So far as anyone knows, the Italian air force built the hangar out here in the desert in the middle of nowhere in the 1930s and the British used it towards the end of World War Two. After Somalia became independent in 1960 the hangar apparently was used at times as a warehouse and, more than once if the graffiti is any indication, as a temporary home by refugees from one or another of the conflicts that continually swept through the new country as a result of its various religious differences and political conflicts. Today it is, in a word, filthy and still out in the desert in the middle of nowhere.
Long gone are the Fokker’s passenger seats. They’d probably been removed and thrown away years ago when the plane was converted to carry cargo. The seeds and twigs in its cracks and crevices suggested that more recently the plane had been flying bales of Khat from Yemen to Somalia and Ethiopia and, probably, periodically chartered to fly food and small arms for various revolutions, governments, and aid organizations. About the only thing that works are the plane’s engines. Earlier this year its previous owner, an Arab trader in Dubai, had been approached by a couple of itinerant German aircraft mechanics seeking work, and they had rebuilt them.
One of the rusty sheet metal hangar doors was pushed slightly open and a number of men came out as the Fokker lurched to a halt in the brutal heat and the pilot shut off the plane’s engines. Shutting the engines down came too late to stop a great cloud of dust from being blown into the hangar and cause shouts and curses from the men working inside it. Somewhere in the background the chattering of a little gasoline-powered generator could be heard through the hangar’s broken windows when the Fokker’s engines were turned off.
A battered aluminum extension ladder was placed up next to the plane door and held in place by someone in the clothes of a Somali laborer while the pilot and co-pilot climbed down. The ladder was quickly pulled away and thrown up against the side of the hangar as soon as the two men finished climbing down. Their tee shirts and shorts were wringing wet from the heat and nervous exhaustion.
As soon as the pilots got inside the hangar they planted themselves on camp stools in front of one of the big fans being used in a futile effort to cool the place off. One of the waiting men, an older man with white hair, opened a battered little white refrigerator and handed each of them a cold can of Coca Cola.
While the exhausted and sweating pilots were opening their Cokes a group of shabbily dressed Arab laborers opened the hangar doors and pulled the plane inside to join the communications vans and the two old DC-6s already in the hangar. Three even older looking and more rundown Antonov A-12s are in the smaller and even more decrepit hangar next door. They are the only buildings still standing on this side of the deserted field.
“It’s a good thing the visibility was good and we didn’t have to radio in to get permission to land. As far as I can tell none of the instruments and radios work,” the older pilot said to the white haired man as he pressed the cold can of Coke up against his cheek and neck in an effort to cool off.
“Never again. I’m too old for this shit.” He said it in a language other than English.
Despite the heat, some of the men waiting in the hangar climbed in through the plane’s cargo door and began pulling out some of the Fokker’s instruments and a lot of other gadgets and wires even before the exhausted pilots finished drinking their Cokes. The pilots made no effort to help them. They just sat in the breeze of the big fan drinking their Cokes and watching as the old instruments began to be pulled out and tossed on to the hangar’s heavily stained and cracked concrete floor. They’ll join the old instruments and parts already piled up behind the hangar.
At the same time, what were obviously new portable fuel tanks began to be unloaded by other men from one of the container vans in the hangar and stacked up next to the new arrival. The portable tanks will be added to those already in the plane—and anti-glare Plexiglas will be glued to the inside of the cockpit windows so the pilots of any planes traveling alongside it won’t be able to see inside the Fokker’s cockpit the next time it flies.
In a week or so, after the various gadgets, instruments, and significant numbers of additional fuel tanks have been installed and tested to make sure they don’t leak and their lines aren’t clogged, a large amount of special high explosives will be carefully packed into the plane’s cabin and cargo hold. The addition of the explosives will make the Fokker into a flying bomb. It will be an extremely powerful flying bomb with an extremely long range—just like all the other planes in the two hangars.
“I’m going to need at least six or seven days to install everything so it can be flown using only the remote controls,” one of the workmen told the white haired man. “Maybe more.”
“I don’t care if it takes months so long as I never have to fly in it again,” the co-pilot commented with a shake of his head.
A few minutes later the two pilots were greatly pleased when the white haired leader of their group invited them to cool off for a while in one of the two air conditioned vans parked inside the big hangar. The vans are always kept cool. They contain the delicate electronics and control systems which the mission requires.
Months later the local clan chief will tell reporters, and everyone else who asks him, that an old man who spoke Arabic with a “northern accent” paid him ten thousand euros each week in twenty euro bills to use the two old hangars. The clan chief was no fool, he will assure the reporters; he only took euros, not the Saudi riyals he’d been initially offered.
****** Dick Evans
Harry and I are going to spend three weeks with Yoram’s Tenth Brigade while it’s on its annual maneuvers up on the Golan Heights. Si and Solly are going with us. We didn’t know the Boss had arranged for us to go on temporary duty with the Tenth until Oren came in all excited and told us. However it came about, the news really pleased Oren. He wants to go north as soon as possible to be with his brigade.
“Don’t worry about gear and weapons. Yoram said they’ll outfit you guys at the brigade warehouse. When we get there we’re supposed to stick you guys into Israeli fatigues so you won’t stand out.”
“There” turned out to be the brigade’s headquarters and workshops on the big army base in the middle of Tel Aviv.
“We located the army here outside of Tel Aviv years ago when the city was a lot smaller,” explained Oren. “Then the city just grew and grew until it came out all around us. Now our base is right in the middle of the city. Next year we’ll finally be relocating to a big new much more modern facility out in the desert. It’s too bad we have to move; we like it here.”
Driving with Oren in a little Israeli Army van from our embassy office to the Tenth’s headquarters and supply depot gave me and Harry a chance to see more of the city in air conditioned comfort. Tel Aviv is impressive. Modern buildings and lots of trees planted along the streets. You can easily spot the restaurants and cafes; they all have tables and chairs on the sidewalks. Not many people were sitting outside. It’s still way too hot even though the tables all have big colorful umbrellas.
I bet this place really rocks after dark. I wonder if the attachés’ secretary comes here?
“If the Arabs could see how substantial this is,” I suggested as I waved my hands at the substantial buildings on either side of the road, “They might stop thinking they have the ability to destroy Israel.”
“Funny you mention it," said Simon. That’s always been our policy. It started in ’67 and particularly after the ’73 War. We took a lot of captured Egyptian officers on individual tours of Israel. Just one or two Egyptians and one Israeli. In ’73 my father drove a couple of them around for a week himself. We showed them everything, even our military factories, farms, and training facilities. Even took them home to have dinner and meet our families.” And I still remember my mom being pissed when he did.
“There’s no doubt about it, they were stunned at how different Israel was from what they had been told. Many Israelis at the time, including my father, thought it was
having so many of their officers see how strong and prosperous we were is what caused Egypt to make peace. That’s when the Egyptian army finally realized it could never defeat us and push us into the sea.”
******
It was the middle of the morning and already hot when we reached the Tenth Brigade’s permanent and sooner or later to be abandoned base. Its facilities were eerily quiet, almost deserted. The tank parks, garages, and workshops were virtually empty. Everyone was in the field except for a forlorn old M-113 personnel carrier with a missing tread. Despite the heat and the sun, two men in fatigues were hunkered down next to it with tools in their hands.
The concrete-walled supply warehouse we entered was huge. It was staffed, so far as we could see, with a number of middle aged women in civilian clothes and a couple of elderly men. The only person in anything resembling a uniform was a man who turned out to be the warehouse commander, a young man in a wheelchair wearing a khaki shirt with a captain’s insignia on its epaulettes. He greeted us with enthusiasm in somewhat broken English with what sounded like a French accent.
“Yo, Orem. Welcome friends. We pull telephone request.” ... “Please is come with me,” he said as he wheeled away and moved rapidly towards a counter and wooden benches running along the side of the big cavernous room. It was filled to overflowing with bins and pallets and shelving packed with all sorts of military equipment and supplies.
Harry and I looked at each other and I’m pretty sure we were thinking the same thing—the Tenth Brigade’s supply depot was huge and impressive, really huge and impressive. It had row after row of clothing, supplies, and military equipment and weapons stacked on big open shelves reaching to the ceiling. Forklifts and rolling ladders are scattered about. It looked and felt well stocked and efficient—and the telltale bulges of munitions bunkers were in rows around it.
One of the ladies followed along with us. Oren introduced them both when we caught up with the wheelchair officer.
“This is Reuven, he’s the commander here, and his assistant Talia; this is Major Evans and his team, Harry, Si, and Solly.”
Everyone smiled and shook hands with everyone else. The Israelis spoke English so we could understand.
“You are for Golan,” Reuven grinned. “So must be prepared—be prepared is Boy Scouts’ marching song. No? Prepared for Golan not always work so good,” he told us with a shrug and gesture at his legs and a twinkle in his eyes. “But what the fuck, eh?”
Harry and I grinned as we nodded our agreement about Tom Lehr’s Boy Scouts Marching Song; Oren and our new helpers looked a little confused but they could see that we were smiling along with Reuven at whatever he said even though he pointed to his legs when he said it. Wonder where Reuven heard about that old song? Or are we getting our legs pulled?
Talia, a short cheerful lady with white hair and a little extra weight seemed to be in charge of kiting us out. She looked at each of us carefully as if she were measuring us, exchanged a few words with Oren and Si, and then gave some rapid fire instructions to one of the ladies standing near her. The lady nodded back and the hard soles of her shoes clattered on the worn but spotless concrete floor as she hastened away down one of the aisles with Talia following close behind.
A few minutes later Talia returned while Harry and I were still pulling on our new Israeli fatigue pants and stuffing our new underwear and shirts into a couple of duffle bags. This time she was carrying two used Galil assault rifles, the short model without a grenade launcher; and a young khaki clad and slightly pregnant girl we haven’t seen before was tagging along behind her pushing a cart with an open wooden box full of loaded ammunition clips.
Talia handed the Galils to us, said something to Oren in what was obviously Hebrew, and then fished in her apron pocket for a piece of paper and a ball point pen. Harry and I each signed where she pointed with a flourish and a smile. Oren, Si, and Solly are carrying their own similar weapons; Joel the driver is carrying a regular full size Galil with a grenade launcher.
“Maybe not sight so good,” Reuven suggested with a negative shake of his head as he pointed towards my Galil.
Good to know. Getting these things sighted in will be one of our first orders of business.
Reuven and Talia beamed with approval and nodded as each of us took three or four of the loaded 35 round clips and stuffed them into the big side pockets of our Israeli desert camouflage fatigues. Si and Solly took some too. What the hell. Old soldiers know you can rarely go wrong by carrying too much ammunition.
My satisfaction with our selection of Si and Solly instantly increased and so, I suspect, did Harry’s.
******
Driving north to the Golan Heights and the Tenth Brigade from the warehouse was uncomfortably warm in the afternoon sun. It was warm; too damn warm. It was with more than a little regret that we’d left Oren’s air conditioned van in the motor pool parking lot when we exchanged it for a couple of old Israeli jeeps, leftovers from before the Israelis switched over to pickup trucks and other more modern light vehicles.
Jeez, it has to be at least a hundred in the shade and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. The jeeps’ canvas tops help and so does the bill on my fatigue cap but we’ve got to get some sunglasses and sun screen.
I rode with Oren, Joel, and Si in the first jeep; Harry and Solly rode in the second jeep with Si driving and the canvas duffle bags of our little party stacked on the rear seat. I looked back periodically and every time I could see Harry and Solly behind us gesturing and pointing with their hands as they talked—two experienced senior noncoms comparing notes and taking the measure of each other.
I rather imagine neither of them is going to be disappointed.
Traffic was heavy in both directions and the land on either side of the road was increasingly bare. Then all of sudden off to the right we could see a couple of tents and a camel standing next to them.
“Bedouin,” Oren explains as he noticed my interest. “Mostly friendly.”
“Believe it or not,” I turned and said to Oren. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a camel outside a zoo.”
After several hours of driving we turned off the main highway and on to a heavily rutted and dusty dirt track that ran this way and that around some boulders and outcroppings. As soon as the road was out of sight behind us we stopped and jumped out for an urgently needed piss call—just in time to meet a column of three army trucks slowly coming the other way and escorted by a Humvee with a mounted machine gun and a gunner standing behind it holding on to the handles.
Young girls were driving the trucks and smiled broadly at us as we twisted around to see them. Each of the drivers lifted one of her hands in acknowledgement as she came past. I laughed out loud and gave a big smile back over my shoulder when the smiling second driver raised her eyebrows with an impish and questioning look and gave a dainty little shake with her hand.
We reached the edge of the Tenth Brigade’s bivouac as we came around a little hill. Suddenly there was a weird looking armored vehicle in front of us in the shade of the hill. It was a type of vehicle I’d never seen before. It sat high off the ground and had a sort of V-shaped belly and lots of big tires. What appeared to be a large anti-tank rocket and a mean looking machine gun are pointing straight at us. Man, what is that?
Oren lifted his hand in a casual greeting to the Israeli manning the machine gun as we slowly bounced on past the roadblock.
“What was that?” I asked as I swiveled around in my seat to get a better look.
“That’s a prototype for a new type of APC. Maybe it will be one of our new multipurpose infantry fighting vehicles. We’re testing them to see if we should put them into production.”
“No kidding. I’ve never seen one like that before. What do you think of them?”
“I hear it moves fast on roads and trails but doesn’t close up tight enough and doesn’t do well enough in rough desert terrain, at least not compared to some of the other stuff we’re trying out. If that’s true,
it probably means we’ll only adopt them if there are enough export orders. That’s a decision way above my pay grade. Maybe Yoram knows if you’re really interested.” Not really; just curious. But what’s with closing up tight enough?
“What do you mean ’it doesn’t close up tight enough?”
Chapter Six
Harry and I have been here for more than a week and there is no question about it, General Makow’s Tenth Brigade is about as combat ready as any unit we’ve ever seen. Most of the troops are reservists on their annual thirty day call up—but you sure wouldn’t know it from watching them.
What really impresses us both is how fast the Tenth disengages from actively fighting the “enemy forces” in front of it and moves in another direction to attack a new “enemy force” some distance away. Apparently every Israeli unit of every size is required to demonstrate its ability to do this multiple times during its reservists’ active duty training month.
One of the things that also strikes both of us, so much that we talk about it in private, is the men in the brigade’s combat units look substantially older and more mature than the troops in our army. They may not be able to run as far or do as many pushups as our younger men but they sure as hell look to be well trained and ready to fight. In a word, they look and act like the veteran-heavy troops they apparently are. Harry and I both agree—the Tenth’s troops really know what they’re doing and would be hard to beat when the shooting starts.
Another thing Harry and I notice and talk about is the Israelis’ superior communications equipment and the easy informality that seems to exist between the ranks. There is not, in other words, a lot of the standing at attention and barked orders that tends to characterize most peacetime armies including ours.
The informality between the officers and men is something I’ve only seen in our units after they’ve been in combat for a long time and everyone knows everyone else’s abilities and shortcomings. That’s when getting the job done and keeping yourself and doing your best to keep the men around you alive is the only thing that counts—and the man inside the uniform next to you is more important than his rank.
Israel's Next War Page 6
