In Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda, Army Times staff writer Sean Naylor describes Delta as having, at the time, nearly 1.000 soldiers, of which approximately 250 to 300 are trained to conduct direct action and hostage rescue operations. The unit is headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.ĭelta Forces structure is similar to the British 22nd SAS Regiment, the unit that inspired Deltas formation. Virtually all information about the unit is highly classified and details about specific missions or operations generally are not available publicly. Command of 1st SFOD-D is a colonels billet. Army Special Operations Command USASOC, but is controlled by the Joint Special Operations Command JSOC. The unit is under the organization of the U.S. The Joint Special Operations Command was created for command and control of the various counter-terrorism units of the U.S. The Navys SEAL Team Six, an earlier incarnation of the current Naval Special Warfare Development Group, was created for maritime counter-terrorism operations. The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment Airborne, also known as the "Night Stalkers", was created for special operations requiring air support. government realized more changes needed to be made. The review commission that examined the failure found 23 problems with the operation, among them unexpected weather encountered by the aircraft, command-and-control problems between the multi-service component commanders, a collision between a helicopter and a ground-refueling tanker aircraft, and mechanical problems that reduced the number of available helicopters from eight to five one fewer than the minimum desired before the mission contingent could leave the trans-loading/refueling site.Īfter the failed operation, the U.S. The operation was aborted due to problems with helicopter failures. Delta Force was tasked to plan and execute Operation Eagle Claw and recover the hostages from the embassy by force on the nights of 24 and 25 April in 1980. On 4 November 1979, 53 American diplomats and citizens were taken captive and held in the U.S. Delta Force was certified as fully mission capable in Fall 1979 right before the Iran hostage crisis. The first training course lasted from April to September 1978. The purpose was to test candidates endurance, stamina, willingness to endure and mental resolve.
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The initial members of the unit were screened from volunteers and put through a specialized selection process in early 1978, involving a series of land navigation problems in mountainous terrain while carrying increasing weight. In the meantime, Colonel Bob "Black Gloves" Mountel of the 5th Special Forces Group was tasked with creating a unit "to breach the short-term gap" that existed until Delta was ready, dubbed Blue Light. Watts had made it clear to Beckwith that it would take eighteen months to build a squadron, but advised him to tell the Army leadership that it would take two years, and not to "let anyone talk him out of this." To justify why it would take two years to build Delta, Beckwith and his staff drafted what they dubbed the "Robert Redford Paper." In it Delta outlined its necessities and historical precedents for a four-phase selection/assessment process.ĭelta Force was then established on 19 November 1977, by Beckwith and Colonel Thomas Henry. Beckwiths estimate came from a conversation he had earlier with Brigadier John Watts while in England in 1976. Beckwith estimated that it would take 24 months to get his new unit mission-ready. He briefed both military and government figures, who were resistant to creating a new unit outside of Special Forces or changing existing methods.įinally, in the mid-1970s, as the threat of terrorism grew, The Pentagon and Army senior leadership appointed Beckwith to form the unit. Army Special Forces in that period focused on unconventional warfare, but Beckwith recognized the need for "not only teachers, but doers." He envisioned highly adaptable and completely autonomous small teams with a broad array of special skills for direct action and counter-terrorism missions. Armys vulnerability in not having an SAS-type unit. On his return, Beckwith presented a detailed report highlighting the U.S. Charlie Beckwith, a Special Forces Green Berets officer and Vietnam War veteran, served as an exchange officer with the British Armys 22nd Special Air Service Regiment during the Malayan Emergency.
Key military and government figures had already been briefed on this type of unit in the early 1960s. government to develop a full-time counter-terrorism unit.
Delta Force was formed after numerous well-publicized terrorist incidents in the 1970s.