Storm Center: The USS Vincennes and Iran Air Flight 655: A Personal Account of Tragedy and Terrorism

by Will Rogers

Book Overview

The captain of the Vincennes and his wife provide a personal account of the dawning of Iranian Air flight 655 and the upheaval that followed. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1557507279
• ISBN13: 9781557507273
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The other side of the story

This book tells of the tragic downing of an Iraqi commercial jet by an American Warship. While it shows a different side of the incident then has been told before. One goes away thinking the truth is somewhere between both versions of this story. It could have dealt a bit more into the technical issues that contributed to the shooting down of the airliner, but that might just be my tastes.

A well-written account

An unfortunate incident in the Persian Gulf led to the shootdown of an Iranian airliner by the USS Vincennes, an AEGIS cruiser. I am an Air Defense Artillery officer and we were beginning to cooperate with the Navy for purposes of coordinating surface-based air defense in the 1990s. I am somewhat familiar with the cruiser and what it can and can't do. The story as presented in this book makes sense to me. The Iranians have been notoriously bad at enforcing air traffic control discipline and they have ALWAYS presented a potential hazard when operating in the Gulf... especially when it comes to dealing with Americans. As a result, if Iranians do anything out of the ordinary in the Gulf you don't take chances... you assume hostile intent since the Iranians have a history of firing silkworm missiles at ships, kidnapping servicemen in international waters and (now) gladly providing weapons to hostiles in Iraq. Our service people have always been scrupulous of human life and certainly would not destroy an airliner for the fun of it... especially as anyone who did commit such a crime would be subject to punishment by U.S. authorities. The "punishment" for "renegade" Iranian officers going to Iraq to stir up trouble is probably a medal. Besides, servicemembers in OUR military have a conscious... any American involved in a cold-blooded attack against an airliner would feel guilt about. Iranians sent to Iraq seem to rejoice at the deaths of women and children they cause for the sake of creating sectarian violence. I have no doubt that the captain of the ship did the right thing after reading this book.

USS VINCENNES SHOOTDOWN

THE USS VINCENNES SHOOTDOWN OF IRANIAN AIRLINER WAS ON PURPOSE NOT BY MISTAKE AND A SIMILAR ACCIDENT COULD HAVE OCCURED WITH TWA FLIGHT 800 WHICH CRASHED INTO THE ATLANTIC ON JULY 17 1996 AND BLAMED ON THE NAVY

A very real read

As a sailor who was onboard the Vincennes (CG-49, the Checkmate Cruiser) during this incident I have the utmost respect for the Captain Rogers and the actions he took. The book is an actual account of what happened as taken from the log books kept in CIC and from his memory. The story even made it to Unsolved Mysteries which brought up some key points of unclothed bodies already bloated with 30 minutes of the downing of the aircraft. Something that would take a couple of hours even in the warm waters of the Gulf. Every opportunity was given prior to the firing of the missiles for the plane to change its heading..with permission to fire at 40 miles, Capt Rogers waited until it was inside of 10. I strongly recommend this book to all military members and Americans at hea

Excellent. Finally, this tragedy is put to rest

At long last a FACTUAL accounting for the tragedy that cost so many lives. Free of rhetoric and unsubstantiated charges which serve only to bang the drum of detractors capitalizing on tragedy.