The Battle of Yavin is remembered as one of the most pivotal military engagements in galactic
history, and arguably the most impressive victory accomplished by a numerically and
technologically inferior force since the dawn of space warfare.
Taking place only two years after the formal declaration of conflict between the Galactic
Empire and the Alliance to Restore the Republic, the battle of Yavin represented the conclusion
of Operation Skyhook, a complex, pan-galactic alliance strategy, intended to result in the
capture of the Death Star Plans, and ultimately the destruction of the Imperial Superweapon.
Having acquired the technical readouts of the death star, the alliance began to formulate
a plan for attacking the Battlestation, but with the location of Yavin base now in the
hands of the empire, it was only a matter of time before the Death Star arrived in-system,
and began to target the planet.
Having identified a critical weak spot in the Death Star’s Design, a small thermal
exhaust port, General Jan Dodonna and his staff assembled a battle plan based around
the exploitation of this crucial vulnerability.
At the time of the battle, the rebel alliance garrison on Yavin IV had 32 Starfighters at
their disposal, divided into two squadrons.
The first of these squadrons was a 12 ship T-65 X-Wing Flight, designated Red Squadron,
and the second a 7 ship BTL Y-Wing Bomber Flight Designated Gold Squadron.
Among these two squadrons were some of the finest pilots ever to serve in the rebel alliance,
including Dutch Vander, Wedge Antilles, Garven Dreis and Keyan Farlander.
With the path to their target obscured by the Gas Giant Yavin Prime, the Imperials were
forced to maneuver the death star into a more optimal firing position before destroying
the rebel base, this gave the alliance the time they needed to perform their Starfighter
attack, and the pilots of Red and Gold Squadrons were dispatched to intercept the approaching
Battlestation.
In the opening moments of the battle, Garven Dries and his Red Squadron performed a coordinated
attack on several Turbolaser positions surrounding the polar trench, this attack was intended
mostly to draw fire away from Dutch Vander’s Gold Squadron as they piloted their slower
and more vulnerable bombers towards the death star’s surface, where they would begin the
first trench run.
During this attack the Death Star began to deploy TIE Fighters to engage the rebel attackers,
and through a combination of intense ground fire and Starfighter attack, the Imperials
successfully eliminated a large portion of Red Squadron.
Though they had suffered heavy casualties, Red Squadron’s attack had distracted the
imperial Turbolaser batteries long enough to allow three members of Gold Squadron to
enter the trench, and Gold Leader began to guide his wingmen toward the exhaust port.
In response to this, the Imperials sortied the elite Black Squadron, helmed by the Sith
Lord Darth Vader and comprised of some of the Imperial Navy’s finest pilots.
Black Squadron quickly reached the trench and began to pursue the Bombers, and though
the rebel pilots came close to reaching their target, the slower and bulkier Y-Wings proved
unable to evade Black Squadron’s attacks, and Dutch Vander and his two wingmen were
quickly shot down.
With a large portion of his forces destroyed, mission commander Garven Dries elected to
divide what remained of Red Squadron into two flights, one helmed by himself, and the
other left under the command of Luke Skywalker, a newly recruited member of the Alliance.
Taking his two wingmen into the trench, Dries attempted a second run against the target,
this time closing to firing range and launching a pair of torpedoes toward the exhaust port.
Unfortunately, dries’ missed the target shaft by meters, damaging the surface of the
port but failing to hit the target directly.
Now left exposed after leaving the trench, red leader was targeted by Darth Vader and
quickly eliminated.
Forced to take to command of all remaining rebel forces, Luke Skywalker, Callsign Red
5, led his two wingmen, Wedge Antilles and Biggs Darklighter, into a third and final
trench run.
Altering his tactics from Red Leaders previous run, Skywalker ordered his flight to approach
the target at full throttle, hoping to outrun the pilots of Black Squadron.
But in spite of the T-65’s exceptional performance, the pursuing TIE’s managed to stay inside
firing range, forcing Antilles and Darklighter to draw their fire away from their flight
leader.
As what remained of Red Squadron approached the target, Antilles X-Wing took a crippling
blast to its portside engines, and skywalker ordered the pilot to retreat from the engagement
zone, joining Keyan Farlander, who had previously withdrawn from the battle.
Though Antilles survived his encounter with Darth Vader, the same could not be said for
Biggs Darklighter, who was tragically killed drawing fire away from his friend and flight
leader, Luke Skywalker, mere moments after Antilles’ departure.
With the entirety of the rebel attack group now destroyed or routed, only Luke Skywalker
remained to complete the mission.
As he prepared to launch his torpedo strike against the exhaust port, Vader successfully
acquired a target lock on Skywalkers X-Wing, but the Sith Lord was interrupted, by an unexpected
attack from above.
Arriving to assist skywalker in his attack, the smuggler Han Solo fired a volley of quad
Turbolaser fire into the tightly packed Black Squadron, destroying two fighters and disabling
Vader’s personal craft.
With the trench now clear of hostile forces, Luke Skywalker launched his torpedoes, striking
the exhaust port with perfect accuracy, and began to pull away from the station.
Mere seconds after Solo, Skywalker, Antilles and Farlander reached a safe distance, the
Death Star’s reactor overloaded, completely obliterating the station.
The Battle of Yavin is considered one of the most significant military actions in galactic
history, and its impact was so great, that 25 years later the new republic historical
council began to use the battle as the zero point of a new galactic calendar.
Those pilots who died during the attack were considered some of the greatest heroes of
the Galactic Civil War, and each were posthumously awarded the Kalidor Crescent, and a memorialised
assignment to the newly formed Rogue Squadron for their bravery and skill.
For the Imperials, the battle proved to be a blow from which the Empire would never truly
recover, having lost the station into which years of resources and trillions of credits
had been poured, and with their military publically humiliated by the defeat, the empire began
to face an increasingly well supported rebel alliance, beginning to turn the tables of
entire galactic civil war.