#FlashbackFriday: 42 Years Ago, the Exchange Helped Welcome Hostages Freed From Iran
After 444 days in captivity, 52 American hostages held captive in Iran were freed on Jan. 20, 1981, 42 years ago today. They had been held since Nov. 4, 1979, when Iranian college students who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
The Exchange was prepared to serve them on their journey home.
The freed hostages were first flown to Algiers, Algeria, before they were transported to Rhein-Main Air Base near Frankfurt, Germany. The 50,000-square foot Hainerberg shopping center near Wiesbaden, about 25 miles west of the air base, provided support.
Before the freed captives arrived, Dan Neal, manager of the Rhein-Main store, and his team prepared merchandise to send to the larger Hainerberg Exchange as well as a small retail outlet outside an Air Force hospital in Wiesbaden. The merchandise include men’s suits and sports coats.
Associates at Germany’s Hainerberg shopping center greeted recently freed American hostages as they came to shop for two hours.
Neal received a call from Col. John D. Sims, 435th Tactical Airlift Wing commander at Rhein-Main, requesting that several hundred small American flags be passed out to base personnel and their families so they could welcome the former hostages when they landed.
After checking his store’s stock, Neal contacted other Exchanges in the Frankfurt area. Within an hour, he had 560 flags in his office.
Men’s and women’s shoes, stocked at the Exchange’s Mainz-Kastel shoe store, were brought to the Hainerberg center a few miles away. Luggage and other items believed to be of interest to the ex-hostages were also brought to the store.
Associates, drivers and concessionaires all wore yellow ribbons in anticipation of the hostages’ release.
At the Air Force hospital in Wiesbaden, retail store manager James Wilson and snack bar manager Anna Upchurch stocked up with toiletries, candy, postcards, stationery, socks, underwear and more. Yellow ribbons festooned the retail store, snack bar and barbershop, where the returning hostages would receive their first haircuts after being freed.
Exchange barbers gave the hostages their first haircuts after they were freed.
All this preparation happened Jan. 19, the day before the hostages’ release—even though there was still anxiety that the release might not actually happen. Associates listened for updates on portable radios until the Jan. 20 release was confirmed and medical evacuation planes took off from Rhein-Main to pick up the hostages, who had been transported to Algiers.
On Jan. 21, a cheering, emotional crowd greeted the returnees as they stepped off buses and entered the Wiesbaden hospital. On Jan. 23, Hainerberg Exchange manager Mike Cuzzetto, store manager Helga Haegerich, sales & merchandise manager Roxie Montesano and operations manager Theresa Foegen led a team of about 20 who greeted the returnees at the Hainerbeg center.
For the next 90 minutes, the returnees shopped and talked to members of the store team. “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” played on the store’s sound system. Among the most popular items were new shoes, which some of the returnees put on immediately, casting off the sandals they had worn out of Iran. Also popular were men’s suits, which Exchange tailors altered before they were delivered to the Air Force hospital.
Stateside, Tyndall Air Force Base Exchange associates Debbie Banner and Charlotte Patrick made 226 yellow bows to decorate the store and pass out to team members. Although the freed hostages landed in New York, the Florida Exchange was included in news reports after impressed customers alerted a local TV station about the efforts at Tyndall.
SOURCE: Exchange Post archives
This was a touching post. I was in High School at this time. Thank you to all of the Xchange Family.
My family and I were evacuated from Tehran in December 1979. This story really brings back that historical moment in my life and the concern we felt as a nation over the fate of these 52 Americans.