19871776 Club
Four U.S. destroyers open fire on Iranian oil platforms in the Gulf
Three days after a Silkworm missile blinded an American tanker captain, Reagan sends four destroyers to answer.
A Silkworm missile had slammed into the Kuwaiti tanker Sea Isle City on October 16, wounding eighteen crewmen and blinding its American captain. On October 19, 1987, four U.S. destroyers, Hoel, Leftwich, Kidd, and John Young, opened fire at 2 p.m. on two Iranian platforms in the Rashadat field that the Revolutionary Guard used to track shipping and coordinate small-boat attacks. Navy boarding teams raided one platform for documents, then destroyed it with planted explosives. President Reagan called it "an appropriate and proportionate response."…
