My Father, His Daughter

by Yaël Dayan

  On Friday morning, the change was noticeable in every face, word, and action. As if we all got a second wind, as if a large brush had painted off the past two weeks and splashed new vivid colors and feeling into the dormant desert, the steel war machines, the spirit of the commanders, all of us. Even the long wait suddenly made sense, and for once I wasn’t embarrassed by expressions of affection and pride which were bestowed on me but directed at my father.

  At the first cabinet meeting in which my father participated, the die was cast. Eshkol, willingly and with a tremendous sense of relief, asked my father what his proposals were, and without hesitation Father declared: “We should launch a military attack without delay. If the cabinet takes such a decision at its next scheduled meeting, Sunday, June 4, we should strike the next morning. The campaign would last from three to five days.” He added his objections to advancing too close to the Suez Canal, and to a suggested transfer of refugees from the Gaza Strip to Egypt. This war should not lay the grounds for a next, harder war. It should eliminate a direct threat and rule out a major armed confrontation.

  The long days of avoiding a decision were over. The mood of the entire cabinet was changed, and the Army’s self-confidence was restored as if by a magic touch. Those who were in favor of waiting another week, to protect the political flanks, listened to him describe the merits of a preemptive strike. “The first shot would determine which side would suffer the heavier casualties, and if we took the enemy by surprise, their damages would be the equivalent of all additional arms supplies we might receive for the next six months. The course of the campaign should be dictated by us, and the enemy should be forced to fight according to our moves.” The next cabinet meeting ended with a vote on my father’s proposal that “orders be given to the Army to choose the time, place and appropriate method.” All but two ministers voted for the resolution.

  Dov, who was Sharon’s liaison officer with GHQ and the Southern Command, agreed to drive with me to Zahala and back that Friday evening, on the scant hope that I might get a minute with my father.

  The house was full of flowers, boxes of chocolate, baskets of fruit, as if for a wedding. Gifts from people, mostly unknown to us. The comforting aroma of chicken soup filled the kitchen, and my brother Assi, on a three-hour leave from his antiaircraft gunners unit, was the recipient of my first hug and kiss. Father was taking a bath—between meetings. My mother’s eyes, though glittering with pride, still had a tear in them when she saw us, both in uniform, aware as she was of what would happen shortly. We were, in fact, prematurely celebrating a victory, but she could not ignore the inevitability of casualties that even the greatest of triumphs incurs.

  Father walked out of the bathroom in his underpants and slippers, and without his eye patch. He hardly fit the confidence-inspiring image he represented since the previous day. Yet it was all there. The brightness in his direct look, the youthful stride as if a burden had been shed, the seriousness of a tremendous responsibility, and the bemused half-smile of self-assurance. Most of what we had to say to each other we expressed in a long embrace, and he was as delighted as an infant when he examined Kuti’s arrowheads. He spoke admiringly of Arik and his brigade commanders, and promised me I was “in the best of hands.” He talked about being for the first time endowed with the highest authority, as Eshkol left all military decisions to him.

  In 1956, as Chief of Staff under Ben-Gurion, he carried out orders even when he considered them mistaken. Now the responsibility was his. “For good or for ill, I will be on my own.” We all had to leave soon, and wished each other luck. None of us knew when, or how happy, our next encounter would be. Mother packed fruit and nuts and chocolates for me to take to Shivta, and with them her anxiety and love.

  Dov called for me, giving me time to get into and out of a hot bath and change, and I hastily introduced him to my mother. I couldn’t at that moment share with her the vague but mounting feeling I had for him. I myself referred to it as “nothing personal,” just an emotional affinity of two people facing a surge of events.

  We did not talk much on the long drive back. Beersheba’s main street was dark and dead, and Arik’s trailer and the HQ tents in Shivta felt like home. I could not mark it on a calendar, but D-Day tension was in the air, and the precise date didn’t matter. We were on our way.

  On Sunday afternoon, Dov said to me: “You had better get some equipment.” We went to the supply tent, where I exchanged my boots for a better pair, got a new canteen, spare woolen socks, and some ammunition. I handed in my identity discs and received in their place a “prisoner’s card” on which were the details I was allowed to give if I was captured. Name, rank, number, blood type. I placed the card in my pocket, next to Kuti’s arrowhead, and tried on the helmet, which felt heavy and uncomfortable. Trucks were being loaded, engines warmed, communications systems tested, field kitchens packed, but nobody said D-Day is tomorrow. The most I could get from Dov to my “So that’s it” was an enigmatic shrug and a suggestion which seemed wild: “Try to get a few hours’ sleep.” My father reviewed the final plans that Sunday evening, flew to the Northern Command to get a situation report, and arranged for a field bed to be available to him in the emergency HQ. It was a cool, pleasant night, almost romantic, had it not been for hordes of mosquitoes, and to my amazement, I managed three hours’ sleep. I woke up in a dark a.m., with a dramatic feeling. For a brief moment, the last in many days to come, I was an observer. A few soldiers were in prayer next to the war room; two reservists were writing letters; Arik was shaving in his trailer and very carefully applying aftershave lotion, like a youth before his first date; and Dov was packing. A small bag to take along, and the rest of the things to be left behind. I was taking the same stock, mentally and emotionally. Nahalal, my brothers and cousins, my parents, high-school history and geography lessons, oil lamps and arrowheads, were placed close to my skin and would come along, with the reliable boots, the writing pad, and “Don’t forget the toilet paper,” Dov had said. Athens; Michael, regretfully and affectionately; Rome’s cakes and Paris restaurants; London publishers’ talk and New York sophisticated dinner parties; Vietnam jungles and Singapore markets—all were neatly compressed and packed, to be left behind. I left on my wrist a gold bracelet given me by that gentlest and most understanding friend, Alain de Rothschild, as a token link between the worlds. He was in Paris, and I knew his heart was with me and the men around me.

  When the sun mounted, blessing us with its golden touch, we had already advanced in a compact, mobile HQ formation. Arik’s two half-tracks were to move with the force, together with a couple of jeeps equipped with machine guns, and the supply car would trail behind. The brigades were spread out on our flanks, and for the time being the communications system was not activated.

  I helped Rachamin, the cook, with breakfast and, when the tea was ready, woke up Arik. On a blanket spread on the hard sand, I got our last “civilized” breakfast of fried eggs, fresh salad, and bread. Next would be C-rations, and who could tell for how long.

  My mother prepared an early breakfast in Zahala on June 5. My parents sat at the table at six-thirty, had coffee and toast, and Mother mentioned that she was going to Jerusalem for a meeting later. From Zahala my father left for HQ, made sure the timetable was planned, and took off for a small café around the corner, where he met with Rahel for another coffee and a croissant. He didn’t mention to either woman, or as much as indicate, what was to happen within the hour.

  At seven-thirty, my father was in the Air Force “pit,” and Arik told us to put on helmets and get packed and ready to move. Very few words were spoken. The buildup to this moment was so long, it left no room for last-minute, dramatic excitement. The spring was stretched to capacity and ready to be released, and there was a severe sense of professional awareness in the air.

  Between 7:14 and 8:55 a.m., Israeli planes carried out an attack in two waves. In the first wave, 183 aircraft were engaged, rendering six Egyptian airfields inoperable and destroying 2
05 enemy aircraft, putting sixteen radar stations out of order. The second wave, comprising 164 planes, attacked fourteen bases and destroyed 107 enemy aircraft. The Egyptians lost three-quarters of their air strength. Our casualties were eleven pilots—six killed, two taken prisoner, and three wounded. The air operation was carried out in complete radio silence and at a low altitude, below the radar; and the ground forces did not switch radios on until their own H-Hour, which followed the positive reports of the returning pilots.

  Our own generator was activated at 0800, and at 0815, in a strong, confident voice, Arik gave the order: Nua! Nua! (Move! Move!). The vehicles, already in gear, with engines running, headed west, and I could soon see our tanks descending toward the frontier. Arik was standing up, looking through his binoculars, and a few moments later, to the first sound of our own shells, he announced: “Here we go, we are firing!”

  On my small transistor radio I heard my father’s voice, through the shots and the shells, broadcasting to the advancing troops, to the mothers and wives at home, and, as I felt, speaking to me personally. “Soldiers of Israel,” he said, “we have no aims of conquest. Our purpose is to bring to naught the attempts of the Arab armies to conquer our land, and to break the ring of blockade and aggression which threatens us … They are more numerous than we are, but we shall overcome them. We are a small nation, but strong. Peace-loving, yet ready to fight for our lives and our country … The supreme efforts will be demanded of you, the troops, fighting in the air, on land, and on the sea. Soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, on this day our hopes and our security rest with you.” Dov’s eyes met mine, and he understood how I felt. There are peaks in life, national and personal, which one is aware of at the moment they take place. Not in perspective, not as an afterthought or in a final accounting or a historical assessment. We simply knew that what was happening on June 5, between 7:45 and midday, was one of those unique peaks. Everything that was in us, all the accumulated energies and convictions, past tragedies and future hopes, were compressed into the effort of these few hours.

  My father was hundreds of miles away from me, finalizing orders to attack Jordanian airfields and prepare the offensive against the outposts around Jerusalem. Jordan and Syria joined the war, Jordan with artillery on the Jewish quarters in Jerusalem, and Syria with its Air Force bombing Tiberias and Megiddo. I was entering the first enemy post that was destroyed. I never felt as close to my father as I did during those hours; in spite of the distance, I could feel his physical presence. His face was with me, his strong, stable gaze, his calm, composed confidence, brain ticking away like a radar searching for options in a circular movement. With the deepest of emotions, I felt privileged. There was my complex, beloved father, living through his greatest hours perhaps, towering above us all in a multidimensional way.

  My mother was caught in the first shelling of Jerusalem, in a petrol station near the King David Hotel. She managed to abandon her car, get to a telephone, and reach the Knesset shelter in time for the swearing-in ceremony of the new cabinet. Father showed up, but couldn’t wait for Eshkol, who was delayed. They drove back to Tel Aviv, missing the actual ceremony, Mother again witnessing with pride and love the unfolding of events, as Father issued orders and received reports in the car. In the opposite direction, a long line of heavy, dark tanks was silhouetted in the dark night, advancing along the curving road to Jerusalem.

  My father returned to the pit as we were preparing for the major breakthrough battle in mid-Sinai. The objective was the Um Katef stronghold, difficult to approach, flanked by mine fields and impassable dunes, and manned by dug-in infantry brigade and heavy artillery. But once the defense line was broken, the central axis to the Suez Canal would be open to race through, since the same operations were in progress in the northern Sinai sector (Tal’s force) and the southern sector—all the way to Sharm el-Sheikh and the blockaded Straits of Tiran. Mother refused to join the neighbors in their shelter and felt safe enough in her own bed, listening to the all-night radio reports.

  Dov explained the battle plan to me, drawing lines on my writing pad. If we knew we were in love then, there was no room to express it. War does strip one of all fringes, and the bare essentials are so evident that emotional communication is almost telepathic. He was talking of the Russian defense system, of our mobility and their loss of air support. We heard reports of one of our battalions suffering casualties, trapped in a mine field. We listened to reports on the radio, and Dov carried out his own liaison job, consulting occasionally with Arik and with a matter-of-fact, almost casual, efficiency. I knew very little about him, and had a feeling I would have a lifetime to find out. The bond was there, and there was no call to analyze, examine, or even take joy in it. Just after 2230, the artillery commander, in whose half-track I placed myself that night, was given the order to open fire. The paratroopers landed in helicopters at an assembly point; Kuti’s infantry was positioned in the sand dunes near the Um Katef northern trenches, waiting for the artillery softening, and the long, swift fist of Motke’s tanks was charging straight for the center of the fifteen-kilometer-wide defense line. Our major battle had begun. Arik’s orders were colorful. He used first names for the commanders, announcing: “Let the earth shake.” And next to me I could hear the artillery commander answering softly: “Shake it shall,” when he ordered a barrage of six thousand shells on Um Katef in the next twenty minutes.

  My heart was with the infantry. I carefully isolated Kuti’s voice whenever it was heard. They were advancing under heavy fire in the trenches. Casualty reports came in, and I clutched my arrowhead with a primitive faith. The Egyptians in their strongholds were well prepared for the battle, and flanked, they had no escape route. Our timing, coordination, and superior fighting capacity gave us victory, but it took all our flexibility in combat deployment to achieve this.

  While we were still in the midst of the battle of Sinai, Mota Gur’s parachutes had gone into action in Jerusalem in frontal assaults on the police school compounds and on Ammunition Hill. The parachutists suffered heavy casualties, cutting their way under withering fire to take these two major bastions by dawn of June 6. When I drove in Dov’s jeep to the smoke-covered Um Katef battlefield, my father, with Ezer Weizman and Uzi Narkiss, exposed in an open jeep, entered the gates of Mount Scopus. The Old City of Jerusalem was spread out below, and he was under strong government pressure to capture it immediately. The difference between his reactions as Chief of Staff and as Defense Minister was nowhere more evident than in his attitude toward the battle of Jerusalem, and in the south, at the capture of the east bank of the Suez Canal. His restraining attitude called for the Old City to be surrounded first. Entry should be without air or artillery support, causing as little damage as possible to the city and its holy places. When the encirclement was complete, and Jerusalem was cut off from Jordanian reinforcements from the east, we were already on our way on a chase-and-destroy mission into the central Sinai. Our division was lighter and smaller, as Kuti’s infantry left for El Arish in the north. “Don’t you want to join us for a swim?” he suggested, but Arik promised me a swim in the canal soon, and nothing at that point could tempt me away from Dov’s jeep. We were advancing fast, often under an occasional barrage, and I soon became experienced in judging where the rocket would hit and how to avoid it. Holding to a heavy machine gun in the front seat, hearing Arik’s voice on the wireless, and finding comfort in Dov’s short, well-spaced utterings, I never felt safer. All the years with or alongside my father had obviously contributed to this lack of fear, and I didn’t think of it as anything but natural, taken for granted, that there I was, on a dirt road in the Sinai, face covered with a mask of baked mud, and surrounded by tough warriors, fighting my way to the Suez Canal.

  On Wednesday, June 7, a helicopter landed with the first newspapers and mail. The headlines declared in big type: “Gaza Strip in Our Hands,” “Ramallah Is Ours,” “West Bank Cities Are Captured.” The small print had greetings from plants and factories, kibb
utzim and schools, to “Our workers, sons, or members: we are with you wherever you are.” There was an announcement from the American embassy, “advising all American citizens to leave Israel,” and in the inside pages, the first terrible sight of names in black borders—the price we were paying. “Captain Yoram Harpaz, killed in action, in the performance of his duty …” “Lt. Amiram Manor, killed in action …” “Our blessed Chaim …” With gray faces, the older reservists among us searched through the lists—their sons were serving on another front—and I couldn’t hold back my tears. We were winning on three fronts. We were between Um Katef and Nakhl, and were immersed in our own reality, and suddenly, in the black rules in the paper, war acquired its real horrible meaning of destruction and the loss of lives. A young soldier was looking at the paper over my shoulder, and when I turned to look at him, his eyes were wet. Had he found a familiar name? Or did he imagine his own name edged in black?