The Lion’s Gate Read online

  Now Yak was standing in my office. “Ezer wants a plan for total war, meaning against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. The aim is to achieve complete air superiority. He wants the plan two ways—one, if we’re attacked; two, if we do the attacking.”

  I started telling Yak how busy I was. I was still flying operational missions—in fact, I had one scheduled over Sinai this very night . . .

  “Rafi, you’re the planner.” And he tossed me the hot potato.

  That was how Operation Moked began.

  “The one thing you’ve got is time,” Yak said. “There’s no rush because no one knows what the hell to do with this. Keep flying your missions and work on this when you can.”

  We set to work, Yak and I. We’d meet one or two hours a week, sitting outside over lunch or coffee and cigarettes. We had no assistants, no secretary, no colleagues. Nobody took notes, nobody prepared memos, we submitted nothing for approval. Will anything ever come of this? We put the odds at a hundred to one.

  The overall concept was a no-brainer: a preemptive strike to knock out the enemy air forces. As far back as Lou Lenart’s plan to attack the Egyptian airfield at El Arish in 1948 (with Ezer as his number three), the idea was to hit the foe by surprise and knock him out on the ground. Egypt first, because its air force was the biggest; then Jordan and Syria if we still had resources.

  The next question was how? There was a powerful school of thought that believed a counterstrike would be most effective. Let the Egyptians attack us, intercept them, and shoot them down. Another said kill the pilots on the ground. Send commandos and simply gun them down. A third concept was decapitation of enemy command and control. Knock out their radar and communications.

  We decided, Yak and I, to take out the enemy’s runways.

  Without runways, planes can’t fly.

  Runways became the focus. The plan had no name then. We began working on bombs and the doctrine of bombing to render a runway inoperable. This is not as easy as it sounds. It was entirely possible to score direct hits on runways with very heavy bombs and yet produce minimal damage, or damage that could be repaired quickly. Endless testing and planning went into discovering precisely what angle of attack should be taken. Bombs can skip. They can detonate a half second too soon or a tenth of a second too late.

  At what angle should the bombs strike the surface of the runway? From what height should they be dropped? At what altitude should the planes pull out of their dives? Remember, the Israel Air Force had no heavy or even medium bombers. We would have to use fighters. A fighter can carry two bombs maximum. Some types can carry only one. Each bomb must count. None must be wasted.

  What type of bomb would produce the greatest and most lasting destruction? Should it penetrate the runway? By how much? How many bombs per runway? Aimed at what target points?

  I started talking to our intelligence people. A conflict arose at once. The way intelligence worked, I was informed, was that agents and their “assets” brought in raw data from the field; this data was then analyzed and presented to command. After that, plans were drawn.

  No, I said, I need it to happen the opposite way. I will tell you what I need to know; then you go and find it out.

  Oh, no. We can’t do it that way.

  Why not?

  Because that’s not the way it’s done.

  After many meetings I succeeded in gaining the intelligence officers’ confidence. I need to know, I said, not just the geographical location of every military airfield in Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, but the physical layout of the field itself—and every potential auxiliary field. Where are the hangars, the fueling depots, the control towers, the barracks, the briefing rooms? What defenses does each field possess? Antiaircraft artillery? Where? Which squadrons are based at which fields? Of what types of aircraft are these squadrons composed? How many? Where are they parked? Protected by bunkering or revetments? Can we get at them by strafing? Will bombing be necessary?

  Where do the pilots sleep? At what time do they arrive at the field each morning? When do they eat breakfast? What is their training and patrol schedule? Meteorological data. Will clouds be a problem? Ground fog? At what time of day? In what season of the year?

  What time do the Egyptian pilots start each training day and what time do they finish? What are their names? What are their wives’ names? What kind of cars do they drive? What routes do they take from their homes to the bases?

  I need to know everything about the Egyptian Air Force’s command and control. Do they even have such a thing? What are their channels of command? How do orders reach the individual squadrons? Can we compromise these networks, can we tap into them, can we destroy them?

  Many issues were so elementary that they had, I realized, never been seriously examined. What is the optimum way to attack an airfield? With full squadrons? With four-ship formations? How many per field? Do we attack in waves? Do all planes attack or do some remain at altitude, providing cover? What weapons do we use to destroy enemy planes on the ground?

  At the time of the IAF’s acquisition of the seventy-two Mirage IIIC fighters, a passionate debate had raged on the subject of missiles versus guns. Missiles were the hot new thing. But the pilots hated them. Missiles were unreliable—they missed, they malfunctioned.

  In the end, guns won.

  Each Mirage got twin 30-millimeter cannons.

  Piece by piece, a doctrine began to take shape.

  The attack would commence with an initial bombing run whose object would be to knock out the runways. The planes would then make three strafing passes, attacking the enemy planes in their parked positions on the ground. By the time the third pass had been completed, the next wave of Israeli warplanes would have arrived on station and be commencing their bombing runs. The first wave would race for home, to rearm and refuel for the next sortie.

  The genius of this concept was that one standard attack pattern could be used against any enemy field.

  Through practice a specific bombing technique was determined to be optimal. The bomb runs would begin from an altitude of 6,000 feet. Angle of dive would be 35 degrees precisely, because that was the angle, calculating from the release altitude and the descending arc of the bomb in its fall, that would deliver the ordnance at the optimal angle to the target runway. Any shallower and the bomb might skip; any steeper and the plane might not be able to pull out before it flew into the zone of the bomb’s explosion and debris.

  Bomb release point would be 2,500 feet AGL—above ground level. Pilots would begin pulling out of their dives at 1,000 feet. At zero altitude they would execute a 270-degree turn and initiate their strafing runs. These would be performed at 450 knots or faster, preferably 550 knots, down the long axis upon which the target aircraft were parked. At a range of 900 meters the pilots would open fire with their 30-millimeter cannons. They would aim low. Rounds fired high would miss the target completely, but bullets missing low would “walk” over the target as the attacking plane continued its pass. The planes would lay down a swath of gunfire that would either strike the target aircraft directly or ricochet off the pavement or the ground into the bellies of the parked planes.

  Though the plan specified three passes of strafing, the leader of each four-ship formation was permitted to make as many runs as fuel and enemy antiaircraft fire permitted within the interval of time before the succeeding four-ship formation arrived. The decision would be made by the flight leader in the moment.

  Six thousand feet was the altitude at which the attack aircraft would commence their bombing runs. But how would they get to that altitude without being detected by enemy radar?

  The planes must come in “on the deck”—meaning at a height of 100 feet, no higher. This meant that the leader of each four-ship formation must determine in advance, from maps or aerial photographs, a waypoint five or six kilometers short of its target and on a heading that was offset from the target by a s
imilar distance. The reason for the offset was to help the pilots find the target when they rolled onto their backs at the peak of their climb. If their approach heading was, say, north of the target field, they knew to look south to find it.

  This waypoint was called an IP, or initial point. At the IP, each pilot would “pull,” or haul the stick into his belly and start his climb. The jets would ascend at a 50-degree angle under full afterburner for half a minute. At 6,000 feet the planes would invert, locate the target visually, and dive onto it.

  How difficult is this? Imagine an IP. A house, a road junction, a filling station. This initial point must stand out from its surroundings. It must be unmistakable. You must be able to find it in the middle of the empty desert, say, or among the agricultural landscape of the delta, where every acre of cultivation looks exactly like every other. On top of that, you must find this IP when you’re flying so low it’s almost as if you’re in a car, at a rate only a hundred knots slower than the speed of sound. Found it? Now pull. Remember as you enter your climb that the belly of your plane is toward the target, so you can’t see. You will not know for certain that you’re on target until you invert at the peak of your arc and peer up through the canopy—i.e., down at the ground. At that point the element of surprise will be gone. Alarms will be sounding. Enemy gunners will be sprinting to their antiaircraft cannons.

  The primal imperative of the plan is that all planes strike their targets at the same time. If one squadron attacks early, it gives away the whole game. The enemy will scramble. His planes can get away, defend, strike back.

  A timetable had to be developed.

  The first problem was that our formations would be striking eleven or more airfields, each of which lay at a different distance (and thus a different flying time) from our borders. Further, the attack formations would be flying out of different bases in Israel, each one with different flying times to different targets. How could we make them all arrive at the same time?

  Beyond these issues was the fact that the attacking force was composed of different types of aircraft, each of which flew at different speeds and possessed different flying capabilities. The slower Vautours and Ouragans would have to be given extra minutes to reach their targets (or be assigned targets that were closer in), so that they could arrive at the identical instant as the faster Mystères, Super Mystères, and Mirages.

  Further, the attacking forces would have to take routes designed to avoid detection by enemy radar. They would have to fly “legs,” to zig and zag. Yet all aircraft must arrive over their targets at precisely the same moment.

  All this must be accomplished in total radio silence. Even contact with the control tower would be forbidden. En route to their targets, not a peep was permitted. If a pilot encountered an emergency and had to ditch at sea, he could not call for help or even alert his formation-mates.

  Nor could the attacking forces count on knocking out the enemy in a single strike. We must plan for multiple sorties. Strike, return to base, rearm and refuel, strike again. Seventy-two Mirages become 144 if you can turn them around fast enough. This meant training and motivating ground crews to perform at unprecedented levels of speed and skill.

  How many warplanes should participate? Mirages made up 72 of Israel’s fleet of 202 combat aircraft. Some would have to be held back for duty as interceptors. How many? Stationed where? To protect which population centers?

  Every plane held back was a plane that could not strike the enemy. How boldly should we roll the dice? Could we attack with every plane we had?

  The next question was time of attack. At what hour of the day would we strike? This issue produced the sharpest clash between me and Ezer Weizman, the chief of the air force.

  Ezer was adamant that the attack commence at dawn. Why? Because that was how it always happened in the movies. All the great attacks in history were made at first light!

  I threatened twice to quit—and once actually turned in my resignation.

  First, I declared, dawn was the hour at which ground fog was most likely in the Nile delta. By eight the mist dispersed. But far more important was achieving surprise. By now our agents had acquired near total knowledge of the enemy’s daily routine. The Egyptian Air Force’s day began at dawn with a combat air patrol. When the formation commanders were satisfied that no enemy attack was imminent, they landed for breakfast. This was between 07:00 and 07:30. At this hour most senior commanders were en route from their homes to the air bases. The training day started with various briefings around 08:00.

  I argued strenuously that the attack must come at 07:45.

  Ezer would not hear of it. No argument that Yak or I could mount made a dent. The RAF attacked at dawn, and the IAF would too!

  Here I must confess to implementing a stratagem. I wrote into the attack plan the stipulation that H-hour would be determined by the chief of operations at the time of the event, based on the latest intelligence.

  By the time my plan was used, Ezer was no longer air force commander. Motti Hod had taken over.

  That was how the plan dodged that bullet.

  In April 1965 we began exposing the plan to senior officers and heads of departments in the air force. Everywhere response was enthusiastic. It was so positive that I began to worry.

  If this many people are happy, I must have made some terrible mistake.

  Danny Shapira is the Israel Air Force’s chief test pilot. He will serve in six wars over five decades. In June 1967 he flies Mirages with Fighter Squadron 101:

  Operation Moked could not have succeeded without the Mirage IIIC, the superb delta-wing fighter-interceptor manufactured by Dassault Aviation in France. Ezer Weizman, chief of the IAF, had acquired seventy-two of them, with the first pair arriving in April 1962 and the final complement touching down in July 1964.

  Those Mirages saved Israel.

  I was the IAF’s chief test pilot in 1959. This was the year in which I graduated from France’s Armée de l’Air test pilot school, and the year I first flew the Mirage.

  At that time France was the IAF’s best friend. Dassault Aviation had supplied us with Ouragans, Mystères, and Super Mystères in an era when other nations, including Britain and the United States, would not even sell us ammunition.

  But the Mirage was the pièce de résistance. Supersecret. The French didn’t want to let me or any other foreigner near it, let alone take it up.

  Ezer told them, “Danny flies or it’s no deal!”

  I remember Dassault’s chief test pilot arriving at the embassy in Paris to inform me that I would be flying the Mirage the next morning. The prototype I was to take up was so new its tail number was “01.” I asked the French pilot, “Are you going to brief me on the aircraft’s capabilities and characteristics?”

  He gave me a Gallic shrug. “You’re a test pilot. Test it.”

  I was in the Mirage for thirty seconds and I fell in love. What a plane! She was powerful, fast, incredibly responsive—a pilot’s aircraft that you flew with your fingertips. On my second flight I took her past Mach 1.5, pulling 7 Gs. On the third I hit Mach 2.1.

  Ezer was waiting the moment I landed. “Well?”

  “I love it. It’s made for us—but not the way the French have designed it.”

  Here was the problem: The French had conceived the Mirage as a high-altitude interceptor. Like other Western powers during the Cold War, they wanted a plane that could climb very fast to 60,000 or 70,000 feet and shoot down invading Soviet bombers. The Mirage even had a supplemental rocket booster that could take it to the edge of space.

  But extreme altitude is not where wars are fought in the Middle East. The IAF needed an all-purpose aircraft that could bomb, strafe, dogfight, even perform photo reconnaissance. Israel is not a superpower that can afford a bomber force, a fighter force, and so on. For us, one aircraft has to do everything.

  The Mirage was that airplane, I was
certain. But critical changes had to be made.

  First, the plane needed a gun.

  The Mirage came with missiles only. Missiles were the hot new thing then. The Americans had the Sidewinder, the Russians had the Atoll, the French had the Matra. Missiles were the future, the engineers said. Push a button and the enemy’s plane explodes five miles away. Old-fashioned cannons? They were passé.

  But I didn’t trust missiles, and neither did our IAF pilots. Missiles were unreliable. They could be defeated by countermeasures. Worse, missiles are primarily air-to-air weapons. They’re no match for guns at attacking ground targets. If war with Egypt came, the IAF’s primary mission would be to knock out the enemy’s air force by attacking its fields and destroying its planes on the ground.

  You need cannons to strafe ground targets.

  I made the French put them in.

  We took the rocket engine out of the Mirage’s belly and replaced it with a DEFA 30-millimeter gun pack. These tough, reliable, French-built cannons (DEFA stands for Direction des Études et Fabrications d’Armement) had proved themselves in air-to-ground action in the ’56 Sinai Campaign. A 20-millimeter cannon, we pilots learned then, will not penetrate the armor of an Egyptian tank. A 30-millimeter will eat it alive.

  In the end the Dassault engineers acceded to all our suggestions for modifications. The French designers watched (and learned) as we turned their high-altitude, high-glamour interceptor into a no-nonsense air-to-ground and air-to-air killing machine.

  Rafi Sivron is the planner of Operation Moked:

  The squadrons begin to train. When I confer with the squadron commanders, I make it clear that the master plan is written in stone, but that within each commander’s sphere all decisions are his. I will plan the route to the target to avoid enemy radar; you may not take a shortcut. I will tell you what ordnance to carry and precisely where to drop it. But within two or three miles of the target, you are in charge. How you attack is up to you. You be the judge of how to deal with antiaircraft fire, the angle of the sun, and so forth. You, the leader, will make those calls.