by Uzi Eilam
After the team completed its task of generating a new concept for defending the water line and as the work along the canal drew to a close, Adan was appointed commander of the Sinai Division. In late December 1968 he informed the team members that all of our recommendations had been adopted by the General Staff.
Opposition and Thoughts on the Conception
However, not all members of the General Staff were supportive of our stationary approach to defending the Canal. Two of the most outspoken opponents were Arik Sharon and Israel Tal, who spoke at a special meeting I attended. Sharon had been designated for the post of OC Southern Command and Tal was about to finish his term as commander of the Armored Corps. Tal supported the use of mobile forces alone, and opposed the permanent fixed presence of Israeli forces on the ground along the Canal. This approach came as no surprise coming from an Armored Corps commander, as motion was an integral element of the defensibility of tanks and their ability to surprise the enemy. For his part, Sharon called for adding an element of depth to the thin line of fortifications along the canal, and when he was appointed OC in 1969 he initiated the construction of a second line of rear Israeli posts 10–15 kilometers to the east of the Canal line.
On the southern front all senior defense establishment figures subscribed to a concept that took into account the possibility of an Egyptian surprise attack, but underestimated the Egyptians’ ability to achieve their goals through such an action.
Despite budgetary difficulties the Engineering Corps continued to try to devise a means of crossing wide water obstacles such as the Suez Canal. Gillois landing rafts provided a realistic means of achieving this capability. A single raft could be placed in the water and serve as an independent means for transporting vehicles, and could also be linked to a chain of other rafts to form a bridge. Despite President de Gaulle’s embargo policy, the French were willing to provide us with such rafts.
However, the efforts of our Engineering Corps were overshadowed by “the roller bridge”...anal-crossing project that became the pet project of Operations Branch Chief Major General Israel Tal. Tal’s faith in the project was unlimited, and he provided it with a wealth of funding and human resources.
In the debates on purchasing policy that took place within the General Staff, I and others argued that the roller bridge was still in preliminary stages of development and we needed to equip ourselves with alternative solutions, such as the Gillois landing rafts until the roller bridge could prove its effectiveness. The opponents of purchasing the rafts, mainly Armored Corps officers led by Tal, emphasized that the rafts were not armored. Despite the opposition, it was ultimately decided to purchase a small quantity of Gillois rafts from NATO surplus. Within the IDF these rafts were known by the name “Timsakh.” Not long had passed before the Yom Kippur War broke out, and when the roller bridge was brought to the Canal it turned out to be a complete failure. Instead, the Gillois rafts we had acquired allowed us to move forces to the other side of the Canal.
Although not completely justified, much of the blame for the failure of the early stages of the Yom Kippur War has been placed on the Bar-Lev Line. Many years later I toured a few points along the Maginot Line, the long and highly invested defensive line that France built along its border with Germany prior to World War II. To France’s chagrin, the Germans waged a brilliant war of movement and flanking to bypass the impressive line that hitherto had been the pride of France, transforming it into a silent memorial to a failed strategic and tactical conception. After my visit to the Maginot Line I began to ask myself what we had been thinking. Why we had failed to learn from the experience of the French? What had possessed us to reinvent the concept of static lines of defense after its miserable failure just a few decades earlier?
With the Battalion on the Canal during the War of Attrition
Notwithstanding my comments above, the Bar-Lev Line nevertheless provided an adequate solution for the physical security of the troops during the shelling of the forts themselves. I had a stormy tour of duty with the 71st Battalion in the Sinai Peninsula during the winter of early 1969. We manned forts from the northern Sinai across from Port Said to the south, across from the city of Suez. The Egyptians were active and carried out a variety of attacks on Israeli positions and their access roads. I knew the border and its weak points well. I came to appreciate the security provided by the fortifications during my time at battalion headquarters, which was located in one of the positions in the middle of the sector.
Creative Snipers’ War
The roads leading to the positions along the Suez Canal were the Achilles’ heel of the Bar-Lev Line because they were near the rampart, and whoever travelled on them was exposed to shelling and ambushes. The Egyptians wisely placed soldiers in high trees and towers built especially for this purpose, and these observers were able to shoot at vehicles approaching the forts and monitor our troops within the forts themselves. It was a special challenge for our snipers to take them out, as they were typically well camouflaged. We were extremely pleased each time we saw someone fall out of a tree after we shot at them. We also made efforts to achieve effective observation capabilities, but in a more mechanical and sophisticated manner, by means of a hydraulic fire fighting crane. We brought in a hydraulic fire-fighting ladder from the US that could reach a height of 30 meters. It even passed the meticulous inspection of Operations Branch Chief Tal and was also approved for use by the Ordnance Corps.
Moshe Dayan Visits the Front Lines
One day while we were still stationed on the Canal, we were informed that Defense Minister Moshe Dayan would be coming for a visit. Sinai Division headquarters provided two M-113 armored vehicles, which were known by the troops as Zeldas and were extremely rare at the time, to transport the defense minister to the northern sector of the front. I reported to the Baluza military base to welcome Dayan and bring him to the battalion’s sector. We drove along the Canal in the two Zeldas, with Dayan in the lead. Suddenly, Dayan stood up in the moving vehicle. ‘Moshe,’ I said to him, ‘there are snipers on the other side. It would be best if you sat down.’ I was concerned that the Egyptians would recognize his well-known black eye patch and injure him. What could I do?
“No, no,” Dayan responded, in a quiet authoritative voice, defiantly belittling the danger. “I want to see the other side of the Canal.” This time we were fortunate that the Egyptians did not shoot at us and that we reached the large position that held battalion headquarters safely. The Egyptians routinely monitored the convoys and would begin shelling the forts into which supply convoys entered minutes after their arrival. Our procedure was to immediately send those arriving with the convoy into the bunkers and to wait and see whether or not the Egyptians would start shelling. When we entered the position, I asked Dayan to accompany me down to the fort’s large bunker. “Most of the soldiers in the fort are assembled in the there,” I told him. “That’s the place to talk to them.” But Dayan insisted on staying above ground, and he asked me to assemble the soldiers to meet with him in the open area within the position. I was unable to convince the defense minister that this posed a danger, and we were forced to hold the meeting in the open area of the position outside the bunker. This time there was no shelling and I was relieved when the visit ended and we were on our way back to Baluza. On the return trip Dayan did not insist on standing and exposing his black eye patch to the Egyptian snipers across the Canal, and the visit ended without incident. His actions during the day bore testament to the man’s exceptional courage, which bordered on suicidal. The problem with Dayan’s behavior was that in demonstrating his own personal bravery — in a manner for which for there was no justification — he forced all the soldiers of the post to expose themselves to the same unnecessary danger. This three-week tour of duty along the Canal with my reserve battalion was especially turbulent, and the battalion and the units serving with us during the tour lost six soldiers and saw more than 10 wounded. Despite the effective
protection with which the bunkers provided the soldiers, the War of Attrition claimed casualties not just from the Air Force, in its campaign against Egypt’s SA-2 and SA-3 missile batteries, but from the ground forces along the Canal as well.
7
The Jordan Valley
My First Tour of Active Reserve Duty
Just a few months after the end of the Six Day War my battalion was called up for reserve duty in the Jordan Valley. It was the early days of border infiltrations and cross-border attacks, and there had still been no significant hostile activity in the region.
Immediately after the Six Day War Palestinians from Jordan began to cross the Jordan River back into the territory we now held. Initially, these were people who had fled during the war and were trying to return home. Later, however, infiltrator groups began working to send armed fighters across the border in an effort to build resistance cells in the West Bank. IDF policy was to prevent these border crossings and to attempt to seal the border as hermetically as possible. Implementation of this policy was assigned to IDF Central Command and its Jordan Valley Brigade.
In the spring of 1968 Colonel Rafael Eitan became the first commander of the Valley Brigade, and I came to visit him at brigade headquarters at the military base at El-Jiftlik. I asked Eitan where the Palestinians tended to cross the Jordan River, and his immediate response was that they crossed over everywhere. I continued on to the Jericho police station, where the headquarters of the battalion holding the southern part of the Jordan Valley was located. Elisha Shalem, my friend from the 890th battalion and the reprisal operations of the 1950s, was the sector’s battalion commander on reserve duty. I asked Shalem the same questions I had asked Eitan, who directed my attention to a map of the region hanging on the wall in his office. Along the Jordan River, which now also served as the border, were a few clusters of colored pins. “What are those?” I asked.
“We’ve been here for three weeks,” Shalem explained, pointing at the colored clusters, “and these are all the crossings we’ve identified during that time.” He then did a quick statistical analysis for the short period and concluded that there were in fact a few preferred points of crossing along the river. The paratroops from the reserve battalion marked seven crossing points, which remained ingrained in my memory. The precision and accuracy of the information with which Shalem gave me became abundantly clear when the Valley Brigade confronted the problem during my service as its deputy commander and commander. When searching for traces of border crossings, we focused most of our attention on the crossing points identified by Shalem after just three weeks of duty in the sector. These points were also the primary focus of night ambushes. I had no doubt about the importance of thoroughly and systematically collecting intelligence information and assimilating it through operations.
My Second Tour of Active Reserve Duty
At the beginning of March 1968 my battalion was again called up for reserve duty in the Jordan Valley. By this time the sector was already hot, and PLO infiltration into Israel had become a routine occurrence. The positions along the length of the Valley along the Jordan River were already built with fortifications to protect soldiers from direct fire and shelling. The Jordanian army provided the PLO with significant support by hosting them in their positions on the eastern side of the river and enabling them to observe the area before embarking on their missions. The Jordanian army also provided supportive artillery fire for infiltrating Palestinian cells that encountered Israeli interference.
During my second tour of duty in the Jordan Valley, Operations Branch Chief Weizman came to the Valley for a quick visit. He landed his light French-made Alouette helicopter at a landing pad near the Jericho police station, where I met him and took him by jeep to battalion headquarters for a short briefing. Weizman, an open and lively man, asked a few questions and then invited me to join him in his helicopter to take a look at the Valley from above.
After we landed half an hour later, Weizman finally let me into the secret: in two days time the IDF would launch a wide-scale operation in the Jordanian town of Karameh, the point of origin of most PLO operations in the region and the residence of Yasser Arafat. I drove to brigade headquarters to meet with brigade commander Eitan, who immediately agreed to integrate the 71st Battalion into the planning. For the operation itself we could use two companies from the battalion. A third company would be provided by the regular paratroop brigade, and we were also supposed to receive a company of Sherman tanks from the armored battalion of the reserve brigade that was attached to the Valley Brigade. The following day we were joined at the Jericho police station by Colonel Shmuel Gorodish (who later changed his name to the Hebrew Gonen), commander of the 7th Armored Brigade, along with his company commanders and his brigade staff, to perform reconnaissance on the Jordanian territory where the 7th Brigade was supposed to operate. We ascended to the position that controlled the Allenby Bridge, and I told them everything I knew about the Jordanian positions along the border itself and deeper inside Jordan.
Reporting to Rafael Eitan during the Karameh operation
The day before the operation I was called to brigade headquarters at the Jiftlik military base, where brigade commander Eitan presented us with a short briefing that outlined, among other things, the task of the 71st Battalion: to conquer the Jordanian fort at the Damiya Bridge, and to hold it while controlling the road to the north with fire power in order to cut off access to the town of Karameh. The regular paratroop brigade and Sayeret Matkal were charged with the operation within the town itself and sealing off of all escape routes.
I assembled the Operations Branch officer and his men and the commander of the 155 mm gunnery battalion to plan the artillery support for the brigade’s operation. Eitan’s plan called for the tank battalion to cross the Jordan River over the bridge, to advance south of the Adam Bridge position, and to climb up to the flatland in order to achieve control of the road to Karameh with tank fire. My battalion consisted of three paratroop companies, including a regular company under the command of Nachum Alon, a tank company under the command of Tuvia Leshem, deputy commander of the tank battalion, a unit of SS-11 anti-tank missiles, and an additional platoon-size force under the command of Captain Gadi Manela. When we finished working, we were all relieved to have a coordinated brigade-wide plan.
According to Brigadier General Menachem Aviram, commander of the armored reserves brigade, our plan was “an insane plan that succeeded.” It called for crossing the Adam Bridge under the cover of darkness just before dawn. Support would be provided by the entire 155 mm artillery battalion, which would carry out heavy shelling of the Jordanian position, and the anti-tank missile section, which would target the Jordanian tanks inside. The plan then called for following the main road that passed through the position. From there, we would attack the position from the rear, mop up the trenches, and destroy the tanks inside, in an east to west movement.
The operation as a whole began before dawn and the Sherman tanks sunk in the mud of the wet Jordanian agricultural fields. As a result, the burden fell on us. We advanced under the cover of heavy shelling, aided by our intimate familiarity with the plan for covering artillery fire we had devised before the operation. This wild, courageous, and dangerous maneuver was successful and quickly brought us to the other side of the position without injury.
However, in the heat of battle Deputy Battalion Commander Tuvia Leshem failed to stop as planned when we reached the position in order to turn around and mop it up. Instead, the tank company continued to race ahead toward the flatland. In the meantime the sun rose and the Sherman tanks were easy prey for the Jordanian M-48 Patton tanks. One after another five of our tanks were hit and went up in flames. I sent Gadi Manela and his men in their half-tracks to extract the soldiers from their burning tanks, as Jordanian tank shells flew overheard. Manela worked calmly and with great determination under fire, pulling the men out of harm’s way and transporting them to the medical e
vacuation station. For this action, Manela was awarded the Medal of Courage.
In the meantime we took over the position, losing Yitzhak Penso, who was killed, and company commander Asa Kadmoni who was wounded. The position was quiet, but Jordanian mortar and cannon artillery fire continued to rain down upon us during the day. Throughout the morning, I travelled in my two half-tracks, one for my staff and the other for communications and artillery support. In some cases, a deafening “Long Tom” shell would fall at a location just after we left.
We also had to supervise the Engineering Corps’ construction of the “cage bridge,” which was meant to facilitate the crossing of our Centurion tanks, for which the Adam Bridge was too narrow. The Jordanians had a well camouflaged artillery observation officer, and each time the engineering soldiers tried to continue building the bridge they were pushed back by another barrage of artillery fire.