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APRIL 14, 12:13p.m. TAKE OFF ...
ROUTE TO THE BATTLE
...7:00p.m. ATTACK
MAJOR TARGETS IN LIBYA
APRIL 14, 7:00-7:11:30p.m.
CLOSE UP ON TRIPOLI
The raid was a total surprise. The city was ablaze with light, and not a single air-raid alarm sounded. The Libyans hastily put up a hail of antiaircraft fire, but their Soviet-made SAMs, fired without radar guidance, were wildly inaccurate. "We forced the Libyans to turn off their radar," says Navy Secretary John Lehman. "They knew if they turned them on to guide their missiles, they would get a HARM down the throat." Nor was any defense mounted by the Libyan air force, whose pilots are notoriously poor night flyers. Five F-111s were assigned to hit Colonel Gaddafi's compound, and four of them dropped 16 laser-guided 2,000-lb. bombs. The hope, said a senior Administration official, was to "turn the barracks into dust." The bombs cratered the compound, blew out windows and caved in a wall, but did not flatten any buildings. Gaddafi was probably safe in his underground bunker when the planes broke off the attack and headed back out to sea. One F-111, apparently hit by antiaircraft fire, never made it.
AFTERMATH
Lost raiders: F-111 Weapons System Officer Captain Paul F. Lorence and his pilot, Captain Fernando L. Ribas-Dominicci. Their aircraft reportedly turned into a "fireball."
Reprisals: the corpses of three Western hostages seized in Lebanon, including American Peter Kilburn, dumped on a road outside Beirut two days after the raid.