The Lion's Gate: On the Front Lines of the Six Day War Page 3

  “I have no compassion for you,” declared Ran. The sure-kill, sixteen-frame standard would now be called “the death burst.”

  If you wanted to be credited with a kill, you had to produce the death burst.

  The next day, when the squadron went up to practice dogfighting, skill levels elevated by 40 percent. It was amazing. Every pilot raised his game. You had to. There was no other way to achieve the death burst.

  When I was fifteen, I applied for and was accepted into a new military boarding school associated with the Reali School in Haifa. The Reali School was the elite high school in Israel. The military school was a secondary school version of West Point. We attended classes at Reali in the morning and underwent our military training in the afternoon.

  I don’t believe there is an institution in Israel today that can measure up to the standards of that school. Why did I want to go there? I wanted to test myself. At that time in Israel the ideal to which an individual aspired was inclusion as part of a “serving elite.” The best of the best were not motivated by money or fame. Their aim was to serve the nation, to sacrifice their lives if necessary. At the military boarding school, it was assumed that every graduate would volunteer for a fighting unit, the more elite, the better. We studied, we played sports, we trekked. We hiked all over Israel. We were unbelievably strong physically. But what was even more powerful were the principles that the school hammered into our skulls.

  First: Complete the mission.

  The phrase in Hebrew is Dvekut baMesima.

  Mesima is “mission”; dvekut means “glued to.” The mission is everything. At all costs, it must be carried through to completion. I remember running up the Snake Trail at Masada one summer at 110 degrees Fahrenheit with two of my classmates. Each of us would sooner have died than be the first to call, “Hey, slow down!”

  Second: Whatever you do, do it to your utmost. The way you tie your shoes. The way you navigate at night. Nothing is academic.

  Third: En brera. “No alternative.”

  We are Jews; we are surrounded by enemies who seek our destruction and the extermination of our people. There is no alternative to victory.

  In Squadron 119, Ran led us according to these principles. Complete the mission. Perform every action to perfection. Follow through at any cost.

  Then there was one final principle, which was, and remains to this day, the secret weapon of IAF fighting doctrine. Here is how it was taught to me:

  I was talking with an older pilot. He asked me what I considered to be Ezer Weizman’s most important contribution to the air force. Ezer was the IAF’s boldest and most flamboyant commander.

  “That’s easy,” I said. “He got us seventy-two Mirages.” Meaning the magnificent French-built warplanes that we flew in our squadron.

  “No, Giora,” the veteran said. “Ezer introduced the culture of the ruthlessly candid debriefing.”

  At the end of each training day, the squadron met in the briefing room. Ran stood up front. He went over every mistake we had made that day—not just those of the young pilots, but his own as well. He was fearless in his self-criticism, and he made us speak up with equal candor. If you had screwed up, you admitted it and took your medicine. Ego meant nothing. Improvement was everything.

  An operational squadron flies only one type of plane. In the IAF of ’67 these were all French made: twin-engined Vautour fighter-bombers; single-engine Ouragans that looked like American F-84 Thunderjets; the subsonic Mystères and supersonic Super Mystères; and the pride of the air force, the Dassault Mirage IIIC fighter-interceptor.

  How do I feel about the Mirage? I’ll tell you a story:

  After the war, when the Mirage was replaced by the American F-4 Phantom, I moved on to a Phantom squadron. One day the ground crew was pushing my plane into its cell when we accidentally dinged one wingtip. As punishment my squadron commander grounded me. I phoned a friend, the commander of a Mirage squadron. He invited me to come and fly.

  When I settled into the Mirage cockpit, tears welled in my eyes.

  The Mirage is an aircraft like no other. You sit up front and high. You can see everything. The controls are close, and they respond to a touch. You fly a Mirage with your fingertips.

  A Mirage is fast. When you light the afterburner, the aircraft leaps. And it’s beautiful. It has that Coca-Cola body. Delta wings. Silver. The engine may be prone to flameouts and compression stalls, and you had to land with your nose so high you could barely see the runway, and without flaps (the delta wings had none), but in the vertical dimension the Mirage was untouchable. Nothing in the sky was a match for her.

  We were training to attack Egypt. The enemy had fourteen major fields in Sinai, the Nile delta, and the south. Each IAF squadron had its target list—primaries and secondaries. You had to know them all. The planes would attack in formations of four. In ours and the two other Mirage squadrons—the 101 at Hatzor and the 117 at Ramat David—each aircraft would be armed with two 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) bombs. The bombs would be dropped at specific points on specific runways at an hour and minute that was calculated precisely to coincide with attacks by every other squadron in the air force on every other Egyptian field.

  The bombing runs would be followed by three passes of strafing in a 270-degree pattern, alternating the turning direction twice. Meaning you struck first from, say, the north, then the east or west, then the south or north. With our 30-millimeter cannons we would attack enemy aircraft on the ground. We knew where every plane was parked and at what hours the pilots returned from their early morning patrols.

  Every squadron in the Israel Air Force would participate in the attack. Only 12 planes out of 202 would be held back to defend the nation’s skies. Every machine that could fly would participate, including the ancient Fouga Magisters from the flight school. The Fougas would be outfitted with rockets to attack ground targets and to provide close air support for the infantry and armor.

  How do you turn 202 planes into 404? By the skill of the maintenance crews on the ground. In most air forces 75 percent would be a spectacular combat readiness figure, meaning that seventy-five out of a hundred planes were fit to fly. On 5 June ’67 the IAF had 100 percent of its aircraft ready for takeoff. Our ground crews could turn a plane around in minutes. They could squeeze four or five sorties out of every plane every day. On paper the enemy may have had more aircraft, but we could put more planes into the air.

  By mid-May Nasser had closed the Straits of Tiran. Egypt was sending more and more tanks into Sinai. Squadron 119 was ordered to move onto the base full-time. Training hours went from ten to twelve to fourteen. When we weren’t flying, we were briefing or debriefing or studying our tasks and our assignments.

  For me, this was heaven.

  What had motivated me to become a fighter pilot? To seek single combat in the sky. To test myself at what was, to my mind, the pinnacle of skill, resourcefulness, and daring.

  There was only one moment during the waiting period when I felt fear. News came that the Egyptian 4th Armored Division had been deployed to Sinai. The 4th, we all knew, was Nasser’s crack division, equipped with the heaviest and most modern Soviet tanks. I was at a military dinner and found myself for a moment beside Motti Hod, the air force chief.

  “Motti,” I said—only in Israel can a twenty-two-year-old lieutenant address the commander of the air force not just by his first name but by his nickname. “What do you think about the Egyptian 4th Division moving forward in Sinai? Should we be frightened?”

  “Giora, this is news I have prayed for. Let Nasser bring all his divisions forward. The more he brings, the more we will destroy.”

  I thought, Wow, that is an interesting way of looking at things! It turned me around completely.

  So as the evening of the prime minister’s address approached, I was more worried about my laundry than about what Levi Eshkol had to say to the nation. Wou
ld Ran’s wife have time to get my socks and skivvies into the washing machine? I was really concerned about this.

  Let the rest of the country agonize over politics and diplomacy and whether or not the Americans were going to ride to our rescue. I refused to lose sleep over this. I had my Mirage. I knew how to fly it and with luck I was going to get the chance. That was all I knew and all I cared to know.

  5.

  PALSAR SEVEN

  The waiting goes on. Our company is stationed among rolling dunes near Kerem Shalom, a kibbutz on the Gaza Strip/Egypt frontier. It’s hot. A hundred Fahrenheit by nine in the morning.

  Eli Rikovitz is a twenty-one-year-old lieutenant, a platoon commander in the Recon Company of the 7th Armored Brigade. He will be awarded the Itur HaMofet, the Medal of Distinguished Service, for his actions during the Six Day War.

  An armored brigade in ready position spreads out over miles. Each morning at 03:30 the entire formation—hundreds of tanks, half-tracks, and support vehicles—is awake and at full alert, helmets on, chin straps buckled, all engines roaring, all radio nets open. We are waiting for the Egyptians to attack at dawn. When they don’t, we stand down.

  If there is a formula for driving young soldiers nuts, this is it.

  A reconnaissance company’s job is to find the enemy and to lead our tanks. We drive American CJ-5 jeeps, souped up to our own standards. What this means is we steal from other units all the extra fuel, ammo, and rations we can load onto the makeshift racks that we’ve welded onto our jeeps. When the tires start sinking into the sand, we know we’ve put on too much.

  Across the border from us waits the Egyptian 7th Division, with four more divisions behind it in central Sinai. In the Gaza Strip, a few kilometers northeast of our position, is another enemy division, the Palestinian, as well as a near-division-size task force, the Shazli Force, named after its commander, General Saad Shazli—of nine thousand men and two hundred tanks and guns.

  We are one division, Ugda Tal, with two others—Sharon’s and Yoffe’s—to our south.

  Our company, Palsar Seven, will be the first to cross the border. We will lead the tanks of the 7th Armored Brigade. The plan is for the brigade’s two armored battalions to strike north from Kerem Shalom on the Israeli side toward Rafiah Junction on the Egyptian. There the main road turns west toward El Arish in Sinai. El Arish is our ultimate objective.

  Can we do it?

  We are full of confidence.

  We are all young in the Recon Company because we’re regular army. Reserves are older—twenty-two to fifty. To be in a regular outfit means you’re serving your compulsory service. You’re a kid. You went in at eighteen. The oldest guy in Palsar Seven is our company commander, Ori Orr. He’s twenty-eight. I’m twenty-one.

  “Palsar” is an acronym for Plugat Siyur, which simply means “reconnaissance company.” “Seven” means we’re part of the 7th Armored Brigade. The guys in my platoon are so young that we don’t have wives. Only a few have girlfriends. When we send postcards home, we write to our parents.

  My mom and dad live in Zahala, a suburb of Tel Aviv built for army and defense ministry personnel. Yitzhak Rabin, the army chief of staff, is our neighbor. Growing up, my friends and I would catch rides to school with him. He’s a good guy. I used to swim at night in the Zahala pool; Rabin would be there doing laps. Moshe Dayan’s house is two streets over.

  My mother sends me articles from the newspapers, Haaretz (“The Land”) and Maariv (“Evening”). The editorials are full of calls for Prime Minister Eshkol’s resignation, or at least for him to give up his post as minister of defense. People are demanding a unity government. Here in the desert we don’t give a damn about such stuff. Let us fight. We’re young and we believe we’re bulletproof.

  Every few days, word comes that we’re going to attack. Tomorrow is D-day, we are told. There have been eight D-days so far, maybe nine—I can’t remember. Each time we are told the attack code and the time of H-hour. New plans are issued, based on the positions to which the Egyptian forces have moved during the previous night.

  Our job in Recon is to guide the tanks to their new ready positions. This is done after dark, to avoid observation by the enemy’s air force or by his long-range observation posts. A tank alone in the dark will nosedive into the first ditch it comes to. Our jeeps guide them. It usually takes till two or three in the morning. We snooze under blankets in the sand or in our vehicles. The three-thirty wakeup comes; every engine fires up, every soldier runs through whatever mental stuff he does to get himself ready to face his own death.

  Then the word comes: Stand down.

  I have two guys in my outfit who are natural comics: Gabi Gazit and Benzi Zur. They’re both about twenty. To Gabi and Benzi, I am an old man. They ask me for advice about sex and marriage. What do I know? They ask about death. “You tell me,” I say.

  We are all friends in Recon.

  Sergeant Miriam Lamm atop a communications vehicle during a reserve training exercise.

  Miriam Lamm is pilot Giora Romm’s fiancée. She is a sergeant, twenty-two years old, a code specialist in the headquarters group of Ugda Tal:

  I am among the few women with the combat troops. My fiancé, Giora, is a fighter pilot in Mirage Squadron 119. I’m a coder/decoder, part of General Tal’s command group. I will ride in an armored half-track when and if war comes and we cross the border.

  Our section’s half-track, unlike those of the combat troops, is enclosed. I don’t like it. I know I should feel safe inside this armored box, but I’d rather see what’s going on outside. I feel like I’m in a coffin.

  My father is in the reserves. He’s fifty-one. Men love being in the reserves; it makes them feel proud. Three weeks ago, two officers in uniform came to our door with a notice, Call-up Order No. 8. This is the hottest, most urgent category of mobilization order. My father hurried to grab his gear. But the officers said, “We are here for your daughter, Sergeant Miriam Lamm.”

  My dad was crestfallen.

  Call-up Order No. 8 meant you had to leave right that moment. You went with the officers.

  I said good-bye, feeling so bad for my father, and went to join Tal’s division.

  Menachem Shoval is a nineteen-year-old trooper in the Recon Company of the 7th Armored Brigade, part of Ugda Tal:

  In Israel when you turn eighteen the army takes you and puts you wherever it needs you or wherever your tests say you will do best. But you can volunteer before then, if you want, for special units like the paratroops or the Sayeret Matkal. I have always wanted Recon.

  The Recon company of an armored brigade is an elite unit. You’re supposed to pass a battery of physical and intelligence tests, which, of course, you must. But the real selection process is chaver mayvee chaver, “a friend brings a friend.”

  I have not yet completed my training. This worries me a little. Our company may be in action soon. I wish I had had more time to learn everything I’m supposed to know.

  In the American army, I understand, a recruit goes through basic training, then advanced training in his military specialty. Only after that is he assigned to a unit.

  That’s not how it works in Israel. In the IDF you go straight to your actual outfit. The outfit trains you from scratch. Our formation, the Recon Company of the 7th Armored Brigade, has been training all over Israel. We learn how to operate on foot and in jeeps, day and night, in all types of weather. You live rough. Camps have no cooks, no laundry, no hot showers. The team whips up its own chow and washes its own clothes. You’re trained by the same guys you’ll be serving with. You live in tents or trailers that are more like hobo jungles than military bases.

  Navigation exercises are the meat of Recon training. Night nav. Have you ever seen a “blind map”? It shows topography only. No roads, no cities, no landmarks.

  The object of a night navigation march is to trek from one prescribed point to anoth
er in a sequence that may include ten or twelve stations. This is the hardest thing I have ever done. One station may be a rock. Just a rock. You have to find it in the dark in the middle of nowhere and then write in your notebook what you have discovered. A white X, say, painted on the underside of the rock. The next station may be a kilometer away, or ten kilometers. You have to complete the circuit before the sun comes up.

  To observe a great navigator like Eli Rikovitz or Amos Ayalon, the Recon platoon commanders, is like watching Beethoven. These guys read a map like you or I read a book. They don’t scratch their heads, they don’t furrow their brows. They look and see. This is amazing to me.

  Will we use any of these skills when we cross the Egyptian border? I don’t know. Nobody does. Will war come? Can we win?

  Intelligence reports keep coming in saying that the Egyptians have brought up Stalin tanks, a whole brigade, to block the approaches south of Rafiah—the very area our outfit is slated to attack. Stalin tanks are the heaviest Russian armor from World War II. A Stalin tank packs a 122-millimeter main gun. The cannons on our Pattons are 90-millimeters and on our Centurions 105-millimeters. Stalin tanks were designed by the Russians to knock out the heaviest German tanks, the huge Tigers and Panthers. I can’t imagine what damage a 122-millimeter gun can do.

  6.

  NAOMI’S TRENCH

  My husband is mobilized on May 21. The unit he commands, Paratroop Battalion 71, is one of the last to get orders, though clearly the call-up is imminent. Uzi has been meeting with his company commanders in our living room all week. I serve coffee and sweet rolls, while the officers spread maps on the floor and on top of the piano.

  Dr. Naomi Eilam is a pediatric physician serving in the department of health. Her responsibilities include two villages of new immigrants, Yemenite Jews, to which she commutes under armed guard because of fedayeen incursions from Jordan. She is twenty-nine years old and has been married to her husband, Uzi, since 1954.