The Lion’s Gate

by Steven Pressfield

  I send a quick prayer for my Giora. Where is he now? In his Mirage over some enemy airfield?

  My lofty Giora. Fly safe! Do what you must!

  Giora Romm, Mirage pilot in Squadron 119:

  08:05. I am still on the ground at Tel Nof. Assigned to intercept standby. Eitan Karmi is my number one; we are the first pair. Salmon and Shmul are the second.

  We have been in our cockpits since before dawn. Days ago, our squadron commander, Ran Ronen, took our four names out of the attack formations and put them on the mission board as air defense. This is terribly disappointing on the one hand, since we will not be part of the attack, but on the other it is the highest of compliments. It means that in Ran’s mind we are his best dogfight pilots. Fliers will donate a kidney to get into such a group.

  We feel the weight of that responsibility. It’s not something one speaks about. We have all heard Nasser’s threats. We know what the Egyptians will do to our country and to our families if we cannot stop them.

  We sit in our cockpits—helmets on, canopies up. You can’t piss or even scratch your ass. We watch the squadrons take off. The burners light, lifting the planes, heavily loaded with bombs and fuel. The four-ship formations form up and bank west with the sun behind them, turning hard and low. On the ground we can listen only to the tower radio, with its fake chatter to fool Egyptian electronic surveillance. We don’t speak. Radio silence is holy.

  I try not to think of Miriam. A pilot must stay in the present, particularly when he may receive at any moment the order to scramble. But I am human. Where is she? With Tal’s division, I know, but I have no idea where. In the IDF, security is taken so seriously that I have no idea of my fiancée’s whereabouts, nor she of mine. Be safe, that’s my only prayer.

  As I’m thinking this, I’m watching a four-ship formation of Vautour fighter-bombers taxiing. The lead plane has its air brakes extended. What the hell? These are panels on the fuselage used to slow the aircraft for landing. Does the pilot know? Retract the brakes, man! Your plane will never get airborne! It will crash at the end of the runway with all its ordnance and fuel!

  This calamity-in-the-making unspools before the pilots and controllers in slow motion. In our cockpits, in the tower, every eye is riveted. We can’t warn the pilot. We can’t violate radio silence. There’s no choice. We will watch someone kill himself before keying a microphone button.

  At the last instant, the pilot realizes his error. His air brakes retract. He takes off.

  Thank you, brother! You almost gave me a heart attack!

  07:20.

  07:35.

  At 07:45 the planes of the attack formations will be over their targets.

  Here on the runway at Tel Nof, ground crewmen scamper out to us from the squadron building, handing scribbled notes up to our cockpits. Beni Suef is burning, twenty MiGs hit on the ground. Kabrit is toast. Bir Gafgafa: both runways destroyed.

  The Egyptian Air Force will not be coming to attack Israel. We interceptors are not needed. My shoulders sag beneath the rescue harness. Here is the most momentous hour in the history of my country, for which I have trained every waking moment of my life—and I am nailed to the dirt, contributing nothing.

  Rafi Sivron is in the air force bunker, the Pit, in Tel Aviv:

  People said later that it was not a Six Day War but a Three Hour War, meaning the critical clash was over once Moked had destroyed the Egyptian Air Force on the ground. Others called it a Seven Minute War, as the first surprise blow did the bulk of the damage.

  For me, it is a Minus-One Minute War.

  I have feared only detection. If the first wave can reach their attack points without being discovered by enemy radar, then nothing can prevent the total destruction of the Egyptian Air Force.

  From before dawn, I have been working in Combined Operations, one floor above the Pit. There is much other work to do. At 07:45 I creep into the command center, in time to hear the radios of the attacking squadrons come alive from over their targets.

  Dayan stands and embraces Rabin. Ezer claps the chief of staff’s back. Everyone is shaking everyone else’s hand. I’m standing to the side with another officer. I tell him, “The war is over.”

  It isn’t, of course. Ask the paratroopers. Ask the men in the tanks. At that exact moment, they are getting their orders to advance. Seven untouched Egyptian divisions wait in Sinai, against our three. Eight other Arab nations are moving troops into readiness.

  At the big map table in the Pit, my boss, Motti Hod, must have felt his heart start again after sitting frozen all night and all morning. Give him credit. He made Moked happen. He presided over it, he protected it, he championed it, and he sits at its controls now like a maestro conducting a symphony.

  Give Ezer Weizman credit. In the face of massive political resistance, of doubt and scorn and disbelief, he rammed through the purchase from Dassault France of seventy-two Mirage IIICs, without which the IAF could not have dreamed of this hour. It was Ezer who charged Yak Nevo and me with developing this plan for total war.

  I watch Motti at the map table. No one pounds his back or breaks open a bottle. Motti is working.

  What exactly is he doing? In English his function would be defined in two words: command and control. In Hebrew we have three. This constitutes an extremely significant distinction. “Command” in Hebrew is pikud. “Control” is bakara. The third term, which does not exist in English, is shlita.

  What is command? A squadron commander in the air commands his formation as Ran Ronen, say, commands his attack on Inshas. He directs the action of his four-ship formation on-site.

  Then there is control. The controller’s station is on the ground. He is at headquarters, say, or manning a radar console in the field. Observing his screens, he can tell the planes in the air, “Listen, you are not on your proper heading,” or, “Look out—there are MiGs approaching you from the east.”

  Neither of these capacities is enough. The squadron leader in the air (or even by radio from the ground) cannot make decisions whose basis is wider than what he can see or know. He does not possess the big picture, such as which other units are in the area, which additional operations are in progress, how the current operation is unfolding. Likewise, the controller on the ground sees only part of the picture. He can assist the flight leader in the air. He can transmit critical information. But he can’t call the shots. He possesses neither the perspective nor the authority.

  What is needed is a third locus. This is shlita.

  The officer with shlita possesses both the big picture and the authority to direct the overall action.

  A helicopter squadron commander, for example, may transmit the following in distress: “We’re taking heavy fire from the landing zone. Do we land or not?” You, the controller possessing shlita, can make that decision. “Hold on,” you can say. “I’m sending you some strike aircraft.”

  And you are not suggesting; you are ordering. The helicopters will wait; the strike aircraft will rush to the rescue. That is shlita. You are employing this power, which is beyond “command” and “control.”

  This is what Motti Hod is doing now.

  Moked is a symphony. Motti wields the baton.

  An additional crisis will arise within two hours, one that will supersede even Motti’s shlita.

  Jordan’s air force will attack Israel. King Hussein’s fighters will strike Netanya and go after our air base at Ramat David. The question then becomes: Do we strike back, and, if so, how and where and with what levels of force? What will be the consequences of such a decision?

  Motti will not be able to make this call. It lies beyond his rank and station.

  He will turn to Moshe Dayan.

  Dayan, as minister of defense, must assess the consequences of retaliating against Jordan. He must answer the question: Is King Hussein attacking in earnest or is he simply “making a demonstration�
� to satisfy Nasser and his Arab allies?

  If the former, what are the strategic implications? Hussein has 176 new Patton tanks in two brigades, the 40th and the 60th. Against this force, Israel has only ancient Shermans and a few light AMXs, manned by reservists. Jordan’s Arab Legion is the best-trained enemy force in the Middle East. In addition, Hussein has two crack battalions of Egyptian commandos poised on our border, with additional formations of Iraqi armor and air moving up.

  If we strike Jordan in retaliation for her attack on us, how will the other Arab nations react? Will the act bring Syria in, opening a third front? How will the Russians, Syria’s sponsor state, respond? The Americans? The UN?

  Strike or not? The decision must be made, but Motti can’t make it; it is beyond his level of authority. Prime Minister Eshkol has the authority, but he is not a military man; he lacks the knowledge and experience.

  Only Dayan can make this decision.

  Giora Romm:

  Waiting on the runway, our planes carry no bombs. We are in intercept configuration. Suddenly, orders come from the tower: Scramble!

  Our pair—my leader, Eitan Karmi, and I—are ordered to Abu Suweir, an airfield near Ismailiya at the northern end of the Suez Canal.

  We close the canopies and start the engines. The tower is telling us that Egyptian MiGs are attacking an Israeli formation; we are to fly to our comrades’ aid. This is ridiculous. It is twenty minutes to Abu Suweir. No dogfight takes twenty minutes. But these are our orders.

  We’re in the aircraft, we have our mission, let’s go!

  I have never been out of Israeli airspace. I am a geographic virgin. So this is exciting, just nearing the border. Karmi and I climb through 15,000 feet. No need to “hug the deck” anymore to avoid enemy radar; the Egyptians know we are coming.

  As our two-ship formation crosses the frontier above Gaza, my leader tests his guns, firing a short burst. The cannon shells have a self-exploding mechanism so they will not hit the ground. But Karmi forgets to tell me. All of a sudden at 20,000 feet I see black air bursts before me. I say to myself, What the hell—we have just crossed the border and already the Egyptians are shooting at us!

  Sinai. Wow. I have never been over this desert before. I feel like Magellan, like Marco Polo. This is unknown territory to me. I have seen the Sinai Peninsula a thousand times on a map; I’ve flown over it ten thousand times in my mind. But I have never looked down from the cockpit of a Mirage and beheld this incredible expanse.

  In a few minutes: Suez. The Suez Canal, for which Verdi wrote Aida. I, Giora Romm, twenty-two years old, am at 25,000 feet flying over the Canal. There are the Bitter Lakes; there is Ismailiya . . .

  But I am not here as a tourist. I came here on a mission.

  The GCI—ground control—takes us to Abu Suweir. Descending through 10,000 feet, we can see the mess that the first wave of Israeli planes has made of the place. Columns of black smoke rise from all over the delta. Everywhere buildings and airplanes are blazing. I say to myself, Boy, our guys really did it.

  Abu Suweir has a unique characteristic. The planes are parked in “eights,” meaning circular driveways, one adjacent to the other, to form what looks like a numeral 8. We start to descend, Karmi and I, and suddenly there is a MiG-21 taxiing. I have never seen this before. I go after him the way a child reaches out for a toy. I’m on his tail when Karmi, my leader, who is closing from 90 degrees, says, “Don’t touch him.” What? Okay. I follow orders.

  Karmi goes in and shoots the MiG. He gets the kill.

  My kill.

  I have only moments to feel the sickening feeling in my belly and then a formation of Mirages from Ramat David appears; they are attacking Abu Suweir and right behind them are two MiG-21s.

  I go to full afterburner and in seconds I am behind the first MiG. I fire a burst and nothing happens—the only time this has ever happened to me. I don’t panic. I say to myself, Go closer. A hundred sixty meters. On the gunsight, there is a circle we call “the diamond.” When a MiG-21’s wingspan fits in that circle, the range is exactly 160 meters. I fire a short burst, a third of a second, and he immediately blows. I break fast, look back, the plane is a ball of flame. Now I see a second MiG. I line him up in my gunsights and put a burst into him. He explodes too.

  At once everything has become very simple.

  I say to myself, This is my role. This is what I was sent here to do. I am not concerned with the outcome of the war. I have just shot down two MiGs!

  Let Moshe Dayan worry about the fate of Israel. My job is to shoot down MiGs and I am doing that.

  One more thing. Theory works. The “death burst” works. What we have envisioned and practiced and trained for . . . it works. Put your gunsights on a MiG-21 two hundred meters in front of you, squeeze the trigger, and the MiG explodes.

  Theory works.

  As I’m passing over the second MiG, I spot a third one, running west away from me. I’m thinking, Should I shoot him down, too? Hello! You are Giora Romm, twenty-two years old, who was in the Boy Scouts only months ago. Don’t be such a greedy pilot!

  I go after him with an air-to-air missile. You’re supposed to listen for the tone in your earphones, which tells you the missile has locked onto the target. But I pull the trigger too soon. I miss.

  Okay.

  Let him go.

  By now my leader is gone. He has turned for home, low on fuel.

  I arrive back at Tel Nof by myself (Karmi has had to make a no-fuel landing at Hatzerim, fifty kilometers closer) with enough fuel to do a victory roll over the field. I say to myself, Your leader is a much more experienced pilot than you; this is your first operational mission, in which both you and he started with 3,500 liters of fuel but he has had to land at another field while you have gotten home with 500 liters to spare, which is a tremendous difference, considering you and he have flown the identical distance. In addition, that extra juice could have been the difference between life and death, between completing the mission and not completing it, if other MiGs had jumped us or if we had had to fight our way out of trouble. More than that, Giora, within the battle at Abu Suweir, you fought with greater focus and were more cool and economical than he.

  Giora Romm in 1983 with sons Assaf and Yuval.

  This gives me tremendous confidence.

  I have landed now. The ground crew takes my helmet, they are putting me on their shoulders. I am not sweating or tired. I’m kind of blasé. Another day at the office. A driver takes me back to the squadron. Yeah, I shot down two MiGs, here is my gun camera, what is the next mission?

  The ops room is the heart of the squadron. There is the mission board, with the names of the pilots and their next assignments. It’s also where the gossip is. The war gossip. The only thing I am interested in is getting refueled and rearmed and back into the air as soon as possible. I want to fly. War is fun. War is fun! You take off, shoot down one or two MiGs, then go back and do it again.

  Ran Ronen, Squadron 119 commander:

  Now the missions are coming thick and fast. I fly to Inshas at 07:45, to Abu Suweir at 10:30, Gardaka at 12:30, then Cairo International at 16:30. The ground crews work like the Indy 500. Watching them, I think, By God, I actually feel sorry for these Egyptians.

  Arnon Levushin is the youngest pilot in Squadron 119:

  We are attacking Cairo West. I’m number four in the formation. I’m so new that I have been certified as operational only two weeks earlier.

  I’m into the dive, 2,500 feet AGL, the runway is wide, wide, wide in my sights, I execute the release—but I fail to hold the trigger down long enough.

  Only one bomb drops.

  I grew up on Kibbutz Kfar Menachem. This is a very spartan kibbutz. The ethic was no waste, hard work for all, everyone pitches in. At twelve, my job was to graze the sheep. I had 250 animals that I moved from pasture to pasture. On one trail you had to cross a r
ailroad track. One day, when the flock was half over, I heard the train whistle. It takes three or four minutes to get that many animals across a railroad track. I could see the train approaching fast. One of my friends’ fathers, who happened to be driving a tractor nearby, had leapt off and was sprinting toward the tracks, waving his red shirt, trying to get the engineer’s attention. I could hear the brakes on the train screeching, but it was clear there was no way it could stop in time.

  I found that I was very cool. Despite the train’s approach, I continued thinking clearly and calmly. I stayed beside the track. I drove half the flock forward out of the train’s way and the other half rearward, where they would not be hurt. I saved the sheep.

  That may seem like a small thing, but it was not. A task of serious responsibility had been entrusted to me at a very young age, and I had handled it. This was recognized on the kibbutz.

  In the psychometric tests for flight school, there is an exercise in which you trace a pencil line across the paper, zigging and zagging through a series of mazes. But the pencil is not held in your hand; instead it is mounted on a drawing machine that you operate using two controls, one horizontal and one vertical. I could do this with ease.

  In another test, a page of a book is shown to you for a few seconds—a complex schematic with drawings, graphs, and text. When the test administrator shuts the book, you report what you remember. I remembered everything.

  In flight school I struggled at first because I was small and not particularly verbal. Twice they almost washed me out. But the chief sociologist championed my cause. “This kid tested off the charts. We must be patient until he finds himself.”

  In a Mirage, when your bombs drop, you feel it because the aircraft gets very light all of a sudden. But it’s hard to tell if you’ve dropped one bomb or both, particularly if you’re brand new to the aircraft and you are executing the release during your first time in combat.