by Uzi Eilam
Within the R&D Unit we had the feeling that things had finally balanced out and that a great deal of important work was now underway. Those who had joined the troops on the front lines and those who had joined in the efforts were doing good work, while the rest, including 50 R&D reservists who had been mobilized during the first days of the war, were engaged in gathering information for generating lessons and were in the initial stages of the analysis process. The R&D Security Advisory Committee was assembled in order to brief its members on the situation and to consider how they might be integrated into the effort. During a discussion we had after the briefing, I realized the extent to which they had been craving meaningful involvement of some kind. What I wanted to do more than anything else was to visit the front. Tzvi authorized me to do so in principle, and I was now waiting for a window of opportunity to join the CGS on one of his trips to the front.
After the meeting with the Advisory Committee, we began to consider the changes we would need to make in our annual plan and our more longterm plans. We still had no way of knowing if there would be changes in substance, but by now it was clear that there would have to be changes in priorities. Our general feeling was that despite the American aid we would actually have to rely more on ourselves in the future. The same day Defense Minister Dayan stopped me and asked: “Can’t we produce an anti-tank missile here in Israel?” I said it all depended on the time-table. Dayan continued to press me with his well-known directness: “Yes or no?”
“Yes!” I told him. “Of course we can. But it needs to be clear that the preparations for production are likely to take about a year.”
“What if the Americans provide us with the knowledge and the authorization to produce them?” the minister persisted.
“In that case, the time-table would be shorter,” I answered, seeing no reason to burden him with any further details.
“You need to get ready to begin production,” Dayan declared. I was pleased because he supported our belief that there were some areas in which we would need to rely only on ourselves in the future. It was also good to see that Dayan had managed to pull himself out of the great despondency that had engulfed him during the first few days of the war. I told him that we would begin working on it, and that the production of anti-tank missiles would undoubtedly constitute only one of many issues that would require such attention.
On the morning of Tuesday, October 16, after a sleepless night in the Command Center, I wrote in my journal that Arik Sharon’s division “attempted to accomplish the impossible tonight, but has yet to succeed.” I was referring to their attempt to break through the 21st Egyptian division, to land the 55th brigade under the command of Danny Matt as a bridgehead on the west bank of the Canal, and to position the roller-bridge there. The crossing operation which Arik had insisted on implementing since the beginning of the war was good (apparently, he insisted on implementing that plan, and only that plan). The Egyptian army had thin forces at Deversoir on the west bank of the Canal, and with the help of mobile forces we could push back the anti-aircraft missile batteries far from the area or destroy them altogether. This, in turn, would enable our air force to operate freely and to support our forces more substantially than they previously had been doing.
Proudly, but with a sense of concern, I followed the 55th brigade’s crossing operation. I knew that the 71st battalion, now under the command of Dan Ziv, my deputy in Jerusalem during the Six Day War, was the first to cross the Canal in rubber boats and to establish the bridgehead. I was with them in spirit. But when the light of day broke it became clear that an Egyptian force had taken control of a junction en route to the Canal and that the 600th brigade of Arik Sharon’s division had not yet not reached the Egyptian bridges that were still standing. To make matters worse, our crossing equipment — including the roller-bridge, the mobile “Timsakh” landing crafts (French made Gillois rafts), and the Engineering Corps’ rafts — were delayed en route due to technical problems and difficulties on the battlefield. In the Command Center there was great concern regarding the bridgehead’s fragile situation. We were worried about the impact of the Egyptian artillery, which could take out the entire bridgehead. Another major concern was that the Egyptian air force, still enjoying the defenses of its anti-aircraft missile batteries, could also focus massive attacks on the bridgehead. “The paratroops are doing it!” said voices in the Command Center excitedly, over and over again. At one point I drove home to rest a bit, but I only managed to worry Naomi more. I could not tell her about the crossing operation that had not yet succeeded and that was still underway, but I was also unable to hide my concern.
The Command Center continued to draw me in with terrifying strength, and I could not help but spend a great deal of time there. At the entrance I found Ezer Weizman in conversation with Mordechai Bar-On, brother of Ben Bar-On and the composer Yechezkel Braun, who had served as adjutant to Moshe Dayan during the Sinai Campaign. Weizman was talking about the Israelis’ trauma, about cracks in the image of leaders including that of Dayan, about how necessary it was for people to mobilize themselves psychologically and to increase morale, and about the need to reorganize the IDF. Although he had no doubt that we would win the war, he emphasized that serious failures had taken place: in building the IDF’s order of battle, in Israeli intelligence and intelligence assessments, and in the policy realm. The war broke out during a break in Weizman’s military career, while he was working as a private businessman, and he was called up to serve as an advisor to the CGS. We accompanied him down into the Command Center, where we learned that Danny Matt’s 55th brigade had been reinforced by nine or twelve tanks that had been transported to the west bank of the Canal by the self-propelled French Timsakh (Gillois) rafts. The resulting sense of celebration was justified, as the bridgehead was now reinforced by tanks, which increased our chances of stabilizing and expanding it. People were also pleased with the success of the Gillois landing crafts, which I, among others, had fought to purchase when we realized that we had no other battle-ready crossing mechanism. The rafts, which were meant to be linked together and fashioned into a long bridge by the Engineering Corps, also got stuck in the sand, as the weight of the tanks they bore made them almost useless. The roller-bridge, which had offered so much promise and which was even awarded the Israel Defense Prize before its development was even complete, was now left far behind.
On Wednesday, October 17th, Hoshana Raba, or the last day of the Sukkot holiday, we all hoped for good tidings. According to the briefing delivered during the morning visit of the defense minister and the CGS to the Command Center, Arik Sharon had had a relatively quiet night. Still, the obstruction that was blocking his forces’ advance toward the Canal had not yet been breached. Uzi Yairi and the 35th paratroop brigade were brought in as reinforcements from the southern sector. During the morning we also heard that difficult battles were being fought at the Chinese Farm. The two Egyptian brigades, which we knew had been ordered to move southward to disrupt our efforts to cross the Canal, simply did not move. In the course of the day Arik’s division managed to transport forty armored vehicles across the Canal by means of the Gillois rafts. At the same time, in an operation commanded by Dov Tamari, Adan’s deputy, Adan’s division succeeded in transporting twelve rafts to the edge of the Canal, and the Engineering Corps had already started to build the first bridge.
The roller-bridge had still not been used. One reason was that its cumbersome structure required more than the four tanks that were originally planned for it to be dragged through the sand. More critically, the threat of the enemy on the ground prevented the kind of quiet work needed to deal with such a complicated apparatus. The plan proposed by the CGS and approved by a nod of Dayan’s head envisioned Sharon remaining with his division on the east bank of the Canal in order to get organized, while Adan would cross the Canal with his two brigades and make a push southward in order to block the retreat path of the 4th Egyptian division. This would leave the
entire third Egyptian army surrounded on the east bank of the Canal. For the first 36 hours, the Egyptians appeared to have incorrectly assessed the significance of our crossing operation. Now, they were attempting to hold us off and were paying a heavy price in the process.
Despite the pressure of working group meetings, briefings on the battles, sessions of monitoring military radio transmissions, and consultations in the Command Center and the defense ministry, primarily with Tzvi Zur but also with director-general Ironi, I could not completely forget about the R&D Unit. The morning that Adan’s division started to cross over to the west bank of the Canal the R&D Unit’s main office was in disarray. The announcement of a staff meeting which I had planned had not been relayed properly, and the offices were still littered with the young female soldiers’ bedding. “This place should not look like a tavern!” I bellowed as I entered the office. The anger was necessary. I could understand the girls’ state of mind. They had been acting a bit crazy due to worry and lack of information, and imposing an element of order was a necessity. In the end, we had a good staff meeting. I began with a briefing regarding the situation on the front, followed by a session in which each department director explained what he was working on. This provided a good opportunity to issue clear instructions for each director’s realm of activity. Everyone understood that in addition to addressing the issues directly related to the war itself we also needed to prepare ourselves for an ongoing state of warfare that could continue for weeks or even months. The fact that everything was clear and well understood was reflected in the energetic response from staff.
At the height of the frantic situation that the war dictated, Tzvi requested an update regarding the integration of the TOW missile system. He also wanted to begin generating lessons regarding the weapons systems developed in Israel that had been used during the war. We talked about the need to take measures within the research and development institutions in order to effectively adapt to the current state of ongoing war. Although we needed to prepare quick response capability (QRC) on the institutional level, I thought it was also important to simultaneously maintain infrastructure and continue the major development projects. Tzvi asked us to prepare an outline for an in-depth discussion on the subject, and we started to work on it at R&D.
During the afternoon of that same long day, which, like other days during the war, felt like it had neither beginning nor end, a situation evaluation was conducted in Tal’s office. The meeting was attended by Meir Amit, former CGS Yigal Yadin, Intelligence Branch Chief Eli Zeira, former Intelligence Branch Chief Aharon Yariv, former Logistics Branch Chief Amos Horev, Professor Yuval Neeman, and History Department Director Colonel Avraham Lenz. It was an interesting and informative discussion during which I thought to myself how that forum was the national security council of the people of Israel in every sense of the term. Tal did a good job of chairing the meeting, and much of its content was recorded in my “War Journal”.
On Thursday, October 18, the day after the Sukkot holiday, a special atmosphere prevailed in the Command Center. When I had been there the night before, Adan had only managed to move one battalion over the Canal to the west bank, and it was reported that the bridge was damaged. The area surrounding the bridge had sustained heavy artillery fire, and the tanks had damaged one of the connectors as they sped across the raft-bridge. “It’s not serious,” they reported from the field, “but it will take some time to repair.” At the end of the nighttime meeting of the CGS Preparatory Working Group, we were told that the bridge had been restored through improvisation by simply placing the bridging apparatus of a bridging tank across the broken portion.
I met with Operations Department Director Yankeleh Stern in order to incorporate plans to get hold of the SA-6 anti-aircraft missile batteries into the orders for our forces that had crossed the Canal. On Thursday morning there was another dip in morale when an Egyptian tank brigade reached the crossing area and managed to disrupt our effort. The war room maps now bore red arrows representing an Egyptian paratroop brigade en route to Adan’s 217th brigade, which had already crossed the Canal. The faces of the officers in the Command Center who were following the developments via the radio transmissions reflected the severity of the situation. But in the afternoon Stern told me that the blockage had been opened, our forces had been ordered to attack the missile batteries, and the process of crossing the Canal had resumed, reviving our chances of getting our hands on the troubling SA-6 missiles.
In the R&D Unit I felt as if I was bearing the burden of pushing things forward all on my own. I was the person who was kept up to date on developments and who asked for and received instructions from senior officials, and this meant that only I could take the initiative and indeed was obliged to do so. Still, it often seemed to me as if everyone else was paralyzed, whether by the fear felt by all Israelis during the war, or by the lack of confidence resulting from the breakdown of routine. The main office was also paralyzed, and the young women soldiers were frightened. I sat down with my deputies Yedidia and Nahum and my assistant Ronny to plan a discussion on how R&D institutions should function during periods of ongoing warfare. During the meeting I was forced to repeatedly reiterate my different lines of thought to create a common denominator of understanding and agreement. The issue that seemed most important at the time was the right balance between quick responses to the challenges of the war and ongoing projects that had continue. It was also important to continue tending to the technological infrastructure although on a limited basis. It was a difficult period for everyone. In such times, people either display an ability to work well under pressure or succumb to their personal limitations. The director of the Missiles Department was an industrious engineer with a rigid and limited way of thinking. The director of the Electronics Department, in contrast, had a broad outlook, a sense of optimism, and the ability to make things happen. The director of the Ground Department appeared to be as hard working, sensible, and efficient as he had been during peacetime.
Twenty-four hours after the construction of the first bridge over the Canal, the TOW team we had sent to the US — Gabi Nagel, Michael Nagel, and Benny Ron — landed in Israel on an American plane. The three reported to the R&D offices in spotted uniforms, pale and tired, but content. We immediately drove to the Bat Yam firing range to observe the first TOW missile firing in the country and to meet the team they would join which would train troops in using the missiles. The test was attended by many senior officers including IDF Training Department Director Major General Meir Zorea, his deputy, Chief of Infantry and Paratroopers Colonel Emanuel Shaked, and others. The battalion commander designated to head the new TOW battalion was told to fire the missile at a tank target 1,200 meters away and scored a hit. Encouraged, I returned to the Command Center and jokingly told people there that a TOW missile had already taken out one tank. Only after hearing their enthusiastic cries of joy did I tell them that it had not actually happened in battle, but at a target range.
It was impossible to follow the progress of the battles without considering the personal aspects involving people I knew intimately. In the Golan Heights, Elisha Shalem and his battalion of paratroop reservists managed to conquer a Syrian position manned by an infantry battalion while destroying 10 Syrian tanks. The position had been a menacing obstacle that had halted the advance of Eitan’s division in the northern Golan Heights. I had previously served in the same battalion as Elisha’s deputy, and I knew many of its soldiers and officers. I was overjoyed and filled with pride when I heard the news.
A less cheerful personal element involved former R&D Department Director Colonel (Res.) Ben Bar-On. Ben had set out for the southern front with the teams charged with collecting data for subsequent lesson generation. After a few days he learned that his son had been killed when his tank was hit while fighting with a tank brigade. Ben managed to reach the burned-out tank from which he removed his son’s body. When he returned to the General Staff base he came into my office a
nd told me the story. He actually managed to find the tail of the RPG that appears to have struck one of the weak points of his son’s tank, setting it ablaze. Ben gave me the tail, which remained on my desk as a painful but encouraging reminder throughout all the subsequent years during which I worked serving the country.
I wanted to travel down to the Canal with Elazar. The groundwork for the trip had long been ready, authorized in principle by Tzvi and coordinated with Assistant Operations Branch Chief Brigadier General Aryeh Levi. However, when everything was ready I was suddenly ambushed by a meeting in Tal’s office. The meeting was neither beneficial nor detrimental to any significant extent, but it caused me to miss my flight. There was another flight to the southern front the next day, but Elazar was in a foul mood due to the state of affairs, which again looked bleak, and he only brought Aharon Yariv along with him. In the meantime we made progress in integrating the TOW missiles, and Elazar ordered that they be put into operation on the northern front as soon as possible in order to reinforce our tenuous line of defense in the southern Golan Heights along the purple line, which at the time was held solely by outmoded Sherman tanks.
As the war raged on the first delegation of American military experts arrived in Israel, circling high above the battlefield like eagles in wait. We had to prepare their reception with almost no advance notice. We knew what we wanted from them: advice and training for the American weapons systems we had purchased for our air force and our ground forces. We also had a clear understanding of what they wanted from us: data to generate lessons regarding the confrontation between western and Soviet weaponry, as well as the intelligence which we were gathering during the war. Nahum, my deputy, was charged with coordinating our contact with the American advisors, but I knew that as the director I would have to be involved. I took advantage of the preparatory meeting on hosting the American delegation to coordinate the generation of lessons within the air force, with a focus on air-to-ground issues, with Colonel Yosef Maayan of the air force Equipment Squadron and Colonel Yossi Hankin of the Air Force Weapons Division. Because Nahum was an air force man himself, his presence was a great help in forging a good relationship.
