Osprey's US Navy Hornet Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Part One)
may be ordered  online from Squadron.com

Tony Holmes from Osprey Publishing has kindly supplied artwork and some preview text that will feature in the forthcoming Osprey Combat Aircraft volumes on Iranian F-14s in Combat and US Navy F-14 Tomcat Units of OIF

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

The first book in the OIF Hornet series is due out on 25 July, the Iranian book is due out in October and the F-14 OIF book in December.

Extract from US Navy Hornet Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Part One)

On the morning of 10 April 2003 Capt Mark Fox, Commander of CVW-2, launched from the deck of USS Constellation (CV-64) on his 12th Operation Iraqi Freedom sortie. Accompanied by his wingman, Lt Cdr Steve Cargill from VFA-137, he held south of Baghdad in F/A-18C BuNo 164698; ‘Flying as “Minx 11”, and tasked with providing Close Air Support (CAS), I checked in with the E-2 controller. Lt Cdr Cargill and I then started working down a list of frequencies in search of a Forward Air Controller (FAC) who might need our help. Finally, the E-2 controller told us to go and check in with “Diablo 69”, but I couldn’t raise him on the radio. I told the E-2 that we had no comms with “Diablo 69”, so he instructed us to head further south, giving us the FAC’s location – 85AS, Keypad 3. We then realised that he was down in An Najaf, about a hundred miles south of us.

‘We started driving south, and the controller informed us that our guy on the ground was using a weak hand-held radio, desperate for help. This did not sound good, as we had captured An Najaf weeks ago. We finally checked in with our contact, and it turned out that he was a GI trying to distribute humanitarian aid in the plaza outside the city’s Imam Ali Mosque. Dealing with desperate, starving people, he was facing a near riot. Assuring us there was no threat, he asked us to fly a series of high speed, low altitude passes to distract or disperse the crowd.

‘Skeptical of the FAC’s “no-threat” assessment, I was greatly concerned about AAA or MANPADS. Carefully scoping out the scene, and maintaining good mutual support, Lt Cdr Cargill and I came up with a gameplan – we’d swap roles, keeping one set of eyes looking for ground fire while the other made a high-speed flyby, always coming from a different direction.

‘We flew several passes over An Najaf, which looked like something out of the Bible – surrounded by desert plains and sat amongst palm trees on a tributary of the Euphrates River. Seemingly untouched by modern structures, there were lots of single-storey, dull brown buildings, and in the middle of them was this huge, gold-domed mosque.
‘I was looking at my gas gauge and my watch, thinking “how much time can I give this guy?”

On my first pass I was 100 ft above ground level at 500 knots, just about co-altitude with the mosque’s dome. I then rolled into a left “knife-edge”, using the dome as a “pylon”, Reno air races style, pulling about 5Gs. I stroked the afterburner for noise as I passed the city centre in the turn, popping chaff and flares and moving the jet around fairly aggressively.

‘Glancing down on the plaza as I rocked up on my wing in the turn, a snapshot freeze-frame image of a startled Iraqi boy looking up with his mouth in a perfect “O” and his eyes literally on stalks registered in my mind. He was standing with his mother on the corner of the square, diagonally across from the Imam Ali Mosque.

‘I smiled to myself and breathed a prayer: “Lord, please let that little guy grow up to be a pilot – he’ll never forget his first up-close glimpse of an aeroplane!”

‘“Diablo 69” seemed happy with our help, and he thanked us as we climbed away’ (Cover artwork by Mark Postlethwaite)

Thanks to Tony Holmes from Osprey Publishing for the preview text and images

US Navy Hornet Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Part 1) (Combat Aircraft 46)   Author: Tony Holmes Illustrator: Chris Davey Colour Profiles/Planforms: Jim Laurier US Price: $19.95 UK Price: £12.99 Publisher: Osprey Publishing Publish Date: July 25, 2004 Details: 96 pages; ISBN: 1841768014 Shop Buy it from Osprey Publishing

Text and Images Copyright © 2004 by Osprey Publishing
Page Created 25 May, 2004
Last updated 25 May, 2004

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