One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University

1991
January 27: After the Iraqis began releasing huge amounts of crude oil into
the Persian Gulf from a refinery in Kuwait, two F–111F aircraft
dropped precision-guided munitions on the facility, stopping the worst
deliberate oil spill in history.
January 29: The Battle of Khafji began as Iraqi forces crossed from Kuwait
into Saudi Arabia. Coalition air forces suffered their greatest loss when
an AC–130H Spectre gunship was shot down, resulting in the death of
all 14 crew members. USAF tactical air strikes helped coalition ground
forces rout the invaders within three days.
February 6: Capt. Robert R. Swain, Jr., of the 706th Tactical Fighter
Squadron, Air Force Reserve, scored the first-ever A–10 Thunderbolt
II air-to-air kill by shooting down an Iraqi helicopter.
February 24: After more than a month of air strikes that severely weakened
Iraqi forces, the U.S.-led coalition launched a ground offensive from
Saudi Arabia. C–130s had already airlifted elements of the Army XVIII
Airborne Corps from eastern Saudi Arabia to Rafha, on the Saudi-Iraqi
border. Flying more than 300 sorties a day in 10-minute intervals, the
C–130s delivered 13,843 troops and 9,396 tons of cargo. This movement
enabled coalition forces to encircle Iraq’s Republican Guard in
what Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, combatant commander of US Central
Command, described as the “Hail Mary maneuver.” Within 100
hours, coalition ground forces, coupled with continued air attacks,
totally overwhelmed the Iraqi ground troops. Between February 24
and 28, the Air Force flew 3,000 reconnaissance, close air support, and
interdiction sorties.
February 28: Operation DESERT STORM ended at 0800 hours with a coalition-declared
cease-fire. During the war, coalition forces released approximately
16,000 precision-guided munitions against Iraqi forces and
dropped some 210,000 unguided bombs. In 42 days of around-the-clock
operations, USAF aircraft flew 59 percent of the nearly 110,000 combat
sorties. U.S. aerial strength of approximately 1,990 aircraft comprised 75
percent of the total coalition air power. Extensive use of satellite technology
during DESERT STORM persuaded some USAF leaders subsequently
to refer to the operation as the “first space war.”
March 8–c. June 30: Forty-five C–5 and C–141 flights airlifted more than
1,000 tons of fire-fighting equipment and over 100 firefighters to
Kuwait to extinguish hundreds of oil-well fires set by Iraqi forces as
they evacuated the country.
April 5: Operation PROVIDE COMFORT began. By July 15, C–5, C–141, and
C–130 aircraft had airlifted more than 7,000 tons of relief supplies to Kurdish
refugees who had fled their homes in northern Iraq to the Turkish
border after Iraqi forces threatened to exterminate them. The operation
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