372

UNITED STATES NAVAL AVIATION 1910-1995

1991-Continued

21 January Theodore Roosevelt battle group arrived

on station in the Persian Gulf.

23 January Navy A-6s disabled an al-Qaddisiya-class

Iraqi tanker that had been collecting and reporting in-

telligence data. The A-6s also attacked and sank a

Winchester-class hovercraft (being refueled by the

tanker) and a Zhuk patrol boat.

24 January Navy A-6s attacked and destroyed an

Iraqi Spasilac minelayer. An A-6 sank an Iraqi Zhuk-

class patrol boat and another Iraqi minesweeper hit an

Iraqi mine while attempting to evade the A-6 fire. A-6s

and F/A-18s attacked the Umm Qasr Naval Base.

24 January The first Kuwaiti territory, the island of

Jazirat Qurah, was reclaimed.

28 January Navy A-6s

Bubiyan Channel, at Umm

Kuwait harbor.

attacked Iraqi ships at

Qasr Naval Base, and in

28 January Captain Michael Berryman of VMA-311

was captured by Iraqi forces after his AV-8B Harrier

was shot down.

30 January Navy A-6s attacked three Iraqi landing

craft in the vicinity of Shatt aI-Arab Channel.

30 January All 18 F/ A-18s aboard Saratoga delivered

100,000 pounds of MK-83 1,000-pound bombs on Iraqi

positions in Kuwait. This was the largest amount of

bomb tonnage carried in a single mission.

1 February VAW-123 coordinated aircraft on the first

of 11 Scud missile patrols flown from 1-7 February. On

3 February, America confirmed the destruction of two

Scud-related vehicles.

2 February A Navy A-6 with crew members

Lieutenant Commander Barry Cooke and Lieutenant

Patrick Kelly Connor, from Theodore Roosevelt's VA-36,

were shot down by antiaircraft fire. The crewmen were

reported missing. This was Theodore Roosevelt's first

combat loss of the war.

5 February A Navy F/A-18A crashed while returning

from a combat mission. The pilot, Lieutenant Robert

Dwyer of VFA-87 from Theodore Roosevelt, was killed.

6 February An F-14A from VF-1, off Ranger, piloted

by Lieutenant Stuart Broce, with Commander Ron

McElraft as Radar Intercept Officer, downed a MI-8 Hip

helicopter with an AIM-9M Sidewinder missile.

7 February A-6s attacked and heavily damaged two

Iraqi patrol boats in the northern Persian Gulf near al-

Faw Peninsula.

8 February A-6s attacked and neutralized an Iraqi

training frigate co-located with a TMC-45 class patrol

boat (Exocet capable craft) at Cor al-Zubayr.

9 February Captain Russell Sanborn, USMC, was

captured by Iraqi forces after his VMA-231 AV-8B was

shot down.

14 February America battle group transited the

Strait of Hormuz en route to operations in the Persian

Gulf.

15 February America became the first and only car-

rier to conduct strikes from both sides of the Arabian

Peninsula.

18 February An Iraqi mine blasted a 20-by-30 foot

hole in the forward section of the 18,000-ton helicopter

carrier Tripoli during mine clearance operations in the

northern Persian Gulf. After continuing her duty for

five days, Tripoli, the flagship of the minesweeping op-

eration, returned to a shipyard drydock in Bahrain for

a month of repairs.

20 February America's VS-32 became the first S-3

squadron to engage, bomb, and destroy a hostile ves-

sel, an Iraqi gunboat.

20-24 February Using the AV-8B Harrier, the VMA-

331 Bumblebees flew 243 sorties along the Iraqi border

and throughout Kuwait.

23 February America, Midway, Theodore Roosevelt,

and Ranger were in the Persian Gulf. John F Kennedy

and Saratoga were operating from the Red Sea.

23 February Aircraft from America destroyed a

Silkworm (antiship) missile battery after Iraq unsuc-

cessfully fired a missile at Missouri (BB 63).

23 February A VMA-542 AV-8B Harrier was shot

down by Iraqi forces. Captain James Wilbourn, USMC

was killed in action.

23 February The SAR team from NAS Lemoore,

Calif., saved a 19-year-old male who had been missing

for five days. He was found on a 6,000-foot elevation

in very rocky terrain at the southern edge of Sequoia

National Park. The SAR team was called in to assist the

Tulare County Sheriffs Department.