PAYNE AND HIS TEAM RESCUED 60 HOSTAGES
On the night of October 22, 2015, SFC Thomas Payne (Delta Force) took part in a hostage rescue in Iraq. His team was already in the country as part of an operation against ISIS when the Kurdish government asked for help with the rescue.
Reconnaissance showed that the hostages were about to be executed, so the night assault went in immediately. Shortly before dawn the CH-47 Chinooks touched down on enemy ground and the Delta operators poured out of the helicopters together with Kurdish special forces. The Kurds tried and failed to blow a breach through the wall of the compound, which alerted the enemy and brought them under fire. The Americans then climbed over the wall and attacked. MSG Joshua Wheeler was killed in the assault. Payne and his team cleared the resistance in the first building, opened the cell doors and freed the first 38 hostages.
Payne heard that men were needed at the other building and ran through enemy rifle fire to his comrades, who were fighting a dug-in enemy. The explosions had set the building on fire. He climbed the burning ladder to the roof anyway and engaged the enemy from above and from the flanks.
Payne knew that the hostages trapped in the burning building were running out of time and moved to the main entrance, where heavy enemy fire met him. He went in first anyway and searched for the hostages, who were locked behind a heavy door. With rounds striking everywhere, the building slowly collapsing and the thick smoke cutting visibility to almost nothing, the team managed to break the door open and free the remaining hostages. Payne was ordered to leave the unstable building. But every time he had caught his breath outside, he went back into the inferno to make sure that every hostage really was out.
In total, over 60 hostages were freed, 20 ISIS fighters killed and 5 more captured.
Payne was awarded the Medal of Honor in September 2020 for his selfless actions.
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