Title: Page born: April 01 2002

Deployments and Combat

Lebanon 1983
October, 1983
Operation: UNKNOWN
Deployment: None
Action: None

During October of 1983, the U.S. government ordered the Department of Defense to plan an attack on the PLO and PLO sympathizers/terrorists in Southern Lebanon in response to the destruction of the Marine barracks in Lebanon. The Seventh Fleet in the Mediterranean was moved into position off the coast of Lebanon and the 4450th at Tonopah was put on alert. Five to seven aircraft were armed and their INS systems aligned to targets in the area.

The plan called for the F-117A's to fly from Tonopah to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, were they would be put in hangars. They would wait 48 hours for the crew to rest and then fly the aircraft non-stop from Mytrle Beach to southern Lebanon. The attack was planned against positively identified locations of the terrorist groups that were known to be responsible for the car bomb and the deaths of 183 Marines of the peace keeping force in Beirut.

Casper Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense, decided to scrub the mission just forty-five minutes before the aircraft were to take off for Myrtle Beach. The F-117As were taken off alert, disarmed and had their INS systems reprogrammed for training purposes.

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