Loud and Clear

by Iftach Spector

  Suppose, for instance, that we had chosen to attack at an earlier hour in the morning. There were officers who argued that we should attack the Egyptians at dawn, a more conventional hour, instead of 0745, as was actually done. Then the plan would have failed totally. When our first attacking formations arrived over their objectives, several airfields in the Nile delta had been partly hidden by low clouds, and the targets were almost completely concealed from above. Some of the first leaders had had difficulty finding their targets, and others in attacking them. But as things happen in the Middle East, the skies cleared fast, and the following waves of attackers had no difficulty getting the job done.

  Another bet, no less dangerous, was on absolute surprise. The last week before the war the enemy was at peak readiness. Had he learned of our coming—or just had he raised the alert level—the MiGs would have been in the air in time. In this case, each of us would have had to fight his way in. Had this been the case, the results would have been totally different, and surely the demolition of our opponent’s air force wouldn’t have ended in three hours, if anytime at all. The war would have proceeded very differently.

  And the greatest gamble of all was certainly the reliance on intelligence. Our maps showed us, the attacking pilots, where each enemy aircraft was parked. When we got there, we found them all in place. All was frozen; the intelligence map was static, a “dead” map. If, on the other hand, the Egyptians had kept moving their bombers among distant airfields, and kept a considerable part of their fighter force in the air, patrolling, then we would have found the airfields empty of targets (an ugly experience that awaited me in the next war—more on that later).

  None of this actually happened. The Egyptians thought of their deployment as if it were a chess game. They set up their pawns for the big attack and waited. Our knight, in turn, jumped and struck. And as fate would have it, the move we had been planning for years beforehand, Focus, worked out better than all expectations. To the amazement of all, the king himself was on the square where our knight landed.

  OUR AIR FORCE COULDN’T DO much more than that. After this amazing solo display, Focus, the enemy had no way to tell that this was the last show in our air force’s repertoire. But the fact was we had no other convincing acts up our sleeve.

  And on second thought, perhaps every addition Israel made to Focus was superfluous.

  Chapter

  9

  The Black Flag and the USS Liberty

  Kafr-Kassem: In October 1956, at the opening of the Sinai campaign, a curfew was ordered in the Israeli Arab villages. The beginning of the curfew was at five in the afternoon, and the village heads were notified only half an hour before. The Arab farmers who went out to the fields on that morning naturally didn’t know about the curfew.

  Battalion commander Major Malinky was called to his brigade commander, Colonel Shadmi, and ordered to “shoot to kill” every violator of the curfew. To the question of what about those returning from the fields without knowing about the curfew, Shadmi answered, “May Allah have mercy on them.”

  Malinky passed the order to the platoon commanders. The commanders listened, but only one of them, Lieutenant Dehan, followed the order. His company massacred civilians from Kafr-Kassem, on the pretext that they had violated the curfew. According to the company commander’s report, returning villagers were stood in line and shot in cold blood. Forty-three people were killed, including old men, women, and children.

  The soldiers were court-martialed and argued that they just followed orders. This was the same argument given by Nazi criminals accused in trials at Nuremberg. The court, headed by Judge Benjamin Halevy, determined that the order was manifestly unlawful, an order that must not be obeyed. All involved were found guilty. Colonel Shadmi was fined one cent. Major Malinky got seventeen years in prison, Lieutenat Dehan fifteen, and each of the soldiers seven. They were all released before November 1959.

  ON THE FOURTH DAY OF THE SIX-DAY WAR, my two-ship section, code-named Kursa, was sent to patrol over the Suez Canal. My wingman was Lieutenant Y. The Mirage fighter I flew had been armed for aerial combat with one Matra 530 air-to-air, French-made heavy missile, and two 30mm cannons with antiaircraft explosive rounds.

  On our way westward I observed again, as in the morning, a big ship cruising off El-Arish, an Egyptian town on the Sinai coast where battles were still taking place. And again, as in the morning, I reported it to central control. This ship stood out like a sore thumb in the empty sea, and every pilot who passed had reported her, so I was not surprised when there was no particular reaction to my report. We continued to the west, looking for some MiG activity.

  For a time we circled over the Suez Canal with nothing happening, and then we got a call from air control. The controller ordered us to leave our patrol area and go check the identity of a ship that was sailing off El-Arish. It was instantly clear that the vessel was the same one we had seen before; it was the only ship around. So we turned north and headed out to sea, and after some vectoring I saw her again in the distance. I set my wingman in a swept-back formation and approached her.

  A SHIP’S IDENTITY CAN BE CHECKED in one of three ways: by identifying her profile, by identification of signs she displays (such as flags), or through radio communication. Control passed us through to the general maritime radio channel, but those who answered us on it were from the Israeli Navy. This ship never answered any radio calls. So we approached her from astern, and began circling to check her out.

  Although there was no other object around for reference, the ship seemed pretty large to me. She was gray, and looked to me like a military vessel. The profile of the ship was totally unfamiliar to me. Before the war we had studied all the enemy vessels, like the Soviet Skury destroyers the Egyptian Navy operated, as well as others. But this one was definitely not one of those.

  I began transmitting its physical description to air control and the navy. I was hoping that they might have something in their manuals to help with the identification. I described the shape of the hull, the lines of the forward superstructure, stacks, and mast. Most of all, I was looking for the sea-to-air recognition sign of our Israeli Navy. That sign was a large red “X” in a white square. It should have been painted all over the upper deck, to be seen clearly from the air.

  I saw no such mark. But other signs weren’t found either. Above the ship protruded a chimney, a mast, and some antennae. Both of us—Lieutenant Y. and myself—searched for flags or signals but saw nothing. As pilots, we both had excellent vision, at least twenty-twenty. To get a better look, I reduced my airspeed to 350 knots—a lower than optimal operational speed, and unsafe in wartime. Then I approached the ship even closer, carefully. I was concerned, and kept a safe distance from that ship—several hundred meters—because I had no idea what kind of antiaircraft measures she had.

  The conversations between the air controller and me lasted for five to six minutes, in which time we made two full circles of the vessel. At last I finished my description and waited for orders. Finally I heard, “Kursa flight leader, if you are certain that this is a military vessel, you are cleared to attack.”

  “Roger.” But I was still not sure.

  I sent my wingman to fly high cover, and I came in low and flew parallel to the right side of the ship. Only then did I see the lettering “CTR-5” on its side. I spelled it to air control. “Charlie Tango Roger five.”

  To me this meant nothing. This wasn’t a name in any language I knew. It seemed just a serial number, like the number 73 on the tail of my Mirage. This convinced me that this was indeed a military vessel. The letters were not in Hebrew, so it was not one of ours.

  Later I was to learn that I had made a mistake in reading the letters. Another pilot, who came after I left, read it as “GTR-5.” I don’t know if misreading the letter G for C had any effect on what followed.

  Then air control came back on, and he sounded more confident. “This ship has been in action against our forces in El-Arish. She is disengag
ing to the west.” He went on to give the order, “Attack her and stop her.”

  From my point of view, there was no problem. We were at war, and for the past days I had been attacking enemy vehicles and installations and setting them on fire. This ship was certainly a military vessel, and she didn’t have Israeli markings. And this part of the Mediterranean Sea was in the heart of the battle zone, bordered only by Israel and Egypt. It was clear as daylight that the controller who had commanded me to attack knew who she was, and why she should be stopped in place. And this is exactly what I was going to do.

  The only problem was technical: how do you stop a ship that big? I was sorry we weren’t carrying bombs. A half-ton bomb would surely have stopped the ship, and perhaps even have sunk her. But we were armed only for aerial combat. For a moment I even considered launching our Matra missiles at her. The French radar-guided missile had a thirty-five-kilogram warhead, in itself a small bomb. But I changed my mind. The Matra was a rare and expensive weapon designed for shooting down aircraft. So all I had left were our guns.

  Here I had a problem, too: 30mm cannon rounds are just like fireworks hitting the steel side of a ship. But 30mm rounds are like small hand grenades, and their shrapnel can hit people and installations on the ship’s decks. The two Mirages in my flight had four cannons, 125 rounds in each. Five hundred rounds are at least something; they can inflict considerable damage on the surface of the target. I was hoping we could at least harry her—prevent her from getting away. And during this delay, another, properly equipped force might come up and finish the job.

  I came in first, my wingman following. Each of us attacked the ship two or three times. I did a good job, and the bursts from my 30mm cannons strafed the deck and superstructure. I saw my rounds exploding, and streams of fragments and splinters flew off the ship and into the water beside her and turned it white, like spray from a fountain. Even before we were out of ammunition, smoke was rising from the ship. It was my impression that we had slowed her down.

  That was all I could do. All four cannons were empty, and we left the ship and returned to base, satisfied with our attempt to delay her escape.

  THIS SAD STORY HAD ONE small coda, not a thing that would have interested the investigators who questioned me a few weeks later. Just something a person like me keeps deep inside. And today, in retrospect, perhaps that was a mistake.

  When we landed back at Hatzor and went down the stairs to the Fighting First’s underground operations room to report and receive our next assignment, the officer of the day, Lt. Col. David Ivry, met me with a strange expression on his face. He had been managing the squadron’s missions during the past hour.

  He said to me, “Spector, you attacked a ship.”

  “Yes, sir!” I was pretty proud of myself.

  “For your information, you made a mistaken identification. The ship was one of ours.”

  What?

  For a moment I thought this was just an ugly joke. But David Ivry—a man who later became commander of the Israeli Air Force—was not the joking kind. I saw from his face that he was not kidding. I was stunned. I needed time to pull myself together.

  I let my flight gear slip to the ground and left the room. I climbed up the stairs and found myself on the outside balcony, darkness before my eyes even though it was full daylight. I ended up somehow at the end of the building, across from the restrooms. I entered and locked the door behind me. There, sitting on the bowl, I put my head against the cool tiles and tried to think.

  I thought I had brought disaster on everyone. It was certain. I was there, I saw the hits. How could I fuck up like that? I tortured myself, convincing myself that yes, I had seen a red “X” on white background there, and surely there had been an Israeli flag flying from that mast.

  What gotten into me? What had I done?

  Here, in the restroom of the Fighting First, I lived the last moments of my former life. I knew that in a short time, within minutes, the windlass of fate would begin to turn, crushing me and all I had in the world, my dear Ali and my three-year old son, Etay, my mother, and my foster parents from the Galilee. What would they all say? What would everybody who knew and raised me say? What would my friends who were fighting and shedding their blood just then, think of me? What had I done to my squadron, my Fighting First? I had shot up my friends, fact. There is no way I can live in this country anymore.

  Plans began rushing around my head. Perhaps I should commit suicide? But how to do it, and where? Or maybe flee to America, Australia, or Brazil? How to sneak unseen out of this room, change clothes, change my name? All sorts of crazy thoughts, some practical and some fantastic, ran though my mind, and even one important thought, that before anything else, I had to get my wingman out of this mess. After all, he was only following me.

  INSIDE THE FOG IN MY HEAD, I heard voices coming from the outside. I heard somebody calling my name again and again. Doors banged open and closed. Then Ivry was there, standing in front of the door to the men’s room.

  “Spector, are you in there?”

  “I’m here,” I answered after he shook the door.

  “There was a mistake; that ship was not one of ours. Come out of there!”

  I got up and went out. “Whose ship was it then?”

  “French.”

  I collected my flight gear. Before dusk I was scrambled again to patrol over the Suez Canal. The ship was still there, farther out to sea.

  ONLY LATER DID I LEARN that this was not a French ship either, but an American spy vessel, the USS Liberty. How did she get there? What was she doing there? All that was none of my business, and the thing was totally suppressed during the flights and fighting that came after. A few weeks after the Six-Day War was over, an investigating committee came from the United States and I gave a deposition. I told them what I have said here, and answered their questions in my high school English. When I left the interrogation room into the light of day, the issue was closed as far as I was concerned, and I gave it no further thought. Another sad event, neither the first nor the last of its kind. In war, mistakes happen.

  A decade later I learned that a conspiracy theory was being advanced about the attack on the USS Liberty. One day a friend came in and put before me a copy of Penthouse magazine. Enormous tanned tits stared at me as I began leafing through it curiously; one didn’t find such pictures in Israel.

  “No, not that.” He pointed out an article. “Read this.”

  I read. There was a long and interesting story that claimed Israel had attacked the Liberty on purpose. Israel, according to this article, decided to attack the Liberty to silence it, and prevent the ship from discovering Israel’s plans, such as capturing the Golan Heights. The reasoning seemed odd to me, but the story was well written, and I enjoyed reading it.

  “You were there,” asked my friend. “Could this be true?”

  Initially, I chuckled and dismissed the whole thing as ridiculous. But then I stopped and began thinking again. I recalled the voice that spoke to me on the radio, ordering me to attack. Had he known something he didn’t tell me? I sank in a sea of question marks.

  I thought, “All in all, I was just the tip of the spear. It’s the point that pierces for sure, but it’s just a dumb point. I was manipulated by somebody from a distance.”

  My friend kept looking at me, and I didn’t know what to say. As a tool, how could I tell whose hand manipulated me, and what its intentions were? Was I deceived and sent to shoot up a friendly American ship? Did they cheat Ivry, too, telling him the ship was French? For a moment I was really confused.

  Then I remembered the simple fact that the Liberty had carried no signs or flags clear enough for two sharp-eyed fighter pilots to discern (and after us, several other pilots, and a number of capable sailors who soon arrived on the scene hadn’t seen anything either). So if there was a conspiracy, which in my opinion is nonsense, it had to come from the Liberty herself.

  When I remembered that the Liberty did not identify herself, it c
leared up the issue, because neither I nor any other Israeli pilot would have attacked a ship—even a military vessel—that flew an American flag, or for that matter British, French, Chinese, Upper Volta, Schleswig-Holstein, or the flag of the kingdom of the Martians.

  I have no idea what this ship was doing there, in the middle of a war, and why she couldn’t have been tapping into our communications from a little farther out to sea. In any case, if there was no conspiracy, there was certainly a mistake. Somebody on the Liberty stuck his ship into a forbidden and dangerous place. And while he was there, he didn’t do his job: He didn’t fly a visible flag, didn’t respond in any way to our calls for identification, and didn’t signal to our jets when we circled him for long minutes. If he had gotten on deck and sent up a flare—any color would have done the trick—or just waved a white sheet, I would not have fired on him.

  This is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in the affair of the USS Liberty, as far as I know and remember it. And I pray for the souls of those American sailors who perished or who were injured or maimed through no fault of their own.

  EVERY WAR IN THE HISTORY of mankind is full of killings of innocents. “The aircraft, the ultimate weapon that can reach everywhere, appeared at the beginning of the twentieth century, when technology upped killing capabilities to levels unseen before,” taught Maj. Yehuda Massad, the chief ground instructor in the flying school. He gave me a thin black book and ordered me to summarize it and prepare a lecture for class. Such lectures were the academic summit and the final exam in our education as officers.

  The name of the book he gave me was Command of the Air, and the writer was Giulio Douhet. Armed with my kibbutz English, I toiled the whole weekend on that book. I found that Douhet was an Italian general and that he had developed a complete theory of war. His idea was that airpower was the most effective of all war measures. “A war can be won,” said Douhet, “by airpower alone.”