Iran's early attacks on Bahrain caught Navy families and sailors by surprise

On the very first day of the war, Iran targeted the Navy's Middle East headquarters in Bahrain — before the U.S. government had evacuated all the military families based there. Some had to wait about a week or more to reach safety, according to multiple families who spoke to CBS News.

"You're definitely scared," one military spouse said. "As the week goes on, you wake up to ballistic missiles being fired. We went to sleep with the sound of ballistic missiles again."

Iranian missiles and drones targeted Bahrain consistently for several days after the war began, according to another spouse. The scale and duration of those attacks appeared to take the U.S. government by surprise, three sources who were in Bahrain at the time told CBS News, in part because families hadn't been required to evacuate until the war had already begun.

The military had anticipated some retaliation and had even evacuated the headquarters' buildings on the base, but "we weren't expecting that [scale]," one U.S. official said. And there were still several military families living off the base nearby.

One spouse said she could see the contrails of missiles and drones, and another heard explosions from attacks. CBS News granted anonymity to the spouses who feared retaliation for speaking.

No military personnel were killed in the attacks, but images that circulated on social media earlier this year — which sources say are authentic — show extensive damage to the base. One of the images shows an explosion during an attack on the first day of the war that targeted a key radar system.

The U.S. military has not included the damage to bases in its cost estimates of the war so far because officials say they don't know what will be rebuilt, but acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao in a recent interview with The Epoch Times said Iran's retaliatory attacks "blew the hell out of Bahrain."

Since Naval Support Activity Bahrain officially became the headquarters for the Navy's Fifth Fleet in the '90s, it has served as a logistics hub for ships in the Middle East, including during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the Navy's website, the facility serves approximately 8,300 military personnel, Defense Department civilian employees and their families.

The damage has impacted sailors at sea as well. Earlier this year, the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier faced food shortages as the Navy adjusted resupply routes away from Bahrain. The New York Times reported some supplies had to come through Diego Garcia, an island some 2,200 miles away in the Indian Ocean.

The extended route requires 14- to 18-day logistics cycles to deliver supplies to ships, according to a Pentagon Inspector General report. That's compared to 5 to 7 days from Bahrain, two former officials said.