Description During August-September 1989, America (CV 66) and Coral Sea (CV 43) operated off the coast of Lebanon following the Israeli capture of Sheik Obeid and the reported killing of Lieutenant Colonel William R. Higgins, USMC.
Ambassador John McCarthy and the entire staff of the U.S. Embassy here were evacuated by helicopter this morning after a day of angry, government-sanctioned anti-American demonstrations by hundreds of Lebanese Christians raised concerns that the diplomats might be taken hostage. {In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler accused Gen. Michel Aoun, military ruler of Christian Lebanon and organizer of the protests, of threatening to expose the U.S. diplomats to a "good dose of Christian terrorism." Details on Page A32.} Protesters at the embassy said they had intended to block entry to the building today and had contemplated cutting off water and supplies in what one called an effort "to give the Americans a taste of the blockade the Lebanese Christians have been subjected to by Syria." Aoun criticized the Americans' "precipitous departure" as "puzzling and petulant behavior" that "merely reflects the nature and conduct of the U.S. State Department's policy toward that part of Lebanon free of Syrian occupation." Aoun has sought full U.S. support for his six-month-old campaign to drive Syrian troops out of Lebanon, a campaign opposed by Lebanon's Moslems. The evacuation marks the first time in Lebanon's 14-year-old civil war that the United States has no diplomatic representation in the country. The embassy had remained functioning with skeleton staffs even through the most devastating terrorist attacks of 1983 and 1984, when suicide bombings destroyed embassy buildings and the U.S. Marine barracks, killing dozens of embassy staffers and 241 American servicemen. A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Nicosia, Cyprus, where McCarthy and 29 aides transferred from the rescue helicopters to a plane for a flight to West Germany, called the evacuation "temporary" and said it was "in response to deteriorating local circumstances which no longer permitted the embassy to function effectively," the Associated Press reported. At the Rhine-Main U.S. military base near Frankfurt, where the diplomats arrived late today for an overnight rest before leaving for the United States on Thursday, McCarthy told reporters that "as soon as those questions of security and safety can be resolved . . . it would be important for us to resume the work we were doing in Beirut. "It just seemed to me that in the last several days it was no longer possible for me to guarantee to Washington that the safety of my staff was secure, and it was for that reason that we left," McCarthy said. Despite Aoun's caustic remarks, the Lebanese Front, a coalition of Christian leaders, said it regretted the U.S. decision, and it appealed to Washington to reconsider. Sunni Moslem acting Prime Minister Selim Hoss, Aoun's rival for the country's leadership, declined to comment publicly on the move, but he had complained in an interview last week that McCarthy had not been to Moslem west Beirut to see him and hear his point of view. Lebanon's Moslems are allied with Syria in the fighting against the Iraqi-backed Christians, which has left more than 800 dead and 2,500 wounded in the past six months. Helicopters arrived at the heavily fortified American Embassy in the forested hills of the capital's Christian suburb of Oakar shortly after 7 a.m. and quickly removed the U.S. diplomats. All the U.S. Marine guards also were evacuated, leaving about 300 Lebanese guards behind. Several standing idly behind concertina wire after the evacuation said all they were told by the departing Americans was that their salaries would be paid as usual and that they would be informed two days ahead of time when to report back to work. Jibran Tueini, an organizer of the embassy demonstration, insisted that the operation was a peaceful one. Tueini, whose father, Ghassan Tueini, is a prominent Beirut newspaper publisher and a former ambassador to the United Nations, said no hostage-taking was intended and that the purpose of the siege was to push demands for U.S. recognition of Aoun's contested Christian government as the legitimate government of Lebanon. Tueini accused McCarthy of "trying to drive a wedge between the Lebanese" and said he will not be allowed to return to the embassy until he presents his diplomatic credentials to Aoun, thus conferring formal U.S. recognition. McCarthy arrived here a year ago as the Lebanese parliament failed to choose a successor to outgoing President Amin Gemayel, and the government split into rival Moslem and Christian factions. He has not presented his credentials to either side. Aides to Aoun said the general had been incensed by reports that McCarthy had been encouraging more moderate Lebanese legislators and other politicians to speak out against the "war of liberation" against Syria and that McCarthy saw Aoun's demands for a Syrian military withdrawal from Lebanon as "unrealistic." Syria has an estimated 40,000 troops in Lebanon after initially sending units there in 1976 as an Arab deterrent force in the Lebanese civil war. The United States has publicly criticized Syria for its heavy shelling of Christian neighborhoods and for refusing to negotiate with Aoun. Aoun, however, has called for stronger U.S. action against Syria. The current round of fighting, now in its sixth month, has taken a heavy toll among a population trying to survive amid the shelling and paralyzed economic activity. While Aoun's tactics are criticized by some upper-class segments of Christian society, few Christians oppose his nationalist goals. At the same time, irritation with the United States appears to be growing among Christians over what they see as American hesitation to press Damascus to lift its blockade of Christian ports and end its shelling of the Christian enclave. Observers here say that, with its embassy closed, Washington's ability to gather information on the complex conflict will be greatly diminished. The American Embassy's ability to communicate with the warring factions had already been limited by risks involving shelling and hostage-taking, which prohibited trips to the Syrian-controlled Moslem sector of Beirut.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
August / 1989
To Month/Year
September / 1989
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories We were deployed on the America CV-66 on a med/IO cruise. We ended up participating in a rescue mission in Lebanon, with the Coral Sea battle group & I believe the Iowa battle gr, we provided air support for the embassy rescue mission. We had just cleared the Suez & we were suppose to head too Turkey but we took a detour to the right. I was a T/S on the roof & we spent the night before prepping & loading the A/C for the missions.
As I said, we were suppose to go to Turkey but the Coral Sea ruined that for us. One of the Sailors from the crew mooned a statue of Turk & almost got hung by the mob of people that were going to do it.. Lucky for him the turkish police got him & saved him from certain death. The ship was told to leave and everyone else was told to find somewhere else to go. We ended up going to Toulon France and we got kicked out of there within 2 days. The Coral Sea was supposed to relieve us, so we could go home. But she got her decom letter, so instead of us off loading stuff to her, she off loaded her stuff to us! During that process a Russian destroyer was behind us. Every once in a while she would try to make a run between us. So we would close the gap and she would fall back, we would open up & she would try again. This went on a few times while the helos were doing their thing. Flight ops was suspended during this evolution, so a lot of people were on the roof of both ships. When we would close the gap a few hand gestures were passed back & forth between us Sailors, along with a lot of banter! They were laughing, but not too many of us were! Whenever we did an unrep our skipper would have the song Coming to America by Neil Diamond played on the 1MC, so that was playing. On that same deployment while we were in the I/O, Lt.Col Higgins (USMC) was hung. We were in Singapore for what was suppose to be a 5 or 7 day port call. On the 3rd day we were ordered back up the gulf to the area of the straits of Hurmuz off the coast of Iran and sat there for awhile waiting for the word to attack. Iran would send out A/C like a C-130 & our Tomcats would be right there with them. We sat off the coast loading & unloading A/C for missions that never happened. One evening I was sitting on the alert 5 bird with the pilot. He was showing me pics of the ships he was assigned to destroy. They were some of our old WWII destroyers. I asked if they were recent and he said yes. So we discussed the weapon systems they had and he asked why I knew so much about them, that I could have given him the intel brief. I told him about my grandfather and said that I have been on a few of them.
So on the 3rd day of our port call was when I got to get off the ship. So a bunch of us went out to explore the sights & taste the culture of Singapore. So where did we go, to the restricted areas of course. We got on a train and just got on & off where ever. So by the end of the day we were back in the good zone, in a mall. We were in an electronics store on an upper level. I was watching a TV & a news story comes up showing a man hanging by a wire with a title of the Lt. Col. I said too the guys, "hey I think they just hung the Marine" and they came over. We couldn't make out what they were saying because we didn't speak the language, but we knew what happened. I left the store & walked out to look below & a bunch of shore patrol guys come walking in. One of them was chief Tyson & before I could turn & leave he saw me & yelled up to me to get down there & bring who ever else was with me! The battle gr was told to high tail it back to the coast of Iran. I don't remember how many Sailors were left behind but there was more than a few. But since it was an emergency recall they didn't get in trouble for missing ships movement. We didn't have cell phones, so it was a lot harder to get a hold of people back then. It was such a simpler way of life back then! One of the awe inspiring things I remember from that time, was seeing the Iowa coming up over the horizon. She was sitting there & we were coming up to her. It was in the morning & the sun was coming up behind her. To see her in all her glory with those 16" cannons pointing skyward was just awesome. It is something I will never forget & it was something a lot of us were glad we got to see in our life times. There is only 1 other thing that would top that for a Sailor, that would be seeing the U.S.S. Constitution underway at full sail!
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