Operation “Prairie Fire”
23-27 MARCH 1986
OPERATION “PRAIRIE FIRE”
After Muslim strongman COL Muammar al-Kadhafi overthrew the monarchy in Libya in 1969, he began agitating against two perceived enemies, the US and Israel. He defiantly and arbitrarily extended his territorial claims to include all the waters south of a line between the Libyan coastal cities of Benghazi and Tripoli. This “line of death” demarcated an area of the southern Mediterranean known as the Gulf of Sidra, a spot long favored by the US Navy for maneuvers as it was removed from commercial shipping lanes. Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter, occupied with other world matters, chose not to press the issue and moved 6th FLEET operations elsewhere. But Kadhafi’s irritations continued over the years with his fanatic rhetoric, his growing bond with Moscow, and his sponsorship of worldwide terrorism.
Then in 1981, an angry President Reagan reversed the US posture. He severed relations with Libya on May 6th, then sent RADM James Service’s 6th FLEET on a Freedom of Navigation exercise into the contested Gulf. Libya lost two Su-22 “Fitter” fighters to US Navy F-14s in the ensuing confrontation. The next five years saw no change in Kadhafi’s machinations, and in 1986 the Joint Chiefs of Staff drafted a retaliatory plan called “Attain Document” which scripted an escalating series of wake-up calls to Kadhafi. The first step, Operation “Prairie Fire,” involved an airstrike against Libya’s anti-aircraft defenses. On this day “Prairie Fire” commenced when Tomcats from the combined AMERICA (CV-66), SARATOGA (CV-60), and CORAL SEA (CV-43) battle groups crossed the “line of death.” They were followed the next morning by a surface action group comprised of the Aegis cruiser TICONDEROGA (CG-47) and the destroyers CARON (DD-970) and SCOTT (DDG-995).
On two occasions the first day Kadhafi fired Soviet SA-2 and SA-5 surface-to-air missiles at American aircraft, all at too great a range. The same day two A-6E Intruders from AMERICA sank a Libyan La Combatante-class corvette as it approached the surface action group. And by nightfall this day, US units were positioned to strike Kadhafi’s coastal missile batteries near Syrte. In an orchestrated attack, CDR Robert Brodsky and his wingman led an A-7 Corsair sortie from SARATOGA toward the Libyan coast. Below, a pair of A-7s from CORAL SEA, led by CDR Byron Duff, skimmed at wavetop level twenty miles off the Libyan coast. When Syrte’s target acquisition radar lit-up Brodsky, the unseen Corsairs on the deck struck with a pair of AGM-88 HARMs. In the days that followed A-6Es attacked two other corvettes until, having temporarily repudiated Kadhafi’s territorial claims, US forces departed the contested waters on the 27th.
Watch for a related story, APR 15
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Love, Robert W. History of the US Navy, Vol 2 1942-1991. Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, PA, pp. 730-32, 755-64, 1992.
Stanik, Joseph T. El Dorado Canyon: Reagan’s Undeclared War with Qaddafi. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2003, pp. 52-56.
Sweetman, Jack. American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3rd ed. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, pp. 253-54.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: An airbase outside Tripoli was used during WWII and the years preceding by the Italian, German, and British air forces. On 15 April 1945 the US Army Air Corps formally adopted the base, naming it for 1st LT Richard E. Wheelus, a USAAC pilot killed moments after takeoff from Abadan airbase in Iran on 18 February 1945 when the rudder of his Curtiss C-46 “Commando” jammed, nose-diving the plane into the ground. At one time the 20-square-mile Wheelus AFB was our largest overseas base, housing the largest OCONUS Navy hospital. A 1960s agreement with then King Idris I of Libya allowed the US to surrender the base. Kadhafi overthrew King Idris in 1969, although it did not derail US plans to abandon the base. Today the facility is operated by the Libyans as Mitiga International Airport.
