I’m shouting from the open hatch of my turret, “Where are the Egyptians?”
Gorodish gestures with both arms. He’s telling me that the enemy trenches run north-south, on the ridge at the road junction to the southwest.
I respond by gesturing the same way. I understand.
I signal my tanks—I have twenty or more by now—to follow me into the attack.
I understand that Ori Orr’s Recon troopers are ahead of us, pushing south toward Rafiah Junction.
Lieutenant Avigdor Kahalani gesturing to Colonel Shmuel Gorodish, approaching Rafiah Junction. In the lower turret is Kahalani’s friend and deputy company commander Lieutenant Daniel Tzefoni. He will be killed several hours later on the way to the Jiradi Pass.
Photo by Yosi Ben-Hanan.
30.
“FOLLOW ME!”
Eli Rikovitz, Recon platoon commander:
I’m in my command half-track, pushing west from the UN compound into an area of dunes. Behind me are the tanks of Battalion 82. In thirty seconds we’ll turn south and advance to assault Rafiah Junction. Ori Orr and Amos Ayalon’s platoon will attack parallel to us, but on the paved road from the UN compound.
I’ve got Pinko’s command half-track on the radio. “We’re turning south,” I tell him. “Turn behind us.”
But he doesn’t turn.
The tanks keep going west, toward the sea, away from the junction!
What the hell? I have no time to screw with them.
We turn without them.
Gabi Gazit is a Recon trooper in Lieutenant Amos Ayalon’s platoon:
I’m in the back of the lead half-track on the paved road. There are eleven of us, swaying and bouncing. Mortar rounds are coming in, a barrage targeting the road. Rafiah Junction is ahead somewhere but we can’t see it yet.
My friend Eliyahu Goshen stands on my right in the back of the half-track. A big guy, like a tree. The mortar rounds start dropping closer. I hate to admit such a thing but I edge a little nearer to this tree.
Ori Orr, Recon Company commander:
Amos Ayalon leads our 2nd Platoon from his command half-track. I command the company from my own half-track, right behind him. We’re on the paved road that leads to the junction. Eli’s platoon is about a kilometer to the right, in the dunes. His platoon and ours will attack in parallel. But attack what?
Menachem Shoval, Recon trooper in Eli Rikovitz’s platoon:
Our four jeeps are bogging down in the dunes. David Cameron may have gotten his license in America, but he is a lousy driver. Shaul Groag, our lieutenant, tells me to get Eli on the radio and tell him we’re all balled up.
Eli Rikovitz, Recon platoon commander:
I’ve got three half-tracks and three tanks. We’re in the dunes, still more than a kilometer north of Rafiah Junction. Battalion 82’s tanks have vanished completely.
Shaul Groag commands our platoon’s four jeeps. He radios me to report that all four are bogged in the dunes.
“Shaul, take the jeeps back to the paved road. Follow Ori. I’ll meet you at the junction.”
Moki Yishby is a nineteen-year-old trooper in Amos Ayalon’s Recon platoon:
I’m driving a jeep. Yaakov Yarkoni is my lieutenant, a great guy and a good friend, beside me in the commander’s seat. He commands all four jeeps in our platoon. We hear gunfire ahead.
I glance to Yarkoni. We’re on the road behind Ori Orr—dunes on the right, low scrub on the left.
Yarkoni gestures ahead. “Go!”
Eli Rikovitz, Recon platoon commander:
We’re under fire from Egyptian trenches on the right. I’m returning fire with the .50-caliber machine gun when our half-track’s right front tire hits a mine. The world becomes bright yellow; I go deaf. The floorboard kicks me upward like a diving board. The half-track rises straight up, hangs for a moment, then crashes straight down on its front wheels.
All seven of us are flung out onto the sand. Miraculously, no one is hurt.
Machine-gun and rifle fire is coming from ahead and from the right.
I shout to my men, “Find another vehicle and keep going!”
I sprint rearward, under fire, toward one of our tanks. A tank has radios. I must have radios to command the platoon and to keep in contact with Ori.
Dubi Tevet, Recon trooper in Eli Rikovitz’s platoon:
I’m in the dunes in one of Shaul Groag’s four jeeps. We’re trying to get back to the paved road to join the attack behind Ori and Amos’s platoon. The enemy has seen us and is opening up with everything they’ve got.
I can see Israeli tanks on the right. One is hit and burning. As I look, a second tank takes a hit. Flames leap from its engine compartment; hatches pop open, the crew piles out.
Shaul waves our four jeeps forward. We have to help the men in the tanks.
Moki Yishby, Recon jeep commander in Amos Ayalon’s platoon:
Are we attacking? If we are, it is becoming a serious balagan. I’m driving Yarkoni’s jeep. Shells are falling all around us. We stick to the paved road, following Ori and Amos.
We still can’t see the enemy.
“Straight, Moki!” Yarkoni, beside me, points ahead. “There!”
Ori Orr, Recon Company commander:
Eli’s half-track has hit a mine. So has another half-track. I don’t know this yet. Eli’s platoon is attacking parallel to ours, on the right, in the dunes. I’m on the paved road, moving fast toward the junction.
The Egyptians’ fire from the right is getting heavier and heavier. We’re catching hell from their dug-in tanks, from mortars and machine guns, and, most lethal of all, from their antitank guns. If we keep going on the road, we’re all dead.
There’s no way but to assault the trenches. I give the order:
“Turn right and attack!”
My half-track leads. We push twenty meters into the dunes and we hit a mine, too! The half-track doesn’t blow up; it just tilts onto its side, grinds into the sand, and spills all seven of us out, amazingly unhurt. I leap onto Amos’s half-track and keep leading the assault.
No way can we slow down the attack.
Gabi Gazit, Recon trooper:
I’m in the third half-track, close behind Ori’s and Amos’s. Mortar shells are falling. My friend Benzi Nissenbaum is driving his jeep a few meters behind us when a shell explodes beside him. Benzi cries out, “Ay!” From my position atop the half-track I can see a red stain on his trouser leg. We stop the half-track.
“Benzi, trade places with me! The medic is here in the half-track—he’ll take care of your wound.”
There are eleven of us in the half-track, including our lieutenant, Shlomo Kenigsbuch, and my big, tall friend Eliyahu Goshen.
Benzi won’t leave his jeep. He feels safer there than in the big-target half-track. We’re negotiating, Benzi and I, across the space between the vehicles.
“Send the medic to me,” Benzi insists.
“I promise I’ll give the jeep back.”
“Swear to me, Gabi. I’m not getting into that half-track and have you run off with the jeep.”
“Benzi, I swear. Just switch till you’re treated.”
Benzi agrees. He crosses to the half-track packed with ten of our friends. I scamper to the jeep that had been Benzi’s and pull away, just a few meters.
That instant, an Egyptian shell hits the half-track.
Ori Orr, Recon Company commander:
Over the radio I hear that one of our half-tracks has been hit. Half-tracks run on gasoline. The men are sitting on top of the tanks of fuel.
We can’t stop now under heavy fire.
There is no alternative but to attack and keep attacking.
Moki Yishby, Recon jeep commander:
I hear Ori on the radio: “Turn right and attack.” We do. Yarkoni in the commander’s seat is pointing ahead, shou
ting, “Go!” I see a trench. Dark shapes peek from it.
We start up a dune. It feels like the whole world is shooting at us.
Yarkoni leaps out of the jeep and charges at the trenches. We are so close now we can see the Egyptians’ faces. Yarkoni’s Uzi is firing but everything is so loud you can’t hear.
Suddenly Yarkoni goes down.
Ori Orr, Recon Company commander:
As commander you can shout “Follow me!” and charge at the enemy, but how do you know your men will follow?
The answer is that you don’t even think such a thought. You know they will. They are bound to you tighter than brothers, stronger than blood.
Eli Rikovitz, Recon platoon commander:
To say we are brave to charge into enemy fire is nonsense. If we stay where we are, we will all be killed. We must get at the enemy. There is no other choice.
Moki Yishby, Recon jeep commander:
Yarkoni is the first one into the trenches. He gets shot by a wounded Egyptian who had been lying facedown and then sprang up.
At the other end, Eli and his platoon are racing forward on foot. There is no way to describe such a sight. Up and down the enemy trench line, our guys are running, firing, leaping down.
My platoon commander, Amos Ayalon, has jumped down from his half-track. He races to Yarkoni. “Help me, Moki!” Together we lift Yarkoni onto a stretcher and set the stretcher into the mounts on the jeep. Bullets are chewing into the dashboard.
Lieutenant Yaakov Yarkoni.
I race in the jeep across the dunes, steering with one hand and hanging on to Yarkoni and the stretcher with the other. A shell lands beside us; the stretcher goes flying. I stop and somehow get it first, then Yarkoni, back onto the jeep. Half of the stretcher extends forward over the hood; the other half is beside me, above the seat.
Somehow we reach the paved road. Yarkoni is begging for water. I spot a jerry can on the ground and jump from my seat to grab it. Bullets blow it out of my hand.
I spring back into the jeep. “Yarkoni, are you all right?”
His eyes are still open. He’s making a sound like, “Ay, ay.”
Years later, when Prime Minister Rabin was shot by an assassin, his driver said on TV that Rabin was making that same desperate sighing sound. When I heard that, it took me back to Yarkoni.
Zvika Kornblit, Recon jeep commander:
I’m with the first vehicles to reach Lieutenant Kenigsbuch’s half-track. God, what a sight! A pile of corpses that once were our friends. They are burned black, on fire, smoking.
My friend Avraham Galenti, the driver of the half-track, is trying to help Kenigsbuch out of the vehicle. Kenigsbuch is still alive. He pleads with Galenti, “Kill me! I can’t go on living the way I look!” The skin of his arms is hanging down like a pair of black curtains.
Galenti cries, “No one is killing anybody! I’m getting you out of here!”
Eli Rikovitz, Recon platoon commander:
We’re in the Egyptian trenches, running and shooting down the line, when we hear fire from .50-caliber Brownings and 105-millimeter cannons behind us.
It’s the Centurion tanks of Battalion 82.
They have finally decided to join the party.
Ori Orr, Recon Company commander:
The Egyptians are running away. They fling their rifles, haul themselves out of the trenches, and beat it out of there as fast as they can.
From the junction we can hear the crack and scream of our Centurions’ cannons. Their 105-millimeter main guns sound distinctly different from the Patton tanks’ 90-millimeter cannons.
Moki Yishby.
Moki Yishby, Recon jeep commander:
I arrive at our blown-up half-track. The horror is beyond anything I could have imagined.
Corpses sprawl around the blackened vehicle. My good friend Eliyahu Goshen is lying on his back on the road. A huge guy, like a horse. He has shrunk down to four feet. The fire has consumed him. He has become the size of a child. My great friend is lying there naked, on the road, black, totally burned up.
Half-tracks run on gasoline. The vehicle has gone up like a bomb, incinerating all our guys in it.
Dubi Tevet, Recon trooper:
You can carry only one man in a jeep if he’s seriously burned, two if they’re okay. The field hospital is not too far back. I see Moki speed past in his jeep, carrying Yarkoni and two others.
Moki Yishby, Recon jeep commander:
We get Lieutenant Kenigsbuch into my jeep. His shirt is off. The skin is hanging from his arms in sheets. He is screaming such screams. I never knew a human being could cry out in such agony. His soul is burned.
I load the jeep with two more wounded friends.
At the field hospital I see another trooper from the half-track, Shmuel Hacham, whom we call “Borvil.” Every centimeter of his body is burned, but he is still alive. I can recognize him. He is one of my best friends.
I sit beside Borvil’s stretcher. He says, “I am so ugly now, Moki, not even birds will look at me.”
Ori Orr, Recon Company commander:
Let no one call these Egyptians cowards. Who knows what their officers have told them? They had believed their positions unassailable behind minefields. Now suddenly these crazy Jews are racing at them on foot, firing and jumping from their armored vehicles down into the trenches.
Eli Rikovitz, Recon platoon commander:
The Egyptian tanks are dug in behind the infantry trenches. Their crews are abandoning them. We pull up and stare, astonished, as the enemy soldiers flee on foot, west toward Sheikh Zouaid, the next village.
When the figures for the fight at Rafiah Junction are finally tallied up, the Egyptians will have lost forty tanks and two thousand men dead or wounded.
Lieutenant Boaz Amitai now commands the Recon Company’s 1st Platoon:
Our platoon, Yossi Elgamis’s, arrives at Rafiah Junction not long after the fight. My friend Shaul Groag, who is Eli’s first lieutenant, is rounding everybody up. He’s wearing an Australian bush hat that he has found somewhere. People have scattered in all directions, some aiding the wounded, others just out of their minds with grief and anguish.
I see Gabi Gazit being evacuated, his face smashed to a pulp and blood soaking one of his trouser legs. “His jeep hit a mine,” somebody says.
Shaul is shouting to me to rally at the junction.
Two friends, Shlomo Oren and Haim Fenikel, have saved Gabi. Sergeant Fenikel will himself be killed only a few minutes later.
Fenikel had been shot during the assault and picked up for evacuation by a support vehicle. Suddenly the crew realized they were in the middle of a minefield. Fenikel dismounted, wounded as he was, and cleared a path all the way back to the road. Just as he returned to the vehicle, a shell hit it dead-on.
For this my friend was awarded posthumously the Itur HaOz, Israel’s second-highest decoration for valor.
Haim Fenikel.
Forty-five years later, I see his face as clearly as I did then.
Menachem Shoval, Recon trooper:
My jeep is one of the last two up after the fight. The first thing I see is Ori’s half-track—recognizable by its commander’s flag—on its side with its burned treads. Ori and Eli are reorganizing the company at the junction. The tanks of Battalion 82 are rolling past, fast, heading west on the road to Sheikh Zouaid and El Arish.
Menachem Shoval.
We pass the other half-track, the one that Kenigsbuch and all our other friends had been in.
We don’t ask who is wounded and who is dead. We don’t want to know. Seeing such a sight, you can’t let yourself think. You must continue. You have a mission; you have to go on.
Lieutenant Boaz Amitai, Recon platoon commander:
When we passed Kenigsbuch’s half-track, I didn’t even realize it was one of ours. The metal had bee
n consumed. Nothing that was inside that inferno could have survived.
Ori Orr, Recon Company commander:
We have lost many men and vehicles. I don’t know the count, and I have no time to think about it. Our mission is to lead. We must keep moving.
I reconfigure the three platoons into two. A process that would take ten minutes in training takes only seconds now. “You go here, you go there.”
The Centurion tanks of Battalion 82 are speeding past us toward the next village, Sheikh Zouaid. We must catch up with them and get ahead.
Our mission is to lead.
Eli Rikovitz, Recon platoon commander:
In such a moment, the part of yourself that feels grief must be switched off. You are thinking only of the mission. The tanks of Battalion 82 have passed us. It is our job to lead them. We must catch up and do our job. The tanks need us; the mission needs us.
It is like this for all soldiers in all wars. It must be, or they could not keep on.
31.
THE WILDERNESS OF ZIN
“Cheetah” Cohen commands Squadron 124, twenty-four Sikorsky S-58 helicopters:
I’m at Ashkelon on the coast south of Tel Aviv when an emergency call comes in: “Mass casualties near Gaza City.” I get on the air, asking which of my pilots is nearest the evacuation site. Reuven Levy answers: “Citrus Leader, this is Lemon Leader. I can go.”
My younger brother Nechemiah is somewhere near the Gaza Strip, a captain with the 35th Paratroop Brigade, but it does not occur to me that this medevac call could be for him. He is too good a soldier. Too smart. Nothing has touched Nechemiah. Nothing can.
The Lion’s Gate Page 21
