by Uzi Eilam
Another task was handling evacuation of the wounded. For this purpose we chose a relatively protected area east of the Jordan River, where the brigade’s medical pick up point was located, and where helicopters could land to evacuate the wounded. I was relieved when all the wounded were evacuated, but, as far as I was concerned, the long day of fighting ended only after we managed to use the Centurion tanks of the 7th Armored Brigade to drag our burned-out Sherman tanks back into Israeli territory, and after the last soldier had returned to Israeli soil.
Eretz Hamirdafim (“Manhunt Land”)
A considerable mystique developed in Israel at the time around Eretz Hemirdafim, the fight against infiltrators from Jordan in the dry gullies and wadis along the Jordan Valley in the years after the Six Day War. Two explanations come to mind. The most important one seems to be the failure of the initial phase of manhunts and the high price we paid for this failure with the lives of senior commanders. Another reason appears to have been the ability of Rehavam Ze’evi, OC Central Command, to orchestrate an effective PR campaign that kept the manhunts, the Jordan Valley, the Central Command, and its OC in the headlines.
Valley Brigade Commander Colonel Arik Regev, who had replaced
Colonel Rafael Eitan, was killed during “the Jiftlik Manhunt” on July 26, 1968 during a battle with infiltrators who had taken cover in the caves of Wadi Milha, not far from Valley Brigade headquarters. Captain Gadi Manela, Regev’s operations officer, was killed by his brigade commander’s side while charging their position. After the deaths of Regev and Manela, Israeli tanks were ordered to fire on the caves, killing the infiltrators hiding inside. At the time the lessons of the Jiftlik manhunt were not properly internalized, and we continued to pay a high price in the loss of senior commanders.
Lieutenant Colonel Moshe Stempel, Colonel Motta Gur’s deputy in the 55th Paratroop Brigade that fought in Jerusalem during the Six Day War, was killed during a manhunt in Wadi Shubash on September 19, 1968. Reconnaissance battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Zvi Ofer was killed during a manhunt in Wadi Kelt in December 1968. The March 11, 1969 “cave manhunt” near the village of Majdal Bani Fadil took the lives of Major Hanan Samson of Kibbutz Mizra, company commander in the 28th Paratroop Reserve Battalion, Major Yossi Kaplan, the Valley Brigade’s Operations Branch officer, and Sergeant Boaz Sasson. Eventually, the Central Command and the Valley Brigade learned their lesson, and manhunts gradually assumed the form of an orderly, well planned, and well-coordinated systematic procedure. Colonel Yehuda Reshef was assigned to replace Arik Regev as commander of the Valley Brigade.
After the heavy losses sustained during those early efforts, Colonel Yehuda Reshef and his deputy Lt. Colonel Moshe Levi brought order and precision to the Valley Brigade’s manhunt procedures. By the time I joined the Valley Brigade as deputy commander under Levi, who was promoted to command the brigade, manhunt procedures were organized, efficient, and quite impressive. Levi, known in the army as Moshe-and-a-half because he was so tall, went on to become the army’s CGS. He understood that such a complex operation had to be orderly and systematic.
The first stage of a manhunt always involved the discovery of infiltrators’ tracks on the border fence. The fence was lined by a dirt road that was cleared every evening by a command-car dragging a roll of barbed wire to make it easy to find footprints in the pale dusty surface. It was patrolled each morning to see whether someone had crossed the border. The Bedouin trackers that took part in the morning patrols identified signs of incursions and footprints of infiltrators, and used them to accurately track the route they were taking toward their targets in the West Bank. The Bedouin trackers were the spearhead of the tracking effort, and the forces of the Haruv Battalion, the reconnaissance battalion in the Valley, made extensive use of them whenever necessary.
The most interesting and challenging task of the Valley Brigade commander was undoubtedly the job of directing manhunts. It was the brigade commander who coordinated all the various forces involved of the effort. He knew where each force was at all times and decided when to transfer forces from one search area to another while receiving reports about the precise status and location of the tracking effort. Close knowledge of the topography of the region was extremely important, as many decisions were based on it almost instinctively, as well as on past experience with infiltrations and integration of this knowledge with the updated information provided by the searching forces.
Back to the Jordan Valley as Deputy Commander of the Valley Brigade
At the request of OC Central Command Ze’evi, supported by Operations Branch Chief Weizman, I decided to leave Branch 2 of the Weapons Development Department to accept an assignment as deputy commander of the Jordan Valley Brigade. Ze’evi promised me that I would be the next brigade commander, replacing Moshe Levi who had already held the position for close to a year. The prospect of promotion certainly played a role in my decision to accept the offer, as did my sense of duty, in light of the increasing challenges posed by the War of Attrition and my feeling that my service with the battalion was simply not enough.
When I arrived to the Valley in early November 1969, the brigade was engaged in a diverse range of activities, including the defense of positions against shelling by the Jordanian army, which made no effort to hide their support for the infiltrators. Another aspect was in the Dead Sea when it became clear that one route of infiltration was across the salt lake by means of rubber rafts.
Under the management of Ori Even-Tov, Israel Aerospace Industries’ Factory B (later known as Mabat) assumed responsibility for developing a series of routine security measures. An ingenious technician by the name of Pini Dagan developed a turret of sorts that was mounted on a command car. The device, which integrated an infrared floodlight and a Belgian machine gun, was officially known as the “Marbel,” but everyone referred to it as “Dagan,” after the man who developed it. The Haruv Battalion specialized in using this weapon.
The war of the positions was an issue in itself. It involved an ongoing process of building and fortifying positions under the direction of the Valley Brigade. The brigade construction officer worked with contractors to plan and improve the defenses and the quality of life of the soldiers in the forts. Battalions, mostly of reservists, passed through the Valley like trains through a station, and this placed a heavy burden on the brigade commander. At times the region was assigned regular service battalions which were a pleasure to work with, as opposed to the reserve battalions, which were not always cohesive and quite often suffered from a high rate of turnover. Briefing and cultivating reserve battalions required especial intensive efforts. The positions themselves were under direct fire from across the river and also from the Jordanian artillery. Light weapons attacks were also carried out by Palestinian cells who would cross the river and take up positions from which it was comfortable to fire on our positions in the middle of the night. The Valley Brigade had to come up with some way to counter this threat, and the ensuing game of cat and mouse with the infiltrators was a permanent aspect of our work.
When I came to the Jordan Valley I was already a paratroop battalion commander with two tours of active reserve duty along the front lines in the Valley under my belt. I also had other strengths, including my ideas about the integration of technology, my connections to the world of research and development, and my contacts in the Israeli defense industry and the General Staff ’s Weapons Development Department. I embarked upon the assignment determined to maximize the use of technology on the unique battlefield presented by the Valley. I knew which defense companies would lend us weapons that were still being developed so we could test them in the field. As a result we were able to arm ourselves with a variety of lethal devices, such as explosive rods, mortar shells for being booby-trapping, electronic activation systems, Claymore anti-personnel landmines that were developed in the United States for the Vietnam War, and many other weapons. In essence, it was a strategy based on a loos
e collection of countermeasures against the infiltrators‘ methods, which were in the constant process of changing, expanding, and growing increasingly technologically advanced. The brigade’s engineering staff and, to some extent, its munitions personnel, were responsible for work in this area.
I dived into my work as deputy brigade commander with intense energy, not limiting myself to the organizational and logistical aspects of the brigade, as I knew I had been designated to replace Moshe Levi as its commander within a few months. It was concrete preparation for my imminent move into the position of commander.
The Dead Sea sector was unique and differed in many ways from the rest of the Jordan Valley. Our analysis of the infiltrators‘ mode of operation in the Dead Sea focused on three basic elements: the point of origin of each cell, the intended target, and the route linking the two locations. In the Dead Sea area the infiltrators‘ targets were concentrations of Bedouin in the Judean Desert and their points of origin were the water-filled and vegetation rich riverbeds on the eastern side of the Sea, which gave them enough cover to hide for a few days while they got organized. To stop them from making the crossings, we started sending teams to these staging areas, either at night in rubber rafts or during the day in helicopters.
I never lost sight of the fact that I would soon assume command of the brigade, and my most important task from this perspective was finding a suitable candidate to serve as my deputy and operations branch officer. For operations I set my sites on Uzi Eilat of Kibbutz Beit Hashita, who was pleased by the offer and who took a leave of absence from the kibbutz to take the job.
Every aspect of operations in the Valley involved contending with the infiltrators, who often displayed creativity and resourcefulness. Concern for the security of the soldiers in positions along the front lines was reflected in fortifications against attacks from flat-trajectory weapons and from Jordanian artillery shelling. We also needed to gauge the exact distances of the Jordanian positions on the eastern bank of the Jordan River. I managed to borrow one of the two Dutch-made laser devices owned by the Weapons Development Department, and I used it to convince the Armored Corps, including Israel Tal, its commander at the time, that when it came to measuring distance, lasers were better than gunners. The laboratory’s laser device, which quickly came to be in high demand, was passed from position to position and ultimately provided us with a precise map of distances reflecting the vital needs of each position. To reinforce our efforts to protect the positions and their surrounding areas, we assembled all the weapons that the defense establishment was developing at the time, as well as knowledge on modern booby-trapping tactics and remote activation systems.
It was clear to me by this point that the war we were engaged in was a war of minds, and I knew that, in this sense, the main burden in the campaign was shouldered by our extremely capable brigade Engineering Officer Captain Tzvika Mor. One night we heard a blast from one of the fort’s booby-trap mechanisms. The next afternoon a team led by Engineering Officer Mor and the southern deputy battalion commander made preparations to go into the field. Fortunately, they began checking the system from east to west, which enabled them to discover a trap. This time, the idea was truly diabolical: our own stake mines had been booby trapped and connected to an activation mechanism located on the eastern side of the Jordan River. Beside our explosive devices, which appeared to be in proper working order, lay a dummy that looked like an infiltrator who had been killed in action, with some rolled up wire and a loose explosive shell by his side. The dummy and the ground beside it had been splattered with red paint to increase the verisimilitude. Gideon, the deputy battalion commander, found the soap dish that served as the switch, and Mor clipped the copper wires leading across the river. The charges were later detonated.
One of the difficulties consistently faced by the IDF was the constant turnover of reserve units without the necessary skills and knowledge in an arena where even the morning patrols required training and experience. This turnover meant that by the time a battalion learned operating procedures and principles along the front line, it was rotated out and replaced with another battalion. In some cases, usually in the aftermath of particularly troubling incidents, we were allocated light aircraft that flew over the patrol road before the patrol reached the area. We also tried to counter the remote radio-transmitted detonation of booby traps from across the Jordan River by using light aircraft flying overhead to make our own transmissions early in the morning, prior to the ground patrol.
During my efforts to prepare the brigade for the day I would assume command and to find a suitable deputy, I started eyeing Lieutenant Colonel Ofer Ben-David for the position. At that time, Ben-David, a native of Kibbutz Kfar Giladi, who was a few years older than me, was serving as the Hebron district commander. To me, the short, sturdy, intelligent man with a Hashomer-style mustache seemed like a quick learner and right for the position. Something about him was reminiscent of the rugged Galilee — rough and irritating at times, but loyal and down to earth. I knew we would work well together.
Moshe-and-a-Half ’s Last Manhunt
As deputy brigade commander I was permitted to join the commander on manhunts only after ensuring the necessary logistical support. This included preparing additional forces and dispatching them on search missions, acquiring more helicopters if necessary and making sure that water, cold juice, and sandwiches were prepared and delivered to the forces engaged in the search, to prevent them from dehydrating in the extreme heat and scorching sun of the Jordan Valley.
We studied every manhunt carefully and learned all we could from them. Still, there was no way to guarantee that neither mishap nor injury would occur since no two manhunts were identical. A good example began on a Friday morning with discovery of indications of border penetration, just like most others. The search was run in a routine manner but by the end of the day we had not found the infiltrators. The trackers insisted that trails led close to the populated Palestinian area on the mountain ridge, and in accordance with standard procedure we placed ambushes in the locations where tracks had last been identified. The mission was assigned to regular forces from the Paratroop Brigade. The Jewish Sabbath was about to begin, and Brigade Commander Moshe Levi was scheduled to go home on leave to Kibbutz Beit Alfa. I was left to recall all the forces that had taken part in the search, make sure that everything was returned safely to its proper place, and assume the post of commander for the duration of the Sabbath.
It was a quiet night in the Jordan Valley, but not far from the mountain ridge a paratroop ambush force engaged a cell of infiltrators in a firefight in which two soldiers were killed. The next morning at first light I surveyed the area from above in a helicopter with the commander of the trackers unit in the Valley. When we reached the site of the incident it was clear that the skirmish had been with the cell we were looking for. The infiltrators had backtracked, and their path now led eastward. I immediately issued an order by radio resuming the manhunt, and within no time the brigade’s well-oiled manhunt mechanism was back in operation. When I informed the brigade commander that the pursuit was back in motion, he told me that he would return to the base later, and requested that I should not wait for him and that I run the manhunt myself. At 1:30 p.m. Levi arrived and joined our forces (the OC Central Command had been with us for a few hours). More than an hour later, when I was convinced that Levi had been sufficiently brought up to speed on the manhunt, I turned command over to him and reverted to the position of deputy. We had been walking along the upper bank of a gorge for a short time when we spotted the cell moving quickly along the floor of the deep riverbed. After opening fire on the cell below us, we suddenly came under automatic light-weapon fire from the opposite side of the gorge. Bullets from the two long bursts of gunfire hit Levi in the thigh; they also struck the arm of the Haruv Battalion’s operations officer, who was with us as well as our radio man. I bandaged the radio man and took his radio in order to continue running the manhu
nt.
All of a sudden, I heard Ze’evi calling my name: “Uzi!” he screamed, “Come quick! Moshe’s sliding down!” I ran over to where the tall heavy wounded man was slipping down to the gorge, and it took all our strength to drag him to a goat trail where we could lay him down. I ran the rest of the manhunt until its conclusion while tending to the wounded, issuing orders to the forward Haruv team, and fearing that additional bursts could be fired at us at any moment. The cell had been a small but resourceful fighting unit. Levi and the two other wounded men were carried up the hill on stretchers, and the members of the cell at the bottom of the gorge were killed. We had not, however, managed to capture whoever it was that had fired on us from across the gorge.
I assembled the troops, who were dispersed throughout the area, and ordered that a network of ambushes be set up to capture the shooter. I walked up to the flat area where the helicopters had landed and was about to fly back to brigade headquarters when OC Ze’evi stopped me. “Uzi,” he said, “from now on, you are the brigade commander.” At the moment, I was too busy tying up the loose ends of the manhunt to appreciate what had just happened. It was only when I got back to brigade headquarters that it hit me that I was now alone at the top.
As a commander Moshe Levi symbolized, more than anything else, order and a systematic, methodical approach. His behavior and leadership style reflected a concern for the major and minor details of brigade operations, as well as caution and concern for preserving human life. Ironically, it was Levi’s lot to be wounded during a manhunt and to finish his tenure as brigade commander being evacuated by stretcher on a helicopter. During my tenure as brigade commander the border crossings continued, as did the manhunts. As luck had it, and as a result of the experience and insight we acquired, we suffered no more casualties. Based on the lessons we learned from the treacherous manhunts in the Jordan Valley, the brigade commander was no longer part of the forward force. This rule applied to senior members of the brigade staff as well.