Operation Eldorado Canyon: The 1986 US Bombing Raid on Libya by Major Jim Rotramel. Harpia Publishing, 2024, 256 pp.
Operation Eldorado Canyon: The 1986 US Bombing Raid on Libya by retired US Air Force Major Jim Rotramel is the best of the Harpia series books this reviewer has read to date—as engaging and detailed as a Tom Clancy novel. Rotramel’s Operation Eldorado Canyon tells the complex story of the longest combat fighter mission in history by British-based US Air Force F-111s, two US Navy aircraft carriers, and a unique air refueling plan that involved more than half of the then new KC-10 tanker inventory. For the first time, author Rotramel describes in detail previous contingency operations against Libya, sorties testing the ability of the F-111s to fly such an extended raid, and the mission itself from the aircrews that flew one of the last US bombing missions that did not involve cruise missiles and GPS-guided bombs.
It is important to note that Rotramel’s insights and analysis come from his experiences as a 20-year US Air Force officer that included 10 years and more than 1,000 hours as an F-111D and F-111F weapons systems officer, during which he served as the chief of training at various times for both of the Air Force’s F-111 fighter wings. He also was part of the planning effort of the Operation Eldorado Canyon mission and therefore brings firsthand knowledge of the operations to the book’s pages.
The tension between Middle Eastern and African Islamic autocracies and the United States dates back over two centuries to the time of Thomas Jefferson’s presidency. In the early 1980s, Libya’s President Muammar Gaddafi, with the support of the Soviet Union, sponsored numerous acts of terrorism throughout Europe and the Middle East resulting in the death of US military personnel and civilians. Gaddafi was considered the center of gravity for the US diplomatic, information, military, and economic lines of counterterrorist efforts. In 1986, US President Ronald Reagan finally elected to strike back after the bombing of a German night club that resulted in the death of two American service members and the wounding of 79 others. These events were played out against the backdrop of the ongoing Cold War between the United States and its NATO Allies and the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations, which made Reagan’s decision all the more difficult.
With an incredible eye for detail, military humor, and somber reflection, the author describes Operation Eldorado Canyon in amazingly complex detail. In an era before launching cruise missiles and GPS-guided missiles became the norm in the 1990s, the operation required the type of long-range navigation and tactical planning that still utilized paper maps, photos, and E6B mechanical planning computers to ensure a high degree of precision accuracy against Gaddafi’s air defense systems, airfields, command and control centers, and terrorist training center targets located in the densely populated coastal areas. The author includes firsthand accounts from the US Navy aircrews who participated in Eldorado Canyon as well as Operation Prairie Fire the month before, the latter which saw the first combat employment of the anti-ship missile, the AGM-84E Harpoon Standoff Land Attack Missile, against the Libyan navy. Also included is the story of the only US aircrew lost during the operation: two US Air Force captains—Fernando L. Ribas-Dominicci and Paul F. Lorence—were killed when their F-111F (callsign Karma-52) was shot down.
The book features excellent photographs of the operations aircraft, ships, targets, and weapons systems used by both sides, as well as extensive charts and maps outlining the complexity of executing a mission over water and in the ear of the 24-hour news cycle. Especially valuable to readers are the maps outlining the ingress and egress routes of the US Air Force and Navy aircraft, as well as the location of the aircraft carriers and support aircraft ensuring the operation’s success.
Finally, the author goes to great lengths describing how, due to perceived US Defense Department excessive award recognition and security concerns, US Air Force leadership then decided to hide the names of the participating air crews to the point where awards for the operation were either downgraded or not given at all. This led to the unusual decision by Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, a Navy flight officer himself, to award the Navy Meritorious Unit Citation to the US Air Force’s 48th Tactical Fighter Wing, the F-111 unit that carried out the raid.
The book also helps dispel a number of Vietnam War-era myths about the F-111’s ability to effectively perform in combat. The F-111 air crews, employing the same Pave Tack targeting pods used against Libyan targets, would five years later in the First Gulf War destroy over 1,500 Iraqi armored vehicles. By contrast during the same war, the much-vaunted A-10s destroyed only 900 Iraqi military vehicles.
The only criticisms of this otherwise excellent book are some minor syntax errors and an attempt to link too many contemporary Cold War-era geopolitical events to Reagan’s motivations to launch the attack against Libya. Despite this, Rotramel’s work is highly recommended for historians and strategic planners as an example of how to effectively employ the military instrument of power when diplomatic and economic lines of effort have failed. Like any post-mission “hotwash” debrief, the book lays out the conduct of the mission—the good, the bad, the ugly, and even the humorous. It offers unique insight into what it was like to plan and execute a complex military operation and the human and political risks associated with such endeavors.
Operation Eldorado Canyon is a pleasure to read and should be required reading for every US Air Force Weapons School and School of Advanced Air and Space Studies student and graduate.
Colonel Jayson A. Altieri, USA, Retired