Sèvres Protocol

by David Lee Corley

  “Have you every jumped into battle before?” said the battalion commander.

  “Six times. No seven times… I forgot one.”

  “You’ve jumped seven times into battle?”

  “Once in Dien Bien Phu. That one was a bit of a hair-raiser.”

  “Most of my men don’t have seven combat jumps,” said the commander to Sharon. “Can she shoot too?”

  “I think she prefers to type,” said Sharon. “But she can be just as deadly.”

  Sharon still hadn’t told Brigitte about the downing of the Spanish cargo plane. He knew she would be of little use once she got the news. Besides he still didn’t have any information on the survivors at that point. Sharon and his battalion commander exchanged a look. “She’s qualified,” said Sharon reluctantly. “You want her, you got her.”

  “Get your gear,” said the commander.

  Brigitte thanked them with a smile and ran off.

  November 2, 1956 – Mitla Pass and Tor, Egypt

  It was late in the afternoon when the two companies of Israeli paratroopers took off from below the Mitla Pass and headed for Tor.

  Inside the lead Dakota, Brigitte sat next to the battalion commander. He wanted to keep an eye on her and, if he was being honest, he wanted to be the focus of her story. Military exploits and politics went hand-in-hand in Israel and he had political aspirations when he retired from the army. Brigitte had on her jumpsuit and was wearing a parachute like the paratroopers. Her hair was up in a tight bun so it wouldn’t get tangled in her parachute’s lines. She had learnt that lesson the hard way during parachute training when she failed to listen to her French instructor. She got so twisted up in the parachute lines, she had to use her pocket knife to cut off a large chunk of her hair after she landed.

  The Israeli paratroopers glanced at her, wondering why a French civilian was being allowed on such an important mission. They had no problem with her being a woman. They had fought beside many women in the Arab-Israeli war and found them to be reliable and surprisingly aggressive – a trait they admired. But she was French and while the Israelis liked the French, they didn’t necessarily trust them. In fact, they trusted few foreigners. The Israelis had learnt to be self-sufficient and fight their own battles. Help was always welcomed from western nations, but rarely offered.

  The flight didn’t take long. The pilot warned the commander that they were coming up on the landing zone and the jump indicator box turned red. The jump master gave the command to stand up and hook up. The paratroopers and Brigitte hooked up their parachute release straps to the wire running through the center of the cabin and moved toward the door making a tight line. The idea was to jump as close together as possible so they all landed in the general vicinity of each other. A platoon of paratroopers could get spread out over two miles if they weren’t careful. That was not an effective way to fight if the landing zone was hot. The Israelis were well-trained in battle jumps and every soldier knew what was expected of him. The light flashed green and they headed out the doorway one after another, about one to two seconds apart. Brigitte was the last to jump as she followed the battalion commander out the open door.

  Her chute deployed and she felt the familiar slug-in-the-crotch as the harness straps snapped tight. She floated down. She could see the other parachutes below her and more chutes opening above her from the other planes. The sun was setting. The desert below was beautiful in the orange light. She didn’t see any gunfire coming from the city but that didn’t mean they were in the clear. The Egyptians could be waiting before springing their trap.

  Fortunately for the Israelis, most of the Egyptian soldiers were offering their evening prayers when the planes were spotted. Many chose to finish their prayers knowing it may be their last. They collected their weapons and went to their trenches to meet the Israelis.

  As battles go, Tor wasn’t much of a fight. The majority of the Egyptian units had already headed west to cross the Suez Canal. What was left was a token force to show the Egyptian people in the town that their leader had not abandoned them. It wasn’t much of a force.

  The Israeli paratroopers landed one mile out from the city without incident. Surprisingly, nobody broke an ankle or leg which was expected in a jump this size. Brigitte landed and rolled as she had been taught. She was lighter than the men, so her chute slowed her descent considerably and made her landing less traumatic. She released her harness, gathered her parachute and placed it with the others to be collected later. She moved to the commander’s side and listened as he issued his orders. It was to be a frontal assault of the city. The Israelis didn’t have much time. The rest of the 202nd Brigade had departed for Tor as the jump task force had taken off. It wouldn’t take them long to arrive unless they ran into resistance, which wasn’t expected since the Egyptians were retreating.

  The Israelis formed a skirmish line and advanced toward the outskirts of the city. The Egyptians had surprisingly little in the way of weapons. Most had been taken by the units that had already left. Mortars and light machineguns were the biggest problem for the Israelis. The terrain around the city was flat and there wasn’t much in the way of cover. The paratroopers kept down and crawled their way forward. Many were excellent marksmen and picked off any Egyptian that raised his head above the trench line. Once the Israelis closed in on the Egyptian trenches, they used grenades. The Israelis had been trained to release the grenade’s spoon starting the timer then wait for a short time before pitching them into the trenches. The Egyptians had no time to pick up the grenades and toss them back out. Instead, they died or were badly mauled by the grenades’ shrapnel.

  The battle for Tor lasted less than thirty minutes before the Egyptian commander surrendered along with sixty-two of his soldiers. Twelve Egyptians were killed with another twenty-three wounded. Two Israelis were killed and eight wounded. The disparity in losses was due to training, leadership and aggression. The Egyptians were no match for the Israelis.

  With the fighting stopped, Brigitte moved up with the commander and took photos of what she saw. She would use the photos later to jar her memory as she wrote the stories of what had happened in the battle. A few key photos would end up in the magazine alongside her writing. She was impressed with the Israeli paratroopers. They were a tight group and fought well. Their esprit de corps was on par with the French paratroopers with whom she had so often jumped. Both the Israelis and French had fought multiple wars since the end of World War II. As terrible as the wars were, they kept the soldiers in their militaries experienced and well-trained. Nothing prepares a soldier to do battle better than battle itself. They knew how to fight because they continued to fight and win. This gave them an edge in both morale and experience. It was a sad truth.

  A few hours later the rest of the 202nd Brigade rolled into Tor. Resistance had been light, mostly small Egyptian units that were on their way toward the Suez Canal and had no interest in fighting the Israelis. The two sides ignored each other as they passed. The 202nd needed time to regroup, resupply and prepare for the next phase of their operation – the assault on Sharm el-Sheikh. Many of their vehicles had been badly damaged from Egyptian artillery and warplanes. The tank and half-track crews needed time and parts to repair them before they could be used again in battle. Tor had an airfield that the Israelis had captured. It would make resupply and reinforcement safe and easy for the Israeli cargo planes. The Israelis were still concerned about an Egyptian counterattack. It was true the Egyptians were retreating across the Suez Canal but they could turn at any time and attack the Israeli forces.

  Brigitte was grateful for the rest and looked forward to the full eight hours’ sleep that would get rid of the dark circles under her eyes. She wanted a bath and a chance to clean her clothes. She also needed to organize her notes. If she could find a phone that still worked she would call her editor and give him a couple of articles she had written while in the field. Most of the phone lines in the north had been cut by the Israeli planes but there was a chance that
the Egyptians had repaired a few lines so their commanders could communicate with headquarters in Cairo. She thought it was worth a shot anyway. She might even be able to place a call to Coyle who she was sure was back in Algiers or Paris drinking a beer and eating his favorite sandwiches. If the phones didn’t work, she might be able to send her articles by radio. Sharon had been very stingy about giving her radio time. She hoped he would loosen up a bit if she dropped a hint that one of her articles was about him.

  Brigitte looked for Sharon. She found him standing near a café talking with one of his battalion commanders. She approached him from behind. He didn’t see her as he dismissed the battalion commander. Sharon’s radio operator approached and said, “Colonel, I just got word from the patrol sent out to examine that plane wreckage. The American was not among the survivors,” said the radio operator. “I thought you’d want to know right away.”

  Sharon heard the quiet steps behind him and turned to see Brigitte. Her face said everything when she heard the news. He wasn’t sure what to do. He could command a brigade of paratroopers, but he knew little about women.

  “Yes, yes. Give me the details later. You’re dismissed,” said Sharon to the radio operator attempting to mask the news.

  “An American? What plane crash?” said Brigitte afraid to ask.

  The radio operator realized his mistake and moved off sheepishly. “I was going to tell you once we knew for sure what happened,” said Sharon.

  “Tell me what?” said Brigitte with panic welling up inside. “What happened, Colonel?”

  “The Spanish cargo plane piloted by your boyfriend was shot down on its way back to Israel. It crashed in the desert.”

  “Oh, my god,” said Brigitte, her legs giving out from underneath her.

  Sharon reached out and grabbed her to keep her from falling. He wasn’t sure what to do. He let her down slowly in one of the café’s chairs. He reached for his canteen thinking that water would somehow help. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to be sure before telling you,” he said.

  “Tom,” said Brigitte crying. “What have I done? This is my fault. He never would have come if I wasn’t here.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Sharon trying to comfort her.

  “But I do. He was always trying to save me from myself and I finally got him killed. It’s my fault,” said Brigitte weeping uncontrollably.

  November 2, 1956 – Luxor, Egypt

  By nightfall, Egypt’s air force had been decimated and was ineffective as a fighting force. Over eighty percent of the MiG-15s and Meteor fighters and over seventy percent of the Vampires had been destroyed. Nasser had ordered his precious I1-28 bombers out of harm’s way. He sent twenty-one of the Soviet-built bombers to Saudi Arabia along with a small number of MiG-15s where they would wait out the war. He sent another twenty-one to the valley of Luxor in hopes that the British and French wouldn’t risk damaging the ancient capital of Egypt. As the ground invasion approached, neither the British nor the French were inclined to let the bombers remain a threat to their troops no matter the cost. They made their plans to destroy the airfield in Luxor.

  A miscalculation on a level attack could carry a load of bombs hundreds of yards or even miles off target and destroy the ancient buildings all around the city. Instead, the British bombers would dive-bomb the Egyptian aircraft parked on the airfield. While dive-bombing was more difficult and dangerous there was less chance of any of the bombs going astray. They would also use high-explosive one-thousand pound bombs for the attack to ensure that even a near miss would destroy or at least badly damage the targeted aircraft.

  The initial attack destroyed three of the Egyptian bombers but most of the bombs landed wide of the airfield. While no ancient buildings were destroyed, the fleet of bombers were still a very real threat to the invasion.

  November 3, 1956 - Gaza, Palestinian Territory

  The Israelis waited until morning before attacking the city of Khan Yunus. Once again, the Sherman tanks took the lead followed by the infantry in half-tracks. The tanks and half-tracks raced across an open plain toward the Palestinian perimeter. The half-tracks strafed the trenches, forcing the Palestinians to take cover while the tanks unleashed a barrage of cannon fire and advanced. The tanks’ 75-mm shells blew holes in the barbed wire providing a channel for their infantry. Israeli 120-mm mortar shells rained down on the enemy artillery positions destroying many of the Palestinian guns.

  The Palestinians held their ground and kept fighting but their rifles and machineguns were useless against the Sherman tanks. The gunners in the Shermans would sight an enemy position, destroy it with a high explosive round, then move on to the next enemy position. Once the Shermans ran out of targets, they moved on toward the city using their machineguns on anyone foolish enough to stick their head above the top of a trench.

  The Israeli infantry moved in and attacked the Palestinians inside their trenches by tossing dozens of grenades over the edges. It was too much. The Palestinians were being slaughtered. Their lives wasted. The Palestinians broke and fled the outer perimeter toward the city. Fleeing Palestinians mixed with the advancing Israeli tanks as they approached the city. It was mayhem.

  Israeli infantry cleared out any stragglers and wounded from the trenches, then took up position in the trenches facing the city in case the Palestinians mounted a counterattack. But the Palestinians were too busy manning their secondary line of defensive positions within the city. They would fight the Israelis block by block, house by house.

  The Israelis used their tanks and half-tracks to comb the city streets and take out pockets of resistance. The Palestinians had abandoned their artillery in the outer perimeter and had nothing with which to fight the armored vehicles. One by the one the streets fell as the Israelis advanced and overran the Palestinian positions. It took less time than either side imagined. By nightfall, the last of the Palestinian forces surrendered and the Israelis secured the city. The battle for the entire Gaza Strip took just fifty-eight hours. The Palestinians fought bravely but lost decisively.

  November 3, 1956 – Sinai Desert, Egypt

  Things had calmed down. The last of the Egyptian units had either made it across the Suez and rejoined the main body of the army or had entered Sharm el-Sheikh in the southern tip of the Sinai where they hoped to be extracted by boat. The Israelis finished digging in and preparing their defensive positions.

  November 3, 1956 – Nile Delta, Egypt

  The Gamil Bridge connected the only road leading from Port Said and the Nile Delta. Any Egyptian reinforcements would need to cross that bridge to reach the garrison at Port Said. It was the British Navy’s job to make sure that didn’t happen. But it wasn’t a simple task. The bridge was made of concrete and had eleven supporting columns.

  In the Mediterranean, HMS Eagle turned into the wind and launched a mixed squadron of Sea Hawk jets and Westland Wyverns, turboprop fighters. Each Sea Hawk carried four five-hundred pound bombs while the Wyverns carried six five-hundred pound bombs. But it didn’t matter.

  When the British fighters swooped down and dropped their payloads on the bridge they found that their bombs did little more than blow large chunks of concrete from the columns and roadway leaving the structure still standing. There was much cursing when the pilots returned to the Eagle.

  On the second raid, the fighters changed the configuration of their bombs to thirty-second delay fuses. This time the bombs hit the support columns and penetrated the concrete like darts into a board. When the bombs detonated, the force of the explosion was enhanced by the confined space surrounded by concrete. The columns shattered and the bridge crashed into the water below. The mood of the pilots greatly improved on their return to the Eagle.

  November 3, 1956 - Gulf of Aqaba, Egypt

  It was just before sunset when HMS Crane - a British Black Swan Sloop - patrolled the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba. The 192-man crew had been involved in little action since the start of the war. Most were inspections of commercial vessels
in the area. There were the occasional sniping incidents from shore which were quickly ended by a barrage from the Crane’s 50-cal machineguns.

  The crew watched from a distance as Israeli and Egyptian forces slugged it out for control of the coastal cities. The British vessel could not be seen as taking sides and did not participate in any of the battles between the two belligerent armies. The crew simply watched at the guard rails making bets on who would win. The odds were usually against the Egyptians who were seen as inferior fighters to the Israelis. It was only when the Israelis were vastly outnumbered that the contest became interesting but even then the odds rarely improved beyond evens.

  Commander Jack Hodges was hungry as he sat in his captain’s chair on the bridge. He was thinking about the lamb chops he had requested for dinner. That was one of the perks of commanding his own ship – he decided what was for dinner and he really liked lamb chops with mint jelly. He could see a flight of five Israeli jets attacking Egyptian positions on shore. They were mostly using their machineguns to strafe the Egyptian soldiers which he thought strange because the jets were also armed with both rockets and bombs. A well-placed bomb or rocket would end any argument, he thought.

  He would need to wait until the Israelis were finished before he could make his entry in the ship’s log and head to dinner. He watched through his binoculars. The Israeli jets looked like hawks swooping on field mice running from hole to hole. The attack ended and the Israeli jets rose into the sky to form up and head for home. But they didn’t head for home… they headed toward his ship. They swung around to the west high above the British vessel. “See if you can raise those Israeli jets and make sure they know we are British,” said Hodges to his communication officer.