Draft:Mohammad H. Mehrmand

Lieutenant General Mohammad H. Mehrmand was a senior commander in the Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF) where he served for thirty years from 1949-1979. He held multiple commands during his career, the last one being that of the Tactical Air Command (TAC) of the IIAF until 1979. He was a highly experienced fighter pilot, instructor, and commander, and flew thousands of hours in propeller and jet fighters, including the P-47 Thunderbolt, F-86 Sabre,  F-5 Freedom Fighter and Tiger II, and the F-4 Phantom II. He retired from the IIAF shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Early Life
Mohammad H. Mehrmand was born in 1930 in Tehran, where he attended elementary school. He had moved to the southwestern city of Ahvaz when the 1941 Anglo Soviet invasion of Iran happened. At that time he moved back to Tehran and enrolled in a military boarding school where he comleted secondary studies. In 1949 he attended the Imperial Iranian Army military academy aiming to become an officer there.

IIAF Academy
In his first year at the academy, he learned of a brand new IIAF academy being established to which he applied and got accepted as part of the first cohort of IIAF cadets. They transferred to Dooshan Tapeh airbase in Tehran under the command of Colonel (later General) Toufanian, and trained on various propeller planes like the De Havilland Tiger Moth, Stearman, and North American T-6 Harvard. He started flying and training in the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter plane from World War II, and helped bring these new aircraft to Iran from Turkey together with Colonel (later General and IIAF commander) Mohammad Khatami. He graduated as a second lieutenant in 1952.

The Jet Age
In 1953 the IIAF entered the jet age by acquiring the Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star ,and Lieutenant Mehrmand joined a select group of IIAF officers including Captain (later General) Nader Jahanbani and Colonel Mohammad Khatami for jet conversion training at the US Air Force base in Furstenfeldbruck air base in West Germany. He went on to become a fighter pilot instructor and trained many IIAF cadets and pilots. He was initially based at the new Tactical Fighter Base (TFB) 1 at Mehrabad in Tehran, where fighter operations had moved to as the new jets required a longer runway.

Vahdati AFB (2nd TFB) Dezful
Shortly after the T-33's, the IIAF took delivery of its first jet fighter, the Republic F-84 Thunderjet in large numbers to form more fighter squadrons. Shortly afterwards the IIAF acquired the more advanced North American F-86 Sabre fighter jet, building up to four fighter squadrons. By this point, Mehrabad's capacity had been reached and the second fighter base, TFB 2, known as Vahdati, was opened at the southwestern city of Dezful. Mehrmand had become a Major by this point and transferred to Vahdati to command the new 204th TFS flying F-86's, continuing to train many young pilots to become operational ready combat pilots. He continued serving there for seven years in various capacities. During this time he had temporarily gone for further advanced jet instructor training in the US. He then served in a six month deployment as deputy commander of operations at Mehrabad, after which he returned to Vahdati to serve in multiple capacities including deputy wing commander.

Commanding 3rd TFB (Shahrokhi) in Hamedan
At the age of 44 he took command of the recently established 3rd TFB, known as Shahrokhi, in the western city of Hamedan. He retained this command for four years, during which the base grew to be a major fighter base developed to a high standard. It initially hosted several squadrons of the Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter, the IIAF's first supersonic fighter. After two years, these were replaced  with several squadrons of the newly acquired McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. This was one of the most advanced fighter jets in the world at the time, and the IIAF was one of the first non US air forces in the world to operate them (simultaneous with the British RAF). This brought TFB 3 in Hamedan to a very  modern standard and ushered in a new era for this base as one of Iran's most important powerful air force bases. The impact of this era would be felt years later when the base played a pivotal and consequential role in the Iran Iraq war of the 1980's.

Tactical Air Command
By the mid 1970's, the IIAF had grown to a world class air force with over 450 top of the line combat aircraft in over ten airbases, with one of the largest tanker/transport forces in the world supporting it. It had the responsibility of controlling the air over one of the geographically largest, most strategic areas in the world at the height of the Cold War. To this end it had also armed itself with the Grumman F-14 Tomcat long range interceptor, based in two air bases - TFB 7 in Shiraz and TFB 8 in Isfahan, making the IIAF the only other operator in the world of this type besides the US Navy. To properly manage and execute this mission, the IIAF established the Tactical Air Command (TAC)  in Shiraz's TFB 7 in 1975 with Lieutenant General Amir Hossein Rabii as its commander. The TAC was responsible for operations and command of all ten of the IIAF's tactical bases. By this time Mehrmand had earned the rank of Major General and transferred to become deputy commander of the Tactical Air Command. When General Rabii became IIAF commander one year later in 1976, General Mehrmand was promoted to Lieutenant General and took his place as commander of TAC. He remained in this capacity until the 1979 revolution. During this time he oversaw multiple large scale initiatives and joint exercises with the United States and allies, bringing the IIAF to a high state of combat readiness and capable to fulfill its mission. He took part in making operational and live demonstration of the new advanced Maverick missile systems to the Shah of Iran and high ranking Iranian and American dignitaries in that same year.

During his entire career, General Mehrmand had undergone multiple training programs, including jet conversion training, jet fighter pilot instructor training, squadron officer school (SOS)  and various command schools. By the end of his career, General Mehrmand had flown over 13,000 hours in fighter planes- 3,000 of these were in propeller aircraft and the rest were in jet fighters.

Retirement
As the 1979 revolution drew near, thousands of US military and civilian personnel and their families were remaining in Iran and needed to be evacuated. Unrest had spread throughout the cities and into some of the military ranks as well. Elements sympathetic to the revolution and suspicious of the Americans had emerged in the IIAF itself. These opposed the exit of the Americans, and threatened to block them. Command and order had started to erode. General Mehrmand personally intervened and directly discussed with those elements and convinced them that this would be detrimental to the future of the country. All of the American personnel safely evacuated Iran as a result, and a major disaster was averted.

Within a few weeks of the fall of the Imperial government, disorder and chaos spread further and a number of tense standoffs occurred at the 7th tactical airbase where crowds threatened to overrun the base. Eventually General Mehrmand was forced to retire from his military service and within a few months he was able to legally leave Iran without any of his assets or belongings. He ultimately resettled in the United States where he lives today and is active among the Iranian opposition and veterans' community. He has issued statements in support of popular opposition in Iran, and in 2023 he published his memoirs, "High Sky is my Place"