 Just days after USS Samuel B. Roberts hit the mine, President Reagan ordered U.S. forces to strike back. Petty Officer Chuck Moore has the story. President Reagan ordered defensive action in response to the mining of USS Samuel B. Roberts. On the morning of April 18, two Iranian oil platforms, Sassan and Siri, were destroyed by naval gunfire and demolitions. They must know that we will protect our ships and if they threaten us, they'll pay a price. Evacuate the platform immediately. I repeat, evacuate immediately. In response, an Iranian patrol boat fired on U.S. forces at the Siri platform, only to be sunk by USS Simpson and USS Wainwright. Further south in the Gulf, Iranian frigates fired on U.S. ships and aircraft in the Strait of Hormuz. I don't know if anybody else was surprised about the response from the Iranians. While these attacks may have been unexpected, the Navy was not unprepared. Well, we of course had no way of knowing just what their reaction might be. On the other hand, it would not be prudent not to have planned what to do in the event of a reaction. Of course, our ships are prepared and have the necessary guidance to permit them to defend themselves against any hostile action. And they took the necessary action very successfully. This is a warning. Stop and abandon ship. I intend to sink you. Over. I think that the performance of our ships and the Persian Gulf incidents of the last several days prove that if you're ready, you don't need a lot of planning. It's a come as you are situation and the ships were prepared and when the whistle blew, they were ready to go. During the nine-hour clash between U.S. and Iranian forces, Navy ships and aircraft made successful strikes against Iranian frigates and speed boats. Navy officials say all but one missile fired was on target. Meanwhile, when the Iranians were launching missiles at U.S. ships, sailors fired metal shaft into the air to confuse those missiles' guidance system. The result, all of the Iranian missiles fired missed. You can't do that without well-trained crews who've been working hard to get themselves into a high state of readiness, as all our ships out there are. Naval aviators were also ready. All of the A-6 harpoons were direct hits, and were the laser-guided bombs. We also used other ordnance against the bog hammer, a very high-speed speedboat. Difficult to hit, a maneuvering target at sea is a very difficult thing to hit, but our pilots showed their skill and our ordnancemen showed how well they could do the job. Officials say this kind of success, both in the air and on the sea, prove that Navy weapons programs are just what the doctor ordered. What it tells me is that we're building the right weapons to do the job. They worked and they worked as advertised. They worked in a tough environment. They worked on little notice. They worked when the pressure was on, when our ships were being fired at. We fired and we hit. When one sees nearly every weapon launched by our forces successfully engage the enemy and sink or knock down the opposition, that's a mark not only of good, competent hardware, both sensors as well as the weapons systems themselves, but people who are trained to operate those systems react instinctively and professionally to the challenge that comes up. And that instinctive response comes from training. It's often been said that the reaction, the initial reaction of an individual is highly dependent on his training. And the CNO added the events of last week proved that not only naval personnel are well trained, I think all of our people, and by this I'd have to say the people of all the services involved in that, that engagement or that series of engagements last Monday, all of them demonstrated a very high level of professionalism, good coordination, good professional competence. For Navy News This Week, I'm Petty Officer Chuck Moore. During the fighting, a Marine Cobra helicopter was lost at sea due to unknown circumstances. An extensive search was conducted without success and the two crewmen have been officially listed as missing.