On the evening of May 17, 1987, USS Stark (FFG-31) was on patrol in the Persian Gulf, operating as part of the naval presence that the United States maintained in the region during the Iran-Iraq War. At 2105, an Iraqi Mirage F1 aircraft launched two Exocet anti-ship missiles at the ship. Both hit. The first missile penetrated the ship's hull and failed to detonate; the second struck nearby, ignited a fire, and triggered a secondary explosion. Thirty-seven American sailors were killed. Stark did not sink — she was kept afloat by the damage control efforts of her crew, who fought fires and flooding through the night and saved their ship — but the attack changed the nature of the American naval presence in the Gulf and raised questions about the rules of engagement, the capability of surface ships to detect and respond to anti-ship missile threats, and the costs of operating in a region where two neighboring nations were at war.
The Ship
USS Stark (FFG-31) was an Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigate, commissioned on October 23, 1982. The Perry class was designed as a cost-effective convoy escort — a capable, affordable ship that traded the Aegis system and the vertical launch cells of the larger Ticonderoga-class cruisers for a simpler, lighter weapons suite. Homeported at Mayport, Florida, she deployed to the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will — the 1987-88 U.S. naval operation to escort reflagged Kuwaiti tankers through Gulf waters where Iranian forces were attacking shipping.
Operation Earnest Will
Operation Earnest Will was the U.S. response to Kuwait's request that its oil tankers be reflagged under the American flag and escorted by the U.S. Navy through the Persian Gulf. Iran had been attacking tankers throughout the Iran-Iraq War, using mines, small boat attacks, and occasional air strikes to pressure the Gulf states that were financing Iraq. The reflagging and escort operation put American forces directly into a conflict zone where the rules of engagement were complex and the threat environment was ambiguous — a hostile sea without a declared war, operations that required constant alertness in conditions where the threshold for action was difficult to determine.
The Attack
The Stark attack occurred before Operation Earnest Will had fully formalized — it was part of the environment that led to the operation's establishment. The Iraqi aircraft that launched the Exocets was reportedly operating in a pattern that might have been interpreted as non-threatening, and the Stark's crew did not take defensive action in time to intercept either missile. The investigation that followed examined the ship's readiness posture, the rules of engagement under which she was operating, and the broader question of how surface ships should respond to the ambiguous air environment of the Gulf.
The damage control efforts of Stark's crew — fighting fires, shoring up flooded compartments, keeping the ship afloat through the night — were recognized as exemplary. The ship survived because her crew refused to let her sink. That is not a small thing.
The Cost
Thirty-seven sailors died aboard Stark that night. Their deaths changed the posture of American forces in the Gulf, contributed to the rules of engagement revisions that made U.S. ships more aggressive in responding to perceived threats, and ultimately set conditions for the operational environment that would lead, a year later, to the accidental shootdown of Iran Air Flight 655 by USS Vincennes — a tragedy that was in part a consequence of the heightened alertness that Stark's loss had produced. The costs of ambiguous warfare in confined waters are never simple to account for.
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Legacy
USS Stark was repaired and returned to service, serving until her decommissioning on May 6, 1999. The attack on her in 1987 is one of the defining moments of the Persian Gulf era of American naval history — a moment that demonstrated the real costs of operating in a combat environment without the formal declaration of war that would have made the rules of engagement clear. The thirty-seven men who died are remembered. Their ship, which fought to survive and did, is part of the story of what the Navy gives and what it costs.