U.S. Pulls Off the MOST EPIC Rescue Mission in HISTORY Inside IRAN

It was on April 3 that the news came in.

An  American F-15 E Strike Eagle with two crew   members had been shot down in Iran.

Footage of  the aircraft wreckage soon started circulating   on social media, but the big question was what had  happened to the crew.

A pilot and a weapons system   officer (WSO) were still missing.

They’d ejected  before going down and were somewhere in Iran,   uncaught and on the run.

No man could be left  behind.

The U.S.

made the decision – the most epic   rescue mission in history had to be pulled off.

This was insane.

Impossible.

But the U.S.

did it,   and this is the story.

Bleeding heavily from his  injuries, the F-15’s WSO crawls and scrapes.

He   knows that he has to get up high to stand the best  chance of his communications devices beaming out   their signals so that he can be located by his  brothers in arms.

A craggy mountain stands in   his way, but that isn’t enough to stop him.

The  WSO cursed his luck.

The chaos of the ejection   had caused him to become separated from his  pilot by miles of difficult Iranian terrain.

Unbeknownst to the WSO, that pilot had already  been rescued, as he was extracted from Iran just   six hours after the F-15 went down.

As he crawled  and climbed, the WSO also had no idea that drones   and surveillance planes were already scoping out  the scene of the shootdown.

The WSO was classified   as “status unknown.

” Still, he kept moving.

Hours earlier, U.S.

Central Command, or CENTCOM,   had received a message that nobody wanted to hear.

“A U.S.

Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle, call sign   DUDE44… was down in hostile Iranian territory, the  pilot and weapon systems officer had both safely   ejected and were isolated behind enemy lines,”  was that message, as relayed by Chairman of the   Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine during a White  House briefing.

A rescue mission was soon ordered
by U.S.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, though  the risk would be enormous.

The U.S.

would face   challenges in planning, and yet more issues on the  ground.

But as these decisions were being made,   the WSO kept on moving.

Evade and survive were his  only objectives.

Armed with a small handgun and   potentially surrounded by unseen enemies, the  WSO hikes and clambered, scaling a 7,000-foot   ridgeline in search of a hiding place.

Finally, he  found it.

A crevice.

Here, he could shield himself   from view and rely on his transmitter to beam out  the signals that would allow the U.S.

to find and   extract him.

The beacon that the WSO held could be  both his savior and his doom.

Keeping it on meant   creating the possibility that Iran would find him  first.

But the beacon had to be used.

Without it,   there would be no chance of extraction.

So, the  WSO used his beacon intermittently while hiding in   the crevice he’d discovered.

The beacon was doing  its job.

Signals were being transmitted.

However,   getting a lock on the WSO was proving difficult.

About 14 hours after the F-15 had been hit,   CENTCOM was preparing a statement.

It was  preparing to tell the world that the pilot   had been rescued, and that the WSO was still  “status unknown.

” And then…something changed.

Officials finally got a confirmed lock on the  WSO’s beacon.

The initial statement was scrapped,   Hegseth informed U.S.

President Donald Trump  that they needed to keep the rescue of the pilot   a secret for as long as it was still possible  to extract the WSO, and the rescue mission was   officially launched.

The operation needed time  to launch.

This was not a case of sending in a   chopper and getting the WSO out.

Iran was actively  looking for the downed officer, just as the U.S was.

Planning, preparation, and, as we later found  out, dozens upon dozens of aircraft and personnel   would be needed to make the rescue a success.

The  WSO knew none of that as he lay in his crevice.

All he knew was that the Combat Survivor Evader  Locator (CSEL), which is the beacon that would   be his salvation, needed to be used sparingly.

That device, weighing just 800 grams and built   by Boeing, looks like a military radio complete  with a handheld computer.

Built into the WSO’s   survival vest and located near his chest for  easy access, it had done what it was designed   to do – survive the harsh exit of an ejection  from a stricken fighter jet.

The device had been   sending out coordinates and encrypted messages  every time the WSO used it.

Those messages had   been received.

The U.S.

was busy making its  plan as the WSO hit and tended to his wounds.

Miles away from the WSO’s position, the U.S.

Air  Force was setting up a combat search and rescue,   or CSAR, task force for the mission.

Comprised  of A-10C Thunderbolt II close support jets,   HH-60W Jolly Green II CSAR choppers, and HC-130J  Combat King CSAR aircraft, that package was built   for missions just like this, as were the Air Force  special operations airmen who were tasked with   getting the WSO out of Iran alive.

The Jolly Green  II choppers had already been used, along with the   A-10s, to extract the F-15’s pilot, taking fire as  they did so.

But the mission to come was far more   complex.

The CSAR package was large, and it would  need to be accompanied by other Air Force assets,   which all add up to something that the U.S.

has  tried so hard to avoid during Operation Epic Fury:   Risk.

By the end of the planning phase, the U.S.

had determined that it would need over 150 planes   and more than 200 munitions to complete the  operation, CBS News reports.

Trump himself   said that committing all of these resources to  the rescue mission was a “risky decision.

” And   he had a point.

The U.S.

could have wound up with  (for example) “100 dead, as opposed to one or two”   if things went wrong.

But the decision had been  made for a simple reason, as Trump explained:   “It’s a hard decision to make, but in the United  States military, we leave no Americans behind.

We don’t do it.

” Back to the CSAR, it wouldn’t  just be the A-10s for close air support and the   CSAR-specific aircraft that the U.S.

would need  for the operation.

Those aircraft would need   to get into Iran, and a makeshift airstrip would  be needed to serve as a base for the extraction.

After all, Iran had just proven it could take out  a premier U.S.

aircraft using shoulder-mounted   air defenses.

Iran’s forces could not be  afforded that opportunity again.

Fighter   jets would accompany the CSAR package and, later,  would engage with Iranian forces to keep the heat   off the WSO.

A distraction would also be arranged,  but we’ll be getting to that later.

As for Iran,   as the U.S.

set up its CSAR, Iranian ground  forces were combing through the mountains and   rough terrain around where the F-15 had been shot  down.

They wanted to capture the WSO or the pilot.

Ideally both.

The propaganda victory alone would  be huge, as either could be paraded on Iranian   television as an example of how, for all of its  firepower, the U.S.

military had failed to protect   its own.

Not knowing that the F-15 pilot had  already been rescued, the Iranian regime offered   a bounty of around $66,000 to anybody who was  able to find either the pilot or the WSO aliv.

That brought armed civilians into the search, the  BBC reported.

An Iranian net had formed.

Massive,   at first.

But as more people joined the search,  lured by the prospect of making up to 734 times   the monthly minimum wage, that net was starting  to close.

The U.S.

had gathered its assets.

It   was almost ready to make its move.

But it had to  be quick.

The WSO couldn’t stay hidden forever,   and remaining in one spot meant that his potential  captors could eliminate potential hiding places.

But as all of this was happening, another group  was playing its role in the mission to come.

That alone changed everything for the WSO.

But before  we dig deeper into that, this is a quick reminder   that you’re watching The Military Show.

We bring  you the full picture, not just the headlines.

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It wasn’t just the Combat Survivor Evader Locator   that had shown the U.S.

military where they  needed to look for the stranded WSO.

The CIA,   had gotten directly involved, as its director,  John Radcliffe, revealed.

He told journalists that   the CIA has access to unique capabilities that  the U.S.

President can deploy as and when needed.

“Some of these capabilities fall under covert  action authorities, and because covert means   exactly that I’m not going to be able to tell you  everything that you want to know,” Ratcliffe said,   before adding, “At the President’s direction,  we deployed both human assets and exquisite
technologies that no other intelligence service  in the world possesses to a daunting challenge.

”   He compared the challenge of finding the WSO  to “hunting for a single grain of sand in the   middle of a desert.

” However, it’s the mention  of “human assets” that grabs attention here.

The CIA would have been looking out for the WSO’s  signal, just as the Air Force was.

But what does   “human assets” mean? Is Radcliffe referring to CIA  members operating in the U.S.

? Perhaps.

According   to Trump himself, it was CIA camera technology  that ultimately allowed the U.S.

Air Force to   zero in precisely on the location of the hidden  WSO.

Those cameras were scanning the side of the   mountain that the beacon had alerted the military  to, and Trump himself explained that the cameras   saw “the head of a human being.

” Trump added,  “And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later,   he moved a lot.

Stood up, and they stood way half  of him.

And that was really at the beginning of   something incredible! We had an idea where he was,  but not specifically.

That’s a big mountain.

” The   WSO
’s approximate position had been known up to  this point.

With the CIA’s help, the U.S.

now knew   precisely where that WSO was hiding.

Iran didn’t  have that information yet, so the U.S.

has an   advantage.

Still, there was more work to do, and  more challenges to confront, before the WSO could   finally be extracted.

Before a rescue could be  completed, the U.S.

had to set up a FARP.

A FARP   is a forward arming and refueling point, and it  needed to be created deep inside enemy territory,   where it also had to be secured against Iranian  attacks.

This FARP was essential.

It would serve   as the staging area for the entire mission, along  with all of the equipment and personnel that the   U.S.

would dedicate to the rescue.

An Air Force  Special Tactics Team had allegedly surveyed and   identified several Iranian runways and airfields  that could be used for landing and drop zones in   preparation for just such a mission.

That work  would have been done at least from the beginning   of Operation Epic Fury, and perhaps long before,  former Special Tactics Squadron airman Kyle   Rempfer reveals to The War Zone.

Rempfer adds that  the priority would be to find an airstrip that   could host a couple of MC-130J Commando IIs, which  would be used in the extraction.

A small runway   used by crop-spraying planes would be more than  enough in terms of size, but the U.S.

also had to   consider terrain.

Soft soil doesn’t hold up to the  repeated landings needed for a mission like this,   and recent weather may have eroded soil to the  point where it couldn’t stand up to usage.

That   issue would come to the fore.

But for now, the  U.S.

was focused on building up a force that   included 155 aircraft.

Trump said that this force  involved 64 fighter jets, 48 refueling tankers,   13 rescue aircraft, and more.

Adding to that  list were four bombers.

Hold on a second.

This   was a rescue mission.

What could the U.S.

possibly  need bombers for when the goal was to ensure the   WSO was pulled out safely? There are two answers:  Deception and suppression.

When the U.S.

finally   launched its mission, massive bombs would become  a key part of the entire rescue.

The Wall Street   Journal reports that U.S.

bombers dropped around  100 munitions, each weighing about 2,000 pounds,   on the roads leading into the rescue site.

Shattered roads would prevent Iran’s ground forces   from driving vehicles to the WSO’s location,  removing another threat from the equation.

However, these assets, along with many of the  others that the U.S.

gathered for the mission,   were also used for an operation outside of the  rescue.

Subterfuge was the name of the game,   as Trump explains.

“We wanted to have them think  he was in a different location, because they had   a vast military force out there, thousands and  thousands of people were looking.

So, we wanted   them to look in different areas,” Trump explains.

The logic here is simple.

Every U.S.

strike using   the force it had gathered would be enough to  convince Iran’s ground forces that they needed   to look at the location where the strike occurred.

Of course, you had the real bombing of the roads   leading into the site where the WSO was.

But bombs  elsewhere forced Iran to split its forces.

The net   that had been closing in on the WSO was widened.

As Trump revealed after the rescue mission was   over, coordinated confusion reigned during this  part of the operation.

In total, the U.S.

attacked   seven different locations, forcing Iran to search  in places where it would never find the prize that   it was looking for.

As all of this was happening,  the CIA was also unleashing more of its assets,   this time on the ground in Iran.

Word was put  out that the F-15 crewmen had already been found,   in what was a clear attempt to convince some of  the Iranian bounty hunters that continuing their   search was useless.

They wouldn’t find anything.

The money wouldn’t be theirs, so they may as   well give up.

But the most important of these  locations was the central Isfahan province.

About   20 kilometers, or 12.

4 miles, from a temporary  airstrip that the U.S.

created, craters can now   be viewed from the skies.

Satellite images show  dozens of those craters, each around 30 feet wide,   lining the roads leading to the extraction  point.

However, there is something else that   these satellite images reveal.

They are taken  just miles away from a remote airstrip where more   of America’s aircraft were damaged.

Did Iran hit  those aircraft? No! The U.S.

did, and the reason   why is the hitch that we hinted at earlier.

With  the bombing runs in progress, the U.S.

was able to   send special operatives in to extract the downed  WSO.

The BBC reports that these operatives were   elite Navy SEALS, who were airdropped to the  WSO’s location and then flown away, back to the   makeshift airstrip that had been set up outside  of central Isfahan.

It’s here where a terrain   problem reared its ugly head.

The remote base was  hosting a pair of military transport aircraft,   later revealed by Iran to be C-130 planes.

As the  SEALS brought the extracted WSO to those planes,   they found that they had become bogged down in  the soil and were unable to take off from the   base.

This was a problem.

Now stranded, the  SEALS had to make a tough choice.

The C-130s   that were meant to be their means of escape were  now useless.

They also couldn’t be allowed to   fall into the hands of the enemy.

So, the SEALS  blew up the planes that they had intended to use.

Iran would later say that a pair of Black Hawk  helicopters had also been destroyed during the   mission.

That indicates which aircraft the SEALS  used to extract the WSO.

The New York Times has   a slightly different version of events.

It says  that the U.S.

was forced to destroy four of its   MH-6 Special Operations choppers.

These aren’t  Black Hawk helicopters.

So, either Iran is lying,   Iran is mistaken about the helicopters that have  been lost, or the U.S.

has lost more than it says   it has.

We’re still awaiting confirmation.

Those  aircraft weren’t the only equipment casualties,   either.

A pilot of one of the A-10s took fire  while engaged in one of the rescue missions,   most likely that of the pilot who was  discovered much earlier than the WSO.

The pilot of that attack aircraft “continued to  fight, continued the mission, and then upon exit,   flew his aircraft into another country and  determined that the airplane was not landable,”   Caine has revealed.

Upon making that discovery,  the pilot flew over friendly territory, ejected,   and was safely recovered.

Sadly, the same can’t be  said of the ruined A-10, which joins the pair of   C-130s and the choppers as the main casualties of  the rescue mission.

However, this is the important   part… There were no American human casualties.

With their main extraction method gone, the SEALS   fell back on Plan B.

A call was made, and the  U.S.

special forces, along with the rescued WSO,   were picked up by a trio of aircraft that  were sent to collect them from the rudimentary   airfield.

Those aircraft likely fired on America’s  stricken airframes, turning the rudimentary   airstrip into a graveyard for the transports  that had been stored beforehand.

From there,   the three aircraft flew, delivering the WSO to  friendly territory in Kuwait.

There, he is being   treated after being “seriously wounded,” Trump has  reported.

But thanks to this remarkable mission,   the WSO “will be just fine.

” “WE GOT HIM!” Trump  declared in a Truth Social post following the   operation, where he added, “My fellow Americans,  over the past several hours, the United States   Military pulled off one of the most daring  Search and Rescue Operations in U.S.

History,   for one of our incredible Crew Member Officers,  who also happens to be a highly respected Colonel,   and who I am thrilled to let you know is  now SAFE and SOUND!” Trump used the same   post to claim that this mission “…proves once  again, that we have achieved overwhelming Air   Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian  skies.

” That claim could be disputed.

An F-15
wouldn’t have been shot down in the first place  if the U.S.

had complete air dominance.

However,   that doesn’t take away from how impressive this  operation was.

The U.S.

had to coordinate well   over a hundred aircraft and even more personnel,  along with special forces operatives and the CIA,   all to locate and extract one man.

The U.S.

pulled  it off with no American casualties.

As for Iran,   it has scored a propaganda victory by taking out  an F-15.

The much larger victory of taking U.S.

personnel into custody has been snatched out  of its hands by an operation that nobody saw   coming.

Now, we await to see what’s next.

Trump  has declared a conditional two-week ceasefire   with Iran.

The Strait of Hormuz must be reopened  for that ceasefire to stick, and Iran says it will   abide by the ceasefire as long as all attacks  against it stop.

Are we finally seeing the end   of Operation Epic Fury? If not, and the ceasefire  is broken, then the U.S.

will be ready with more   aerial firepower, including its F-22 fighter jets.

These jets have already been unleashed on Iran,   and they’ll be ready to hit even harder if and  when needed.