General, Showcasing a dynamic bomber-centric global strike with a historical first and with heritage connections.

19 March 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom: An early morning aerial strike was conducted against a site at al-Dora farms in Iraq. It was thought that the then Iraqi dictator, Saddam Husein and his top leadership were present at this location. This early morning bomber-centric strike was soon followed by a barrage of some 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles hitting three critical targets around Iraq's capital city of Baghdad.

This was the opening phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, an American-led multi-national coalition composed of 60 nations with 37 providing military forces. Multiple air strikes were directed against Iraqi air defenses, leadership targets, communication facilities, military units, and other targets preparing for American and Allied ground forces to conduct force entry operations into Iraq that began on 20 March. Air superiority over Iraq was achieved on 8 April. Baghdad fell to American ground forces on 9 April.

Rest of the Story: Eighth Air Force's participation in Operation Iraqi Freedom was conducted through multiple roles. These varied roles range from air combat, air command and control monitoring over 65,000 aircraft sorties, and integrating information operations into the larger air campaign. The 3d Air Support Operations Group - assigned to Eighth Air Force - deployed to the theater and innovatively used capabilities onboard the Joint STARS (Surveillance Target Attack Radar System) aircraft to track Iraqi mortar teams firing on and endangering Allied ground forces inside Iraq.

Historical First: On 1 April 2003, in an air strike supporting Iraqi Freedom, Captain Jennifer Wilson assigned to the 509th Bomb Wing became the first woman pilot to fly a B-2A Spirit bomber on an air combat mission. Captain Wilson and crew-mate, Major Richard Bohn, Jr., flew the Spirit of Georgia on this strike mission. (Special thanks to Dee Gullickson, Historian for 509th Bomb Wing for providing this historic insight.)

Historical Connections: For this 19 March air combat mission on Iraq, six B-2A Sprit bombers were dispatched to conduct these strikes. One flight of three B-2As were forward deployed to the island of Deigo Garcia in the Indian Ocean and conducted this round-robin air combat mission recovering at Diego Garcia.

The second flight of thee B-2s launched from Whiteman AFB, Missouri and successfully struck designated targets in Iraq and then returned to Missouri. The lead pilot for this second flight was the Commander 325th Bomb Squadron - then Lieutenant Colonel Scott A. Vander Hamm - who later as a Major General served as the Commander Eighth Air Force (18 October 2013-17 April 2015). Another pilot in this second flight was then Major Jason R. Armagost - who as a Major General served as the Commander of both Eighth Air Force and the Joint-Global Strike Operations Center (25 August 2023 to 16 November 2025).

Historian's Note: Being named in an 8 AF History-Heritage note denotes possessing wisdom and experience - not age...just say'n.