by Dayan, Yaël
This was it now. We were to chase and destroy. The task was no more a political or strategic advantage, in the global sense of “reaching the Canal,” or “opening the blockade,” or even “hitting at the core.” This was done in Um-Katef and other forces were enabled to run forward. Now we were to destroy enemy forces wherever they were—another carrier, another tank, another company. An unpleasant task, perhaps, but a preventive one. Eleven years ago we were in this area and the enemy was defeated rather than fully destroyed. This time we had to assure maximal destruction.
We were out of cigarettes. The four of us on the jeep were smokers and we stopped at a turned-over truck. Katz and Itzik went to search the front cabin for cigarettes while we were watching and covering them. A few kit bags were thrown next to some heavy shoes and they turned them upside down—no luck. Out of the kit bags fell uniforms, underwear, a new pair of shoes, some writing paper, a beret, a battle dress, socks. The truck was loaded with blankets, boxes of ammunition, some suitcases, no cigarettes. Some soldiers in an observation point, who didn’t notice Dov’s field ranks, shouted at us that looting was forbidden. We drove over to Arie. He was watching the enormous plain confronting him. He was out of fuel, he said. Dov said we were going to the radar post. “You can’t. I haven’t cleared it yet, there may be armed men in the tents and bunkers.”
When Arie realized we were going anyway he sent a command car with armed men along with us. We cocked the guns. I was loading mine, not taking it too seriously, and the sight that met us was an unpleasant one. Next to the radar and an antiaircraft gun a few corpses lay folded. The radar site had been hit by an air attack and burned, and the corpses were scorched to the bone. Itzik and Katz shot a few rounds at tent entrances “to try the guns.” I guess their fingers were burning, just to touch the trigger, not to kill or destroy but to fire, to belong. More shoes, new pairs of socks, no cigarettes. We drove down and back to the division. Between the radar site and the headquarters half-tracks there were a few tents, fenced and unhurt. We parked the jeep and walked in. This must have been officers’ quarters and the treasures were numerous. We did find some cigarettes, a better brand named Cleopatra, and some matches. Neatly pressed suits of uniforms hung in a field cupboard and suitcases displayed a variety of objects. There were blue and yellow physical-training outfits, civilian dacron sports shirts, pajamas, and clean underwear. What the corpses didn’t make real for me, this room did. Suddenly the enemy became a human entity. He preferred green to blue, he had a gold watch and a wedding ring which—leaving in haste—he didn’t bother to take. He was size 42 jacket and his shoes were of suede. His roommate read comics and thrillers, he had a pretty dark-haired wife and two children the photo of whom was in a drawer. We opened a bedside cupboard. Out fell a dozen pairs of black nylon stockings made in East Germany. Six Revlon eye-liner sets, cheap perfume, some other cosmetics. We laughed. But it was a real person who stocked those goods. Did he keep them as gifts for wives, or were they given to female visitors? Itzik and Katz were slightly bewildered. The insignia on the shirts proved the occupants to be officers. One was a doctor. A few books on general medicine, some photographs. Dov went out. “That will do,” he said. “Do you need anything?” we asked. “Tooth paste and shaving cream,” he joked back. An additional search produced what he wanted. The products were called Castella. I took a mirror with painted birds and flowers on its back—made in China, a box of chocolate candies, a macintosh, a dozen pencils, made in China again, and some writing paper and envelopes. I felt tired. The laughter at the finds turned to disgust and contempt. I knew what our officers’ bedside tables contained. An Egyptian soldier would have found a few pens, writing paper, a few books and study matter—perhaps a book of poems, some photographs, a simple shaving kit, letters from home. The tenants here must have joined the retreating division from Kseime—if they hadn’t escaped earlier—and were now on their way to the Canal to be destroyed by our air force or advanced forces. Arik met us with, “Where on earth were you?” It was past lunchtime and we had been gone for a couple of hours. I made a light lunch. Other parts of the division were arriving in the assembly zone. We were promised water and were waiting for the cargo to be dropped before we could continue. An area was marked for the dropping, and Arik drove to the tents we came from. We followed him and circled the camp when Dov stopped the jeep and jumped out. “Look what I found!” Well camouflaged and dug in was a brand-new amphibious Russian tank, large and yellow and unused. While we were trying to open a screw on it, Sason, the Shermans’ commander, showed up with a few tankists. In five minutes they were in it traversing its gun. Seconds later the engine was started, and grinning Sason drove it out, maneuvering it toward his battalion in a cloud of happy dust, saluting Arik on the way.
The Nords appeared in the sky. Red and yellow smoke grenades were thrown as indicators and the enormous white parachutes filled the sky. It was a happy sight. Somehow I never quite believed that those things worked. Supply, ammunition, and water followed us along the way. I always regarded as miraculous their arrival when needed. The large crates contained plastic jericans of water and it was hard work preventing the soldiers from taking the parachutes and turning them into souvenir scarves and shirts.
A large helicopter landed, bringing papers and blank postcards. I shall never forget the sight of tired troops dashing and besieging the helicopter, snatching the papers and reading them hungrily, filling in the cards, scribbling an address in haste so the pilot could take them back and mail them to the rear. Most of them wrote just one line—“I am well, we are winning all along.” Reservists added kisses to the children. The helicopter was about to take off and soldiers were still streaming toward it, the pilot bending down to take more postcards. He must have carried with him more than a thousand that day. A thousand hopeful faces followed it in its flight, a thousand homes would read the one or two lines a couple of days later with relief.
I looked at the newspaper. Headlines declared: “The Gaza Strip is in our hands, the army is taking over cities in the west bank.” “Ramallah is ours.” There were greetings from factories, farms, schools—wishing their reservists a fast victory and a safe return.
“Soft drinks Tempo” factory, “The Oil Refineries,” “Ort Schools,” “Port Authority,” “Crystal mixers and washing machines” plants were all telling their drafted workers “We are with you—wherever you are.” Next to those a large announcement by the American Embassy advising all American citizens to leave Israel, and then, in the inside page—the first horrible sight of names in black frames—“Captain Yoram Harpaz fell fulfilling his duty.” “Lieutenant Amiram Manor was killed in action.” “Our beloved Uri …”
My first tears. I didn’t know Yoram or Amiram or Uri. I knew other Yorams and Uris who were now in uniform, and those were only the first ones. Opposite me, asleep under half-tracks or lunching near the jeeps, were other Yorams and Amirams, and they were sons of mothers who shivered every time there was a knock on the door. We were between Um-Katef and Nahel, we were victorious, we were winning on three fronts, but at that moment even those three first names I saw were worth more than that. I saw a soldier looking at my paper behind my back. Did he imagine his own name framed in black? Did he know Amiram or Uri? Something saddened his face and he turned to walk away. I wasn’t left with time to ponder. At four o’clock Arik said we were moving and the long trip south recommenced. The axis we took was the roughest road I’ve ever been on. The forces moved with the frustration of withheld slow motion—another 100 yards, another mile—the ground was broken, wadi beds, heaps of hard clay forming a labyrinth of artistic shapes turning each mile into five miles—not much improved by the fact that the tanks softened it up. Dov tried to by-pass but we were stuck in a worse wadi and had to return. On the horizon we could see a mountain silhouetted against an evening sky. A beautiful sunset and then darkness. We continued to drive as if in a dream—automatically holding to the wheel, to the machine gun, to the road.
I
t grew cooler; a wind was blowing; we were hungry and exhausted, and the road stretched forward lit by hundreds of headlights. A troop carrier was destroyed on the way and, burning, acted as a signal to the caravan. Like a giant torch it threw light and warmth on the passing tanks and cars as if checking them out to a cooler and a darker unknown.
I had lost sense of time. I knew our whereabouts by looking at the map, but futility infiltrated. It all seemed endless. I covered myself with a blanket as well as the pullover and jacket. Dov had to admit it was cold and put on a wind-breaker and we drove parallel to Arik’s half-track when the convoy stopped. It was almost midnight. We continued to drive to the head of the convoy to see what happened. We left behind us the armored battalions and reached their reconnaissance patrol. They were on top of a hill on the verge of a plateau and were dispersed in a formation in a line vertical to the convoy. We drove in a circle to look for the commander when we heard his voice. “Don’t move! You are in a middle of a minefield.” His tone was nervous. He obviously considered us superfluous in a minefield. Dov was dubious about the statement. “You think so?” he asked. “Yes, and the convoy must stop until the engineers have cleared a route through it.” It was a clear night. The jeeps were frozen in place and the men didn’t budge. Ahead of us a few empty crates were scattered. “Nobody is as stupid as to leave mine crates behind to mark a minefield.” “They were in a hurry. You’d better follow your own tracks going back.”
We didn’t. Again the proximity of danger didn’t register and between the warning and reality lay the cool night air, the starry sky, the safe sight of the convoy, soft sound of singing voices.
We drove back to join Arik. Motke’s half-track was next to his. Arik was listening to the net. He looked at us and said, “A jeep was just blown up on a mine. Two soldiers were killed.” I don’t think we dared tell him we’d just been there. A few minutes later we heard the sentence which shook us all. “The Old City of Jerusalem is ours.”
Did I say fatigue? Minefield, late night, middle of the Sinai—it all disappeared. Suddenly there was the Temple Mount and the Wailing Wall and the heart too small to contain those words. Was it joy that brought tears to the toughest soldiers? Pride? Sense of history or religion? All I know is that the news was cried out and the convoy was lit as if by lightning. The “something” had happened. It was not a conquest but liberation, it was not our long route to Nahel, it was the long route of our people, from Moses to the paratrooper who first touched the sacred wall. We were suddenly not defending a frontier, a settlement, a decade, we were a part of something that was larger. The existence and dreams and hopes and future of a people—in New York and Moscow and Um-Katef and Rio-de-Janeiro. The religious ones were praying, the others, whispering a song which became the anthem of the War—Naomi Shemer’s “Jerusalem of Gold”—a song written shortly before the war, mourning the “City with a Wall in Its Heart.”
Now the wall was in our hearts and the city united and David in the Centurion, Zeeb in the “Bell,” Tzipi in the rear headquarters, Katz in the jeep, the mothers of Uri and Amiram and Yoram—they were all walking by the wall, they engulfed the Tower of David and gazed down from Mount Scopus. We were a few miles from Nahel, isolated by mines. Our supply echelons were stuck along the road in the rough broken ground, but the sense of solitude was gone. We were all in the market place of the Old City, on the road to Jericho, with Solomon and David and our ancestors.
“We’d better get a few hours’ sleep while we can,” Arik suggested, and we all crowded between the two half-tracks. Motke joined us, and I asked Arik, “Can you manage a meal or would you rather sleep?” “Never refuse food,” he said. In a few moments the tea was ready and I heated some meat. I mixed it with canned vegetables and the taste was improved. Sharm-El Sheikh was in our hands. That’s where it all started, perhaps, the blockade ended and the Egyptians defeated, but somehow the news of Jerusalem was above all other victories. Dov produced the leftover of our whisky—the right time and place—and we drank “Lechaim” to our new-old capital. The box of chocolates kindly left us by an unknown Egyptian completed the celebration. Three minutes later we were all asleep, crowded in the narrow space between the half-tracks. With dawn, a route was cleared in the minefield and we resumed our advance. Motke’s brigade was leading—split along three routes—and we, in the jeep, hopped from one to another. From a top of a hill we could see the convoy. We were near Nahel now and the vehicles moved rather fast. A long snake of khaki and dust, a huge animal crawling tailless as far as the eye could see. When the convoy stopped, we drove down for breakfast. Dayan’s words in the Old City were broadcast again: “We have united Jerusalem, the divided capital of Israel—we have returned to the holiest of our holy places, never to part from it again.” These were words of vow. “Never again,” “forever.” We believed in them.
THURSDAY, JUNE 8
I climbed the half-track with plates and cups and a teakettle. Arik was having breakfast on the map on top of his command half-track. Shaike, general commanding south, was telling him on the radio that an Egyptian armored brigade was seen from the air on the move from Kuntila and Temed on its way to help 4th Tank Division under attack around Bir-Gafgafa. The Bell helicopter just arrived from the rear with Zeev at its controls. Itzik was despatched to have a look on the road, some ten miles south. He reported hundreds of vehicles and tens of tanks and guns on the road between Temed and Nahel. In a matter of minutes Arik, while eating his breakfast, decided on the plan for ambush and attack. We didn’t know at that time the mood of the enemy. Was he running away, was he on the way to the second line of defense to join the 4th Division, was he on an orderly retreat? And who exactly was he? What could we expect from the units we were going to encounter? We knew that in Temed and Kuntila the Egyptians had quite some forces, lured there by the maneuvers of our forces. We knew that in this area Brig. Shazly was blowing up a lot of air and clouds of dust. Shazly was everywhere according to reports. He made quite a fuss with himself and his “Special Shazly Force.” Colonel Dan Hiram, who was our military attaché in London, knew Shazly well and met him for several clandestine talks while he was Egyptian military attaché, and many others knew him when he was a battalion commander of the Egyptian contingent in the Congo, in Lumumba’s days. Dov remembered reading the Diplomatist, a prestige paper catering to the vanity of the diplomatic colony in London, where Shazly proclaimed himself an expert on military science and strategy. The boys were anxious to meet the fellow in the field and teach him a lesson or two in strategy. But he was nowhere to be found. He must have “carried out a strategical withdrawal” quite early.
We didn’t know how many troops were pulled out from Temed during the two last nights but we supposed that a great part of the 6th Division should be there. This means we may meet with the 1st Armored Brigade, the 8th, and maybe the 13th Infantry Brigades, and many other support units, artillery etc.
Earlier in the morning a force from an armored brigade that was left in defense against Kuntila was put under Arik’s command. They had armor and a battalion of infantry. Now their second-in-command was on our radio net telling Arik that he was pressing forward through Kuntila, which he found deserted, toward Nahel. He was ordered by Arik to pursue the retreating enemy and to join us as soon as possible. Prisoners he took told him that the Egyptians were going to defend Temed, a locality to the southeast of Nahel, which offered many advantages for the defender. A passing Piper Cub dropped him a note that “the enemy is digging in Temed.” He, later to be known to us as the “Mustached Motke,” put his whole force in high gear and was chasing full speed after the enemy, not giving him time to defend the high ground of Temed. They caught up with some fifteen T-34 tanks, destroyed two, and from all the others the crews just jumped out and ran away. At two in the afternoon the force got into Temed, but found not a soul. Later in the evening, when he met us at Nahel, he claimed between forty to sixty enemy tanks to his unit’s credit. He may have claimed some that were destroyed by the
air force, but nobody cared. This will be the job of logistic command and their staff of operations research whiz kids to establish exactly what should be credited to whose conduct sheet.