At 6:22 a.m. on October 23, 1983, a suicide bomber drove a truck filled with explosives through the perimeter of the U.S. compound at Beirut International Airport and into the lobby of the four-storey building that served as headquarters and barracks for Battalion Landing Team 1/8. The explosion collapsed the building onto the men sleeping inside. Two hundred forty-one American servicemen were killed — 220 Marines, 18 sailors and 3 soldiers — and scores more were wounded. It remains the deadliest single day for the U.S. Marine Corps since Iwo Jima.
Minutes later, a second suicide truck bomb struck the Drakkar building housing French paratroopers of the Multinational Force, killing 58 French servicemen. The Americans were in Beirut as peacekeepers alongside French, Italian and British troops while Lebanon’s civil war closed around the capital; the U.S. Embassy in Beirut had already been bombed that April, at a cost of 63 lives.
The attack was claimed in the name of Islamic Jihad; U.S. courts later attributed it to Hezbollah, acting with Iranian support. The Pentagon’s commission of inquiry, chaired by Admiral Robert L. J. Long, reported on December 20, 1983. The Long Commission found failures in security and in the chain of command — the perimeter sentries, under the rules of engagement in force, were not carrying loaded weapons — and its recommendations reshaped how the U.S. military protects its forces overseas.
The 241 are remembered at the Beirut Memorial in Jacksonville, North Carolina, where a wall carries their names beneath the words of their mission: “They Came in Peace.” Observances are still held every October 23, at Camp Lejeune and at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.