page_title: 8th Fighter Squadron
section_title: Operation Enduring Freedom
hierarchical_section_title: 8th Fighter Squadron / History / Holloman Air Force Base / F-117 Nighthawk era / Operation Enduring Freedom
caption_attribution_description: English: An F-117 and F-15s prepare to launch from Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, during Operation Enduring Freedom
context_page_description: The 8th Fighter Squadron is an active United States Air Force squadron, assigned to the 54th Fighter Group Air Education and Training Command, stationed at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico.
  It currently operates the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft, conducting initial training, transition and instructor upgrades training.
  The squadron have a proud lineage of aircraft and assignments. The origin of the 8th Fighter Squadron can be traced back to 1940, and since then, the squadron has served in several war and peace time assignments across the globe.
context_section_description: People, airplanes, and equipment of the 49th Fighter Wing played a key role in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The wing's F-117s played a major role, dropping the first bombs against an Iraqi leadership target in Baghdad on 19 March 2003.
  Deployed to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, assigned to the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, on the opening night of the invasion, fresh intelligence was received that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was staying at a specific bunker for the night.  USAF planners had a rare opportunity to kill the elusive Iraqi leader. It was reasoned that might bring down his regime without war.  The F-117s would carry the new GPS-guided EGBU-27 precision guided bomb. The problem was it had never been used in combat and the weapons had arrived at Al Udeid a mere 24 hours earlier.
  Combat preparation of the fighters began immediately. The plan called for the F-117s to take off as soon as possible. Two stealth fighters roared northward into the nighttime sky at 3:38 a.m.  After refueling over the Gulf near Kuwait City, the stealth fighters split up and took separate routes over Iraq to the target area. The sun was starting to come up by the time the pilots reached Baghdad, however on that morning Baghdad was obscured under low-level clouds.  Each of the two F-117s released two bombs, which plummeted toward the bunker in which Saddam Hussein was believed to be sleeping. Release came at 5:30 a.m., 13 minutes after dawn but only five hours after the pilots first heard that such a mission might be in the offing.  The strike caught Iraqi defenses completely off guard. Defensive anti-aircraft fire did not begin until the aircraft had completed the attack and were racing out of the Baghdad area.
  Although the strike did not kill Saddam Hussein, what it did accomplish was to allow the coalition to seize the initiative.  Also the EGBU-27 immediately became the F-117's premier weapon. According to Air Force data, 98 of them were delivered during the conflict, compared to only 11 of the traditional, predominantly laser versions. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, F-117 pilots flew more than 80 missions and dropped nearly 100 enhanced guided bomb units against key targets. Approximately 300 people deployed with the air package and provided direct support to the F-117 mission.
  In 2006, the Air Force announced that Holloman AFB would cease to be the home of the F-117A Nighthawk, coinciding with the announcement that the aircraft was set to be retired from service by 2008.  The planes were sent to their former base at Tonopah Airport, Nevada for retirement and long-term indoor storage.  Tonopah was selected to store the aircraft as it was stated that even in retirement, the stealth technology of the aircraft remained classified.  Therefore, the planes would be stored in their former hangars where they were originally kept during the years the existence of the aircraft was secret.  The last F-117A Nighthawk flew to Tonopah in late April 2008, and as a result, the 8th inactivated for the first time after 67 years of active service on 16 May 2008.
caption: An 8th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron F-117 and F-15s prepare to fly from Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, during Operation Enduring Freedom
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