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

by Steven Pressfield

  The struggle goes on for hours. When the tanks make their mistake and turn onto the Jericho Road, the heroes of the sayeret, Meir Har-Zion and Micha Kapusta and others, understand the peril immediately. They leap into their jeeps and chase the tanks, to bring them back. They themselves become caught in the cross fire. Before the night ends, they will lose five dear friends, killed.

  Our battalion’s orders are to hold in place at the line of departure. We can hear the firefight, around the corner from our positions beneath the Rockefeller Museum. The men of the Reconnaissance Company, reinforced by elements of Battalion 28, continue under heavy fire to recover and evacuate the wounded and dead from the Jericho Road.

  In the midst of this struggle Motta Gur, our brigade commander, receives a dispatch from army intelligence informing him that a column of Jordanian Patton tanks (for which our ancient Shermans are no match) is hastening up from the Jordan Valley toward the city.

  This is why Motta has called off the assault on Augusta Victoria and why he has ordered our battalion and Battalion 28 to prepare positions for defense.

  Uzi Eilam, Battalion 71 commander:

  Plans have changed again. Apparently the report of Jordanian tanks approaching is false. We won’t have to hold off an attack by enemy armor.

  The assault up Augusta Victoria Ridge is back on. We will attack in daylight, tomorrow morning.

  All night I shuttle between my battalion’s positions along Wadi Joz and Motta’s command post in the Rockefeller Museum. I have not slept in forty hours. If I’ve eaten, I can’t remember when. Most of my soldiers are in the same situation. I have issued orders permitting our men to break into stores in the Arab neighborhoods they occupy. They may seize, however, only what is necessary for a meal, nothing more.

  Our companies will spend the remaining hours of darkness preparing to resume our interrupted assault, this time at dawn, in broad daylight, upon the enemy’s positions atop the Augusta Victoria Ridge.

  Meir Shalit, sergeant, “B” Company:

  You wouldn’t think it would be cold in June. It is freezing. We have coffee and smokes but you can’t strike a match because of snipers, and if you do, you have to stay deep in a hole when you drag on the cigarette.

  We have been ordered not to take shelter in any house that has civilians in it. It’s amazing how many people are still here. Arab families. They’re all scared shitless, of course. Hey, how do you think I feel?

  It sounds nuts but I still don’t know where I am. To our right a few hundred meters the rescue operation for our tanks is still going on. But soldiers only care about their own problems. No one’s shooting at us, so we’re okay. We are five guys in an improvised fighting position in the open ground floor of a three-story Arab house. I have found a pile of construction debris and carved out a nice snoozing spot. The only problem is it’s so cold I can’t sleep. I’ve still got the bangalore torpedo from last night. Each time I try to dump it, someone catches me and won’t let me do it.

  Zeev Barkai, battalion operations officer:

  You need to understand how soldiers think. When they are scared, they go to sleep. It’s a defense mechanism. They want to wake up and find that everything is okay, the danger has passed.

  So I keep moving among our positions, making sure everyone knows what’s going on. Of course, I know nothing, either. I make it up.

  Soldiers don’t care what they are told, as long as they are told something.

  Yoram Zamosh, “A” Company commander:

  We have found a spot to settle down and wait for morning, near the four-story Arab house where Uzi has set up his command post. My radioman, Moshe Milo, has found some flat pita bread, which he shares out, with jam from the few C-ration cans that our men have brought with them.

  Sleep is out of the question for me. I must be alert if events break or if I am needed by Uzi. But I can at least rest my back against a wall. As I do so, I feel the lump tucked into my web gear just above my hips.

  An Israeli flag.

  Late yesterday, when the officers of the battalion had first reached the city and were scrambling from rooftop to rooftop, trying to gain an understanding of the topography, we—Uzi’s command group, joined by the company commanders—gathered beneath the apartment of a local family, at 10 Beit HaKerem Street, in the cramped basement shelter. The family’s name was Cohen. The mother and two daughters brought us hot tea and cakes. They let us use their telephone, which was still working.

  The family was frightened but excited, too. Would war really come to Jerusalem? Would Israeli forces be given permission to advance upon the Old City? At one point the grandmother of the family, who was past eighty years old, left the room. Her daughter told Uzi and the rest of us that she, the grandmother, had lived with her husband for many years in the Old City, in the Jewish Quarter, before the Jordanians captured it in ’48. Her husband had since passed on. The grandmother had lived here, in the tiny apartment next door, ever since.

  Uzi was explaining his plan of attack to us. He was stressing the importance of the first few minutes. We must break through the initial Jordanian resistance at all costs. I was mentally formulating an attack plan for my own company when the grandmother, Mrs. Cohen, returned from the next-door apartment and came up behind me. I was seated. She was standing directly over me.

  “Take this,” she said.

  Into my hands she placed a flag of Israel.

  “This I have kept,” the grandmother said, “since my husband and I were driven from our home. It flew last in the Old City.”

  The lady wept.

  To this day I feel her tears upon my back.

  I folded the flag and tucked it into my web gear. I promised Mrs. Cohen that if Brigade 55 should be given orders to liberate the Old City, her flag would be the first to fly over its holy stones.

  No one took particular notice of this exchange.

  Then, at the door, as we commanders were leaving to return to our companies, my friend Moshe Stempel caught my arm. He had overheard the conversation between me and the elder Mrs. Cohen. He had heard my promise. Stempel was number two in the brigade, second-in-command to Motta Gur. It was Stempel who had built the brigade, less than a year ago, and he who had gotten me my post in it.

  “Zamosh, do you have it safe?”

  “What?”

  “The flag.”

  Stempel had the chest of a bull, with wrists and forearms like iron. I could feel his strong, thick fingers probing into the web gear at the small of my back. “Make sure it will not fall out.”

  He pushed the flag deeper into my harness.

  Now, on the second night, my radioman, Moshe Milo, takes a seat in the dirt beside me.

  “Zamosh, do you still have the flag?”

  I pat the spot to let him know, but I can see in his eyes he wants to be absolutely sure. I roll away so he can see. Again I feel fingers, not as powerful as Stempel’s but just as fervent, pressing the flag into place even more securely.

  Uzi Eilam, Battalion 71 commander:

  Sometime past two in the morning, I get back to the Arab house that is serving as our battalion command post. I have been at the brigade CP all day, except for several hours making the rounds of our companies’ positions. My operations sergeant is named Leizer Lavi. He stops me as I enter the two rooms in which our command group has crowded itself. “Uzi, the lady has something she wants to give you.”

  “The lady?”

  “The owner of this house. She has been waiting all night for you to get back.”

  I remove my helmet and wipe the grime from my face and hands. The lady enters carrying a lacquered tray. On it sits a covered dish, silverware rolled inside a linen napkin, a china cup and saucer, and a small pot of coffee. The dish is chicken fricassee. The lady has prepared it for me herself, she says, knowing that I have probably not eaten in many hours.

  This is not
a moment like in the movies. Our hostess knows only a word or two of Hebrew. She simply lifts the cover to show me the dish, then sets the tray down on a table and, with a gesture of gratitude for the consideration our soldiers have shown to her family, she takes her leave.

  I have had many wonderful meals in my life, but none has ever been more welcome or tasted more delicious than that simple plate of chicken fricassee.

  46.

  AUGUSTA VICTORIA

  The world of a green soldier compared to that of an experienced one can be imagined by visualizing concentric circles. The rookie’s circle ends inside his own helmet. That’s as far as he can see or think. If he’s unusually clearheaded, the circle may extend to the man in front of him, maybe even to his full squad.

  Dan Ziv is deputy commander of Battalion 71.

  The veteran, on the other hand, sees the whole field. He has been under fire enough times to know what incoming rounds sound like and to tell when all that noise is heading toward something other than himself. He has learned to conserve energy. He’s alert but he is not filled with fear.

  It’s morning, June 7, the third day of the war. We’re climbing the hill toward Augusta Victoria. Motta Gur’s tanks are ahead, in column, on Shmuel Ben Adaya Street. Our air force has been pounding the hell out of the ridgeline for over an hour.

  I can see, looking ahead up the slope, that Motta’s tanks are not under fire. They have almost reached the summit of the ridge, where the Jordanian positions are supposed to be. But no one is shooting at them. I am at the base of the slope, several hundred meters behind the tanks, with my crews and the recoilless rifle jeeps. Benny Ron is beside me.

  “There’s nothing up there, Benny.”

  We’re supposed to let the tanks reach the summit before we expose our vehicles to fire.

  “It’s clear—let’s go.”

  Zeev Barkai, Battalion 71 operations officer:

  Believe me, the idea that we will capture the Old City has entered no one’s mind. Our axis of assault is, in fact, away from the Old City.

  A collar of hills dominates the Old City from the east—Mount Scopus, Augusta Victoria Ridge, and the Mount of Olives. Battalion 66 occupies Mount Scopus. Their brave paratroopers captured it after hellish fighting last night on Ammunition Hill. We in Battalion 71 are attacking Augusta Victoria. When we link up with Battalion 66, our combined force will turn south and assault the Mount of Olives.

  The only reason I understand this is because I’m Uzi’s operations officer, so I get to stand next to him when he explains this. Down the line, the paratroopers know only that we’re going up the hill.

  Paratroopers of Battalion 71 advancing toward Augusta Victoria Ridge.

  Photo by Bentzi Tal.

  Meir Shalit, sergeant, “B” Company:

  The summit might as well be Mount Everest, it’s so far above us. I can’t see it. None of us can. It’s on fire, the peak, and obscured by thick black smoke from the aerial bombardment. Heavy machine guns are hammering the Jordanian trenches. Our 81-millimeter mortars, and some bigger ones, are putting a barrage dead on top of the Jordanian positions, or at least on the site where we have been told the Jordanian positions are. We are three paratroop companies advancing upslope, on foot, through the tall grass. The hillside is an olive grove. We’re walking between and under the trees.

  In the middle of the flat stands a white, bullet-pocked five-story building with PALACE HOTEL in big letters in English across the roof. What a hotel is doing among olive trees in a destitute Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem, I have no idea. The whole scene is like a crazy movie. I’m exhausted. Everyone’s exhausted. I can’t believe I’m still humping this bangalore torpedo along with all my other gear. I’m less afraid of getting killed than of embarrassing myself by collapsing from fatigue three-quarters of the way up the hill.

  Uzi Eilam, Battalion 71 commander:

  Can it be that the Jordanian forces have withdrawn? We are taking no fire. Could the enemy have pulled out during the night?

  I am with my soldiers, mounting the slope between the olive trees. A few minutes ago I could see Motta’s tanks advancing in column up the road to the summit. They have moved now from sight. I hear no firing of tank cannons.

  Zeev Barkai tramps on my left. My two radiomen are on my right. Uzi Eilat’s “B” Company is climbing the hill ahead of us. My friend Benny Ron is supposed to be with Dan Ziv in the rear with the recoilless rifle jeeps, but now I hear over the radio that he and Dan are climbing the road in the trail of Motta’s tanks.

  “Zeev, the summit positions have been abandoned.”

  “I don’t know. I hear fire.”

  Yoram Zamosh, “A” Company commander:

  Uzi has left my company in reserve. We remain at the foot of the slope. The Rockefeller Museum is directly behind and above us. Behind and to the right is the northeast corner of the Old City walls.

  Uzi has left us behind because he thinks our battalion may get orders to enter the Old City. I have asked him, if it should be within his powers, to let “A” Company be the first to enter.

  Moshe Milo, Zamosh’s radioman:

  There’s a famous photo of Motta Gur and his command group on top of the Mount of Olives, overlooking the Old City. The picture records the moment when Gur issued the order to the 55th Brigade to advance to the Lion’s Gate and to enter and capture Old Jerusalem. The order is famous because Gur issued it “in the clear,” meaning he felt the moment was so historic that he did not use code names for the brigade units; he spoke in plain Hebrew for all the world to hear.

  We in “A” Company missed this moment completely. We were monitoring our battalion’s advance up the Augusta Victoria Ridge. We had two radios, mine and another soldier’s, but we were on the company and battalion nets, not the brigade net.

  We never heard the historic order.

  Instructions authorized by the General Staff at that time were to seize the collar of hills—Mount Scopus, Augusta Victoria, and the Mount of Olives—and hold those positions. Moshe Dayan, we knew, had been saying, No, no, no, I won’t let you take the Old City.

  On the Mount of Olives, Motta Gur gives the order to enter the Old City. Gur, seated, is bareheaded. Standing, center, is deputy brigade commander Moshe Stempel.

  Suddenly a radio call came from Uzi to Zamosh: “Proceed to the Lion’s Gate. Go now! We have orders to enter the Old City.”

  What has happened, though none of us will learn this for days, is that shortly before dawn Menachem Begin has telephoned Dayan in a state of extreme emotion, informing him that the UN Security Council is at that hour preparing to declare a cease-fire. All combatant forces will be ordered to halt in place.

  If this happens, says Begin, the Old City, the Western Wall, and the Temple Mount will remain in Arab hands. We cannot let that happen!

  Still Dayan refuses to give the green light. He continues to fear the outrage of the world community if the holy places are destroyed or damaged by Israeli military action.

  Finally our own brigade’s on-site reports, relayed to the minister of defense from the summit of Augusta Victoria Ridge, confirm that Jordanian forces have, except for odd or stray elements, withdrawn.

  Dayan issues the order to enter the Old City.

  The signal goes from him via Deputy Chief of Staff Haim Bar-Lev to Uzi Narkiss, commander of all Jerusalem area forces, who relays the order to Motta Gur, the paratroop brigade commander, who in turn instructs his battalion commanders—first among them our Uzi Eilam—to execute this historic command.

  Paratroopers of Battalion 71 reach the summit of Augusta Victoria.

  Photo by Bentzi Tal.

  There is a curious footnote to this moment. The military code word for the Lion’s Gate was “Vietnam.” Strictly speaking, Uzi’s directive to us should have been “Enter Vietnam” instead of “Enter the Lion’
s Gate.”

  But Uzi was caught up in the emotion himself. Like Motta, he issued his order in the clear.

  Meir Shalit, sergeant, “B” Company:

  We have reached the summit of Augusta Victoria. The Jordanians have taken off. The place is burnt black. The ground reeks of petrol. For hundreds of meters the earth is charred.

  I’ve still got my bangalore. I can’t believe how tired I am.

  Benny Ron is with Dan Ziv atop Augusta Victoria Ridge:

  At the summit a tragic volley of fire erupts. An enemy sniper? Our own guys from Battalion 66? No one knows. A beloved company commander of Battalion 66, Giora Ashkenazi, has been hit and killed, minutes before his brothers-in-arms enter the Lion’s Gate.

  Meir Shalit, sergeant, “B” Company:

  From the summit of Augusta Victoria, I can see our companies moving down off the hill toward the gates of the Old City. Tanks, half-tracks, and command cars are descending the road from the Mount of Olives. It’s not a mad rush. The enemy still mans the city walls. The fight is far from over.

  For the first time I can actually see the Old City. It looks like something out of Hollywood or the Bible, which I suppose it actually is. Big, thick walls, ten meters high, with fortress parapets on top. You can see the Arab Legionnaires up there.

  I’m thinking, How the hell are we gonna break into that?

  47.

  FOUGAS

  We are told that Jordanian and Iraqi tank brigades are advancing on Jerusalem from the east and that our own armor cannot get there in time to stop them. “You pilots are the last line of defense.”

  Zvi “Kantor” Kanor is the youngest pilot in the IAF.