Operation Praying Mantis
18 April 1988

The Iranian frigate Sahand (F 74) burns after being attacked by aircraft from the nuclear-powered carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65) in Operation Praying Mantis, 18 April 1988. U.S. Navy Photo, DN-SN-89-03122

Related Reads

• Schneller, Robert J., Anchor of Resolve: A History of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/Fifth Fleet (Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 2007)
• Michael A. Palmer, On Course to Desert Storm: The United States Navy and the Persian Gulf (Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1992)
• Bradley Peniston, No Higher Honor: Saving the USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Persian Gulf (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2013)
• David Crist, The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (New York: Penguin Press, 2012)
• Harold Lee Wise, Inside the Danger Zone: The U.S. Military in the Persian Gulf 1987-88 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2007).
• Craig L. Symonds, Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
  
  

Overview

On 18 April 1988 the U.S. Navy destroyed 2 Iranian surveillance platforms, sank one frigate and one patrol ship, and severely damaged a second frigate in retaliation for the 14 April mining of USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) in the Arabian Gulf.

Reference

• Image Gallery
• The Role of the Navy in the Arabian Gulf (historical summary)
• Enterprise (CVN 65) Command Operations Report, 1988
• Enterprise History (Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships)

RESOURCES

• Operation Praying Mantis Blows a Hole in Iranian Navy (SEAPOWER Magazine, Navy League of the United States, September 2003, by David F. Winkler)
• Operation Praying Mantis: The Surface View (U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 115, May 1989, by then-Capt. J. B. Perkins III)