- 6/12/2025
For educational purposes
This episode will profile the Harrier, the revolutionary jet that hovers.
With a camera mounted in the cockpit Wings viewers will get the pilots eye view of vertical landing amongst the trees aboard an aircraft carrier.
This program will examine the aircafts role in both the war between Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands and the Gulf War.
But mostly focuses on the view of the AV-8B in the U.S. Marines used in the first Gulf war.
This episode will profile the Harrier, the revolutionary jet that hovers.
With a camera mounted in the cockpit Wings viewers will get the pilots eye view of vertical landing amongst the trees aboard an aircraft carrier.
This program will examine the aircafts role in both the war between Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands and the Gulf War.
But mostly focuses on the view of the AV-8B in the U.S. Marines used in the first Gulf war.
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00Transcription by CastingWords
00:30Always near the front line, the Harrier is the embodiment of close air support.
00:41Combining the speed of a jet with the control of a chopper, it is ready to fight in any theater.
00:48But in the Persian Gulf, its role as protector will be tested as never before.
01:00The Persian Gulf War, the Allied air assault of Iraq, enters its third week.
01:12Saddam Hussein, his army and his people are subjected to a seemingly endless bombing campaign.
01:27The time has come to draw blood, American blood.
01:48The Iraqis attack in three places.
01:59One is Al-Kafji, a border town in Saudi Arabia.
02:05The Battle of Kafji turned out to be a very interesting situation.
02:13There are a couple of theories.
02:15One is that Kafji was a main attack.
02:20In other words, a major effort by Saddam Hussein to attack into Saudi Arabia and to disrupt the buildup of American forces.
02:30The second is that it was some kind of probing attack for less important reasons than the commitment of troops to a main attack.
02:41I think over time, I've come to believe that it probably was a major attack on his part.
02:55The Iraqis move into the town so quickly that a two-man U.S. Marine observation team is trapped.
03:03They must crawl under rooftops to hide from the enemy.
03:08Were you able to get them?
03:09No, they weren't in the vehicle.
03:11Vehicles, the tires were spinning.
03:14Deuce gear was in there.
03:15But they weren't in the vehicle.
03:16We don't know if they fled or were captured.
03:18It's got to be disappointing not to be able to find those men.
03:22Yeah.
03:23It's, uh...
03:24We wanted to get them pretty bad.
03:31The Marines call for air support.
03:33For three days, the Allied Air Command pounds the Iraqis with B-52 bombers and Air Force A-10s.
03:42There is another plane in this fight, the Harrier.
03:51And when the Marines need close air support, or CAS, they want a U.S. Marine in the cockpit.
04:03During the war, there were more than 3,300 sorties by the AV-8B Marine Corps attack jet, an average of two a day for the 86 airplanes in theater.
04:15The air strikes around Al-Khafji devastate the Iraqi tanks and artillery.
04:34For two days, there is heavy and close street fighting between the Iraqis and Allied forces to take back the town and free the trapped Marines.
04:46The great benefit for the Marines in the Harrier is that it's on station now.
04:51It is close to the battle line, minutes away instead of hours away.
04:56It's able to be there when you need it.
04:58And that's the Marine philosophy, is get the grunts on the front lines now.
05:04And those guys in the cockpits are grunts.
05:06You know, they understand the mentality of being close and being available.
05:11Throughout the war, the Harriers are based in two locations.
05:16One, a soccer stadium in Saudi Arabia, hastily converted to accommodate the Harriers and support troops.
05:29The Harriers are based so close to the fighting, that they never require aerial refueling.
05:39As for center, it's still 1-2, and that was 8-7.
05:42Harriers are also aboard ships sailing in the Persian Gulf.
05:54The primary reason the Marines purchased the Harrier is its flexibility.
06:00We've got about 1, 1.5 degrees of pitch and a little roll, so the tech's moving just a little bit.
06:06Not in a bit.
06:08This high-performance single-engine jet is capable of V-STOL, vertical or short takeoff and landing.
06:16For landings, there is no need for an arresting cable.
06:24The jet can take off from a ship without a catapult.
06:31And you don't need an 8,000-foot runway, an easy target for an enemy to attack.
06:37It is the jet that dazzles the airshow crowd.
06:56It is the jet famous for its ability to hover.
06:59The Harrier has a reputation for being a dangerous airplane to fly because it's difficult to fly.
07:07It's like balancing 20 tons on the point of a needle.
07:12Particularly the early Harriers in the Marines, the AV-8A, was a difficult airplane to fly.
07:18And when they put new pilots in it, what they called nuggets, the loss rate was high.
07:22The early Harrier, designed and built in Britain, is indeed a difficult plane to fly, especially in a hover.
07:34But that ability to hover is the reason both the British and the U.S. Marines were interested in the plane.
07:41Because of the vertical capability, the plane has greater access than conventional jets and is able to operate in confined areas.
07:52The Marine Corps' mission remains what it has been for the last several decades, and that is to be the nation's force in readiness.
08:05We're the 9-1-1 force.
08:08When you call, we have the capability to respond anywhere around the world, and that's the way we tailor ourselves, and that's what we train for.
08:15Today's area pilots train with a Marine Expeditionary Unit, an armada with troops, tanks, and artillery.
08:28They sail for six months at a time into the world's hotspots.
08:37The mission is simple.
08:39Be close and be ready to go ashore and fight.
08:43I see one, I see two.
08:59Very nice at the time.
09:00Whoa.
09:08Quantico, Virginia.
09:09All Marine officers have to pass this way.
09:16They spend six months here at the basic school, learning the life of the rifleman.
09:22Learning the life of the grunt.
09:32Among the ranks of these second lieutenants are future aviators.
09:36In battle, they will be called upon to fight for the life of the men on the ground.
09:46Though this may be as far from a cockpit as any human could be,
09:50it proves that first and foremost,
09:54they are Marines.
09:55These lieutenants are cold, wet, and hungry.
10:15These lieutenants are cold, wet, and hungry.
10:18In the rain and in the mud, more tired than they have ever been.
10:30They must prepare for an attack.
10:34They must dig in.
10:36Okay, we're going to build that parapet up in front of his aiming stake
10:41so that something can't penetrate through here and get to him.
10:46And that's what we want with all the holes.
10:48This earth, sir, will be able to stop around?
10:51No, it's going to take about three feet of packed earth to stop around.
10:55So you're going to have to take and occasionally pack this stuff down
10:58all the way back in order to get it to stop around.
11:02Marine aviators first have to become qualified ground combat commanders
11:09and have to prove themselves to be capable in doing that.
11:13So they go through the basic school like every other grunt.
11:16None of the other services do that.
11:19Hadn't showered since Sunday night.
11:22They're out there in the freezing rain and mud.
11:27And there's a relationship that develops between the guys on the ground
11:32and the guys on the air that's based on a couple of things.
11:36One is the guys on the ground know that the marine aviator up there in the air
11:41knows exactly what he's going through, the conditions in which he's working,
11:46and what he's trying to accomplish.
11:48And the guy on the ground knows that the guy up in the air
11:52knows what additional kinds of things need to be done to get the mission accomplished.
11:58So those two are in real close sync.
12:01The second thing is that because the Marine Corps is a small organization,
12:05there may be 8,000 captains in the Marine Corps, for example,
12:10so that the captain on the ground, when the Marine aircraft arrive overhead
12:15and somebody comes up on the net, he knows that guy.
12:18He went to basic with him.
12:20He slept out in the mud with this guy.
12:26The United States Marine Corps is the only fighting force in the world
12:30to integrate air and ground forces to such an extent.
12:34The Marines have their own fixed-wing force, seven squadrons of Harriers among them.
12:48If you go back far enough, the Marine Corps was faced with the dilemma,
12:53and this was kind of after Korea.
12:56We had learned that air power was a very useful tool for ground forces
13:00being able to maneuver and bring firepower to bear where they wanted it.
13:04And the most probable use of the United States Marine Corps
13:07was going to be third world countries or places we had never even heard of.
13:11And that means that it's very hard to get there.
13:14And one of the things that happened is the ground forces shed some of their artillery
13:18and said, that's hard for me to get to various places.
13:21It's also hard for me to haul around with me.
13:23But if aviation can provide the firepower that the artillery used to,
13:29then I'm free to maneuver in a lot more free fashion.
13:33We took that up.
13:36We said, we'll do that.
13:40There are close to 400 Harrier pilots in the Marine Corps.
13:45Pilots are chosen because of their high marks
13:48throughout two and a half years of training in both classroom and cockpit.
13:52The AV-8B is an unforgiving airplane,
13:58and so too the guidelines that determine who will fly it.
14:02Score below a certain mark,
14:04and you fail to qualify for the Harrier community.
14:08The Marine Corps instituted this policy
14:10to minimize the risk for disaster.
14:23Detachments of Harrier squadrons are deployed at various places around the world.
14:28The Marines are the only armed force in the United States to fly the AV-8B.
14:41Italy and Spain have added the Harrier to their arsenals.
14:45In Britain, the birthplace of this single-engine jet,
14:51both the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force continue to fly the Harrier.
14:56The heart of the plane and what makes it unique
15:00is the center-borne engine,
15:04which is capable of 23,000 pounds of thrust.
15:08The AV-8B is powered by the Rolls-Royce F-402 RR-408 engine,
15:14affectionately known as the Pegasus engine.
15:16The intake is a very large intake to take in a large volume of air,
15:21especially during the vertical and short takeoff evolutions of the aircraft.
15:25To augment the large intake, we have auxiliary air doors,
15:29which are open during slow-speed flight and hovering flight,
15:33and they go around the circumference around the intake.
15:35For high-speed flight, the fan obviously has to bend a lot of air around
15:40to get to the engine face.
15:42We have what's known as boundary layer doors.
15:45They pull off the boundary layer door
15:47and allow a smooth flow of air to the face of the fan.
15:52Now, we'll go back to the back of the aircraft here.
15:55You'll see what makes this aircraft special
15:57is that the vertical short takeoff capability that this aircraft has.
16:01We have four nozzles, two on each side.
16:03Towards the back is the hot nozzle.
16:06The temperatures of the hot air come out as hot as 800 degrees Celsius.
16:11This does create some bit of a problem if we have to land on asphalt.
16:16Up front is the ducted fan air.
16:19The nozzles would rotate down,
16:21and that allows the aircraft to hover
16:23and vertical takeoff, vertical landing.
16:26They all work together,
16:30and they're all worked through one lever in a cockpit, selectable.
16:33It's just adjacent to the throttle.
16:36Pilot's selectable, and they're not computer-controlled.
16:38He basically controls the nozzles,
16:40puts them where he wants them, when he wants them.
16:42That's one of the other things that makes this airplane a pilot's airplane.
16:45Airplane's a machine.
16:48Yeah.
16:49Okay, we got you to the side.
16:51From Leeds, northern AGM West, about 10.
16:54Roger, official on the target.
17:00Yeah, I like that one better.
17:01World War II, the battle for the Pacific.
17:18Time after time, U.S. Marines execute the mission for which they train.
17:26The amphibious assault.
17:31They wait ashore, and fight at places like Tarawa,
17:41Saipan,
17:44Iwo Jima.
17:48It is the same at Incheon, Korea.
17:52The Marines are an invading force.
17:55When they go beyond the reach of their own artillery,
17:58they need firepower.
18:01That is the mission of Marine Air.
18:11Thus, the mission of the Harrier.
18:16It is an airborne artillery battery.
18:20But that was not the mission the designers had in mind.
18:24The airplane was originally developed as a nuclear strike airplane.
18:30It was not designed as a close air support airplane.
18:33The airplane was designed to carry a single nuclear weapon in a tactical environment where all the airfields had been bombed,
18:41and you had no place to fly airplanes, but you could fly them off roads, out of forest glens, and other places.
18:47Well, that mission never happened, so we had to turn them into close air support airplanes, fighter bombers.
18:55The Marine Corps bought the Harrier from the British in the early 1970s, and the first squadrons were formed.
19:07Because the jet has a reputation of being tough to fly, many of their best pilots rotate into the newly designated AV-8A.
19:18We hand-picked the first people that went into it.
19:25The thought was, well, let's try it, let's test it, let's get three squadrons worth, and that will give us enough to check out the operational characteristics.
19:32Because if we could make this work, it did exactly what we wanted.
19:35At the end of three years and no accidents, the system came back and said, you guys must have been wrong.
19:41It can't be hard to fly. Look, this is wonderful.
19:45And so instead of gradually introducing different people to it, they just opened up the floodgates.
19:50And within the next six weeks, we had crashed three airplanes and killed two people.
19:54It has a reputation. I know my wife was very concerned when I first got into the Harrier community.
20:06It was known as the Widowmaker, and it has killed a lot of people.
20:10It's an airplane like any other that it doesn't tolerate mistakes.
20:15And they found, really, they needed a pilot with a lot of jet time, a lot of high-performance, high-speed time.
20:21So his brain was up and moving all the time.
20:23And they finally made an issue out of it, not assigning nuggets to Harrier squadrons.
20:30And the loss rate went down.
20:36This is the lineal descendant of the AV-8A, the McDonnell Douglas AV-8B.
20:46Like its predecessor, the newer model has four movable nozzles on the fuselage,
20:51which are used to vector or direct the thrust created by the Rolls-Royce engine.
20:59The cockpit was raised, and the bubble canopy gives the pilot greater visual range.
21:05A computer-assisted reaction control system was added to the plane to help keep the pilot out of trouble.
21:14When they redesigned the Harrier from the AV-8A to the AV-8B, a lot of the dangerous characteristics disappeared.
21:20They did engineer a great deal of user-friendliness into the airplane.
21:23It's an easier airplane to fly.
21:25It's slower.
21:27Pilots don't like losing the 80 to 100 knots that they've lost.
21:30They would rather go faster.
21:32But it can carry more weapons, and it is certainly not the puckering airplane it was before.
21:37Now, the way the Harrier works is the reaction control system essentially balances the thrust vector,
21:47which is right through the center of the aircraft.
21:50Now, if you think about it, it's all this thrust.
21:52It's kind of like balancing on the head of a needle.
21:54Well, where we balance that is we have reaction control air coming out of the wingtip,
21:58left side, right side, the nose, and the tail.
22:01Those are all interconnected and controlled by the stick and the rudders.
22:04For instance, if an aircraft wanted, a pilot wanted to roll the aircraft to the left,
22:08he'd move the stick to the left.
22:11What would happen is air would come out of the bottom of the right wing, starting a rolling moment.
22:17The same thing holds true with the nose of the airplane.
22:20He wants to raise the nose, pulls back with the stick, which is natural for a pilot.
22:24Then the puffer duct in front of the airplane opens up, air blows down, and the nose is then picked up.
22:34Good morning, Astro Center.
22:39Still one two, single, aviate.
22:41Currently an Angel 17, negative sweet lock.
22:45Those are right copies, and I may need to ask you for a higher marshal to stay out of the clouds.
22:50Still one, roger.
22:53August, 1990.
22:54Marines and their Harriers will face the ultimate test of their plane and their training
23:10as they fly off to war for the first time.
23:14Harrier squadrons and their pilots, along with 90,000 fellow Marines, join the fight for Kuwait.
23:22Harrier pilots in the Gulf are told they won't play a role until the ground war begins.
23:40They're going to be held in reserve.
23:45How are we doing?
23:48Two things are going to happen today.
23:52I don't know which one.
23:53Marine Corps Commanding General Boomer doesn't want to lose Harriers before his grunts need them.
23:58Let me give you the proposals that are before Salam Hussein, so you understand what his choices are.
24:08All throughout the planning, I had one major overriding fear.
24:13And that was that we would get caught or held up while breaching minefields.
24:20And while we were slowed down by these minefields, the Iraqis would use chemical weapons against us.
24:28And those chemical weapons would be fired by Iraqi artillery pieces.
24:35So my main concern was to get rid of the artillery because my nightmare, so to speak, was being caught there and subjected to chemical weapons.
24:47So whenever I talked to our pilots, I tried to stress to them, look, taking out tanks may be a little more fun and it may be sexy, but get the artillery.
25:01We'll deal with the tanks.
25:02We can handle the tanks.
25:04What we are less prepared to deal with are chemical weapons, and they're going to be delivered by artillery, so you get the artillery.
25:11And they did just that.
25:17The first day of the air war, the day Allied planes fill the sky over Iraq, carriers begin their work.
25:26And on behalf of the grunts, they go after the Iraqis with a vengeance.
25:35Now, a grunt is not afraid to go through a breach or a barricade.
25:40They can take on infantry, tanks, minefields, chemicals.
25:44They were not afraid of that.
25:45Hey, George, what's up?
25:48What they're worried about is when you breach an obstacle, you can go through it, but what it does is it channelizes you.
25:54You start putting hundreds or thousands of people through very narrow corridors that they've blown through this barricade.
25:59Well, once you've now gotten those people into a small area, that's when the artillery rains down on you because now they've got you in a small area.
26:07And that's what scares the grunts, and that's what they are worried about.
26:11Now, unless you're attacking, moving your artillery in front of you, which may not be tactically sound, you're going to be moving away from your artillery coverage and into the heart of their artillery envelope.
26:22That's where the air comes in.
26:24We can destroy all the rocket launchers, artillery pieces, self-propelled artillery.
26:28So that was our mission.
26:29We're going to make little t-shirts called Artie Busters.
26:35As troops prepare to attack, Harrier pilots join a series of raids on Iraqi artillery batteries near the Kuwait border.
26:45The Harriers launch and loiter in what the Marines call a wolf pack.
26:56Marine Corps EA-6 prowlers, with their electronics, jam Iraqi ground radar.
27:05Marine artillery sneaks up to the Kuwait border, undetected because of the jamming by the EA-6s.
27:13The artillery opens fire and attacks Iraqi artillery positions.
27:24The jamming halts long enough for the Iraqis to locate the now withdrawing U.S. artillery.
27:31The Iraqis attack, firing their guns.
27:35And those muzzle flashes are seen by a Marine pilot in his F-A-18-D, who directs the Harriers onto the enemy guns.
27:47Okay, I see a long, I see where the eight hits were, and I'm following kind of a dark road to the west, inland.
27:53Roger.
27:55Yeah, it's five miles from the target.
27:57The goal of the mission is not just to destroy enemy artillery, but his morale as well.
28:04To let the Iraqi soldier know that every time he fires his artillery, an Allied airplane will attack within seconds.
28:13While the Harrier is capable of dropping TV and laser-guided or smart bombs,
28:23in the Gulf, the cluster bomb, or CBU, is the weapon favored by the Marine Corps.
28:31They drop more of these than all services combined.
28:34To accomplish the mission, the Harriers fly low, and low is vulnerable.
28:58The Harrier has one engine.
29:06Knock it out.
29:08And most likely, the plane is lost.
29:12A heat-seeking, or IR missile, will home in on the Harrier near the center of the fuselage,
29:19near the rear nozzles, or hot nozzles.
29:22An area of the plane which can reach temperatures as high as 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit.
29:31We learned a few things out of it.
29:33We used to think that if you went 450 knots or above,
29:36you didn't have to worry about getting hit by an IR shoulder-mounted weapon.
29:40That's no longer true.
29:44Harrier pilots are hit hard in the Gulf by the heat-seeking missiles of the Iraqi forces.
29:49One is Captain Craig Barrowman.
29:54I felt just a big thump on the side of the airplane,
29:57and heard this huge explosion, and the airplane went end over end.
30:01I started seeing the ground rushing up toward me,
30:03and I'm thinking I'm going to have to make a decision here pretty quick
30:06as to whether I'm going to punch out of the airplane,
30:08whether I'm going to just stay with it.
30:10Now, the reason I had to make that decision
30:13is because our intel guys had given us some pretty graphic briefings
30:17as to what the Iraqis were doing to some of the Kuwaiti resistance folks,
30:20and it was not pretty.
30:21I didn't want that to happen to me,
30:24so I thought, well, maybe I'll just ride this airplane in.
30:28And the more I thought about it as I'm coming down on the airplane,
30:31I said, well, that's kind of a stupid idea.
30:32Barryman ejects and watches his plane hit the deck
30:38and slam onto an Iraqi trench line.
30:42There was a sand dune probably half a mile or so inland from me,
30:45and I figure if I can get over to that sand dune,
30:47it'll give me a chance to pull out my survival radio,
30:50pull out my pistol, and come up with some sort of an evasion plan.
30:53As I start to run,
30:57I start seeing the sand flipping up around me
30:59as the Iraqis start shooting at me again.
31:01And I keep running.
31:03I finally get to the sand dune,
31:05and just on the other side of the sand dune
31:07was an Iraqi armored personnel carrier rolling up that I hadn't seen,
31:10and I basically ran myself into another unit.
31:14In an instant,
31:16Barryman, the U.S. Marine Harrier pilot,
31:18becomes a trophy for the Iraqis,
31:22a prisoner of war.
31:24When you land and you find out,
31:26hey, one of the Harriers didn't come home,
31:28it kind of hits in that,
31:29hey, those sparkles you're seeing on the ground,
31:31they're actually shooting at us,
31:32and they're trying to kill us.
31:34And then you find that, yes, they did get somebody.
31:37You take a moment to reflect on your comrade,
31:39but then you look at what you're doing,
31:41are our tactics sound?
31:43Are we delivering our weapons properly?
31:47Are we doing our job right?
31:48And you kind of look over those,
31:50and you always learn from whether it's a mistake
31:52or a combat loss, whatever it may be.
31:54And once you do that, you just press on.
31:56It was very sad to hear about Craig.
31:59We didn't know if he was alive or not.
32:04Barryman is taken to Baghdad,
32:06where other captured American pilots are held.
32:10As I'm sitting in this dark, damp, smelly cell,
32:15I can hear the Iraqis beating on a prisoner next to me.
32:19And that's probably the worst feeling I could ever imagine,
32:23just listening to somebody else being beaten,
32:26because you know that there's nothing that you can do to help them out.
32:30And probably the next worst thing is knowing that sooner or later,
32:34your turn is going to come, and they're going to come in and beat you.
32:37When they came into my cell, there was these two guys.
32:41One stood at the doorway holding a candle,
32:43and this other guy came over to me.
32:45And I was up in the corner of this little cell
32:49trying to protect my leg as best I could,
32:51because I thought it was broken.
32:52And the first thing he did was he comes over,
32:54he grabs me, pulls me out of the corner,
32:56and kicks me in the broken leg.
32:57And it was extremely painful.
33:00And then he just starts punching on me.
33:03And I'm still blindfolded, and I'm still handcuffed,
33:05but I can kind of see underneath the blindfold.
33:09And he is hitting me so hard that I am actually seeing stars.
33:14And I always thought that, you know,
33:16when you see the cartoon characters,
33:18when they get hit really hard,
33:18you see the stars going around their head.
33:21I always thought that was just a comical thing.
33:23But I was actually seeing stars.
33:25He was hitting me so hard.
33:27Barryman's target, the day he was shot down,
33:32had been an Iraqi convoy headed toward the town of al-Khafji.
33:37The scene of the first major battle
33:39between the Allies and the Iraqis.
33:44It was a battle that revealed much about the Iraqi army
33:48and the Iraqi soldier.
33:52It taught us that the Iraqis were the gang
33:55that couldn't shoot straight.
33:57They couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.
34:00We learned they couldn't, to use American vernacular,
34:04shoot, move, and communicate at the same time.
34:06And you need to be able to do those things
34:08in order to conduct a successful attack.
34:10Perhaps the most important was that we learned
34:14if you bloodied their nose in round one,
34:18they did not want to come out for round two.
34:21that they just didn't have the fire in the belly for this fight.
34:25The people of Saudi Arabia and the world
34:28have no argument with the people of Iraq.
34:30The people of Iraq are good.
34:32The Saudi troops do not have the fire in their bellies.
34:39They surrender in droves.
34:41However, Saddam is not simply going to walk out of Kuwait.
34:44The Allied invasion spans the Saudi border with Kuwait.
34:49The U.S. Marine Corps battle plan
34:51calls for a two-pronged attack to engage the enemy head-on.
34:55The United States Army will sweep in from the left
34:58behind the Iraqis and destroy the Republican Guard.
35:02But when the ground war is finally launched,
35:04the Marines move so swiftly
35:06that they serve as a piston,
35:08forcing the Iraqis north.
35:10The day that the ground war kicked off,
35:15I flew four missions throughout that day,
35:17the first day.
35:18And it was pretty interesting
35:19because initially early on,
35:21as we'd be flying up over the border,
35:23you could look down and you could see
35:24just lines of logistics and tanks and Marines
35:29getting ready to go through all the breaches.
35:31And by the time I came up for my second sortie,
35:34it looked like Rat Patrol
35:35hauling butt across the desert there.
35:37In a bid to blunt the Allied assault,
35:44the Iraqis torch the oil wells of Kuwait.
35:49But the winds shift
35:51and the choking black smoke
35:52is blown into the faces of the Iraqis instead.
35:57The oil fires also make life difficult for the pilots.
36:01The smoke and the haze from all the oil fires,
36:17we had to get down below it.
36:18We're a visual bombing aircraft,
36:20so we really had no means to bomb otherwise
36:23without just simply dropping on a coordinate,
36:26and that's not very accurate.
36:26So we pressed down through the clouds,
36:29through the smoke,
36:30and once you're underneath,
36:31you're very vulnerable.
36:32It's pretty easy for a guy on the ground
36:33to pick up an aircraft
36:34that's silhouetted against a cloud cover.
36:37So that was a little bit uncomfortable feeling.
36:41Flying under the clouds
36:43becomes more than an uncomfortable feeling
36:46for Captain Scott Walsh.
36:47The first thing I noticed
36:51was this huge explosion,
36:53the plane jerk,
36:54and I looked down
36:55and all my lights had lit up red.
36:57It looked like a Christmas tree in the cockpit,
36:59and getting the red lights is not good,
37:01especially the big one that says fire.
37:03And I looked over my shoulder
37:04and it looked like a Roman candle
37:06coming out the wing.
37:07A nearby Marine in his F-A-18
37:10flies in close to help Walsh.
37:15There's not much you can do for a guy
37:17when he's on fire alone in a plane,
37:18but just having them coming up beside me
37:20and talking to me
37:22really gave me a lot of peace of mind and so on.
37:24And I thought about ejecting initially,
37:26but I remember my father had always told me,
37:28fuel burns and vapor explodes.
37:32Captain Walsh flies for 10 minutes on fire.
37:37I was trying to find a road.
37:38I thought, hey, I can land this plane anywhere.
37:40I have to fly a Harrier.
37:41So I talked to the F-18.
37:43I said, hey, how about this field
37:45in the central Kuwait
37:46that we had overrun?
37:47He said, yeah, I'll lead you over there.
37:50And I rolled in,
37:51tried to get my gear down,
37:52but it wouldn't come down.
37:53I tried the emergency system
37:54to blow them down.
37:56That didn't work.
37:57So I thought, well,
37:58I can do a vertical landing then.
37:59I tried to pull the nozzle lever in
38:01to get the nozzles to point down
38:03and get my thrust below me.
38:04But I think the missile
38:06had destroyed the right rear hot nozzle.
38:08So the three nozzles went down.
38:09One didn't.
38:11Gets the aircraft kind of squirrely
38:13in the air at that point.
38:13So it wasn't, I couldn't control it.
38:15And the general rule in the Harrier
38:17is if you move the nozzle lever
38:18and the plane does something funny,
38:19put it back where it was before.
38:21So I started thinking, you know,
38:22I may have to eject out of this aircraft.
38:25And you don't really want to ever do that
38:26because the plane's flying at this point.
38:28Right about the time we were talking about this,
38:30the hydraulics bled out completely.
38:33The stick froze up
38:34and the nose pitched up
38:35and rolled uncontrollably
38:37and the hornet started yelling at me,
38:38hey, eject, eject, eject.
38:40So I said, hey, I'm getting out now.
38:41And I said something.
38:42Walsh briefed his squadron
38:43on what happened next.
38:46And then the frickin' parachute came out.
38:47And that was about the most violent thing
38:48was the opening shot
38:49because you go flying 200 to zero
38:51in about a second.
38:52And next thing I know,
38:53I'm seeing my,
38:54hey, I couldn't touch my toes right now,
38:55but I was touching them then
38:56because my hands and toes
38:58and head all went forward.
38:59And I saw just stars everywhere.
39:01It twisted so the rise
39:02was shoving my head down.
39:04And as I was unraveling,
39:06I saw the plane hit up.
39:07There was a big orange fireball.
39:09But, well, that must be the plane.
39:10And went back around
39:11and there was the field
39:12and went back around again.
39:13There was still the plane.
39:15And then it kind of stopped
39:16and I thought about the procedures
39:18that tell us, you know,
39:19check canopy.
39:19You know, I kind of sat there
39:20and thought,
39:21God, I hope it's good.
39:22Yeah, I looked up and there it was.
39:23I was like, yes, you know,
39:25good canopy.
39:26So I kind of lifted my knees up
39:28and as I hit,
39:30I pulled on the risers
39:30and tried to twist.
39:32Basically hit toes, knees,
39:33hips, shoulder,
39:34rolled on my back,
39:35thing dragged me a little bit
39:35and popped the risers
39:36and hopped up.
39:38And Major Peters and the fact,
39:40they thought I landed on my feet.
39:42They said,
39:43it looked like you landed on your feet
39:44because as soon as it hit,
39:46you were running away.
39:48I said, no, I got hit.
39:50Walsh is rescued by Marines.
39:54Berriman is not so lucky.
39:56The bombing of buildings
39:58in the enemy capital city
39:59by the Allied air forces
40:01almost kills him.
40:03The building in Baghdad
40:04where Berriman
40:05and 12 other American prisoners
40:07are being held
40:08makes it onto the target list
40:11of the Allied air command.
40:14Berriman is awakened one night
40:16by two thunderous explosions
40:18followed by a deafening silence.
40:22At about that time,
40:24somebody yells, incoming.
40:25And you start hearing this click, click,
40:27click, click, click, click.
40:29And what that was,
40:30was that was the fins
40:31to that laser-guided bomb
40:33as it was making its correction
40:34down that laser beam
40:35toward the target.
40:36That next bomb
40:37was supposed to come in
40:38the center of the building,
40:39which where we all were,
40:41it was supposed to destroy
40:42the entire building.
40:43Fortunately,
40:43it went right over the top
40:44of the building,
40:45landed out in the parking lot.
40:47It exploded out in the parking lot
40:48and this huge fireball
40:51came into the window
40:52where it had been
40:53and just went in the room
40:56and then sucked itself
40:56right back out.
40:57Just the most incredible thing
40:58I'd ever seen.
41:05I prayed and almost continually
41:07that God would give me the strength
41:09to see this thing through.
41:11And fortunately, he did.
41:12But the other thing
41:13that I kind of drew strength from
41:14was every night,
41:15the Allies would come in
41:16and they would bomb Baghdad.
41:18And I knew
41:20that as long as they were
41:21bombing Baghdad,
41:22they were doing something
41:22to try to end this war
41:24and to try to get us out of there.
41:32Three days after the ground war begins,
41:34the Marines control Kuwait City.
41:38In one of the war's
41:39more memorable photo ops,
41:41it is the Egyptians
41:42who liberate the city.
41:45But it is the Marines
41:46who lead the way.
41:52Kuwait is liberated.
41:55Iraq's army is defeated.
41:57Our military objectives are met.
42:00Tonight, the Kuwaiti flag
42:02once again flies above the capital
42:04of a free and sovereign nation.
42:07And the American flag
42:08flies above our embassy.
42:10And soon,
42:12we will open wide our arms
42:14to welcome back home to America
42:17our magnificent fighting forces.
42:21The USS Mercy hospital ship.
42:25American prisoners of war
42:28embrace freedom.
42:30They are on their way home.
42:32Of the thousands of sorties
42:35flown by Harrier pilots,
42:38a total of five planes were lost.
42:41Two pilots were killed,
42:43one was rescued by Marines,
42:45and two were captured.
42:47It is not until the prisoners
42:48are released
42:49that the Marine Corps learns
42:51that Captain Craig Barrowman
42:53is alive.
42:55My wingman, all he had seen
42:57was my airplane get hit
42:59and he had seen the airplane
43:01explode and hit the ground
43:02and hadn't seen a parachute.
43:04So he went back
43:04and he told my squadron
43:06that he hadn't thought
43:08that I had gotten out
43:09of the airplane.
43:10And that same word
43:10got back to my family
43:11and my wife
43:12that I hadn't probably
43:13gotten out of the airplane.
43:15So for 37 days,
43:17they were being told
43:18that I probably wasn't
43:20going to be coming home.
43:21And it was probably
43:22hardest on my wife of all
43:24just not knowing
43:25whether I was dead or alive.
43:27Captain Harry M. Roberts,
43:28United States Air Force.
43:31Captain Russell Sanborn,
43:32United States Marine Corps.
43:35Captain Michael C. Berryman,
43:37United States Marine Corps.
43:41When the word came down
43:43that, hey, Raz is alive,
43:45he's a POW,
43:46and he's been held,
43:47and we knew he probably
43:48didn't get the greatest treatment,
43:49but he was alive
43:50and we were getting him back,
43:51and that was a wonderful moment.
43:54Despite their harrowing experience,
43:57even downed Harrier pilots
43:59swear by their plane.
44:01Loyalists say the plane is unique,
44:03ahead of its time,
44:05and plagued by an undeserved reputation.
44:08To others, it's a widow-maker,
44:11a difficult, even dangerous,
44:13airplane to fly.
44:15Don't tell that to the Marines.
44:18Ground commanders of the Marine Corps
44:20during the Gulf War,
44:21praised the Harrier.
44:23Throughout the war,
44:24Harrier pilots flew
44:25the close air support mission.
44:27They were there
44:28to support the grunts.
44:30They are,
44:32after all,
44:34Marines.
44:34Marine pilots are famed
44:38for having very, very big egos,
44:41and they'll get into a bar discussion
44:44with grunts,
44:45and they'll talk about
44:46how the grunts are
44:47four-mile-an-hour men,
44:49and how they're not smart enough
44:50to come in out of the rain,
44:51and all this kind of easy banter
44:53goes back and forth.
44:54But,
44:55when it comes down
44:57to doing an operation,
44:59the guys on the ground
44:59depend on the guys in the air,
45:01the guys in the air
45:02depend on the guys on the ground,
45:04and there's this mystical
45:06identification between the two.
45:09Marine pilots
45:10wear helmet covers
45:12that are camouflage.
45:14Now,
45:15they wear helmet covers
45:16so their helmets
45:16don't scratch the canopy,
45:18but why do they wear camouflage ones?
45:20It's a badge of pride
45:22and identification
45:23with the guys on the ground.
45:48so they don't sign on the ground.
45:48So the one with one wood
45:57go ahead and answer
46:00and make them
46:01so they're high
46:03that Mhm
46:05can του
46:10also
46:14will
46:16close
Recommended
45:05
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