Was watching Jarhead the other night, and noticed that they were sent to Saudi Arabia via a TWA commercial flight. Is this how they were sent over there?
Was watching Jarhead the other night, and noticed that they were sent to Saudi Arabia via a TWA commercial flight. Is this how they were sent over there?
Some troops were carried by commercial airliner aircraft. Most, however, were not.
During the Cold War, due to the large geographic distance between the US and both Europe and Asia, the US built two major commands central to US military strategy: the US Military Airlift Command (MAC) and the US Military Sealift Command (MSC). Famously, the airlift command boasted to be able to move an entire Army division - with their equipment - to Europe within five days of the beginning of hostilities with the Soviet Union.
MAC, run by the US Air Force, performed the largest airlift in history during the Gulf War, moving more than half-a-million tons of cargo and almost half-a-million passengers for the seven month period starting August 7th, 1990. Source: RAND - Strategic Airlift Operations of the Gulf War
By internal Air Force metrics, however, the performance actually fell short - planes had lower readiness rates than predicted, and older aircraft like the C-141 were load-limited due to fears of aircraft fatigue. This was further compounded by having most aircraft unloading their passengers and equipment at just one port of entry, Dhahran, which bottlenecked the entire logistical chain.
To augment this, MAC (today, its successor known as Air Mobility Command) manages the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF):
A unique and significant part of the nation's air mobility resources is the Civil Reserve Air Fleet or CRAF. Selected aircraft from U.S. airlines, contractually committed to CRAF, augment Department of Defense airlift requirements in emergencies when the need for airlift exceeds the capability of military aircraft.
The CRAF has two main segments: international and national. The international segment is further divided into the long-range and short-range sections and the national segment satisfies domestic requirements. Assignment of aircraft to a segment depends on the nature of the requirement and the performance characteristics needed.
That quote is from the official link, which includes a list of airlines that participate in CRAF, as well as the stipulations/requirements to participate.
Thus, troops were very well sent on commercial airliners owned by companies like TWA - not as commercial flights, but as flights used to augment the DOD when required.
It should be noted that the airlift component paled in comparison to the sealift component when it came to tonnage shipped. More than 12 million tons of wheeled and tracked vehicles, helicopters, ammunition, fuel, etc. were shipped by MSC during the Gulf War. At its peak, over 230 government-owned and chartered ships were managed by MSC.
Lest we forget, the US amassed a major air presence for the war. How capable was the US at moving fighter jets all the way to the Middle East?
Well, on August 7th, the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing - part of Tactical Air Command - which had been on alert, as other wings did throughout the Cold War in case of a Soviet invasion - deployed 24 fully armed F-15s on a non-stop 15 hour direct flight to Saudi Arabia, utilizing KC-135 and KC-10 aerial refueling tankers, with each aircraft receiving seven aerial refuelings each. In the coming days, entire squadrons of fighter jets would be moved in this way. Source