jberry On 8/16/2009 (9:40 pm) In MHQ
“Luck,” wrote the Roman writer Seneca the Younger, “is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Israel benefited from its superb intelligence organizations, which had precise and accurate information about its enemies. Thanks to the bold creativity of the Mossad, Israel’s famed and feared secret service, a MiG-21 had been delivered to its hands in 1966 and had been intensely studied. Additionally, Israeli cryptologists had deciphered Syrian military codes and placed a spy in the Syrian government who provided detailed plans for the Golan defenses and technical specifications for Syrian equipment. Agents inside Egypt gathered similar information. Thanks to such stellar work, “the Israeli air force,” one observer said in June 1967, “knew accurately…where every Egyptian [as well as Syrian and Jordanian] aircraft was located, what it was doing, what it could do.”
[continued on next page]
Tensions had been simmering for years between Israel and its neighbors. There was a dispute about how to share the waters of the Jordan River. Palestinian guerrillas had been attacking Israel from bases in Jordan and Syria, attracting powerful Israeli reprisal raids. Controversially, Israel was constructing a nuclear power plant.
While there were many points of contention, it was a single skirmish that presaged war. On April 7, 1967, the IAF shot down six Syrian MiGs after Syrian artillery had shelled two Israeli tractors that had entered a demilitarized zone. Adding insult to injury, the elated Israeli pilots flew victory circless over the skies of Damascus, the Syrian capital.
The Soviets told the Egyptians in May 1967 that Israel was massing troops on the Syrian frontier. Although United Nations observers discovered no buildup, the Syrians—fatally, it turned out—asked the Egyptians to make some demonstration to relieve the pressure on them. Seizing this chance to play the “protector” of the Arabs, Nasser mobilized his army, placed it into defensive deployment in the Sinai, and asked the peacekeeping UN Emergency Force to withdraw. But what came next ensured war: After Field Marshal Amer sent troops to take control of Sharm el-Sheikh, Nasser closed the Tiran Straits on the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping on May 21.
Israel defined closing the straits as an act of war. Nasser’s move was, writes historian Laura James, primarily “aimed at reaping political gains, which he knew carried a high risk of precipitating military hostilities.” Underlining Egypt’s lack of hostile intention, its military intelligence knew virtually nothing about IDF plans, tactics, size, or deployment. Egyptian field commanders didn’t even know where their enemy was located. But by deploying troops and engaging in hostile acts, Egypt played into the hands of Israel’s hard-line leaders.
On May 23, Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli chief of staff; Gen. Aharon Yariv, head of Aman, the IDF’s intelligence branch; and others advised the Israeli cabinet to declare war. The cabinet stalled. U.S. secretary of defense Robert McNamara informed the Israelis on May 26 that “three separate intelligence groups” had concluded that the “Egyptian deployments…were defensive.” This fit with Aman’s estimate that Egypt would “not be ready for war at least until the end of 1970.”
At this stage, Nasser apparently thought everything could be politically managed. He believed the United Nations would step in to end any hostilities, that the Soviets would counterbalance any move by the United States, and that Eshkol wished to avoid war. Even if it came to war, Field Marshal Amer had assured him that the army could hold off and perhaps even defeat Israel.
Under intense pressure from hardliners, Eshkol hesitated, hoping that the United States would suggest a diplomatic solution. Alternatively, he wanted the United States to bless any Israeli strike. But in high-level meetings between American and Israeli officials, the Americans were noncommittal: President Lyndon B. Johnson had his hands full with unrest at home, a looming election, and the Vietnam War. Although one high-placed U.S. official had warned, “do not fire the first shot,” the Israelis decided to read the lack of a firm American “no-go” as a green light.
The creation of a new Israeli cabinet on June 2 brought in hawks such as Moshe Dayan as defense minister and hardliner Menachem Begin. They insisted that the bluff be called to put an end to Syrian threats, deflate Nasser’s prestige, and maintain the IDF’s credibility—all while achieving Israel’s geopolitical goals, that is, expanding the state’s borders and increasing its strategic depth. On June 4, the cabinet voted to go to war.
[continued on next page]
Israeli operational planners had long before developed contingency plans for war against Syria with code names such as Operation Pincers to conquer the Golan Heights, and Operation Whip designed to seize the West Bank and Jerusalem from Jordan. “For five years,” IDF chief of operations Gen. Ezer Weizman recalled, referring to the surprise air strike against Egypt, “I had been talking of this operation, explaining it, hatching it, dreaming of it, manufacturing it link by link, training men to carry it out.”
On the Egyptian front, the Israeli plan of attack was to knock out Egyptian aircraft and bases while the IDF punched into Gaza and the Sinai. A task force of armored brigades and paratroops, commanded by Brig. Gen. Israel Tal, was to take Rafah and al-Arish, and head toward the Suez Canal, while in the center, through sand dunes thought impassable by the Egyptians, Brig. Gen. Avraham Yoffe would support Tal’s flanks with two armored brigades. Yoffe’s force would also back up Brig. Gen. Ariel Sharon’s tank, paratroop, and infantry brigades, which were to overrun initial defenses at Abu Ageila and then take the strategic Mitla Pass before moving on toward the canal.
Against Jordan, the Israelis planned two pincer movements: one to snip off Jerusalem, the other at the juncture of Janin and Nablus; a third strike would expel the Jordanians from the Qalqilyah-Tulkarm area. Syria would be dealt with later.
Benefiting from fine intelligence, King Hussein informed Nasser that the Israelis would attack Egypt by June 3, and Nasser warned his commanders to brace themselves. Hussein then placed his small forces almost exactly along Israel’s invasion routes. There, they awaited the onslaught.
Early in the morning of June 5, almost the entire Israeli air force, more than 180 planes, went on an apparently routine patrol over the Mediterranean Sea; Egyptian radar monitors thought nothing of it. Suddenly, the Israelis dove below radar level, banked, and roared toward UARAF bases in the Sinai and northeastern Egypt. They bombed Egyptian airbases for over three hours, coming in flights of four. The Egyptians, just in from their morning patrols and enjoying breakfast, were caught completely by surprise. “There were explosions everywhere,” Egyptian flight commander Tahsen Zaki said later, “but we kept going and managed to save a few planes.”
The attacks occurred just as Field Marshal Amer went airborne in an unarmed transport. He could not land for obvious reasons, and was afraid to issue radio commands for fear of being shot down. The Egyptian forces were effectively paralyzed.
Of the 12 Egyptian MiGs that managed to get off the ground, 10 were shot down. Losing only four Myst�res, the Israelis destroyed 304 Egyptian aircraft, along with most of Egypt’s radar installations and 17 airfields. At 12:15 p.m., the IAF ripped into Jordan and Syria’s air arms as well, wrecking 53 Syrian planes and virtually the entire Royal Jordanian Air Force. Israeli planes even swept over Iraq, downing five Hawker Hunter fighter-bombers and destroying another 10 on the ground after the Iraqis bombed Israeli territory. On this day, one of the most destructive and effective aerial first strikes in history wiped out 70 to 80 percent of Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian frontline air power.
As oily plumes of smoke from the burning wrecks of UARAF planes curled into the sky, the IDF launched its invasion. To the north, General Tal hurled the elite 7th Armored Brigade against the Rafah fortifications behind which the Egyptian 7th Infantry Division waited. The Egyptians fought hard, inflicting many casualties, but superior Israeli tactics eliminated each defensive line as the Egyptians failed to maneuver their forces effectively. The sole Egyptian counterattack consisted of a headlong rush of T-55 tanks, plowing forward without infantry or artillery support. They were decimated.
Tal’s men now rushed toward the 13-kilometer-long Jiradi Pass, the only access to al-Arish. Here the Egyptian 6th Infantry Brigade and two battalions of T-55s were dug in. To outflank this position, Tal sent a unit to the south, which got bogged down in sand dunes. The Israelis’ only option at that point was to pound their way through, in the type of frontal, straightforward fighting they disliked because the attrition it produced was disproportionately harmful to their small nation. Although initially taken by surprise by the speed of the Israeli advance, the Egyptians fought fiercely, eventually knocking out 13 IDF tanks. In some of the bloodiest fighting of the war, the battle raged until nightfall. Nevertheless, after hand-to-hand combat, Israelis cleared the pass.
Meanwhile, General Sharon’s brigades stood before the crack Egyptian 2nd Infantry Division at Abu Ageilah, dug into trenches protected by minefields and sand dunes. With typical Israeli boldness and creativity, Sharon ordered an armored task force under the command of Lt. Col. Natke Nir to cut through the dunes to the north, into the Egyptian rear. Helicopters then brought in paratroops to strike at Egyptian artillery positions.
[continued on next page]
This innovative attack began at 10:30 p.m. with an artillery barrage of about 100 guns. Sharon’s infantry attacked out of the dunes, while the paratroops silenced enemy artillery, and Nir’s tanks barreled into the surprised defenders. Muzzle blasts of tanks, flashes of artillery, and the flames of demolished armor lit up the black desert night. Seemingly attacked from all sides simultaneously, the Egyptians nevertheless fought for 12 hours. When it was over, though, the 2nd Infantry Division had been destroyed.
After things had clearly disintegrated for the Egyptians, soldiers of all ranks began, in the words of military historian Kenneth Pollack, “dissembling, obfuscating, exaggerating and outright lying” instead of admitting their losses and errors. Reflecting the regime’s lack of open communication, Field Marshal Amer and his men joined in, telling Nasser and army officers that Egypt’s air force had destroyed its Israeli counterpart.
Only later in the day of June 5 did Amer tell Nasser the truth. With disastrous effect, some army commanders were not informed until the next day. Amer and most of the general staff appear to have been paralyzed with shock for much of this first day; orders were given and contradicted at a heated pace, spreading inertia and confusion throughout the ranks.
As in previous wars, the Egyptians fought with tenacity and bravery but lacked innovation, tactics, and maneuver. When two T-55 brigades of the 4th Armored Division, for example, tried to halt Tal’s advance to al-Arish, they ran smack into IDF Centurions from General Yoffe’s unit: as evening fell, nine Egyptian tanks had been reduced to blazing steel hulks while the Israelis lost only one Centurion. Renewing the assault in the morning, the Egyptians charged straight at the Israelis and were picked off by accurate gunnery and air strikes. The Egyptians retreated, leaving 30 of 80 T-55s behind, smashed. The Israelis suffered no losses.
After this catastrophic defeat, Amer ordered a general retreat from the Sinai on June 6. Bypassing normal communication channels, the field marshal called his commanders personally, ordering them to pull out. The retreat rapidly degenerated into a rout as officers fled pell-mell, leaving their men leaderless. Hundreds of soldiers simply dumped their equipment and headed homeward, many suffering agonizing deaths in the rocky wastes of the Sinai.
After disabling the USS Liberty, Israel was free to pursue its final objective, the Golan Heights, without fear of U.S. eavesdropping
No comments:
Post a Comment