First Fight: Special Tactics in Panama 1989

March 19, 2025

AIR COMMANDO JOURNAL: Volume 3 Issue 3 JUST CAUSE

First Fight: Special Tactics in Panama, 1989

Author: Forrest L. Marion

In 1903, a treaty between the United States and Panama gave the US the right to build a long-sought canal and to control a ten-mile wide swath of land along the canal’s fifty-mile length. An engineering marvel, the Panama Canal opened in 1914. In 1981, Panama’s leader, Omar Torrijos, died, and in his place, Manuel Noriega, an intelligence chief with ties to the United States, emerged as the new military dictator in Panama. Four years later, the murder of a political opponent of Noriega’s chilled US-Panamanian relations. An anti-Noriega political movement was spawned in Panama, and US political sentiment turned against Noriega. In 1988, two US federal grand juries indicted Noriega on charges of drug trafficking, and the United States initiated economic sanctions against his regime. A month later, a coup attempt to oust Noriega failed. Meanwhile, his Panama Defense Forces (PDF) stepped up their arbitrary harassment against US military members and their dependents. Following the May 1989 presidential election in Panama in which Noriega’s handpicked candidate lost in a land-slide, Noriega invalidated the election and encouraged the PDF’s brutality against anti-Noriega protestors. In response to the fraud and violence and another incident in which a US sailor was beaten and robbed, US President George H.W. Bush ordered an additional 1,900 military personnel to Panama as a means to increase security at US installations.

Thus began Operation Nimrod Dancer, a show-of-force measure that the Bush administration also intended to bolster security for US personnel and facilities in Panama. Over the next several months, units deployed to Panama for training and exercises in accordance with agreements between the two countries. By December 1989 most of the forces that eventually participated in Operation Just Cause actually had entered Panama under the auspices of Nimrod Dancer, and many personnel had already familiarized themselves with the travel routes, objectives, and PDF forces they would oppose during the operation. The US also managed to deploy to Panama, either under Nimrod Dancer or surreptitiously, a number of aircraft that later conducted operations during Just Cause. Those included AH–64, MH–6/AH–6, MH–53J, and MH–60 helicopters and AC–130 gunships.

At the end of September, Gen Maxwell Thurman took command of US Southern Command. Days later, after another attempted coup against Noriega failed, a US military operation seemed the only recourse remaining. On 15 December, Noriega arbitrarily declared “a state of war” to exist between Panama and the United States. The following evening a US Marine Corps lieutenant was killed by PDF guards at a roadblock in Panama City. On the afternoon of 17 December, President Bush met with his national security team. Judging that the discipline and control of the PDF seemed to be disintegrating, thereby threatening American lives, the President ordered the execution of a military operation in Panama to accomplish four objectives, “to safeguard the lives of Americans, to defend democracy in Panama, to combat drug trafficking, and to protect the integrity of the Panama Canal treaty.” Later, he added one more directive: Manuel Noriega’s apprehension and extradition to the United States to face federal drug trafficking charges. The overall operation was “Just Cause.”

In the period September–October 1989, operational planning transitioned from US Army South, US Southern Command’s Army component, to the XVIII Airborne Corps, and the lead assault element shifted from the 7th Infantry Division (Light) to the 82d Airborne Division. As of fall 1989, the concept for Panama was that any military incursion would have to be swift enough to prevent insurgents from dispersing into the jungles to organize a meaningful opposition; hence, the 82d’s lead role. At the same time, planners boosted the role of special operations elements for Panama. Their numbers included Air Force Special Tactics teams of combat controllers (CCTs) and pararescuemen (PJs). While the CCTs belonged to the 1724th Special Tactics Squadron (1724 STS) and 1723d Combat Control Squadron (1723 CCS), the Special Tactics PJs belonged to the 1724th STS or 1730th Pararescue Squadron (1730 PRS). All three squadrons were subordinate to the 1720th Special Tactics Group based at Hurlburt Field, Florida, the US Air Force’s only special tactics group at that time.

Military planners had devised a Joint Task Force South (JTF South) for the operation to be conducted under the auspices of General Thurman’s Southern Command. Thurman selected the XVIII Airborne Corps Commander, Lt Gen Carl Stiner, to command the JTF. The 1st, 2d, and 3d battalions of the 75th Ranger Regiment and the 82d Airborne Division comprised the core of Stiner’s ground forces. Under JTF South, initial phase operations were to be conducted by six maneuver task forces (TFs), one of which was TF Red. The three Ranger battalions comprised the bulk of Red’s initial forces, whose mission was to fly from their bases in the United States and jump into the Torrijos-Tocumen and Rio Hato airfields. Torrijos-Tocumen was both an international civil airport and a military airfield, located just east of Panama City. The PDF’s 1st Infantry Company was based there. Rio Hato was a strictly military airfield situated some fifty miles west of the city and was home to the PDF’s 6th and 7th rifle companies. At Torrijos-Tocumen, the 1st Ranger Battalion and one company of 3rd Rangers would jump into the airfield at H–hour, set for 0100 local, 20 December. At Rio Hato, the remainder of the 3d Ranger Battalion and the 2d Rangers expected to ‘hit the silk’ at 0104 hours. About fifty-five minutes after H–hour, “Task Force Pacific” consisting mainly of 82d Airborne troopers plus heavy equipment including Sheridan light tanks, would be dropped at Torrijos-Tocumen. Because the Panamanians could not challenge US control of the air except for a limited ground-based anti-aircraft capability, planners assigned slow-moving US Army helicopters and USAF AC–130 gunships with the primary ground attack role from the air.

The US plan called for twenty-seven key targets to be struck or secured on the opening night, about one-half of them simultaneously, the rest within hours. The top priority, charged to TF Black, was Manuel Noriega himself. As the 1724 STS commander, Major Craig F. Brotchie, expressed, the “one criteri[on] for success in the Panama mission was getting Noriega.” Expecting that special operators would ‘bag’ him on the first night, military planners envisioned the PDF would acknowledge the fait accompli and quickly surrender. Aside from several fratricide incidents, Noriega’s ability to elude capture for several days was the most disconcerting aspect of the entire operation. The second most critical objective for TF Black was the rescue of a US citizen, Kurt Muse, who had been imprisoned for running an anti-Noriega radio station. Muse’s daring rescue from Panama City by Special Forces operators constituted the first successful hostage rescue by the Army’s counterterrorist/hostage-rescue force.

CCT/PJ members who made the combat jump into Torrijos-Tocumen International Airport. Pictured left to right (kneeling): Capt John Koren, TSgt Ray Cooper, TSgt Lucky Cook, SSgt Fred Wulff, TSgt Duane Stanton, MSgt Scott Fales and SSgt Steve Borbee. Left to right (standing): SSgt Stan Braxton, *TSgt Jim Lyons, SSgt Steve Cast, SSgt Joel Getzug, TSgt Harvey Perriott, *MSgt Tim Brown, SSgt Dave Holcomb, SSgt Dan Rivera, SSgt Chuck Hibbard and *TSgt Rick Caffee. Missing from photo. SrA Paul Lawrenz, MSgt Ed Lundberg, TSgt Dave Pickering, SSgt Adam Pope, TSgt John Scanlon and TSgt Ron Taylor. (*denotes second combat jump for three members who previously jumped into Grenada). Det. 6 members were Cooper, Fales, Lawrenz, Pickering, Pope and Stanton.

One little known but significant incident on the opening night concerned the marking of the Torrijos- Tocumen Airport by Special Tactics members to ensure the air assault’s success in the event of bad weather. As Brotchie recalled, his view on the eve of the operation was that one of the few ways “this thing can fail is to not have the [Torrijos]-Tocumen Airport.” But what if fog or low clouds, common in Panama, made it impossible for the lead transport aircraft to identify the drop zone? Brotchie’s combat controllers devised a plan for placing an electronic marker at the drop zone (DZ) prior to the arrival of the first aircraft carrying the Rangers.

Their plan called for two MH–6 “Little Birds” to airlift relatively large all-weather navigational beacons to be emplaced at the DZ fifteen minutes prior to H-hour. Based on a successful rehearsal, Brotchie received approval for the DZ markers to be emplaced by Little Birds flying out of nearby Howard AFB. At H-hour minus twelve minutes, a four-man team led by TSgt Robert Kinder and including SSgt Bradley Baxter, TSgt Robert Martens, and a pararescueman, SSgt Ishmael Antonio, placed two TPN–27 zone markers at the approach end of the intended runway. The Ranger-laden C–141s were able to enter the markers’ exact location into their computers, and had the weather been marginal they could have relied on the backup measure. At nearly the same time that Special Forces operators rescued Muse, just one block away special operations AC–130 gunships opened fire on the Comandancia, the PDF’s headquarters building.

On 19 December, as deploying troops gathered at several stateside installations, severe weather conditions threatened to delay the operation. In California, ground fog and heavy Christmas shopping traffic slowed the 7th Infantry Division’s travel from Fort Ord to its primary departure airfield at Travis AFB. More serious, however, was a sudden drop in temperature in North Carolina, turning rain into a dangerous ice storm at Pope AFB. Of 20 C–141s that flew into Pope, half experienced a takeoff delay of 3 hours due to the ice. Pope’s de-icing equipment could handle no more than six aircraft at a time. The Rangers and 82d Airborne paratroopers loaded their aircraft on schedule but then, wet and cold, had to sit until the de-icing process was completed.

A small number of Air Force combat controllers and pararescuemen were among those shivering on the flightline at Pope as part of TF Red’s forces. Captain John A. Koren served as liaison officer between the 1st Rangers and two dozen Special Tactics members under his command that would jump into Torrijos-Tocumen with the Rangers and control the airfield for the follow-on forces arriving an hour later. But when the scheduled C–130 somehow departed Pope AFB without his team, Koren and his men had to drive hurriedly to Savannah, Georgia, through the ice storm to catch up with their aircraft. The Special Tactics team at Torrijos-Tocumen, consisting of 14 combat controllers and 9 pararescuemen, plus 2 support personnel, was divided among the first 3 or 4 C–141s. Upon finally arriving over Panama, they jumped into the airfield from 500 feet.

Within about forty-five minutes the Rangers secured the airfield. Later that night, the Special Tactics team controlled the C–141s that dropped the 82d Airborne troopers. Despite the drop being made “right on the zone,” Col. John T. Carney, the 1720th commander, later wrote that a number of Army “vehicles, howitzers, and ammunition pallets landed in deep mud” near the runway. Some were unrecoverable. Ultimately, the de-icing delay at Pope contributed to the paratroopers’ aircraft arriving at Torrijos-Tocumen in several cells of between 2 and 16 C–141s, over a period of more than 3 hours that morning (20 December).

CCT/PJ members who made the combat jump into Rio Hato. Left to Right: TSgt Gary Lantrip, Sgt Jim Holloman, SSgt Gordy Tully, **TSgt Jerry Thomas, CMSgt Wayne Norrad, Maj Mike Longoria, Capt “Jeff” Schuldheiss, *CMSgt Mike Lampe, SSgt Chet Ebeling, TSgt “Carl” Casey, **SSgt Rex Frericks, MSgt Bernie Oder. Missing from photo: **SSgt Tim Ryan and SSgt John Thompson. (*denotes making their second combat jump, ** denotes pararescuemen).

MSgt Timothy C. Brown was one of the combat controllers who coordinated with Koren, and he served as the special tactics team leader on the Torrijos side of Torrijos-Tocumen. A Michigan native who after high school had worked in a central market in Detroit, Brown entered the Air Force in 1977 and initially served as an air traffic controller. He retrained into combat control in 1979. Since 1983 he had served with the elite Pope CCT unit that by 1989 was known as the 1724th STS. At the time of the Panama operation, Brown served as the squadron’s “Silver Team Lead.” He described the preparations for Panama and the initial phase of the operation thusly:

We had been rotating into and out of Panama for a year. Some of us had been in Panama over the years numerous times working surveys and with [Special Operations Command]. So . . . we knew the target very well. The special ops folks were all dropped where we were supposed to be. When we got to Torrijos-Tocumen, we established internal communications immediately. We . . . [set] up the runway and our equipment, navigational aids, and lights. We . . . helped the reconnaissance element set up that [had come] in on [MH–6] Little Birds.

Next to Brown on the lead aircraft was a 1724th pararescueman, MSgt Scott C. Fales. Although Fales was a PJ, he held a dual role as did many special operators. Initially upon landing at Torrijos- Tocumen, he emplaced a strobe and a radar transponder on the airfield before reverting to his primary job of providing medical assistance for combat casualties. In addition to providing immediate aid, pararescuemen controlled the helicopter landing zone (HLZ) at the joint casualty collection point (JCCP) using night vision goggles (NVGs), infrared chemical-lights, and communications with the tower. Fales personally treated several casualties from chemical burns and at least one soldier wounded by enemy fire, but the heat and humidity were responsible for most of the casualties he treated on 20 December. The morning sun was bright, the air humid, and temperatures pushed ninety degrees. Describing the scene that morning, Fales remarked, “Everyone was just passing out right and left from heat exhaustion. We had them stacked up … and [fellow PJ] TSgt Ray Cooper and I were just giving ‘IVs’ like they were going out of style.” A separate report mentioned up to ten “serious heat injury victims.”

Tim Brown and the rest of Silver Team, both CCTs and PJs, remained at Torrijos-Tocumen for about three days, handling the “string of airplanes” that arrived there. On 22 December, they relocated to nearby Howard AFB after being relieved by follow-on CCTs. Until redeploying around 6 Jan 1990, Silver Team’s combat controllers and PJs conducted a number of “small missions” including counter-drug work, rescue missions, and securing another airfield for the US Army’s use. Another 1724th squadron combat controller and future chief, TSgt James A. Lyons, participated in several missions in the mountainous northwestern part of the country looking for possible insurgents, arms caches, and encouraging locals to turn in weapons for cash.

For Air Force Special Tactics personnel, one of the biggest challenges was the simultaneous planned takedown by airborne forces, with CCT/PJ augmentation, of both the Torrijos-Tocumen Airport and the Rio Hato Military Base airfield. The nearby location of one of Noriega’s several residences was one reason for the latter airfield’s importance.

Although Panama’s weak military could not hope to stop the US incursion, a ‘worst-case scenario’ for the United States would have been for Noriega to have escaped from Panama—perhaps flying from Rio Hato’s airfield—to inspire a Panamanian insurgency from abroad. At Rio Hato, the Special Tactics mission was to assist in clearing the airfield of any obstacles, light the field for follow-on airland sorties, and provide air traffic control, satellite communications, and medical support as long as required or until relieved.

The Rangers’ 2d Battalion and most of the 3d Bn had been assigned to take down Rio Hato. CMSgt Wayne G. Norrad served as combat control advisor to the 3d Battalion’s commanding officer, Lt Col Joseph Hunt. Minutes after 0100 on 20 December, nearly 1,000 Rangers would parachute to the objective. Their opposition would be an estimated 500 Panamanian soldiers belonging to the PDF’s 6th and 7th rifle companies. Once matters were sorted out on the ground, Norrad would work out of the primary Tactical Operations Center (TOC), with Colonel Hunt. Accordingly, Norrad was to fly on the second aircraft into Rio Hato. He described the hours at Fort Benning on a rainy and cold afternoon leading up to the flight to Panama:

We made our initial manifest call at noon, the final manifest was 1315 [hours], parachute issue 1330. Col [William F.] Kernan . . . the regimental commander, delivered some inspiring words out on the flight line, and he and the chaplain led us in prayer. . . . We began rigging at 1415, had our jumpmaster inspection, and waited for movement to the aircraft. Given the expected heat and humidity in Panama, a number of the men had dressed lightly.
Yet in Georgia, it was cold and miserable out on the flightline. Prudently, someone decided to issue the paratroopers the old, green Army blankets affectionately known as “horse blankets,” which they wrapped around themselves while wearing their parachutes and waiting for some three hours to board the aircraft.

Finally, at 1802 hours, 19 Dec 1989, fifteen C–130s departed Fort Benning’s Lawson Army Airfield for the seven-hour flight to Panama. Trained in Special Operations, Low Level, the pilots flew what one veteran expressed as a “miserable low level,” mostly over water. With a parachute on, and more than sixty men rigged for combat, Norrad remembered it was anything but comfortable, especially after hydrating oneself prior to the flight and without an adequate means of relief.
As Norrad’s aircraft neared the Panamanian coast about thirty minutes from the drop, his thoughts turned to the “young troops” and their mission. For most of them, “this was their first taste of combat.” One of those untested in combat, SSgt. Chet Ebeling, recalled the final minutes before the jump:

The aircrew opened the door at three minutes out; all I could see was water. I had the job of getting the bike bundle in the door so that I could push it out and follow it on the green light. The aircrew called 1 minute warning; I could see the beach, some houses along the beach, and fishing boats out in the water. Just as I positioned the bike bundle in the door the aircrew passed back [the 10 second] warning. The green light came on; I pushed the bundle out the door and followed it out.

On the Rio Hato airfield seizure, 15 Special Tactics men jumped with the Rangers: 11 combat controllers and 4 PJs. All but one CCT member was in the 1723d CCS. Three pararescuemen were assigned to the 1724th STS and one from Detachment 2, 1730th PRS.

Ninety seconds after H–hour, an AC–130H gunship appeared over Rio Hato. Capt Mark Transue’s crew was allowed just two-and-a-half minutes to prepare the drop zone before the sky would be filled with Rangers. Having been alerted, Noriega’s PDF was waiting. They had obstructed the airfield with vehicles and had manned Soviet-made ZPU–4 anti-aircraft guns. The captain’s crew destroyed one ZPU–4 with a direct hit from the plane’s 105–mm howitzer, but other anti-aircraft fire continued. At 0104, the Rangers hit the silk, the Hercules crews delivering them “exactly” on target, according to General Stiner. As parachutes descended, the AC–130 again employed its howitzer, destroying two Panamanian armored vehicles that had appeared. Small-arms fire continued in the vicinity, however.

Well before H-hour, Maj Michael A. Longoria and others wanted nothing more than to get out of their airplane to escape the heat, filth, and odor. Get out they did, but while “shuffling to the door,” at least one trooper fell inside the cabin. Weighted down with equipment, he couldn’t get up even with assistance. Chief Norrad, behind him in the “stick” of jumpers, climbed around the soldier as best he could in order to make the jump himself. Late in exiting the aircraft into the darkness from an altitude no higher than 500 feet, he was still struggling with one of the two equipment quick-releases when he hit the ground hard.

Once on the ground, Norrad “chambered a round,” got out of his parachute, and moved out. With the delay exiting the aircraft, he was several hundred yards away from the intended location. Meeting up with a group of Rangers along the way, and then encountering Major Longoria, they somehow became separated into several smaller groups. “Movement was slow due to some small arms fire and an occasional mortar round,” Norrad noted. Adding to the combat scene, an AC–130 blasted away at nearby PDF positions.

Joining Norrad was CMSgt Michael I. Lampe who served as the 1724 STS liaison with the 3d Battalion, 75th Rangers. Rather than follow the normal procedure of augmenting the 1724th with CCTs from Hurlburt’s 1723d CCS, Lampe’s squadron commander, Maj Brotchie, delegated the Rio Hato Special Tactics mission to the Hurlburt unit. Since Brotchie maintained overall responsibility for the CCT mission in Panama, he assigned Lampe to be his “eyes and ears” at Rio Hato. Furthermore, because the 1723d lacked pararescuemen at the time, Brotchie also assigned three of his squadron’s PJs to accompany Lampe at Rio Hato. The PJs provided a combat casualty collection point in the immediate vicinity of the drop zone.

In addition to his liaison role, Lampe doubled as an assistant jumpmaster on his C–130 aircraft and was one of the last to jump onto the Rio Hato drop zone. By the time his aircraft approached the DZ, the PDF had plotted the transport formation and adjusted their fire accordingly. The chief recalled his aircraft taking numerous small arms hits as it arrived over the zone.

As the Rangers secured the airfield, Capt Mark Transue repositioned his AC-130 to fly a wider orbit in case of approaching threats. Shortly thereafter, the Spectre destroyed a truck carrying PDF soldiers toward the fight and another ZPU–4 the Panamanians had moved into firing position near their barracks. Although intermittent firing in the area continued for another day, an Air Force historian noted that the AC–130’s display of firepower “marked the end of organized resistance at Rio Hato.”

Although casualties were light, they would have been worse without the presence of a small number of Special Tactics pararescuemen. One of several PJs who performed outstanding work in the early hours of the operation was SSgt Frank Medeiros. Assigned to the 1730th PRS, Medeiros was aboard the first aircraft to air-land at Rio Hato less than two hours after the Rangers jumped in. Upon his arrival, Medeiros’ teammates contacted him via the intra-team radio asking him to look for two injured soldiers on the northeast side of the runway. He located a Ranger with a compound tibia-fibula fracture and another with a fractured femur who had already lost a significant amount of blood. Medeiros began treatment of the second Ranger, the more serious of the two, and requested air transport.

Next, Medeiros was directed to the area of the runway north of the high-way, where he and another paramedic discovered five civilian casualties with multiple bullet wounds. Again calling for transport, they loaded the plane with the wounded as quickly as possible. Next came an urgent call to help a sucking chest wound victim. While under fire sporadically, Medeiros hydrated the patient and assisted a doctor with a chest tube procedure, then he and three other PJs moved on and found four seriously injured Rangers. While treating the wounded they again came under enemy fire, which killed one Ranger. Medeiros, wrote Col Carney, marshaled “helicopters into a landing site near the joint casualty collection point (JCCP), and his team loaded two litter patients and two ambulatory ones on an MH–60 while other critical casualties were put into a waiting C–130 and quickly flown out of Rio Hato.”

Exhausted, the PJs hydrated themselves with an intravenous saline solution for some quick energy. Resting for a bit, an hour later the PJs used a motorcycle and a recovery all-terrain vehicle (RATV) to reach yet another soldier suffering from a sucking chest wound. The PJs loaded the Ranger on their RATV and drove him and several other casualties to the joint casualty collection point (JCCP) where they were flown out. The RATV that pararescuemen used represented a significant, and creative, improvement over the handling of battlefield trauma in previous conflicts.
Military observers in Panama recognized that the RATV “filled a major gap” in the medical coverage of past conflicts. An after-action report stated the RATV “provided rapid transportation of large numbers of casualties” from casualty collection points to the JCCP and medevac aircraft.

By daylight on 20 December, the Rangers at Rio Hato had repositioned both the primary and alternate TOCs; the former to several buildings situated a short distance from the runway. For the next two days, Longoria and Special Tactics members at Rio Hato remained there, providing reliable communications for the Rangers. Others conducted various missions beginning with the top priority of locating Noriega. He remained at-large until the 24th when he sought refuge at the Papal Nunciature in Panama City. On 3 Jan 1990, he surrendered to US forces and was extradited to Homestead AFB, FL. Meanwhile, all 27 initial targets in Panama had been secured sometime after midnight on the night of 20 December.

By 23 December, Special Tactics personnel had relocated to Howard AFB where they linked up with locally-based combat controllers. Although organized resistance had all but ceased on the 20th, one attack occurred on the 23rd when Noriega loyalists attacked a Panamanian police facility near the US Southern Command headquarters at Quarry Heights.

The Special Tactics men remained in Panama over Christmas. Chief Norrad collected a few dollars from each teammate and went to the commissary to buy a 24 pound turkey and all the fixings. The men, both CCTs and PJs, enjoyed the dinner in the relative plush surroundings of one of Howard AFB’s recently-vacated base houses. Moreover, Norrad felt that feasting together brought an unplanned benefit in the bonding of combat controllers and pararescuemen. “The CCT/PJ bond was now in place. War and Christmas together!” he wrote.

The day after Christmas, the Hurlburt and Eglin CCT/PJ members joined a number of Navy SEAL passengers that returned stateside on a Military Airlift Command C–141 Starlifter. Arriving at Pope AFB, the Special Tactics members transferred to a waiting C–130 which flew them to Hurlburt Field. There they were met and welcomed home by the 23rd Air Force Commander, Maj Gen Thomas E. Eggers.
An Air Force historian, the late Eduard Mark, summarized the Panama operation thusly:

On the whole, the US Air Force and the other armed services carried out their responsibilities during Operation JUST CAUSE efficiently and according to plan. It detracts nothing from the accomplishment to observe that conditions . . . were uniquely favor- able—American forces were present in the country to be occupied, and . . . there was little about Panama that the United States did not know. Rarely indeed can an invasion be practiced on the very ground where it is to be executed. The local population generally favored the intervention, and the Panamanian armed forces had little stomach for hard fighting in Noriega’s dubious cause. The PDF was in any case a small and largely unprofessional force.

In contrast to their Panamanian adversaries, the small community of 1720th Special Tactics Group members, combat controllers, and pararescuemen demonstrated superb professionalism in their first fight since the joining together of the two career fields after the 1983 Grenada operation. A number of them jumped on the first night, when Panama became the objective of the largest airborne operation in roughly 40 years. Of about 3,700 US troops that jumped into Panama on the first night, almost 40 were combat controllers or PJs assigned to units belonging to the 1720th. Summarizing the role of the 1720th in Panama, Colonel Carney stated:

During Operation JUST CAUSE, special tactics personnel were attached and employed with all . . . maneuvering task forces. Their responsibilities ranged from beacon insertions to participating in parachute assaults where they provided air traffic control, established command and control communications, assisted gunship operations, directed marshalling, and FARP [forward air refueling point] operations. In addition, pararescue personnel established forward casualty collection points while providing emergency medical treatment on the airfields.

Carney, the first-ever combat controller promoted to full colonel while still serving in a CCT position, viewed Panama as “the high water mark” for Air Force Special Tactics up to 1989. It had been a long road, with significant improvements achieved since 1980 and particularly in the six years since Grenada.

About the Author: Forrest L. Marion graduated from the Virginia Military Institute with a BS degree in civil engineering. He earned an MA in history from the University of Alabama and a doctorate in United States history from the University of Tennessee. Since 1998, he has served as a historian at the Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. In 2009, he deployed in military status to Afghanistan, as historian for the 438th Air Expeditionary Wing, and in 2011, he deployed in civilian status to the same position. Commissioned in 1980, he retired from the USAF Reserve in May 2010. A complete version of this article appeared in Air Power History (Winter 2012).

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Tales of Pave Low: Operation Pokeweed, 1989

March 19, 2025

AIR COMMANDO JOURNAL: Volume 3 Issue 3 JUST CAUSE

Tales of Pave Low: Operation Pokeweed, 1989

Author: Darrel Whitcomb

Editor’s Note: For more on this and other related Pave Low history we recommend “On a Steel Horse I Ride: A History of the MH-53 Pave Low Helicopters in War and Peace” written by Darrel Whitcomb

Acting upon the orders of President Jimmy Carter, on 25 Apr 1980, a United States special operations task force entered Iran to rescue 53 hostages being held at the American Embassy in Teheran. They had been seized the previous November by radical supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini as his minions overthrew the Iranian government. This recovery force included eight RH-53Ds assigned to Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron 16 aboard the USS Nimitz and flown by USMC crews. They would land with a task force of Special Forces soldiers aboard several US Air Force M/EC-130s at an airstrip called “Desert One,” in a desolate area of Iran, where the soldiers would then board the helicopters for insertion into and extraction from several sites so that they could rescue the hostages. Unfortunately, after taking off from the Nimitz the crews encountered a severe sand storm which challenged them to their limits, and only six of the helicopters arrived at Desert One, where it was then determined that one machine had a serious maintenance problem and could not continue with the mission. The on-scene commander, Colonel Charlie Beckwith, knew that the operation needed to have an absolute minimum of six helicopters and aborted the mission. Unfortunately, as the helicopters refueled for their return flight to the Nimitz, one of them collided with one of the accompanying C-130s. In the ensuing chaos, eight troops were killed and five were wounded.

President Carter directed that another effort be prepared. Analysis of the Desert One debacle indicated that a specialized force of long-range, heavy-lift special operations helicopters was needed. US Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, General Robert Mathis responded, directing that nine HH-53H “Pave Low III” helicopters, recently modified to perform combat rescue in night and / or all-weather conditions, be reassigned from rescue duty to special operations with the 20th Special Operations Squadron (SOS) assigned to the 1st Special Operations Wing (SOW) at Hurlburt Field, FL. The aircraft were quickly flown to Hurlburt and hand-picked crews began training with them for participation in the second effort. However, the hostages were subsequently recovered through diplomatic efforts, obviating the mission. Regardless, the Pave Lows remained with the 20th SOS, developed and maintained their long-range, heavy-lift special operations capability, and became a key element in the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), activated in 1987.

Throughout the 1980s, the 20th trained rigorously, and its crews and support elements constantly deployed for training with other special operations forces (SOF). Its aircraft were also being constantly upgraded with improved communications, navigation equipment, and other enhancements. However, it was not until the summer of 1989 that the unit was called upon to use this capability on an operational mission. In support of our efforts against narco-terrorists in Central America, the 20th received a classified tasking in the Caribbean region designated Operation Pokeweed. The 20th SOS commander, Lt Col Gary Weikel, was ordered to generate four aircraft to fly to the USS Forrestal, which would be on-station at a specified set of coordinates at a specific time south of Jamaica. There those four aircraft would pick up a team of SEALs and fly it to Panama for an attempt to capture Pablo Escobar Gaviria, the Colombian drug lord from the Medellin cartel. Intelligence sources indicated that he would be traveling to an island hacienda off Panama’s Pacific coast.

The 20th had most of its aircraft and crews deployed to other locations, and Weikel had to work closely with his maintenance troops to get the required number of aircraft airborne. The plan called for a long overwater outbound leg to the Forrestal, with in-flight refueling provided by MC-130s at low altitude in bad weather; a landing aboard the ship to pick up the SEALs; a delivery leg; and a long flight home. Capt Joe Becker planned the mission, and Weikel led it. The 1st SOW commander, Col George Gray, was aboard one of the aircraft to witness his men in action. Capt Tom Trask was aboard as the copilot on the second aircraft with Capt Corby Martin, and Becker as a spare pilot.

The mission went well for the first three refuelings, but then the aircraft ran into a heavy line of thunderstorms that could not be avoided. The helicopters needed one more refueling to make the aircraft carrier and no safe alternate airfields were in range. The remaining MC-130 had only the right refueling hose working. To best avoid the weather, the pilot dropped down to 300 feet above the water. As the crews fought to hook up and receive their vital fuel, Trask remembers, “Lightning was going off everywhere; everyone’s got vertigo. It’s just black as . . . . You couldn’t see anything, even with goggles . . . except when the lightning bolts illuminated the sky.”

During this refueling, Trask was in the right seat, with Martin in the left. The weather was so rough that they fell off the boom several times. Martin and Trask swapped the controls about every 90 seconds because fighting the turbulence was so fatiguing. Martin remembered,

The second tanker had no left hose; … so it was right hose only. Tom Trask is in the right seat. He gets on the hose and says, “I’ve got vertigo.” I said, “Tom, hang on, buddy. You’re it. Just watch that wing,” because I needed to take the helicopter when we came off in order to keep us from going into the water. We had plenty of altitude. I said, “Just fly it. Watch the wing.” And he did; he stuck with it, watched the wing, got our gas, got off, and carried on. The visibility was bad; we were probably one or two discs off of lead. We had to fly a little low to keep him in sight.

Joe Becker came up and offered, several times, to swap seats with either pilot. Both refused because they did not want to have even a few seconds where two pilots were not in position to control the aircraft. Several other pilots also experienced severe vertigo and had to strictly discipline themselves to maintain full and thorough instrument crosschecks to control their aircraft. All they really knew was that they were flying to a set of coordinates in the midst of a large body of water; there they were supposed to find the Forrestal, which was proceeding to the designated position at over 35 knots.

There was a palpable sense of relief when they began to see the ship on their radars. Then they saw it through their goggles. The entire mission was taking place with the barest communications so that the possibility of detection was minimized. They could see that the carrier deck was clear, so the four helicopters landed on it, with Weikel putting his aircraft out on the angle deck. As they settled, no Navy personnel were visible. One of the Pave Low gunners jumped off of his helicopter and literally went over and banged on the deck door to the carrier island. Navy personnel then came out to secure the aircraft and instructed them to shut down their engines and come inside. The crews did so, logging 12.8 hours on the flight. The sailors were horrified to discover that one aircraft had landed on the angle deck, explaining that “nobody ever goes out there in the dark.” Weikel had no way of knowing that.

Weikel and his somewhat shaken airmen then joined the ship’s crew inside, only to be notified that the mission had been scrubbed when the intelligence sources reported that Escobar had not traveled as planned. Regardless, the Forrestal crew warmly welcomed the Pave Low guys aboard. In fact, Colonel Gray was personal friends with the ship’s captain because they had previously served together on the staff at US Atlantic Command. The captain told the assembled Pave Low crews that he thought the plan was absolutely crazy and expected that at least one Pave Low and possibly crew would be lost in the operation. The commander of the carrier air group then debriefed the Pave Low crews on the complete operational aspects of the mission. Joe Becker remembered:

The one-star admiral … came in and talked to us. He said that when he was briefed on the mission, he was absolutely certain that we were going to lose a helicopter, if not all four. He had strongly advised against it; didn’t think it was possible for a helicopter to fly that far and find a ship in the ocean and successfully get on to her. But he was impressed and we did it.

When the admiral had finished, the captain allowed Weikel to conduct a crew-only debrief. It was an astounding event. Deeply shaken by the experience, Trask felt that he could not do this job for a living, that it was much too scary, and that he was on the very edge of his capabilities. He just could not believe that Corby Martin could be sitting there so calm and cool throughout the mission, while he was so shaken. Trask assumed, too, that he was the only one who felt this way. The crew debrief was an epiphany. Trask recounts,

We get into the debrief, … in the ward room. They left us to do a crew debrief, and even Weikel, after everyone else had left, nothing but Pave Low pilots in the room, said, “Damn, that was the most scared I have ever been in my whole f—ing life!” Everyone kind of exploded with emotion about how rough that flight had been. Then I felt much better that at least I was not the only one who had been scared to death through that night.

The 1st SOW commander, Colonel Gray, also sat in on the debrief. However, he had a very different opinion. Sure, the flight had been rough, but they had made it, and he was ecstatic at their performance. Several years of hard training by the right crews matched with the right equipment had supplied the piece of the puzzle missing at Desert One – the MH-53s of the 20th SOS were now the validated long-range, heavy-lift special operations helicopter force for USSOCOM. It was a seminal event for the Pave Lows, and Gray sensed the signal importance of their accomplishment. Approaching Puerto Rico, the Pave Lows lifted and flew to Roosevelt Roads NAS. There Gray put the crew members up in a nice hotel for a few days so they could unwind before returning to Hurlburt. Just a few months later, those same crews and aircraft would be returning to Panama for Operation Just Cause.

About the Author: Darrel Whitcomb is the author of: The Rescue of Bat 21 (1998), Combat Search and Rescue in Desert Storm (2006), Call Sign – DUSTOFF: A History of US Army Aeromedical Evacuation from Conception to Hurricane Katrina (2011), and On a Steel Horse I Ride: A History of the MH-53 Pave Low Helicopters in War and Peace published in 2012 by the Air University Press. This excerpt and all others from: On a Steel Horse I ride: A History of the MH-53 Pave Low Helicopters in War and Peace by Darrel Whitcomb is used by the ACJ with permission.