Document Page: First | Prev | Next | All | Image | This Release | Search

											21
	(U) As dawn broke, all twelve of the 69th's aircraft reformed and headed back to A1 Minhad, here they landed at 0700 hours. During the debriefing, the 69th verified that not one squadron aircraft received any battle damage, despite at least one of the pilots mistakenly leaving on his formation and navigation lights. (24)
	(U) How did the LANTIRN system work during its baptism of fire?
According to Lt Col Harry Davis, "It worked very well, a good thing
to have... I can see the difference after eighteen years of aircraft
without the LANTIRN system and then I went to a system that... can
be devastating because it takes away the cover of night..." (25)
 		As 12 of the squadron s F-16s struck the 12th Armored Division's Headquarters, four of the 69th's aircraft attacked the Latifiya and A1 Musayibb missile plant.  Poor weather obscured the target and made visual assessment of the attack's effects impossible.  The 69th followed up the attack with two additional two-ship strikes, but as previously noted, the results were impossible to assess.   Each 
F-16 dropped two MK-84 bombs Of the 12 delivered against the target, four were considered good instrument drops.  By the end of the first day of Operation Desert Storm, the 69th completed 20 combat sorties. (26) 
SCUD FACTORY STRIKE
(U) The next day, 18 January 1991, Lt Col Robert M. Hylton, 69th Ops Officer led the 69th's element of a daylight strike against a  SCUD (a Soviet made surface-to-surface missile) factory thirty miles southeast of Baghdad. The 12 aircraft of the 69th were part of a forty-bomber package. Also supporting the strike were F-15's, EF-111's, and F-4G "Wild Weasels."

Document Page: First | Prev | Next | All | Image | This Release | Search