by Jeremy Bowen
The headquarters of the Egyptian field army in Sinai was quiet too. Its commander, General Muhsin, and his deputy had gone to the conference with Field Marshal Amer at Bir Tamada airfield. Captain Salahadeen Salim, left behind with the other junior officers, was a little uneasy. He felt they should have done more by now. Salim’s mind was racing. Why wasn’t there more reconnaissance? Shouldn’t they have established better co-ordination between the different units under Muhsin’s command? Everybody at headquarters also knew that far too many of the forces that Egypt had poured into the Sinai were not fit for combat. Thousands of them were badly trained, barely equipped reservists. Some men who had done their military service in the artillery had been called up to serve in tanks. But all Salim could do was grumble discreetly to his contemporaries. In a deeply hierarchical army a 25-year-old captain, one of the most junior officers at field headquarters, was expected to be seen and not heard. General Muhsin had let it be known that they would have time to do everything that had to be done. He had assured them that they would be ready.
Egypt’s position was even worse than Salim realised. Some of the units in the Sinai were 40 per cent under strength. Some armoured units had only half the number of tanks they were supposed to have. Overall, they were down 30 per cent in small arms and 24 per cent in artillery. One-third of the standing army, 70,000 men, was in Yemen. In the late 1960s the United States was so committed in Vietnam that it doubted it could fight a second conventional war elsewhere. Yet on 5 June 1967, Egypt found itself trying to do what the United States could not. Still, Egypt had deployed in the Sinai around 100,000 men, 950 tanks, 1100 armoured personnel carriers and over 1000 artillery pieces. The Egyptian force was made up of four infantry divisions, two armoured divisions and one mechanised infantry division, along with four independent brigades. Against them were 70,000 Israelis in eleven brigades, two of which were independent with the rest split between three divisional task forces. Four brigades were armoured, with up-to-date Centurion and Patton tanks. Two were mechanised, each with a battalion of Sherman tanks and two battalions of infantry who rode into battle on old American Second World War half-tracks. The two infantry brigades were transported in hundreds of requisitioned civilian buses, lorries and vans. Israel also had three brigades of paratroops, one of which was mechanised and reinforced by a battalion of Pattons.
Tel Nof Airbase, 0630
Captain Avihu Bin-Nun and his flight of Mysteres were ready. The timing of each take-off was a critical part of the plan. Bin-Nun and his men had been told that if their aircraft malfunctioned and risked disrupting the planned take-off times, they were to get off the runway immediately even if it meant crashing the plane. The IAF had five different kinds of combat aircraft, all supplied by France – Mirages, Super Mysteres, Mysteres, Ouragans and Vautours. It was not ideal, but in the 1950s and the early 1960s they had bought what they could when they could. The plan had been tailored to fit the planes’ capabilities. All of the aircraft in the first wave had to be over their targets at 0745 sharp, Israel time. Take-off times had to take that into account. Depending where they started and where they were going, aircraft had anything from 10 or 15 to 45 minutes in the air before they reached their targets. So many aircraft would arrive over so many Egyptian airbases at the same moment that Egypt would be caught cold, like a boxer knocked out in the first minute of the first round. And it had been dinned into them – on no account were they to switch on their radios until the attack started.
On the way out to his Mirage Ran Pekker thought of his family. They were about to be woken to be evacuated from the base to hotels. Then, strapped in, he exploded with anger. There had been a foul-up. Something had not been ready. They would be taking off five minutes late, which meant that they would have to fly faster, using up some of their precious fuel.
Herzl Bodinger and his colleagues in their Vautours raced across the Sinai desert at less than one hundred feet. A fear that the plan might have been rumbled ate away at Bodinger. He was frustrated that he could not turn his radio on to have some reassuring chat with his colleagues – and delighted when Egyptian soldiers riding in a big convoy of armour looked up and waved enthusiastically at them as they streaked overhead. So far, it was working.
Air Force Command Centre, Ministry of Defence, Tel Aviv, 0730
General Ezer Weizman was in a state of high excitement. ‘The suspense was incredible … The planes were on their way. At 7:40 they were to deliver the first blow at nine Egyptian airfields … I had been talking of this operation, explaining it, hatching it, dreaming of it, manufacturing it link by link, training men to carry it out. Now, in another quarter of an hour, we would know if it was only a dream, or whether it would come true.’ In 1966 he had claimed in a lecture at Israel’s command and staff college that the air force could destroy all the Arab air forces within six hours. Now he was going to be proved right or wrong.
The routes the aircraft would take had been plotted and adjusted over a period of years. Most of them had been tested by pilots who had been ordered to violate Egyptian airspace on ‘training missions’. They were not told that their real purpose was to see how efficiently Egyptian air defences, especially radar, locked on to them. This constant probing uncovered gaps in Egypt’s military radar system. There was another complication. Nearly a third of Israel’s 197 war planes were Ouragans, which had a relatively short range. They could not go beyond the Suez canal. During the build-up to war the Israeli army’s frustration increased every time they heard more Egyptian troops were crossing the canal to enter Sinai. In contrast, General Hod of the air force celebrated every time another Egyptian squadron moved into the Sinai airfields. It meant more short-range work for the Ouragans, releasing the Mirages and Mysteres for other missions.
Bin-Nun swung his Mystere out over the Mediterranean. He led a flight of four aircraft, flying as low as they could to avoid detection by Jordanian radar. They were so close to the water that their jet engines left a wake. Maintaining a steady altitude was vital. One dip meant disaster. Bin-Nun was worried about his Number 4, an inexperienced pilot, who seemed to be having trouble keeping his aircraft steady. But radio silence meant he could not say a word. He looked back again and saw Number 4 was not there. He assumed he had crashed into the sea, and pressed ahead with his mission.
Cairo was an hour ahead of Tel Aviv. The attack time of 0845, Egypt time, had been chosen very deliberately. In the short history of air combat, bombers usually went in at dawn or dusk, to hide in the rising or setting sun. The Israelis knew that the Egyptians flew dawn patrols every day. But by 0845, assuming the moment of maximum danger had passed, they were back at their bases to refuel and to have breakfast. Intelligence reports had told the Israelis that it was also the time when all the commanders of the Egyptian air force were on their way to work. They were on the road, in their staff cars, cut off from what was about to happen to their squadrons. Weather was also a factor. In June there are often low clouds at dusk over the Nile Delta. By a quarter to nine, they have usually burnt off.
In his Vautour Herzl Bodinger was starting to worry that this morning of all mornings, the weathermen had got it wrong. The four Vautours hit a canopy of low clouds as they flew along the Nile where feluccas, traditional sailing boats, were moving peacefully as on any other day. The moment Bodinger worried about most was when, just short of Beni Sweif airfield, he would have to pull up to around 6000 feet to start his bomb run. If there was thick cloud an accurate dive would be impossible. When the airfield came into view, Bodinger realised luck really was on their side. Beni Sweif had been built on dunes in the middle of irrigated farmland. All around the base mist was rising from the damp fields in the early morning sun. But nothing was coming up from the dry concrete runways. The way to Beni Sweif was open. It sat there in front of them, an open window in the mist, as the Egyptian sun rose higher in the sky.
Air Force Command Centre, Ministry of Defence, Tel Aviv, 0740
Weizman could hardly stand the suspens
e. ‘The defence minister was there, as was the chief of staff and his deputy … Breathing was uneven, faces pale.’ Though Mordechai Hod looked calm as he sat waiting, he too was affected by the crushing tension. He was drinking whole jugs of water, taking them in both hands and draining them dry. Weizman thought he was ‘a kind of giant radiator’.
Bin-Nun and his flight were heading for the airfield at Fayed, west of the Suez canal. Intelligence had told them that it was the base for three combat squadrons – MiG-19 and −21 fighters and Sukhoi-7 bombers. ‘Our plan of attack was to climb over the target, dive-bomb and then fire our 30 mm guns at the planes on the field.’ Israel had deliberately kept everything as simple as possible. Except at the moment of attack, the aircraft operated in waves. They broke Egyptian radar cover simultaneously. To preserve the element of surprise they did not attack or try to jam Egyptian radar stations. Thanks to excellent, extremely comprehensive intelligence, the routes they followed were chosen to avoid concentrations of air defences or bases that could have raised the alarm. They used very simple methods of navigation – Weizman called it ‘by clock and the good old compass’. They had good maps and accurate data about the terrain they flew over. Over the years, the IAF had flown hundreds of photo-reconnaissance missions to build up a picture of every airbase in Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Pilots had a target book, giving details of the layout, call sign and defences of every airfield. When the Jordanians searched downed Israeli pilots, they found the books in their coveralls. They showed exactly where to attack, where to crack the runways and where the air-defence network was weakest. From radio intercepts they built up voice-recognition files of the main commanders.
Fayed Airbase, Egypt, 0800
Tahsen Zaki commanded a wing of Sukhoi fighters, based at Fayed airbase, on the banks of the Suez canal. They were on full alert. War, they knew, was close and VIPs were coming that morning. At 0800 two aircraft had taken off from al Maza airbase, next to Cairo International airport. They contained a group led by Hussein al Shafei, a vice-president of Egypt and one of President Nasser’s closest advisers. With him was Taher Yahya, the deputy prime minister of Iraq. The day before he had signed Iraq up to Egypt’s defence agreement with Jordan; at the solemn ceremony in Cairo he said he was honoured to be in ‘the beating heart of Arabism, participating in … the battle of the Arab nation’s destiny’. He was about to get much closer to the battle than he could ever have expected. Shafei was taking Yahya to visit an Iraqi unit that had already installed itself in the Sinai. The son of the Iraqi president was one of its officers. As Shafei’s aircraft approached Fayed, he looked out of the window and saw several grey warplanes flying close to them. Shafei, who had delivered his brother officers in the cavalry to Nasser’s coup in 1952, was a man of some substance in Egypt. He assumed the planes were escorting him and his guest into Fayed. He pointed them out to Yahya and settled back in his seat.
Another party of Arab VIPs was in the air over Sinai. At 0730 Field Marshal Amer and Lieutenant-General Sidqi Mahmoud, the air force commander, had also left al Maza for their visit to Bir Tamada in the Sinai to meet the commanders of the troops who were lined up against Israel. In Tel Aviv the Israelis picked out the radar silhouette of the Egyptian commanders’ Illyushin 14 over the Suez canal. The Israeli air force commander Mordechai Hod felt queasy. What if the Illyushin spotted the Israeli air armada and raised the alarm? He could not break radio silence to warn his pilots.
Tel Aviv, 0800
The daughters of Colonel Mordechai Bar On set off to walk to school. He had spent the night at GHQ in Tel Aviv, but he did not tell his family that war was starting. It was not just because of the orders to preserve security. Bar On was convinced by the pilots he had met that Egyptian bombers would not be able to take off, let alone threaten Israeli cities. ‘I didn’t think there was an existential danger. A pilot I spoke to at GHQ said I give you my word, not one Egyptian plane will get to Tel Aviv. I recall it vividly. You can’t imagine how arrogant they were, but they were right.’ In Israel sirens are usually heard only when the whole nation stops for a couple of minutes a year to remember the victims of the Holocaust and soldiers who have died in wars. When air-raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv as Bar On’s daughters were on their way to school, they stopped and stood to attention.
Cairo, 0845
Across Egypt the first wave of Israeli warplanes moved into attack. Like Bodinger, Bin-Nun had been worried about the morning mist as they roared low over the Nile Delta and the Suez canal. But just as the weathermen promised, it was clear over Fayed. As Bin-Nun approached the airfield, he pulled his Mystere into a climb. Israeli pilots were going to dive-bomb from an altitude of 6–9000 feet because it made them harder to shoot down and because the bombs had to be launched at an angle of 35 degrees if they were going to penetrate properly. He went to switch on his radio. It wasn’t working. Never mind, he didn’t need it. He entered a steep dive, letting his bombs go at 4000 feet. By now the attacking Israelis had been spotted and Egyptian interceptors waiting on the ground, their pilots strapped in, tried to scramble. ‘As I dived and released my bombs, I saw four MiG-21s at the end of the runway lining up to take off. I pulled the bomb release, began firing and hit two of the four, which went up in flames.’
Radio silence ended when the first wave went in. In Tel Aviv, Hod could not believe what he was hearing. ‘Everybody started to talk on the squadron channel among themselves, and I’m listening, I’m switching from one to another and I don’t believe what I hear. Results!’ The IAF recorded some of the cockpit radio traffic:
FLIGHT LEADER: Two MiGs at eleven o’clock below, two miles …
WING MAN: Permission to take the right one?
FLIGHT LEADER: Watch above, I’m going down … taking the left one … watch the rear … opening fire … hit … breaking left …
WING MAN: Taking the right one … got him …
At Bir Tamada airfield in the Sinai the Egyptian top brass on parade and away from their posts included the head of the advance command centre, General Murtagi, his chief of staff Major-General Ahmad Isma’il, and the commander of the field army General Salah Muhsin. The guard of honour for the distinguished visitors was lining up when the first Israeli planes screamed in towards the airfield. Until they started to bomb, Murtagi thought they were Egyptian. Even when the first bombs exploded he assumed that it must be some sort of Egyptian betrayal, perhaps a coup. The last thing he thought of, as they dived for cover, was an Israeli attack. Then it became very clear where the fighters had come from – but where was the Egyptian air force? They waited in a trench while the Israelis went about their business. ‘We were sure that our Egyptian fighters would soon appear in the sky and take matters in hand, but we waited for some time in vain…’
The abortive meeting with Amer at Bir Tamada meant that every Egyptian headquarters in the Sinai, from the field army down, was without its commanders. At General Salah Muhsin’s field army HQ, Captain Salahadeen Salim heard jets screaming overhead, and then the sound of explosions. Soon reports were coming in that Israeli armour was moving forward in massive force. Salim and the others who were left at the headquarters tried to analyse what was happening and to rally their troops for defence. But even their own command post was not ready. It did not have proper dugouts or sandbags and was vulnerable to artillery or air attack. But for the time being at least the Israelis seemed to be leaving them alone. Salim had wanted desperately to trust his commanders. But in the first hour of the war he was cursing them. Muhsin was away from his post on what seemed to be a wild goose chase to meet the field marshal at a remote airbase, and the Israelis were attacking. It was crazy. Surely Amer and Muhsin should have worked out that a surprise attack was coming? The crisis had been going on for three weeks, after all.
Israel, 0800; Gaza, 0900
It was the day of the final examinations of the academic year in Gaza’s schools. Kamel Sulaiman Shaheen, a 25-year-old teacher, was looking forward to the end of term. His classroom in Gaz
a City was full and the day’s tests were starting when they heard the first shells falling. Israeli aircraft were overhead as they evacuated the school. Shaheen’s students were thirteen-year-old boys. He told them to run home as quickly as they could, then headed to his own home and family in Deir al Balah, about ten miles south. He took them to some agricultural land they owned, which was further away from places that could be targets and where they felt safer. They sheltered in a building close to the palm trees, and hoped for the best. On the roads they saw Egyptian and Palestinian soldiers leaving their posts and moving south to try to get to Egypt. Shaheen felt sorry for them. The Israelis seemed to have an unstoppable military machine, with big guns, helicopters and jets.
Ibrahim El Dakhakny, a 34-year-old major in Egyptian military intelligence, had been stationed in Gaza since 1965. His job was keep an eye on the movements of Israeli armed forces on the other side of the border and to liaise with Palestinians who were prepared to carry out guerrilla operations in Israel. Thanks to the blue-helmeted peacekeeping troops of UNEF, the border had been quiet for more than a decade. But nobody had ever formally stood down the Palestinian guerrillas, known by both sides as the fedayeen (the self-sacrificers). The major was a worried man. For two years he had been observing the Israelis, reading the intelligence reports from the special observation points he had established to spy over the border and listening to his radio. He was convinced that this was the right war for Israel and the wrong one for Egypt. The politicians in Cairo had given Israel the chance, for which it had been preparing since the last war ended in 1956, to finish off the Egyptian army once and for all. Like all Egyptian professional soldiers, he knew how the war in Yemen had drained the army beyond the point where it could fight Israel as well. Major El Dakhakny could not understand why Egypt’s leaders were leading their country to war against an enemy which was sure to beat them. Maybe Nasser was hoping to turn defeat into a political victory, just as he had in 1956. He hoped so, because war would be bad. It would be very bad.
