“WE GOT HIM!” Donald Trump announced in the early hours of Sunday morning.

“Over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring search and rescue operations in US history ... I am thrilled to let you know [our missing airman] is now SAFE and SOUND!”

The US president’s Truth Social post marked the end of a 36-hour drama that will stand proud in the annals of US military history.

At stake was not just the life of the airman and the dozens of special forces troops who risked everything to save him, but the reputation of the military.

By saving the second of the two aviators, who had ejected from their F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet after it was hit by a ground-launched projectile on Friday, the US denied the Islamic Republic a propaganda victory.

Video footage from the rescue site suggests the airman had been hiding in an arid, mountainous region deep in southern Iran after pulling the yellow side lever on his ejection seat.

The seat’s ejection system, which uses a solid CKU-5 rocket propellant to blast through the jet’s canopy at a speed of 200 metres per second squared, is one of the most sophisticated ever made but carries a high probability of spinal fractures and other injuries.

This appears to have been the case in this instance, and may explain why it took longer to extract the airman than his colleague.

“This brave warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour,” said Mr Trump, adding that the colonel “sustained injuries, but he will be just fine”.

Airmen who eject over enemy territory are instructed to hide as best they can and await rescue from well-drilled search and rescue teams.

Armed only with a pistol and perhaps a flare, everything depended on the US special forces extracting him before Iranian forces closed in.

Iran had offered a reward for anyone who found the officer, and a video shared on social media on Friday appeared to show dozens of local people combing the countryside, rising to the challenge.

The helicopters involved in extracting the first of the two airmen on Friday were fired upon from the ground, and video footage appeared to show one of the two choppers trailing smoke as it exited Iran into Iraq.

In the event, extracting the second airman was a close call, with US officials briefing that a firefight erupted as US forces moved with “overwhelming firepower” to extract their man.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the injured colonel broke cover in the final moments and performed a “daring move to meet his rescue team” of Navy SEAL Team 6 commandos.

He climbed up a 7,000ft ridge line while US forces dropped bombs and opened fire on approaching Iranian convoys.

The rescue mission itself involved hundreds of special forces commandos flown in on specialist MC-130J troop carriers on a makeshift runway, while MQ-9 Reaper drones and fast jets provided air cover, striking any military-aged males believed to be a threat in a three-kilometre radius.

The final extraction operation was launched after the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pinpointed the airman’s location and ran a “deception operation” to cause the Iranians to believe he had already been located elsewhere.

The feint worked.

The White House and the Pentagon were uncharacteristically silent in the 36 hours after the F-15 went down.

But, in the background, the president had remained in the Oval Office throughout the drama, receiving constant updates from Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, according to Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary.

A final drama occurred when two of the MC-130Js, which cost $100m each, got bogged down on the makeshift runway they had been flown onto and were destroyed by US troops to stop them falling into enemy hands.

Three new planes had to be flown in the final hours to take the airman and soldiers out, reported the New York Times. The airman is now recovering in a hospital in Kuwait.

In an effort to salvage what little propaganda victory remained to them, Iranian officials posted images on Sunday of charred remains of one of the two torched MC-130Js.

“If the United States gets three more victories like this it will be utterly ruined,” Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament, wrote in a social-media post.

Yet Mr Trump hailed the mission as one for the ages.

“This is the first time in military memory that two US pilots have been rescued, separately, deep in Enemy Territory. WE WILL NEVER LEAVE AN AMERICAN WARFIGHTER BEHIND!”

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