First Fight: Special Tactics in Panama 1989
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.

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).

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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Articles in ACJ Vol 3/3: Just Cause
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