By 1 October the Soviet Mediterranean Squadron had started returning to its normal pattern of operations with the seasonal transfer of ships and submarines to and from their Black Sea bases.
OPERATION FLAT PASS
The situation in the Mediterranean had stabilized, except for the remaining presence of a MASH in Jordan. This field hospital had been moved to a site near Amman, Jordan, during the early days of the Syrian crisis as a humanitarian gesture of U.S. friendship toward Jordan. However, in the absence of casualties with the ongoing withdrawal of the Syrian Army, the U.S. government wanted to bring out this exposed and undefended American unit of noncombatants, including nurses.
The MASH was located near Amman, where it could be extracted through the King Hussein International Airport by strategic airlift forces, using C-5 and C-141 aircraft. Commander in chief, U.S. Forces, Europe (CinCEur) in Germany was tasked by the JCS in Operation Flat Pass to carry out the evacuation, with Navy carriers providing air cover. The projected route of the aircraft, based in Germany, would be to fly out to the North Sea, through the English Channel, over the Bay of Biscay, through the Straits of Gibraltar, along the length of the Mediterranean, and then precisely along the Israeli-Egyptian border into Jordan. That meant the airlift would have to refuel at King Hussein Airport before returning. The airport was a single landing strip, nine thousand feet long and fairly narrow. Unfortunately, the situation in Jordan was still so unsettled that security at the airfield could not be guaranteed by friendly ground forces. The runway could be held, but interdiction from the surrounding area by rockets or mortar fire could not be prevented.
CinCEur was presented with the prospect of a stream of giant cargo planes arriving at King Hussein Airport and being unable to land because of a cratered runway, trucks blocking the landing strip or harassing fire from mortars or artillery. The arriving aircraft, unable to land, low on fuel, would have to divert to an alternative destination, an airfield with runways long enough and strong enough and adequately equipped to refuel a fleet of C-5s and C-141s. There was not such an airfield within the remaining range of the aircraft. CinCEur’s initial plan was to airlift troops into Jordan and establish an airhead at King Hussein Airport, sufficiently well equipped and properly situated, and set up a defensive perimeter of sufficient circumference to prevent interdiction of the airport by rockets or mortars. When the possibility of hostile use of field howitzers was considered, the size of the required perimeter became prohibitive. The initial estimate of one airborne brigade from Germany to ensure airfield security grew to a possible multidivision force. The security had to be airtight. There could be no chance of losing even one giant cargo aircraft to enemy fire, and the thought of the entire force having to divert and land at a proscribed airport and risk being impounded was equally unthinkable. At the height of this dilemma, it was reported that the CinCEur computer system had failed. Fortunately, planning for the MASH evacuation by the TF 60 staff had continued in parallel with the European Command (EuCom) effort, and when the CinCEur plans became uncertain, the JCS cancelled Operation Flat Pass and Commander, Task Force 60 was ordered to execute our own concept of operations, which the JCS had dubbed “Fig Hill.”
OPERATION FIG HILL
The Task Force 60 staff had been planning Fig Hill for about a week when the execute order came through. Working through the naval attaché at the U.S. embassy in Israel, a small group of Carrier Division 6 staff operations and intelligence officers was flown to Tel Aviv from the carrier in the USS Independence’s C-1 carrier transport aircraft (COD). By the terms of the agreement with the Israelis, all U.S. national markings on the COD were painted over and the crew and passengers wore civilian clothes. The U.S. naval officers met with Israeli Defense Force representatives and in a daylong meeting, arranged clearance for an overflight of Israel into Jordan by U.S. Marine helicopters from the Sixth Fleet Amphibious Force, which had been already prepositioned in international waters off the coast of Lebanon. The agreement was completely detailed, with routes, communication frequencies and necessary procedures to handle the most probable contingencies.
The actual evacuation was conducted on 24 and 25 September as soon as the plan of operation could be written and distributed and before the Israelis, Jordanians, or CinCEur could change their minds.
The Marine transport helicopters launched from the Guam and other ships of the Marine amphibious units off the coast of Israel, out of sight of any observers on shore. Following the prescribed flight path each way, the helicopters overflew Israel at its narrowest point at low altitude then headed directly for Amman over the West Bank.
On the first inbound trip, the helicopters carried a heavily armed contingent of Marines who established a defensive perimeter around the landing zone (LZ), which was next to the MASH site but away from the King Hussein Airport. With the LZ set up within the perimeter, the Marine helicopters lifted out the MASH people with most of their equipment. Some was left as a gift to the Jordanians. The Marine infantry remained behind to keep the LZ secure. The helicopters returned on a second cycle to pick up the Marine ground force, the LZ was collapsed, and the infantry returned to their amphibious force units. There were no casualties, and the MASH was fully evacuated with the exception of the pieces of medical support equipment that were transferred to the Jordanians. There was very little notice or publicity concerning the entire operation.
NAPLES
Following President Nixon’s visit, the Saratoga departed the Naples area and returned to TF 60 in the eastern Mediterranean. I transferred my flag from the Independence and rejoined the commander, Carrier Division 6 staff in the Saratoga. In early October, commander, Sixth Fleet scheduled a “hot washup”—a preliminary critique — of the recent Mideast operations, to be hosted by commander, Fleet Air, Mediterranean, the logistics commander for U.S. naval aviation in the Mediterranean. The Saratoga was operating off Cyprus, so I arranged to be flown to Naples in the right hand seat of an A-6 Intruder from the Saratoga air wing. That is the bombardier/navigator’s station, and I had to be checked out on the radar in the case we encountered foul weather.
The hot washup was a mandatory chore for me, but it would only last a half a day. So with things quiet in the eastern Mediterranean, I planned to take two days of leave and meet my wife and daughter in Naples. Dabney had arrived in Europe with our oldest child, Lucy, via space-available military passenger airlift to Germany on 10 September, intending to rendezvous with me in Barcelona. But when she arrived in Spain, I was gone. Then she met the ship in Naples, where the Saratoga had a week in port, and I wasn’t aboard. So this brief visit to Naples would be our only get-together the entire cruise, as Lucy was due back in school by mid-October.
I packed a ditty bag with a few civilian clothes, put on my flight suit, hard hat, and oxygen mask, climbed in the Intruder’s cockpit, and strapped myself in the bombardier/navigator (BN) seat. We taxied forward onto the catapult. The Intruder went “down” on the catapult due to low rpm in the starboard engine. Another A-6 had to be broken out and preflighted.