Israel Journal: June, 1967

by Dayan, Yaël

  But Sunday was the last day before the war, and the country was back in boots. The press was demanding immediate action, the regular army through its commanders had assured the government and the people of its ability to win, and the activists, because of pressure from the “tired” people, were now in key positions. Dayan once said he would rather advance running in bare feet than walk in slippers. We were barefoot perhaps but we were able to advance fast. Not knowing we were to move that night, I had agreed to take care of some visitors to our division. Paul Shutzer, Life magazine photographer and a good friend, was visiting an infantry battalion; Bill Maulden appeared in the war room at Shivta and I joined him on a trip to Ktziot, to Castel’s battalion.

  Castel had a problem which he spoke to me about. In each platoon in the battalion there were a few reservists whose standard—mostly for health reasons—was lower than the others. They could not keep up the pace on the marches, and walking—fully equipped in the dune area—was the most important thing demanded of our infantry there. He had assembled them all into a special company and made them train with their doctor, who demanded less of them and hoped to help them reach the required standard. I saw the company sitting in the shade and joined them. Moshe had breathing difficulties, Fitousi was asthmatic, Nicolai was overweight, Yom-Tov had back pains and was wearing a corset, Amram was still recovering from an accident. Yom-Tov was crying like a baby; his tears mixed with the sweat and dust. They all had one complaint: They wanted to be back with their units. They would make an extra effort, they would not be left behind, they were as good as the others, and they refused the special classification given them. They were not young—“Our officers are our children’s age,” they said—but they could make it. “We are orthodox but we train on Saturday,” one said. “Just let me go back to the company.” Castel tried to explain to them. “You are my responsibility. I have to know what you are able to do so I want the doctor to watch you when you train.” They refused to understand. We left them with tears in their eyes. Normally, in their reserve service, those people would have been delighted to have it easier, but it was the mood of the regular army which was contagious, which inspired their readiness and devotion. I walked with Maulden to one of the fortified hills.

  The men were back from a shooting contest and were resting in the trenches. A singer who was in the Fiddler on the Roof cast made coffee for us in an empty tin and an Indian Jew, nicknamed “Bombay,” decided in our presence to name his bazooka after his wife. Castel had to tell them that all leave was canceled but neither he nor I suspected—it was midday—what the reason was. Their daily routine was simple. From 3:30 A.M. they were all in a state of readiness—a dawn attack was still a daily possibility. They slept again from seven to nine and had breakfast at nine. Nine to eleven were hours of training, fortification, contests, and eleven to two rest again. Two to seven in the afternoon were hours of training, mostly marching—they did ten kilometers a day, fully equipped. At night, in rotation, 50 per cent of the soldiers were on watch, in ambushes or in a state of readiness in the trenches. “Nasser is giving us a paid vacation,” someone said. “Kokos” was singing in Italian, Kadosh in Greek; “Bombay” said India was hotter but the food was spicy; Shuli washed Castel’s laundry in an empty ammunition crate; Bill Maulden was taking pictures. We had a well-cooked lunch and returned to Shivta. I still didn’t notice any particular commotion.

  I slept in the tent for a couple of hours and with sunset I knew. Nobody said to me, “We are going to war.” Helicopters landed occasionally and the war room was busy. We had to ask Maulden to return to Beer-Sheba and Dov said to me, “You had better get some equipment.” We went to the supplies tent. I changed my boots for a better pair and got a new water bottle. The supply truck had now been stocked with items which had been missing earlier in the week and obtained at the last moment, and I took for myself a rucksack and a map case and pad. Dov got a pistol without bullets and there were no submachine guns left. “You’ll find one on the way soon enough,” I was told. A friend gave me two pairs of woolen socks. Walking back to the tent, I could see trucks being loaded. David, Dov, Zeevale, and I began to pack. I gave my identity cards to David and received instead a “prisoner’s card.” These were the details I was allowed to give if I was captured: Number 375963, rank—lieutenant, blood type, vaccinations, name, and family name—an uneasy one in my case. The card was placed in my pocket to join Omri’s flower, dry by now, and Kuti’s arrowhead. My identity discs had my name, number, and blood type and a gold chain with a star of David hung with them. I did not remove my two rings—a sapphire and a Greek signet ring, nor my gold chain bracelet. David packed clean underwear, two blankets, and a change of uniform into a small bag. Zeevale took the bag he came with—as it was—and Dov was writing letters in a corner while waiting for the driver to return with ammunition for his pistol. I tried on my helmet; it felt uncomfortable and heavy. Dov reminded us not to forget to take toilet paper. For how long? I asked. A week, at least.

  The small light in the trailer was on but Arik was asleep on the wooden bench. He was stocking up. The cook was loading rations on the command car and I was quietly and persistently nagging Dov to make sure that once we moved I remained with Arik’s headquarters, and would not get left behind with the rear headquarters, as I feared might happen. I finished packing. A bottle of cologne, a bottle of whisky, moisturizing cream, chocolate, writing paper, a change of uniform and a Bible. I took a bathing suit—wherever we were going we were bound to reach water—the sea to the north, the canal to the west, or the Red Sea in the south. I wrote a couple of letters—business ones. I did not feel the need to write anything personal. Dov was writing to his brother and we left the letters in the Lark for the driver to post. We left the bags we did not intend to take along and went for a drive. He was not nervous, just a little excited. “You’ll see,” he said, “war strips you of all the superfluous. What remain are the little immediate comforts—water in the canteen, toilet paper, cigarettes. Are you worried?” “No. I don’t think anybody in the world, excluding my brother, cares much whether I exist or not.”

  We saw soldiers writing letters, some trying to sleep, others eating and listening to the radio. It was a clear night. A touch of sadness hung in the air among these people who were preparing for their possible destruction. Nobody mentioned the words “war” or “attack.” At the most they said, “Well, we’re about to move at last.” I thought of my brothers, my mother. I knew where my father was and knew he would know where I was. I thought of Castel’s group of disabled—were they packing, too? Of Kuti and Motke and their men. I dramatized war when my thoughts concerned others. I tried to register their faces and wondered if they would last the week; but of my own predicament I did not think. I felt free, healthy, fit, and secure. A caravan of trucks was waiting loaded along the road. Arik was up when we returned, and though his first reaction was “certainly not,” he agreed to let me join his headquarters before going off for a last meeting in the war room. To my surprise I managed to sleep for an hour, and when I awoke I was told to put my things in the command car. I threw in two blankets as well as my sleeping bag, my helmet, and rucksack. Unwillingly I heard Arik talking to his wife on the phone. “Be calm,” he said, “kiss the children for me—soon—don’t worry,” and, many times, “Shalom, shalom, shalom, shalom,” a repeated word, meaningful suddenly, a last note.

  At 1 A.M. I saw Arik shaving in the trailer, wash his face, examine himself in the mirror, enjoy the after-shave lotion. He asked me if everything was ready. “We are going to win a war,” he said. He knew, he radiated confidence, he was almost happy. The frustration had gone. Reports showed their intent to attack and movement of troops confirmed it. Then-gun was loaded and set to fire and it did not matter any more who pressed the trigger or who fired the first shot. Everything around us was an act of war and we were about to take up the challenge. A photographer joined me on the command car, the cook, a driver, a medic, Zeevale, and David. Dov had the jeep
and Arik went in the Lark while we were on the asphalt road.

  At 2 A.M. we left the camp for a rendezvous spot where Arik was to meet the brigade commanders. The Lark led with full lights, the others followed with no lights at all. Along the road west a good number of vehicles were getting organized, but a stranger would not have been able to tell that on the following day war would break out. At a crossroads just before Nitzana we stopped. Arik got out of the Lark, loaded his small rucksack and two blankets on to the jeep, and began conferring with Motke and Arie. Kuti and Uri joined them. I stood close enough, but preferred to remain in the background. There was a feeling of confidence, of men in their element, there was professionalism, and a touch of joy. I understood that Natke, the Centurion battalion commander, was to move first as soon as the order was given, Motke would follow with the rest of the armored brigade, Kuti’s infantry was to wait until midday, and Uri’s combined troops were to wait and hold the defense line until ordered to move toward Kseime. The drivers of the different brigade commanders wished each other luck. Rachamim the cook was dozing off in the car. The commanders shook hands and hugged one another and mounted the jeep. From now on it was the communication set that we depended on—and until the next meeting when the battles were over we were to hear these people’s voices, see them from a distance, but they would be separated from us, surrounded by their forces and maneuvered by Arik’s orders.

  All the hours of planning and replanning, all the war-room activities, the Intelligence reports and preparations, could be noticed in the way these men shook hands. They knew what it was all about; then the night swallowed them as they dispersed in different directions. The loess track we followed was like a white ribbon and we needed no lights. When we reached our marked spot we stopped. We were to wait there until the morning. The order, or rather green light, to move was expected around eight; it was now 4 A.M. The advanced headquarters was to move with the forces. It was also equipped to defend itself and was composed of three half-tracks. One was fully closed—the communication room, one was Arik’s, the third was the artillery command. There were two jeeps with machine guns mounted in front, two smaller jeeps, and the supply command car. I was the only woman in this group. According to orders, the minute we stopped the men would start digging trenches. Arik asked me to wake him up at six-thirty and, bundled in a flight jacket, he lay on the ground between the half-tracks and fell asleep. Dov disappeared with his sleeping bag and I sat against the chains of the half-track next to Zeevale, resting but not sleeping. Behind us, moving west, I could see a cloud of dust—the familiar sign of armor advancing in the desert.

  The sun mounted gently, painting us gold and waking up the men, who took off their pullovers and folded their sleeping bags. At six-thirty I woke Arik and asked him when he wanted his breakfast. I established the fact that I was going to help in our field kitchen and woke Rachamim to make tea. To my horror I discovered that he had brought only half a loaf of bread, very few fresh supplies, and half-a-dozen eggs. It was going to be our last good breakfast, and on a blanket on the hard sand I set up a breakfast table: Fried eggs, sardines, cucumbers, bread, and some cheese and tea. When breakfast was prepared, I listened to the seven-o’clock news. Nothing was said. The price of gasoline was up as from today, the vice president of Egypt was going to Washington in two days, the three new ministers were to be sworn in in the afternoon, and the weather was going to be fair, maximal temperature in the south—29 degrees.

  Breakfast was good. Arik, as usual, asked me whether I had eaten; he looked as if he had slept a long night in a comfortable bed. At seven-thirty we were told to be in a state of readiness. The men put on their helmets, so did I. I had no trench, and I watched the medic and the cook settle in theirs. I remained behind the half-track, writing an “eve of war” article. At seven-forty the generator was operated and the communication system started working. Something proved wrong in Arik’s half-track and a part was changed.

  Dov woke up, too late for breakfast, and over tea told me our big battle would be on Abu-Ageila. He reminded me that it would be a tough objective, that in the Sinai campaign in 1956 we had made many mistakes in our attempts to conquer it. In 1956 our forces had not combined to direct a single blow but had operated separately, without recognizing sufficiently the nature of either the area or the target. Arik, Dov, and others had been with the paratroopers in the Sinai in 1956 and they projected a feeling of here-we-go-again. “A strange way to go to war,” someone said, “daylight, midmorning, just like this.” It wasn’t just like this, I thought. It was the only thing left to do. Both sides could make the first move in, the enemy moved, the straits were blocked, all the gates closed, and the people—an army. It was not at all “just like this,” it was nineteen years of trying to believe that the Middle East would accept our presence, nineteen years of building what we were about to defend—it was all those moments of holding back, of being threatened, of being condemned and being left alone. At eight-ten, in a strong, confident voice, Arik gave the order to Natke, Motke, and Arie: “Nua-Nua Sop,” which means “Move over,” the two words we were ready for. At eight-fifteen we could see our tanks descending from the hills south of us toward the frontier and at eight-thirty Arik was watching with his binoculars and saying, “Here! We’re shooting!”

  The static period was over and the movement began. “Static” doesn’t mean lifeless, for it had been a period of building and reinforcing, a phase both uncomfortable and inevitable. At eight-fifteen on June 5, we gambled all we had. What for other countries would have been defeat, for us would mean extermination. There was no way to lose the war and survive, and each man carried this knowledge along when we moved west—some with a sense of history and cerebral analysis, others with the primitive and powerful drive for self-preservation. The radio started broadcasting military marches, and the first announcement was made to the public—“From the early hours of the day fierce battles are taking place between the Israeli air force and armor and the Egyptian army which moved toward us.” I felt stripped of everything now. Nothing much existed away from the immediate. We were moving, war was on, I was surrounded by men who were bound to win. The long wait was over.

  The War

  MONDAY, JUNE 5

  I deserted the command car and climbed on the artillery group half-track. The wireless set was operating and it took me a while to get accustomed to the code words, combat terminology, and voices of commanders. Our main target was the defended locality held by the Egyptian 2nd Division—Um-Katef. The battle was planned for that night, and during the day our forces were to approach it, destroying on the way several outposts and opening the road to give our infantry fast-and-easy approach. In 1956, those outposts fell relatively fast and now we attacked them in several directions.

  The Centurions, proud and streamlined, passed near us waving and turned to the dune area—flanking from the north to approach from the rear. Motke’s tanks were to move along the asphalt road and be ready by nightfall to launch the main attack. Two other forces infiltrated southward in order to block the southern road to Um-Katef and prevent the arrival of support. Uri remained with his troops on the defense. The Centurions met the first “danger” or defense fire from one of the outposts and we moved to a higher point from which we could see our forces moving. For a while I felt as though I were watching a game. Tanks dispersed in the area, shells heard and seen, the wireless set like a background running commentary—there was something unreal about it all. I took off my helmet and listened to the radio. My father was talking to the soldiers. His voice was strong and clear—“Soldiers of Israel.… They are greater than us in numbers, but we will hold them. We are a small nation, but we are determined. We seek peace, but we are ready to fight for our lives and our country.… On this day our hopes and our security are with you.” We were moving now.

  I was standing in the half-track and looked at Arik standing in the half-track ahead. A cloud of dust signaled us and we rode fast. Words considered conventional on
other occasions had meaning now, almost a biblical one. He was talking to Natke’s boys in the Centurions slowly working their way toward an unmarked minefield, to the Sherman drivers in front of us answering the fire of Tarat-Um-Basis, an outpost, to Arie’s swift AMX tanks in the south, to “Bombay” and Albaz, to me. At ten thirty-seven we crossed the green line. A border stone to our right—a heap of black and white bricks shaped like a connus, and the deserted U.N. patrol track. We were abroad.

  The same loam dust, the identical terrain, the scorching sun burned just as much, but it was the other side, another country, enemy’s land. No border police, no stamping of passport, no duty-free shops and vaccination cards—just so: a lift to the other side, a good-luck greeting, and we were in Egypt. In a few minutes we hit the asphalt road. The road I’d regarded as a hostile mystery now was ours, and we moved along it as if going for a ride toward Tarat-Um-Basis where the battle was on. The reports on the radio were good. Observation posts were evacuated, and a few enemy tanks and vehicles destroyed. Natke’s Centurions had it tougher. Their approach was hardly passable. He lost a regiment commander and two company commanders and continued to attack the 181st outpost north of Um-Katef. I heard him asking for an air support as he was under heavy artillery fire stuck in mined dunes. He was ordered to retreat and reorganize himself. A cousin of mine, David, was with the Centurions. “We lost seven tanks on mines,” he told me, “but somehow I didn’t feel it could happen to my division. After my tank destroyed its first T-34 we knew we were better and we needed the short rest not as a retreat but in order to reattack successfully in the afternoon.” Shortly after eleven the outpost on the road—Tarat-Um-Basis—was in our hands and at noon we drove in.