Combat Search and Rescue in Desert Storm

Modern combat aircraft are designed to fly fast, strike accurately and survive sophisticated enemy defences. Occasionally, despite the engineering, training and very expensive electronics, one ends up scattered across hostile territory with its pilot standing beside a parachute and wondering whether anybody knows precisely where he is. Combat Search and Rescue in Desert Storm examines what happened next during the 1991 Gulf War. Darrel D. Whitcomb traces the effort to locate and recover coalition aircrew shot down over Iraq and Kuwait. Combat search and rescue?CSAR to an institution naturally unable to rescue anybody until it has produced an abbreviation?is among the most dangerous and complicated forms of military operation. The survivor must evade capture, establish contact and identify his position while aircraft, helicopters, intelligence staff and command centres attempt to reach him without creating several additional people in need of rescue. The air campaign of Operation Desert Storm employed extraordinary technological and numerical superiority, but Whitcomb shows that the American system for recovering downed airmen was considerably less impressive. Budgetary decisions, organisational changes and competing service responsibilities had left the United States Air Force poorly prepared for the CSAR mission. Apparently it was possible to arrange thousands of sorties over one of the world?s most heavily defended regions before settling the comparatively modest question of who would collect anyone forced to leave an aircraft unexpectedly. The problem was not a lack of courage or capable machines. Helicopter crews, special operations personnel, fighter pilots, airborne controllers and rescue coordinators were all prepared to act. What they lacked was a single, thoroughly rehearsed system linking detection, command, authentication, escort and recovery. Everyone understood that rescuing downed aircrew was important; agreement became less immediate when the conversation reached who commanded it, who searched, who authorised the launch and how quickly information should pass between them. Whitcomb approaches the subject as both historian and experienced combat aviator. Drawing upon his own background in search-and-rescue operations in Southeast Asia, as well as scores of interviews, correspondence and official sources, he reconstructs individual Desert Storm incidents from beginning to end. Each episode becomes a practical examination of decisions made under pressure, when information was incomplete, enemy forces were nearby and delay could transform a rescue into a recovery?or into nothing at all. The book considers successful extractions, unsuccessful attempts and cases in which no rescue mission could be mounted. It follows the progress of downed aviators from the moment their aircraft were hit through ejection, evasion, radio contact and the response of coalition forces. Some were recovered; others were captured or killed. Military history frequently enjoys arrows moving decisively across maps, but a stranded pilot has the inconvenient habit of reducing grand strategy to one frightened human being waiting for a particular sound in the sky. Aircraft and crews from different services had to work together across an enormous operational theatre. Special operations helicopters offered the ability to penetrate hostile territory at low level, while fixed-wing aircraft could suppress enemy defences, provide cover and help locate survivors. Tankers, command aircraft and intelligence systems supported the effort behind them. A rescue mission might therefore require an airborne organisation of remarkable complexity merely to place one helicopter beside one person. Whitcomb also examines the equipment issued to aircrew and the training intended to prepare them for isolation. Radios, survival gear, authentication procedures and evasion skills could determine whether a rescue force found the correct person before Iraqi troops did. In a w.…