Why Superpowers Invaded Iran During World War II and the Fate of the F-14 Tomcat

War breaks out and Iran finds itself in the crosshairs of the superpowers. They had pledged to be neutral, but that didn't mean anything. With the fate of the nation and the world at stake, Iran has to face down enemies far above their weight class. And two of the most powerful nations on the planet try to impose their will on the newly modernized nation. Like most international politics, the background is multi-layered and complex. To simplify, during World War I, large portions of the Middle Eastern nation of Persia was occupied by the Ottoman Empire, Britain, Russia, and had significant German influence even though it was a neutral nation. After the war, a coup led by nationalist Reshan

overthrew the government and established himself as minister of war, then prime minister and eventually as Sha of Persia, changing his name to Resa Palavi. In 1935, the nation also changed its name from Persia to Iran, which it has kept to the present day. These are the basics of a vastly more complex series of events. Anyway, thanks to their previous occupation of the country, the Iranians were understandably less than thrilled with the British and the Russians, now the Soviet Union, and favored ties with Germany, who was a major trade partner. Iran was also undergoing major economic, technological, and military reforms, and German experts were invited to help with the process. Between 600 and a,000

Germans lived in Iran, mostly working in communications and transport sectors, including technicians from the Junker's aircraft company. When the war broke out, Iran was neutral. But this didn't mean it was ignored. The British still held a significant stake in Iran, including the Abodon oil refinery, which provided them with about 8 million tons of oil a year. Then Germany kicked off Operation Barbar Roa, the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The Soviets were now British allies in the war and Iran found itself in a very precarious position. It was feared that Germany would strike towards the oil rich caucuses and then the Germans would not stop at the Iranian border. A Germancontrolled Iran would deprive the

British of Iranian oil and threaten the vital trade route between British controlled Egypt and India as well as trade routes to the Soviet Union. Both powers saw the strategic need to occupy Iran, but needed a better pretext. They placed diplomatic pressure on Resa Palavi to expel German nationals and to allow their use of a vital railroad. Palavi refused and the joint British and Soviet invasion of Iran was inevitable. On paper, Iran was massively outclassed by two of the most powerful nations in the world. In the Iranian corner, there were nine army divisions supported by a burgeoning armored force which included 50 Czech TNH light tanks, 50 tankets armed with a pair of machine guns each

and possibly up to 100 armored cars with mounted 37 mm guns. They also had at least 100 75mm and 100 mm howitzers as well as many mortars and lighter artillery, though this is difficult to confirm with any certainty. The Air Force was less impressive, made up of mostly outdated aircraft and only around 40 were in flying condition. There are some reports that Iran had at least 10 P40 Tomahawks purchased from the United States, but this is difficult to confirm and didn't play any role in the fighting even if they did exist since they were allegedly still in their shipping crates. Their navy was centered around two Italian-built sloops of 950 tons each. These were small ships similar to

destroyers, but not as fast or nimble and designed for coastal patrol, anti-aircraft, and anti-ubmarine warfare. They also had 10 or so smaller patrol boats, more of a coast guard than a real navy. In the other corner were the British, who sent the eighth and 10th Indian infantry divisions supported by an armored force centered around light tanks. Air power was provided by a squadron each of Hurricane Fighters, Blenheim bombers, and Vickers's Vincent biplane scout bombers, as well as six Vicer's Valencia transports. There was also a naval force consisting of several sloops and at least one merchant cruiser. The Soviets left anything resembling subtle behind and sent the 44th, 47th, and 53rd armies. Several

hundred tanks, though most of these were outdated T-26 light tanks, and over 400 fighter planes. This was more than enough to totally overwhelm Iran's military by weight of numbers. On August 25th, 1941, the invasion of Iran, dubbed Operation Countenance by the British, kicked off. The overall plan was a pinsir movement. The British invading from the south through bases in Iraq while the Soviets struck from the north through the Caucasus and Central Asia. Iran knew that it had little chance against such overwhelming odds and called out to the United States to help them preserve their status as a neutral nation. President Roosevelt's response was disappointing to say the least. In

so many words, he stated that the threat posed by Nazi Germany meant that any measure to stop them was acceptable. He phrased it more eloquently than that. But no matter the wording, Iran was on its own. The opening of the invasion was carried out at dawn on the 25th. The HMS Shorum turned the Palong into a coral reef with the first salvo. An amphibious landing of the Indian eighth division soon secured the vital oil refineries at Abadon. And at the same time, the port of Vandal Shapur was captured by an Australian merchant cruiser. The Iranian sloop bobber was sunk by the Australian sloop Yara. Blenheim bombers of the RAF bombed several airfields, neutralizing much of Iran's air force. Some fighters

did become airborne, but these weren't a threat so much as targets for the escorting hurricane fighters. The land invasion kicks off when the Indian eighth division leaves their base in Bazra, Iraq, and surges into Iranian territory. while the 10th pushes in from the border town of Kanakin. They made some initial success, but Iranians were hitting far above their weight class and both attacks met stubborn resistance by August 27th. These were temporary setbacks, however, and by the next day they managed to land some serious blows to the Iranian forces, capturing Shahabad and the regional capital of Karamshan. To the north, the Caspian Sea coastal town of Astara was captured by

the Soviet 44th Army and elements of the Red Navy. They were stopped temporarily at the city of Rasht and the port of Bandar Palavi. Then Soviet bombers took to the skies and began bombardment of the city which surrendered by August 28th. The 53rd Army struck out towards the city of Mashad, capturing the airport. The Iranian 15th Division fought back as best they could, but it was shattered and Red Army soldiers captured the city. The outdated Soviet T-26 tanks were generally inferior to the German panzers. But in Iran, they faced no significant resistance at all. The few dozen biplanes the Iranians managed to get airborne were overwhelmed by the hundreds of Soviet fighters. With no other choice, the Shaw asked for a

ceasefire when British and Soviet forces managed to link up on August 30th and 31st, effectively ending the conflict. In total, the British lost 22 KIA and 42 wounded. The Soviets around 40 dead. Iranian losses were around 800 soldiers and civilians killed, though the exact numbers are unknown. In spite of their efforts, Iran was overwhelmed. They lacked the necessary command and communication equipment to coordinate their defenses, were caught off guard, and were also massively outnumbered. This breakdown in leadership even saw some generals fleeing the field and leaving their men on their own. The Anglo-Sietviet invasion lasted 6 days in total. On September 16th, Rez Sha

abdicated in favor of his son Muhammad Resa Palavi who was much more cooperative to the Allies. He would spend the rest of his life in exile in South Africa. With the Allies now firmly in control of Iran, they demanded that they cut off all ties with Germany and other axis powers. In January 1942, Britain, the Soviet Union, and Iran signed the tripartite treaty of alliance. The treaty guaranteed Iranian sovereignty and most importantly, it also stated that the allies would leave Iran after the war. In September 1943, Iran declared war on Germany. And a few months later was the site of a meeting between Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Franklin Roosevelt, where they discussed plans for the war and a

post-war world. During the war, Iran was a vital link that allowed millions of tons of lently supplies to reach the Soviet Union from the United States. This came at a cost. With resources and manpower diverted to the trans Iranian railway, there weren't enough devoted to farming and this led to inflation, food shortages, and a famine in the country. When the war was over, Britain lived up to their treaty obligations and they along with American troops withdrew in early 1946. The Soviets, however, needed a little extra motivation. They had been secretly funding at least two separatist movements in Azerbaijan and Kurdistan in

Iran's northern territory. But that's a story for another day. Finally, in May 1946, the Soviets left. One of the first episodes of the Cold War. In 2006, something strange happened. To most people, it barely registered. Another aircraft retired. Another line item crossed off a Pentagon spreadsheet. But to pilots, engineers, and aviation enthusiasts, it felt like a funeral. That year, the United States Navy officially retired the F-14 Tomcat, an aircraft that had ruled the skies for more than 30 years. An aircraft that defined an era and an aircraft that to this day still looks like the future. When the Tomcat was finally grounded, people assumed the usual would happen.

The jets would be parked in the desert, mothballled, stripped for parts, maybe even sold to friendly nations. After all, that's what normally happens. Except that's not what happened. Instead, the Navy did something unprecedented. They destroyed them. All of them. The last F-14s weren't stored. They weren't sold. They weren't even carefully dismantled. They were shredded, reduced to scrap metal. So, the obvious question is why? Why would the United States deliberately erase one of the most capable fighter aircraft

ever built? To understand that, we need to go back a bit, not to 2006, not even to the Cold War. We need to go back to the 1960s. In the60s, the US Navy had a problem. Its primary fighter, the F4 Phantom 2, was powerful, fast, and heavily armed. But it had limits. New threats were emerging. faster bombers, longer range missiles, and looming in the background, the possibility of large-scale naval combat with the Soviet Union. The Navy needed something new, something bigger and smarter, something that could see the enemy before the enemy ever saw it. In 1970, Grumman answered the call. What they delivered was unlike anything else in the sky. The F14 Tomcat. From the beginning, it was

ambitious, almost reckless. Variable sweep wings that moved in flight, automatically adjusting for speed and altitude. A massive radar system designed to track entire formations at once. And a weapons load built around one terrifying idea, kill the enemy before they ever get close. The Tomcat was not meant to dogfight. It was meant to dominate. The wings were the first thing people noticed. They swept forward for takeoff and landing, swept back for high-speed flight. Watching an F-14 move through the air felt like watching a living machine adapt in real time. During testing, engineers discovered something a bit unsettling. The aircraft could actually fly with one wing swept forward and the other swept back. It wasn't supposed to do that, but it

could. That alone tells you something about how overbuilt the Tomcat really was. Power came from two massive turboan engines. either Prattton Whitney or General Electric, depending on the variant, each producing well over 20,000 pounds of thrust. Together, they pushed the Tomcat past Mach 2 at altitude. It was fast, heavy, and very, very expensive. Each aircraft cost tens of millions of dollars, and that was before maintenance, before training, before spare parts. But cost wasn't the point. Capability was. What truly made the F-14 dangerous wasn't its speed or its wings.

It was its eyes. The Tomcat's radar could track two dozen targets at once, hundreds of miles away. At a time when most fighters struggle to deal with one or two, the F-14 could manage an entire air battle by itself. And then there was the missile, the A54 Phoenix. This is a weapon designed for one purpose, destroy enemy aircraft from extreme range over a 100 miles. The Tomcat could carry six of them and if needed, fire all six at once. Six missiles, six targets, one aircraft. That combination, radar, missile, and platform, was unprecedented. Even decades later, it remains rare. If things got closer, the Tomcat still had options. Sparrow missiles, side winders, and a built-in 20mm cannon for when the fight got

personal. This wasn't just a fighter. It was a system. The F-14 entered service in the early 1970s. It flew patrols during the final days of the Vietnam War, but didn't see combat there. Its real role came later. Throughout the late 1970s and 80s, the Tomcat was the Navy's primary air superiority fighter. It flew over the Mediterranean, over Libya. It stared down Soviet aircraft across cold stretches of ocean. Later, it would fight over Iraq during the Gulf War. And when its air-to-air dominance became less relevant, the Tomcat adapted again, modified into so-called bombcats.

It dropped precision weapons over Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Few aircraft reinvent themselves that successfully. And then there was the movie. In 1986, Top Gun turned the F-14 into a cultural icon. Overnight, it became the jet. the shape, the sound, the fantasy. For a generation, the Tomcat wasn't just a weapon. It was aviation itself. Production ended in 1991. By the early 2000s, the Navy was ready to move on. Maintenance was expensive. The aircraft was complex, and newer fighters like the FA18 promised similar capability with less hassle. So, in 2006, the decision was made. The F-14 would be retired. At first, nothing seemed unusual until people realized what wasn't happening. Tom cats weren't being mothballled. They weren't being

preserved. They weren't even being sold. They were being destroyed. And the reason had nothing to do with age, cost, or obsolescence. It had everything to do with Iran. When the Tomcat was first built, the United States wasn't the only country interested in it. In the 1970s, Iran under Sha Muhammad Resa Palavi was a key American ally in the Middle East. Strategically located, militarily ambitious, and eager to buy the best equipment money could buy, the US agreed to sell Iran the F-14, 79 aircraft, 700 Phoenix missiles, and enough spare parts to keep them flying for a decade. Then in 1979, everything collapsed. The Shaw was overthrown. Ayatollah Kmeni took power and Iran's relationship with the

United States flipped overnight from ally to adversary. The original deal was cancelled, but not before Iran received all 79 Tomcats and roughly 200 Phoenix missiles. And despite sanctions, isolation, and a lack of official support, Iran made them work. During the Iran Iraq war in the 1980s, Iranian F-14s flew combat missions. Iranian sources claimed the Tomcat shot down over 160 Iraqi aircraft. That number is probably exaggerated, but what isn't exaggerated is this. The F-14 worked. It outperformed and outranged the Iraqi MiGs, and its radar and missiles gave Iran a decisive edge in the air. That fact alone haunted American planners because it meant something uncomfortable. The Tomcat was still

relevant. Fast forward to 2006. The US Navy retires the F-14 and suddenly a new fear emerges. What if parts start leaking out? What if wing components, avionics or radar systems end up in Iranian hands or Chinese hands or somewhere worse? Reports began surfacing that foreign buyers were exploiting gaps in military surplus security using shell companies, middleman, and scrap dealers. Even studying the aircraft without flying it could reveal sensitive information. So, the Pentagon made a decision. No Tomcat would ever fly again. The most critical component was the wing box, the structure that allowed the wings to sweep in flight. Without

it, the aircraft simply could not function. The wings wouldn't just stop moving. They could fail entirely. In 2007, every wing box was destroyed, even the ones in museums. The tooling required to manufacture new ones no longer existed. No blueprints and no production lines. That alone should have been enough, but it wasn't. To remove any remaining doubt, the final decision was made. Destroy everything. 165 Tomcats were sent to Davis Mountain Air Force Base in Arizona. The Boneyard, a place where aircraft go to sleep or to die. An independent contractor was brought in. Their instructions were clear. Don't dismantle them. Don't

preserve them. Shred them. Massive industrial machines went to work. A shearing claw tore the aircraft apart, ripping away wings and fuselage. A shredder reduced what remained into twisted fragments of aluminum. The machines weighed over 100,000 lbs each, and the Tomcat never stood a chance. Some parts resisted, though. The landing gear, built to slam onto aircraft carriers again and again, had to be cut apart with specialized torches. A few non-unique components were sold abroad. Nothing critical, nothing that couldn't be found on other aircraft. When it was over, one of the most iconic fighters ever built was gone. Today, only a handful of F-14s exist outside museums.

All of them are in Iran. No one knows exactly how many still fly. Estimates range from a few airframes to perhaps 30. The Phoenix missiles are long gone. Spare parts are improvised, cannibalized, or fabricated in secret. In 2025, footage appeared to show Iranian F-14s destroyed in air strikes, but whether they were operational or simply used for parts remains unclear. What is clear is this. The Tom Cat didn't die because it was obsolete. It died because it was still too dangerous. By shredding the fleet, the United States ensured that no rival, no matter how determined, could ever bring the

F-14 back as a fighting aircraft. A brutal end, but from a strategic standpoint, an effective one. And somewhere out there, pilots still look up at old footage of those wings sweeping back and wonder what might have been.