Battle of Persia, Air Force: Iran-Iraq War in the Air 1980-1988

By An Iranian
July 24, 2003
The Iranian

Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.
-Winston Churchill, August 20, 1940

63 years ago at this time, the British Royal Air Force was engaged in
a life and death struggle against Nazi Germany's air force, the
Luftwaffe. Hitler had taken all of continental Europe in the lightning
war campaign, known as the "Blitzkrieg". The Royal Air Force was badly
outnumbered by a factor of 3 to 1, and the US and the USSR would not
enter the war until a year later. The Nazis saw it as essential and
very manageable to defeat the Royal Air Force in order to capture the
last remaining country in Europe.

The fate of Britain and the non-Nazi world lie in the hands of the
pilots and groundcrew of the RAF Fighter Command. These airmen proved
the Nazi war planners wrong, and in the period of July to September of
1940, fought bravely and successfully against the Luftwaffe, resulting
in Hitler's decision to abandon the invasion of Britain, and his first
defeat.

"The Few", as they became known, consisted of 2927 pilots, almost half
of whom lost their lives. To this day, the Battle of Britain is
commemorated every year very solemnly by the British people, and is
considered one of the major events of British and world history.

Forty years later, Saddam's Iraq invaded Iran, which was in the midst
of revolutionary turmoil and a hostage crisis. I remember the day that
the Iraqi Air Force bombed and terrorized most of the major cities in
Iran, and Saddam's army crossed the border virtually unopposed and
captured dozens of cities thousands of square kilometers of Iran's
territory. The atrocities and looting committed by his troops have yet
to be punished or even apologized for.

While many brave Iranians resisted fierecely on the ground, there was
virtually no army or heavy weapons at that time standing in Saddam's
way as his tanks rolled in and tried to annex Khuzestan and rename it
"Arabistan". Like Hitler, Saddam needed a defeat of his enemy's air
force to secure victory. Like Hitler, Saddam vastly underestimated his
enemy. The air battle that followed was highly significant, and vastly
underreported. This air battle is what halted the Iraqi invasion in
its tracks, and spelled the beginning of defeat for Saddam's schemes.

The true and amazing story of this battle as well as the rest of the
air war is described in a new book by Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop:
Iran-Iraq War in the Air 1980-1988
<http://www.schifferbooks.com/military/aviationjetage/0764316699.html>
, published by Schiffer Books. This book is the result of 15 years of
research and many interviews with participants of this battle on both
sides.

We have heard very little about the Iranian Air Force and its role in
the defence of our country, and for good reason. The Iranian
government always wanted to downplay the role of this "American" and
"Imperial" and "Taghooti" infested force. The US never wanted to admit
the notion that a "thrid world terrorist" country (or the "ayatollah's
air force") could so effectively operate its most sophisticated
weaponry at the time despite lack of US support.

The French and Russians never wanted to admit that an "inoperable" and
"kaputt" air arm could shoot down so many of their most sophisticated
aircraft, it would just be bad marketing. Most of the history written
about this aspect of the war claims that most of Iran's air force was
grounded due to the lack of spare parts, desertion and execution of
pilots and other personnel, and departure of US technicians.

The truth however, was quite different. While clearly, Iran sufferred
from a lack of a constant supply of spare parts and ammunition, as
well as purging and politicizing of the armed forces, the Persian Air
Force put politics aside and fought bravely for its country.

There were cases of imprisoned pilots begging to be let out to fly
missions, and after flying 2 or 3 extremely dangerous missions, would
be shot down and killed. This was one of the greatest and most
dedicated team efforts in our history, where the aircrews and
groundcrews and other Air Force personnel worked and fought day and
night and went far beyond their call of duty to save our country.

While both sides lost many aircraft, most of Iran's losses were due to
flying extremely dangerous (virtually suicidal) precision strike
missions over heavily defended sites deep inside Iraq and above the
front lines at extremely low altitude to avoid detection by Iraq's
increasing radar coverage provided by the Europeans and Russians, as
well as US and Saudi AWACS support. This was necessary to slow and
ultimately stop the advance of the Iraqi army, and allow precious time
for Iran to regroup and reform its own ground forces with new command
structure to more directly confront the invaders.

The use of expensive fighter jets against tanks and other army
equipment is not a good use of military resources, but there was no
choice at the time. Meanwhile Iraq's missions were primarily low
precision cowardly attacks against population centers to intimidate
Iran into accepting defeat.

A few more interesting highlights about this part of the war:

- In air to air engagements, Iran's kill ratio was roughly 5:1, which
is only surpassed by the Israelis against Syria in 1982 and the US in
the Gulf war in 1991. Very often, air engagements consisted of 1-2
Iranian fighters engaging 4, or even 8 Iraqi fighters and winning. It
got to the point where Iraq ordered its pilots to avoid air to air
engagements (especially with the F-14), and actually had to import
mercenary pilots from Egypt, and even places like Belgium, South
Africa, and East Germany to fly the critical missions!

- In 1982, Iran launched a brilliantly planned and daring airstrike on
the H-3 airfield near the Jordanian border where the Iraqis thought
their aircraft were safe. They would find that they were wrong when 8
F-4s destroyed 48 Iraqi aircraft on the ground with complete surprise,
and all returned safely to Iran.

This mission was the largest destruction of enemy aircraft on the
ground after the 1967 Arab Israeli 6 day war, was one of the most
brilliant air assaults in history, and involved aerial refueling at an
altitude of less than 100 meters, violating about every safety rule
there is.

The flight from Iran to H-3 was longer and more risky than the flight
from Israel to Baghdad's Osirak reactor in 1981. 2 of the 8 pilots in
this raid were subsequently executed in a purge a few years later by
the Iranian government. Some of the remaining pilots eventually left
the country.

- Col Abbas Doran personally flew hundreds of missions over Iraq, and
was so dreaded that Saddam issued a bounty specifically for his head!
When he was finally shot down over a heavily defended Baghdad in 1982,
he stayed with his F-4 all the way down rather than become captured.

- The most accomplished F-14 aces in the world are Iranian, some of
which have 9 kills to their name, most of which were the most advanced
Soviet and French aircraft.

And unlike the RAF "Few", our "Few" had to do all this in the face of
a mistrusting government who could (and did) execute them and/or their
comrades, and in the face of shortages and embargoes, while Iraq was
fully supported and resupplied with the latest and greatest (sometimes
so new that it was yet to be tested) weaponry. Sadly, their sacrifice
has been mostly untold and unrecognized except by the few who know the
stories. That is why the original title of this book was "Forgotten
Warriors".

This was a painful chapter in our history, and since then, many of us
Iranians have moved on in our lives in a million different directions.
While I have described a small piece of the air war here, this
shouldn't detract in the least from the great sacrifices made on the
ground and at sea. I just thought that this story has been less told.
I feel that the Iran-Iraq War should be renamed the Arab-Iranian War,
since that is what it really was.

I also feel the air war should be called the "Battle of Persia". When
I read Churchill's quote, I cannot help but think of the Persian Air
Force. I don't know what your political leanings or your social
opinions or your visions of the future are, it doesn't matter. But I
think a nation is judged by many things, one of the most important of
which is how it honors its fallen and its great men and women
throughout its history.

I hope you will join me today in taking a moment to honor the often
forgotten Persian "Few", too many of whom never came home so that we
could. In my heart and in my mind, they are the modern day Ferdosi,
who saved us from a second Qadesiyeh.

The book can be found at:
http://www.schifferbooks.com/military/aviationjetage/0764316699.html

Some of the stories of the war can be found at:
http://iiaf.net/stories/warstories/warstories.html