups led by USS Independence (CV 62) and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) sped from the Indian Ocean and Eastern Mediterranean to take up positions in the Gulf of Oman and Red Sea, respectively--ready to commence sustained combat operations on arrival.

When President Bush ordered the deployment of troops and equipment to defend Saudi Arabia, long-established maritime superiority facilitated the largest, fastest strategic sealift in history, with more than 240 ships carrying more than 18.3 billion pounds of equipment and supplies to sustain the forces of Desert Shield/Storm. Maritime superiority also allowed allied naval forces to implement and sustain United Nations trade sanctions against Iraq immediately after they were imposed severing Saddam Hussein's economic lifeline.

Low-key but close military ties with friendly Arab states, developed during 40 plus-years of naval operations in the region, helped pave the way for the quick introduction of U.S. ground and air forces into Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. When U.S. Marines began arriving in Saudi Arabia, their supplies and equipment were close at hand. Maritime Prepositioning Ships based at Diego Garcia and Guam carried enough tanks, artillery and ammunition to sustain the Marines for 30 days. The MPS ships' proximity to the theater of operations allowed Marines to begin marrying up with their supplies in Saudi Arabia less than two weeks after the invasion of Kuwait.

Under the Navy's Total Force concept more than 21,000 naval reservists were called to active duty in support of Desert Shield/Storm. Serving in specialties from medicine to mine warfare, reservists worked alongside their active duty counterparts in the Persian Gulf. Others filled critical vacancies on the home front.

Saddam Hussein's rejection of diplomatic efforts to solve the crisis led to the final decision to restore Kuwait's sovereignty by military force. The ensuing air war and the effects of the economic embargo decimated Iraq's military infrastructure, severed communication and supply lines, smashed weapons arsenals, and destroyed morale. Some of the flrst shots fired were from Navy ships in the PersianGulf and Red Sea, as they launched salvos of Tomahawk cruise missiles against pre-programmed targets in Iraq.

After an impressive 38-day air campaign, the ground offensive began with allied forces sweeping through Iraqi defenses in blitzkrieg fashion. The allied push into Kuwait and southern Iraq was made easier by the amphibious forces on station in the Persian Gulf. The threat they posed forced tens of thousands of Iraqi troops to maintain positions along the Kuwaiti coastline to defend against attack from the sea. The Iraqi army was crushed after a mere 100 hours. Iraqi troops--tired, hungry and war-weary from six months of economic blockade and more than a month of relentless allied bombing--surrendered by the thousands. Less than seven months after the Iraqi invasion, Kuwait was once again free.

Desert Shield/Storm brought together the largest force of Navy warships assembled in a single theater since World War II, adding a powerful punch to Navy forces already onscene the night of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia are familiar territory to the United States Navy. U.S. naval forces have been operating in the region since 1801 and have maintained a continuous presence there for over 40 years. It is likely that Navy ships will continue to represent and protect U.S. interests in the region for the foreseeable future.

The American response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the threat against Saudi Arabia was a logical extension of the United States' post World War II Persian Gulf policy. Saudi Arabia, with its enormous petroleum reserves, has long had a special relationship with the United States, symbolized by President Franklin Roosevelt's meeting with King Ibn Saud in February 1945. The present Saudi monarch, King Fahd, recalled that meeting when he met with Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney in Jidda on 6 August 1990. Planning for the huge air base at Dhahran, which figured so prominently in Desert Shield/Storm, began in 1944 and continued after the war as a symbol of American commitment to the Saudi monarchy. The U.S. Navy has maintained a permanent presence in the Gulf since the establishment of the Middle East Force in 1949.

Navy presence was embodied in the "little white fleet" of USS Duxbury Bay (AVP 38), USS Greenwich Bay (AVP 41) and USS Valcour (AVP 55)--former seaplane tenders--which rotated duties as flagship for Commander Middle East Force and his staff. All three ships were painted white to counter the region's extreme heat. The flagship served as the primary protocol platform of the United States throughout the region. Accompanied by one or two other rotationally deployed warships, the Middle East Force (MIDEASTFOR) provided the initial U.S. military response to any crisis in the region, as well as humanitarian and emergency assistance.

For the next 20 years, three or four ships at a time were assigned to MIDEASTFOR -generally a command ship and two or three small combatants such as destroyers or frigates. Because temperatures in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and Indian Ocean reached as high as 130 degrees, the non-air-conditioned ships rotated every few months ---a practice still followed today, with the exception of the single forward-deployed command ship.

American political involvement in the Persian Gulf after the end of World War II deepened with successive crises. For three decades we depended on others to provide for the defense of the region. The United States flrst looked to the British, who withdrew from the Gulf in the late 1960s. In the 1970s we turned to Iran and Saudi Arabia to act as "twin pillars" in the region. When Bahrain became a sovereign state in 1971, the U.S. Navy worked out an agreement to take over piers, radio transmitters, warehouses, and other facilities left vacant by the departing British. USS La Salle (AGF 3), an amphibious transport ship converted for Gulf duty, began to serve as the permanent MIDEASTFOR flagship 24 August 1972.

La Salle became a familiar site in the Middle East. La Salle and the small MIDEASTFOR's peacetime mission has focused on building good relations--"showing the flag" to generate goodwill and promote mutual understanding, while providing a counterweight to aggressive Soviet Navy expansion in the region.

After the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979, the United States assumed greater responsibility for the security of the Gulf. During the 1979-1981 Iranian hostage crisis, nearly 30 Navy ships were on constant patrol in the region, including one carrier battle group in the Indian Ocean or North Arabian Sea. In April 1980, the USS Nimitz (CVN 68) battlegroup served as a jumping off point for the jointservice rescue attempt of the 52 American hostages. In 1980, the Carter Doctrine declared the Persian Gulf region to be a "vital" interest to the United States--one for which we were willing to fight. Events in the Middle East convinced President Carter that the United States required a means of rapid response to regional crises. In October 1980, a new unifled Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) was created to meet that need. The RDE later evolved into Central Command, which marked the beginning of the capability to move large military forces into the Persian Gulf, the sine quo non of Desert Shield/Storm.

The political situation in Southwest Asia continued to deteriorate. After 10 months of intermittent skirmishes over the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, Iraq attacked Iran in September 1980, launching a war that would last eight years. By 1982, more than 100,000 people had died. The war was costing each side $1 billion a month and devastated both countries' oil industries. In the so-called "tanker war", both belligerents launched attacks on neutral merchant vessels transiting the Gulf, prompting several Gulf states to seek protection from foreign navies.

On 1 November 1986, Kuwait, a nonbelligerent, announced it would seek international protection for its ships. On 7 March 1987, the United States offered to reflag 11 Kuwaiti tankers and provide U.S. Navy protection. Kuwait accepted. On 17 May 1987, an Iraqi attack aircraft fired two Exocet missiles, killing 37 sailors and wounding 21 others aboard USS Stark (FFG 31). Iraq apologized, claiming "pilot error."

American units had already found a dozen mines in Persian Gulf shipping lanes when the Navy began escorting re-flagged Kuwaiti tankers during Operation EARNEST WILL in July 1987. During the very first escort mission, a mine ripped into the re-flagged supertanker Bridgeton. That first month, three tankers hit mines and minesweeping operations by Navy helicopters began.

Later that summer, U.S. forces captured the Iranian minelayer Iran Ajr while it was deploying mines in international shipping lanes andU.S. helicopters repelled an attack by Iranian speedboats. In October 1987, U.S. surface forces destroyed an armed Iranian oil complex in retaliation for an Iranian missile attack on a U.S.-flagged tanker.

On 14April 1988, watchstanders aboard USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) sighted three mines floating approximately one-half mile from the ship. Twenty minutes after the first sighting, as Samuel B. Roberts was backing clear of the minefleld, she struck a submerged mine nearly ripping the warship in half. Working feverishly for seven hours, the crew stabilized the ship. Samuel B. Roberts was sent back to the United States for repair and later returned to the region to serve with the Maritime Interception Force during DESERT SHIELD.

Three days after the mine blast, forces of the now-Joint Task Force Middle East executed the American response --Operation PRAYING MANTIS. Durlng a two-day period, the Navy, Marine Corps, Army and Air Force units of Joint Task Force Middle East destroyed two oil platforms being used by Iran to coordinate attacks on merchant shipping, sank or destroyed three Iranian warships and neutralized at least six Iranian speedboats. The success of PRAYING MANTIS--and broad-based allied naval cooperation during Operation EARNEST WILL --proved the value of joint and combined operations in the Gulf and paved the way for the massive joint/ coalition effort during Desert Shield/Storm.

It was during these operations that USS Vincennes (CG 49) shot down an Iranian commercial airliner after mistaking it for an Iranian F-14. Within two months, Iran and Iraq reached a fragile agreement to end hostilies.

At the height of the Iran-Iraq war, MIDEASTFOR was composed of 12 or more ships. That force, along with mine countermeasures teams, special warfare units, and rotating carrier battle groups deployed to the North Arabian Sea, made up America's largest deployed naval force since the Vietnam era. The Navy's Administrative Support Unit contingent in Bahrain grew to over 800 personnel. By the end of 1989, however, U.S. Navy presence in the Gulf had drawn down to the normal flagship and four or five other ships, monitoring the again-busy transit lanes. That force was often augmented by a carrier battle group in the Indian Ocean.

The Navy benefited from years of experience in the harsh operating environment of the Middle East, and the requirement to conduct those operations independent of major support bases. With no permanent U.S. bases in the area, forward-deployed ships became increasingly important as the United States worked to demonstrate the continuity of American commitments and maintain stability in the region.

Department Of The Navy. Overview - The Role Of The Navy. Naval Historical Center. 24 April 2001.

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