Inside the insane 35-hour secret B-52 mission that kicked off the Gulf War

In the early hours of January 16, 1991, seven B-52G Stratofortress bombers from the 2nd Bomb Wing taxied onto the runway at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. Their mission was classified. Their destination was Iraq. They would not land until they were back at Barksdale, over 35 hours later, having flown more than 14,000 miles nonstop and fired the opening shots of Operation Desert Storm. The mission was codenamed Operation Senior Surprise — but the crews who flew it knew it by another name: Secret Squirrel.

The Longest Combat Mission In History

At 35 hours and 24 minutes, Secret Squirrel was the longest combat sortie ever flown at the time. The seven bombers launched from Louisiana, flew across the Atlantic Ocean, refuelled in the air multiple times, entered Iraqi airspace, launched their weapons, and then flew the entire route back without ever touching a runway. More than 57 airmen took part. The round trip covered roughly 14,000 nautical miles — the equivalent of flying from New York to Sydney and partway back.

The First GPS-Guided Missiles Used In Combat

The B-52s carried AGM-86C Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missiles — known as CALCMs. When the bombers reached their launch positions, they released 35 cruise missiles at key Iraqi power and communications infrastructure. These were the first missiles in the history of warfare to use the Global Positioning System for guidance. Until that night, GPS had been a military navigation tool. Secret Squirrel turned it into a weapon-guidance system — a shift that would go on to reshape how every modern military in the world fights.

Designed To Blind Saddam

The mission's objective was not to level cities or destroy military formations. It was surgical: to knock out specific communication nodes, power stations, and command-and-control facilities that Saddam Hussein's military relied on to coordinate its forces. By eliminating these targets in the opening minutes of the war, the US aimed to render Iraq's command structure deaf and blind before the broader air campaign even began. The 35 CALCM strikes achieved this with a level of precision that had never been demonstrated in a bomber mission before.

Nobody Knew Until It Was Over

The secrecy around the mission was extreme. The operation was planned and executed with minimal knowledge outside the immediate chain of command. The crews flew from a base in the continental United States, struck targets thousands of miles away, and returned home — all without any public announcement. Details of Secret Squirrel only emerged after the war, when the mission was declassified and the crews received recognition for what remains one of the most extraordinary bomber sorties in military history.