Loud and Clear

  They enthused, blessed me, blessed the Orange Tails, described again and again how tough the situation was on the Golan, our ground forces almost breaking under the ferocious Syrian attack, and how they kept calling for air support and there was no support to be had. The air force didn’t have anything to spare—and then, when hope was almost gone, the Orange Tails had appeared. Suddenly, as if from nowhere.

  “You came to us right from heaven! Eight Phantoms!” cried Moti, and said, “Do you understand what that means?”

  Yes, I knew what eight Phantoms were worth.

  “And what an attack it was,” he said, “right on the money! You completely broke the Syrian attack. Don’t you understand what you did?” Sivron asked me. Embarrassed, I admitted that no, not really. The Damascus fiasco was still filling my head.

  New, deeper voices joined the telephone conversation. It happened that our unexpected hits had halted the Syrian ground thrust to the Jordan River along that axis. Some of the senior officers in the North wanted to add personal praises and blessings for saving the day. Someone remembered the Ad Halom Bridge, where Israeli Air Force Messerschmitts had stopped the Egyptian Army on its way to Tel Aviv in the War of Independence in 1948. Baffled, I asked permission to hang up the receiver. I had a war to fight, a squadron to run, and already a new mission order was coming down for the Orange Tails.

  Even years after that, people kept appearing to visit me, men who were there, from simple soldiers to major generals, to tell me what happened there, to say thanks, how lucky we were to have you in time. I answered them all, blushing, that I got there only by chance.

  Yes, luck is important, too.

  Chapter

  20

  Hassan Again

  IN THE NINETEEN DAYS of the Yom Kippur War I flew forty-two combat sorties. Some of those were simple flights, but quite a few were complicated and dangerous. The summit of my personal efforts was on October 10, when after two attacks on airfields in Egypt and Syria, and two more on ground forces at the Suez Canal, I made a fifth sortie, late at night. We patrolled over the Red Sea, south of the Sinai Peninsula. It was pitch dark and we were both dead tired. Ofer, in the backseat, was alternately snoring and waking up. I was so wasted that so as not to sleep at the stick I scratched my thighs with my commando knife.

  Near the end of the war the drum beat faster. I find today in my logbook four sorties on October 22, two on SAM batteries in Egypt. This was the Orange Tails’ first opportunity to test the hunting tactics we inherited from the Baboons. The new tactic worked. We located and destroyed two SAM batteries unscathed.

  In one of these sorties, I met Hassan again.

  LOOKING BACK ON ALL THE COMBAT flights in my life, most were not difficult, especially when compared to our training flights. No MiG pilot I ever met was a rival equal to Epstein, Salant, or Slapak, and no enemy as scary as Ran Pecker. But real-life dogfights had unique elements: breaking at the right second and having a missile—or a MiG firing its cannons—overshoot and miss. Or arriving just in time to clear a MiG off a friendly tail (this especially is an emotional experience). Or to get into a hot fight and find that one external fuel tank refuses to drop from your right wing, and your Mirage—like a race car with a flat tire at top speed—rolls right on its own, and only right, spiraling almost out of control toward a MiG growing fast in the windshield—whoa! And then you hear yourself yelling like crazy, “Break right, Hassan! Yil’an Dinac, RIGHT!”

  I don’t know which was my toughest aerial action, but one of them was no doubt the worst. And this one was in the Orange Tails, in the Yom Kippur War, on October 10, 1973. MiGs were active throughout that war, and huge, multiparticipant dogfights were taking place between them and our Mirages over the front lines. There were “harvest days” when Mirage pilots felled dozens of MiGs. My squadron, on the other hand, was busy attacking ground targets, and we saw much less of those MiGs, but when it happened, it was always under tough conditions, deep in enemy territory. I met MiGs five times during the war, three times in Syria and twice in Egypt, and on four of these occasions I hit them only out of necessity.

  Except for that one fucked-up sortie.

  That time it was a duel, a single Phantom versus a single MiG-21, nothing complicated. But by the end this dogfight was the most difficult and dangerous of them all, and overall it was bad, bad. And it occurred just due to my own personal guilt, and I got out of it miraculously. Just like our mentor from the old Scorpions Rami Harpaz used to say, “Smart enough to get out of a situation smarter people avoid in the first place.”

  BUT FIRST LET US DISCUSS the order of preferences.

  The moment I became a Phantom pilot, I understood and accepted that from then on I was not a hotshot pilot anymore and that my squadron and I were taking on a hard and necessary job, less romantic than air-to-air combat. We were entrusted to put ordnance on ground targets. As attack pilots we Phantoms do not chase MiGs but fly to our target, attack it, and return by the shortest possible way to reload and get ready for the next sortie. Our contribution to victory depended on us not deviating from our routes on the way to the targets.

  This may sound obvious, even trivial, but it is not. Fighter pilots brought up on the tales of the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen, want to shoot down enemy fighters, and they find it extremely hard to see them and still go on their way. They have to fight the desire to “clean the aircraft” (that is, jettison the bombs) and go get a fine kill. And the Phantom is certainly a good MiG-killer. Avoidance, then, is a matter of principle.

  True, it is not always possible to live up to principles. There are the times when a MiG dives and threatens you or your buddies directly—then there is no choice and no argument. You give up your ground attack and take him on; otherwise you die or end up a POW. But life is not black and white, and most situations are marginal. You fly and see a MiG in the distance. He is not a threat—yet—but he could be one very soon. Then the question is whether you continue to your target, keeping the bombs on your belly, or get rid of them and go for that MiG. And there is always the dilemma of what comes first, you reaching the target or him sitting on your tail.

  In such dubious moments, when one can decide this way or the other, everything depends on the formation leader, on his integrity and morality. He has his own emotional conflict. Leading your buddies on to an attack when MiGs are tailing you and not dealing with them is as hard as keeping both hands on the steering wheel when angry wasps zoom around in the car. Hard indeed!

  We in the Orange Tails—and by this I mean not only myself as the commander, but also the high society of the squadron—were aware of those centrifugal forces, and thus we issued several rules of engagement to assure first of all the completion of the primary mission—if at all possible. “A pilot who shoots a MiG down during an attack mission,” said the first rule, which was written large on the blackboard, “has by definition committed an offense. His action shall be liable to immediate inquiry, and if it comes out that the situation did not warrant it absolutely, he will be washed out of the squadron.” Later, after we got into trouble, we made this rule even stricter: “Downing MiGs is legitimate only after the attack, on the way back. And even then, on condition that you are cleaning the MiG off a buddy’s six.” And for more impact, we even got to specific names: certain pilots were forbidden even to look at a MiG, under any circumstances. These were some of the hot doggers whose judgment I didn’t trust.

  “MiGs are not on the menu for you,” I told them. “Your aerial kills will come during the next war.”

  Those rules, which the squadron took seriously, protected operational discipline, and the Orange Tails’ formations as a rule remained tight and got to their targets. Behind all this lay a moral obligation.

  SO, LATE IN THE AFTERNOON, we took off in an eight-ship formation to attack the Syrian airfield Blay, on the other side of the Golan Heights, south of Damascus. We crossed the Jordan River and in a fast, low sweep went deep into Jordan to come in the back door. Wh
en we were deep in the Trans-Jordanian Desert, we turned north and passed east of Jebel Druze, a high ridge. After that we turned and headed west, racing at full speed toward Blay from the interior of Syria, with the setting sun in our eyes. But when we finally pulled up over the target airfield, we ran into something we didn’t expect.

  I never saw weather like that before or after. The moment we climbed, the air, which was normally clear at low levels, became so hazy that Blay totally disappeared. We could see absolutely nothing. A thick layer of dust engulfed us, and the sun melted into a radiant ball of red mud. The dirty air became a screen, and the ground far below first darkened, then simply disappeared.

  We began searching for the airfield. We organized into pairs in a line astern and began going over the estimated position of Blay, looking down and seeing only yellow. The haze was like porridge, glittering streams of minuscule particles flowing beneath us in waves. Billions of tiny lights. Our eyes were tearing behind our dark glasses. And though we repeatedly wiped away the tears, we couldn’t see the ground. We couldn’t see anything, and began to wonder—

  Suddenly somebody called out on the radio, “MiGs! MiGs! Break!”

  I looked up and saw an air-to-air missile, like a blackish, thin toothpick, diving from above and dragging a fiery tail, pass inside the formation and explode near one of my Phantoms. We broke hard left, and during the break my navigator, Erel, followed the trail of the missile back up to its launch point. He located and pointed out to me sparks on the yellow background of the sky. And soon several small silhouettes materialized—black triangles: MiGs. In that situation there was no sense anymore in pursuing our former mission, just defense and get the hell out of there.

  I ordered, “Emergency jettison!” Instantly bomb clusters and fuel tanks flew around like a rain of black drops, rolling in the yellow, shining air. “Everybody out! Head east!”

  It was clear that our attack had failed. Now I had to get everybody home. I wanted us to fly back in the same roundabout way we had arrived, since the direct line from there to Israel was blocked by Syrian SAM arrays on the Golan Heights. We all turned east. The formation’s order was now reversed: the rear aircraft became the first, and now everybody was flying ahead of me and I was the tail-end charlie. The formation flew east, afterburners glowing on the dark background of the eastern sky like pairs of fireflies.

  “MiG on our six, Iftach.” This from my navigator, Erel.

  Again we broke, and the distance between our Phantom and all the others opened more, but the MiG wasn’t after us. Perhaps he hadn’t even seen us. He passed over us very fast, heading toward the rest of my Phantoms. We slipped in far behind him and saw him launch another missile in their direction.

  I warned them in time; they broke, and the missile missed.

  THIS WAS THE SECOND strike mission we had screwed up. No doubt some personal frustration had gathered in my gut. Additional stress was that on sound off, after we first broke away from the MiGs, one of us hadn’t answered. I had seen someone hit by the MiG’s missile, and he didn’t answer my calls. In the end it turned out to be Duby Yoffe, a tall, blond kid. He lost communication because of the missile hit but made it home with a badly damaged aircraft. But at the time I had no way of knowing that, and I was upset that we had lost a ship and two men. And so the dormant Mirage pilot in me apparently woke up and overrode the squadron rules of engagement.

  According to those rules—which I had set down and enforced with an iron hand in our squadron—there was no excuse for a dogfight now. I should have let that MiG alone and led my men home. But he was right in my sights. But I was not thinking clearly at that moment.

  Instead of sneaking away and racing south, I put my Phantom’s nose on that MiG, and when he—who had much more speed and momentum than I—left the other Phantoms and turned back to me, I didn’t run away. He pulled up, and I lifted my nose to him, too, and we began the invitation to the dance. Probably deep in my heart I thought I would finish him off quickly and catch up to the formation on the way home.

  Big mistake.

  Major Goren, who was a senior reserve pilot and a cool customer, saw it all and wanted to help me out. But I had very little wisdom in me at that moment. I instructed him harshly to take command of the formation and take them home. Goren complied, and they vanished quickly into the darkness that was beginning to fill the hills and brooks below.

  Erel and I remained behind, riding our Phantom No. 10, against a MiG deep in Syria. So began the duel in which I met for the first time a rival who was my equal.

  All conditions were in his favor. We were far away from safety and limited on fuel, while our opponent was just a few kilometers from his home base. Already at the start, the Syrian had considerable advantage in speed over me. And finally, he was flying a MiG-21, a lightweight, agile fighter—the Mirage kind—while we were flying a Phantom, which by nature is a heavy, sluggish, and unforgiving machine. And worst of all, no one could guarantee that that MiG would remain alone in this fight. Fortunately for me this last threat never materialized.

  The moment he turned ferociously on me I realized this wasn’t going to be easy. A second later we were stuck there with the MiG, and all that was left for Erel and me was to call on all our strength and fight for our lives.

  THE HOUR WAS LATE, AND THE SUN had just touched the horizon on its way down. The dominant landmark in the area was Jebel Druze, the Mountain of the Druze. This is a large, black mountain. Our struggle began over the eastern slope of that mountain. The sun went down behind it and disappeared over its crest, and we were soon in the shade. It was that beautiful hour of twilight when all is peaceful and the light of the world is soft and gentle.

  The MiG used his extra momentum for a tight turn, and began closing on us from behind. I let him come in, and when he came close enough I used Yak’s old trick of stopping my Phantom in the air abruptly, hoping to throw the MiG in front of me. The Syrian was surprised, but he was an excellent pilot. He lifted his nose almost vertically and reared his stallion, too, right along with us. Now we both were flying together almost in close formation, both very slow, “standing in the air” on our engine downwash. Both our noses were raised high up, and we both were at the limit of our ability to hold the air, slowly sinking down on our tails. Luckily we were over the mountain slope—sinking together with the descending slope.

  We hovered side by side, crossing each other’s path and the distance between us shrinking and opening alternately. In pilot lingo this is called a scissors. It’s a maneuver in which the slower of the two should eventually win, after his opponent gets in front, into killing range. It’s a tough struggle. Whoever lets his aircraft loose even for a second loses his life. You slow your aircraft to its minimum speed—just above a stall—and hold it there, turning and twisting, on the verge of losing stability before a tailspin. You have to maintain this attitude in order not to go forward. At very slow speeds the lift on the wings decreases and aerodynamic drag overcomes the engine thrust, causing the aircraft to sink.

  All in all, the scissors is a very difficult and dangerous maneuver, at the edge of flight limits, where both fight stubbornly against each other and the laws of aerodynamics. It can be compared to wrestling on a tightrope: besides your rival, the abyss also waits for you. But the problem is that once you are in this situation, it’s very hard to get out. Whoever tries to escape shows his tail to his enemy. As a rule, getting into a scissors with an enemy fighter is a mistake. One-on-one duels between hot contenders tend to develop that way, but smart pilots do their best to avoid it. Once in a scissors, you are out of alternatives. The fight becomes about superior aircraft handling, and you are tested not on brains but on who flies his aircraft better and on the willpower of the pilots.

  So we struggled on, fighting and sinking down the slope, toward the foot of the mountain, both of us skimming those black rocks very, very closely.

  The Phantom has an advantage however; it knows well how to “stand in the air,” support
ed by the power of its two great engines. On the other hand, it is a very heavy aircraft, and it has terrible difficulty maneuvering at low speeds. But lightweight fighters such as the MiG and the Mirage maintain a certain maneuverability even in such conditions. As result, we were standing in the air, and the MiG maneuvered around us. Our situation was not good.

  Just then, Erel called my attention to the most amazing sight I ever saw: both aircraft were digging up the ground with the streams of fire from our tailpipes. The afterburners blasted down, licking the black rocks and raising huge pillars of dust. For some time we struggled among those pillars, and the MiG’s afterburner exhaust—which in the dark around us shone like a long, sharp tongue mottled with blue and orange lines—was dimming beyond a pillar and reappearing, illuminating the whole temple around us. So we hovered and ducked among those dust columns like two fireflies playing hide-and-seek on a lawn, twisting around stalks of grass.

  This was a singular moment, one of the few in which there is no story, when “before” and “after” vanish. Only the moment remains.

  THE MIG AND WE WERE TOTALLY exhausted, hovering side by side on the verge of stalling, sinking down along that slope. The slope kept us airborne, but was a limited playground—we were getting near the foot of the mountain, and there, on the plain, there was going to be a decision. Any mistake would be fatal. I was very tense. My hands clutched the stick and the throttle; my movements were stiff.