The Lion's Gate: On the Front Lines of the Six Day War

by Steven Pressfield

  By moving Shaul and the others back, I’m trying to protect them. Let the tanks go ahead. Shaul and his guys will be safer behind them.

  Dubi Tevet, Recon trooper:

  Crazy things happen in war, and the craziest of all happens now.

  I’m up front, driving Eli’s second jeep, ahead of the tanks as we enter the Jiradi. The pass is one ten-kilometer ambush. The Egyptians have tanks dug in on the reverse slopes of the dunes flanking the roadway. They have antitank guns in dugouts smack alongside the road. The slopes themselves are honeycombed with fighting positions for machine guns and bazookas. Trenches are reinforced concrete, full of soldiers. Artillery batteries line the hillsides.

  Into this we roll in our defenseless jeeps.

  Egyptian defensive positions near Sheikh Zouaid. Note the dug-in tank beneath camouflage netting.

  Photo by Yosi Ben-Hanan.

  Nobody shoots at us.

  In fact we see soldiers waving to us. They think we’re their own guys.

  Our two CJ-5s—Eli’s and Zvika’s—lead thirty tanks at full speed and nobody fires a shot at us.

  We pass like kings, like kings on a carpet.

  Eli Rikovitz, Recon platoon commander:

  The road is lined with burning Egyptian vehicles, knocked out by air strikes just a few minutes earlier. So the enemy knows we’re coming.

  We’ve gotten here so fast, the Egyptians can’t believe we’re not their own men.

  Menachem Shoval, Recon trooper:

  Our group is in back now. We’ve lost sight of Eli’s and Zvika’s jeeps. They’re up front, leading the tanks. They’re at least a kilometer ahead of us.

  From my perch in the back of Etzioni’s jeep I’m trying to get a picture of the situation. I’m young but I’m not stupid. I can read a map; I understand the mission. I’m trying, like every soldier, to grasp the connection between what I know we’re trying to do and what is actually happening.

  Between Eli’s jeeps and ours are two companies of tanks—between twenty and thirty in all. Eli’s jeeps are deep into the Jiradi Pass. Our group in back hasn’t even reached the start.

  The topography of the land is changing. We’re on a narrow road twisting between dunes. The Mediterranean is farther away on our right, out of sight. You can feel the desert coming. The country is starting to look like what you expect Sinai to look like.

  Is that the Jiradi ahead? Maybe Shaul knows. He’s our lieutenant. He’s got the radios and the maps.

  The road climbs to a rise, then starts down a long slope to the left before leveling out and swinging back to the right. Shaul has stopped our vehicles at the crest. Our vehicles come up and stop. Shaul is peering ahead through binoculars. Ahead we can see, even with the naked eye, many Egyptian troops dug in on the slopes and within concrete pillboxes. Through glasses enemy tanks are visible, dozens of them, turret down, along the ridgeline to the left, two kilometers ahead. What should we do?

  It’s a moment like the pause at the top of a roller coaster. On the one hand, the road ahead looks absolutely peaceful. From radio reports we know that Eli, Zvika, and the tanks from Battalion 82 are speeding through, untouched. Maybe we can do the same.

  On the other hand, we can see the enemy dug in in bunkers and trenches, looking as menacing as Normandy on D-day in World War II.

  Here on the high ground, we can still find cover. But the moment we start down the slope, our unarmored vehicles will be in the open, funneled between minefields. There will be no place to hide.

  Shaul decides to go forward. He leads in the first jeep, with Benzi Zur driving and Yoram Abolnik in back. They start down the slope. The jeep gets no more than a few meters when a shell hits it.

  The blast is huge and deafening. The shell—maybe artillery, maybe a tank round—has hit Shaul’s jeep dead-on. Smoke blankets everything. Where the vehicle had been is now only smoke. I’m right behind. I had started the day with Shaul. I had been in his jeep. I stare at the dark, billowing smoke. Part of me refuses to believe this is happening. Then the smoke starts to clear.

  I see the jeep with no people. There’s no one there. The jeep is sitting there, miraculously intact, but no one is in it. I’m thinking, Hey, my friends have jumped clear! They got out in time! Then the smoke clears a little more.

  I see three half corpses sitting in the jeep. The shell has passed at the height of the driver, shearing all three in half. This is right before my eyes. My friends, my commander.

  This is the picture I am carrying with me. Of my friends being there and then not being there. It is horrible.

  A second shell explodes, directly above us. The blast tears open part of our jeep and shreds Etzioni’s left arm. He is half a meter from me, in the front seat. Amazingly, he stays cool. He gets out of the jeep, with his half-torn-off arm, calling for our medic, and starts walking back to the vehicles coming up behind, looking to warn others to stay back.

  A barrage has begun. Egyptian artillery is firing air bursts, shells that explode five or ten meters above you, blowing shrapnel in all directions.

  In the army you are drilled never to leave a weapon, never to abandon a working vehicle. I get the jeep out of there. I am so young I don’t even have a driver’s license.

  We find cover on the reverse slope behind the crest of the road. A mob of vehicles has piled up there. Everyone is diving into ditches.

  Lieutenant Shaul Groag.

  Shaul’s cut-in-half body and those of Benzi Zur and Yoram Abolnik remain half a hundred meters down the road, still in the seats of their jeep.

  Eli Rikovitz, Recon platoon commander:

  Our brigade is now divided. It is split in half. But up front, we don’t know it. We are alone in two jeeps, ahead of everybody, leading the tanks of Battalion 82.

  The Egyptians alongside the road have woken up.

  Our jeeps—mine and Zvika’s—are now nine-tenths of the way through the Jiradi Pass. We have entered the palm groves that mark the approach to El Arish. The Egyptians are firing at us from both sides of the road. Uri Zand is my driver. I see his foot flatten the accelerator. Our jeep feels as if it is crawling.

  Egyptian soldiers are firing from prepared positions behind sandbags at the bases of the palm trees. They are so close we can see their mustaches and their wide, dark eyes. At one point three Egyptian soldiers, the crew of a heavy Goryunov machine gun, line me up in their sights. I see the gunner pull the trigger. My entire body stiffens, waiting to feel the impact of the bullets.

  His gun jams.

  I turn my jeep’s .30-caliber Browning and pull the trigger.

  My gun jams too.

  I shout to Zvika in the jeep behind: “Hit them!”

  He does.

  Behind us, our tanks have buttoned up their hatches. Up front, we in the jeeps are totally exposed. A stitch of bullets shreds my dashboard. At the wheel, Uri cries out and collapses forward. He has been hit in the left side. We can’t stop or we’ll be killed. Uri swears he can still drive. I reach around behind him and stick my fist into his ragged, wet wound to plug the hole.

  I plant my left foot on top of Uri’s right foot and press on the accelerator, doing everything to get out of the kill zone.

  Yosi Ben-Hanan, 7th Armored Brigade operations officer:

  In the command party, we have no idea that the Jiradi Pass has suddenly become blocked.

  I’m with Gorodish in a jeep, racing toward the beginning of the pass from the village of Sheikh Zouaid. The most recent report says that the tanks of Battalion 82 have cruised through untouched.

  Suddenly, as we speed forward, our command party is flagged down by a sergeant from Recon. He steps into the road, holding up both hands. I know him. His name is Moti Shoval.

  If you want to know what makes the IDF the force it is, here is an answer:

  A sergeant stops the brigade command
er leading all the tanks of an armored battalion and thinks nothing of it.

  Kahalani is here with his tanks. So is Ehud Elad, commander of Tank Battalion 79. Gorodish grabs his binoculars and moves forward to assess the situation.

  This is what “leading from the front” means. In other armies the brigade commander might be fifteen kilometers to the rear, trying to make decisions based on maps, intelligence dispatches, and conflicting reports from his officers on the radio.

  Patton tanks of Battalion 79 near the Jiradi Pass.

  Photo by Yosi Ben-Hanan.

  Gorodish is right here. He can see with his own eyes the Egyptian positions on the dunes above the road. He can see the minefields and the trenches and feel the concussion of the air bursts overhead.

  More tanks from Kahalani’s company come up. Ehud Elad is standing in the turret of his own tank. His operations officer, Amram Mitzna, pulls alongside in a half-track.

  There is no question that Gorodish will order Battalion 79 to attack. The only issues are in what manner, against what positions, and how soon.

  Avigdor Kahalani, tank company commander:

  I’m peering through binoculars, straight into the setting sun. Ahead is a broad, shallow valley: the Jiradi Pass. I’m trying to spot the entrenched Egyptian tanks but I can’t see a thing with the sun in my eyes. My gunner is named Rafi Berterer. “Can you see anything through your scope, Rafi?”

  Rafi says he can see trenches ahead, but no tanks. I’m just starting to lower myself from the turret to look through Rafi’s gunsight when the tank takes a blow, as if from a titanic hammer.

  I crash from the turret into the waist of the tank. The interior fills with smoke and flame. For a second I’m paralyzed. I feel pain, as if a steel shaft has been driven between my shoulder blades.

  “We’ve been hit!” I call. “Jump out!”

  My only thought is, Don’t scream. The commander, before all else, must lead his men. If you are hurt or frightened, your soldiers must not know it. You cannot let them hear that chicken voice.

  The interior has become solid flame. I reach for the grip handles above me, to haul myself up into the turret. My arms will not pull me up. I fall back. The fire is inside my lungs. I try again and fall again. I realize that my legs are pinned.

  It’s true what they say about your life flashing before you. Mine does now. Still I try one last time.

  It works. I’m up into the turret. At this point I can no longer control my voice. I cry for my mother and hurl myself clear of the flaming tank.

  Moti Shoval, Recon sergeant:

  I am standing right there when Kahalani’s tank takes a direct hit.

  Six years from now, in the Yom Kippur War, Kahalani with a handful of tanks will hold off more than a hundred Syrian tanks in the Valley of Tears on the Golan Heights. He will be awarded the Itur HaGvura, Israel’s highest decoration for valor, and become a legend in the armored corps.

  Now he is consumed by flame.

  We can see Kahalani spill out of the turret and plunge to the sand. He is naked except for his belt and his boots. Everything else has been incinerated. His face and legs are black. The skin is hanging off his arms in great sheets.

  Three of our Recon guys—Nadav Ilan, Tani Geva, and Amitai Heiman—race down the slope to help Kahalani and the tank.

  Avigdor Kahalani, tank company commander:

  I am rolling in the sand, trying to put the fire out. My friend Daniel Tzefoni and the crew are still in the tank. I can hear myself screaming, but it sounds like the voice belongs to somebody else. I want to get out of my body. My body is on fire.

  I begin running. Soldiers stare in shock. One tank almost runs me over.

  I see Ehud Elad, my battalion commander, in the cupola of his tank. “Kahalani, what happened?” He stares at me dumbfounded.

  I race past him.

  Boaz Amitai, Recon platoon commander:

  Suddenly Ehud Elad’s tank gets hit. He is standing, exposed in the turret. The explosion consumes him.

  Another round hits Mitzna’s half-track. Men are rushing to pull him out. In moments we have lost a battalion commander, his operations officer, and a brave young company commander. Every leader we have is going down!

  Lieutenant Colonel Ehud Elad, center, commander of Tank Battalion 79, half an hour before he was killed by an Egyptian shell at the entrance to the Jiradi Pass. The watch in the foreground reading 14:55 is on the wrist of Lieutenant Colonel Barouch “Pinko” Harel, deputy commander of the 7th Armored Brigade.

  Photo by Yosi Ben-Hanan.

  Ori Orr, Recon Company commander:

  Nowhere in the manual does it say that Recon’s job is to evacuate the wounded. Our role is to lead the tanks. But we have the jeeps. We have the nimble, sure-footed vehicles that can carry burned and maimed men.

  Our guys are rushing to help the wounded.

  Tani Geva, Recon trooper:

  To pull the crew out of a burning tank, a man must go in face-first. He reaches in with his hands and arms. The tank crewmen are screaming in pain and out of their minds with fear. The interior burns like a furnace. High-explosive shells are cooking, half a meter from their face.

  When you witness this, when you do it yourself, you cannot believe it.

  In war soldiers perform feats of valor of which they never, before they do them, believed themselves capable.

  34.

  MASTERPIECE OF WAR

  Cheetah Cohen commands Helicopter Squadron 124:

  I have just landed at Nitzana, four in the afternoon, first day of the war. Sharon’s division will assault Um Katef tonight. My helicopters will carry Danny Matt’s paratroopers into the fight.

  An hour ago I was at our squadron’s forward base at Ashkelon on the coast. My helicopters were scattered all over Sinai, Gaza, and the West Bank, rescuing downed fliers and evacuating wounded soldiers.

  Suddenly a call comes in for me from Rafi Har-Lev at Air Force Operations. “Cheetah, I’m giving you two orders. One, take your helicopters to Arik Sharon, and, two, I’m giving you no more orders. Do whatever Arik tells you.”

  In peacetime it would take all day to assemble and move a helicopter squadron. Now we do it in three minutes. I get into the air and open the squadron channel. “Whoever can hear me, relay my orders to whoever can’t.”

  Now here we are, above Sharon’s division. I’m at 3,000 feet, looking down on ten thousand men and hundreds of buses, trucks, tanks, half-tracks, artillery pieces. Sharon’s forces are spread out over thirty kilometers. Where is Danny Matt? I’ve got him on the radio but I can’t see him amid the massive sprawl below.

  “Danny, hold down your transmit button.”

  On my instrument panel the radio compass has a needle that indicates the source direction of an incoming transmission. I’m following that needle across the encampment.

  There’s Danny!

  I set the helicopter down next to a column of mobilized civilian buses.

  “Cheetah, where have you been?”

  Like I was supposed to be here a month ago.

  “I am here, Danny. I brought the party!”

  Colonel Danny Matt commands Paratroop Brigade 80, part of Ugda Sharon:

  I love Cheetah. He and his brothers Uri and Nechemiah comprise one of the leading military families in Israel. He is a fearless flier who will take his helicopters anywhere, anytime, against anybody.

  But now we’ve got a real problem.

  The landing zone for which my plans have been drawn was supposed to be on the left flank, the south, of the Egyptian defenses at Um Katef. With my deputies I have worked out the insertion plan for this LZ, or landing zone, down to the meter and the minute. Now at the eleventh hour the enemy has moved a force of tanks into that area.

  Where else can we land? No one knows. Time is 16:00. I must have a brigade of parat
roopers on the ground in the middle of the Egyptian defenses within four hours.

  Cheetah’s helicopters are landing. We need twenty-four. I count seven.

  “Cheetah, where are the rest of your birds?”

  “Don’t worry, Danny. They’ll be here.”

  Cheetah Cohen:

  Danny and I go back forever. I was flying P-51 Mustangs in support of his paratroopers at the Mitla Pass in ’56. He knows my brother Uri in the armored corps and has been a champion for my younger brother Nechemiah in the Sayeret Matkal. At the command levels of the IDF you will hear over and over the names of the same acclaimed officers, all of whom trained under Arik Sharon: Meir Har-Zion, Katcha Cahaner, Aharon Davidi, Raful Eitan, Uzi Eilam, Motta Gur.

  And Danny.

  Danny Matt:

  I have picked a new landing zone. The site is identified as Point 181 on the code map. It’s on the right of the Egyptian artillery instead of the left. Intelligence is reporting that a force of our own tanks has just seized the adjacent ground.

  I’m drawing the new plan in chalk on the hood of a jeep and explaining the changeover to my deputies and battalion commanders.

  Cheetah is watching me scribble. He thinks he has entered chaos, a world-class balagan. But my plans are meticulous. Each team of ten paratroopers knows which helicopter it must board in the takeoff sequence, and each man knows his place in that team. He knows what he must do the instant his helicopter touches down and he knows his part in the overall assault plan. I have worked out the force structure down to the final detail.

  Improvisation is not a wild scramble at the last minute. You are not pulling plans out of thin air. Improvisation is the payoff of scrupulous preparation and drill.