The Lion's Gate: On the Front Lines of the Six Day War

by Steven Pressfield

  How much adrenaline is in my bloodstream? I’m so jacked up from the MiG that I missed, my engine flaming out, and barely pulling out of a 90-degree dive that I can hardly breathe. My indicator says I’ve still got my bombs. Okay, let’s use ’em. I climb above the runway and go in. Our practice is to pickle at 2,500 feet above ground level, meaning drop the bombs and begin to pull out of the dive at that altitude. You don’t want to wait any longer or the exploding bombs will get you, not to mention you will plant yourself face-first into the deck.

  Here we go. The altimeter passes 3,500, which is still pretty high, but the runway is growing wider and wider in my windscreen and I’m getting the terrible feeling that something is wrong. Suddenly I realize the pickle figure is based on sea level, the approximate reading for the airfields in Egypt. But we are at T-4 on the Syrian plateau; its altitude may be as high as 2,500 feet. All this goes through my mind in a fraction of a second.

  I drop my ordnance at 800 feet AGL—way, way too low. The ground is coming up very fast; I pull out at impossibly high Gs and am saved only by the fact that my bombs are on delayed fuses, so they don’t explode as my plane passes directly over the impact points. My gun camera is on or no one will believe later how low I am. A MiG-21 is taxiing. I’m at the same height as he. I kick the rudder, set the nose, and squeeze the trigger. He explodes. I pull and get out.

  I’m all by myself now and out of sequence. I turn to come back. Three MiGs are sitting ducks alongside the runway. The other planes in my formation are strafing right to left; I’m coming back left to right. Again I feel something wrong. I start to turn at 500 knots and I see another Mirage so close I can make out the bolts on its aluminum skin. It’s our number three, Udi Shelach. He correctly goes left, following the yishai pattern he has called. I’m going the wrong way! Our planes are going to collide. I turn wildly, just barely missing him, in a more than 90-degree bank at zero altitude. He is not even aware I’m near. I recover, heading dead-on at a Syrian hangar. What the hell—I shoot it up, pull out, and continue my attack.

  Meanwhile, Giora and Asher have gotten their MiGs. Karmi, Prigat, Snir, and my formation-mates are heading home; Giora, who always has fuel left, is sweeping the site, looking for another MiG to tangle with. I complete my three strafing runs and follow him home, a few minutes behind.

  What a balagan! But, unprofessional as it was, we have found the field and destroyed it. I wiped out a hangar and two MiGs on the ground. And I’m alive and I’ve still got my plane.

  My paramount crime is losing “battle picture.” This is a sin, a black mark that must be regarded with the utmost seriousness. Throughout the attack I have maintained awareness of where I am in relation to the field, the ground target. But I have lost track of the other Mirages. A pilot can never do this. He must keep the battle picture in his mind at all times, even when he’s inverted or out of pattern. He must know where his formation-mates are and what they are doing. If they are in a strafing pattern, he must know whether it’s sha’yish or yishai and where each of them is within the pattern.

  I have lost this completely.

  Ran Ronen, squadron commander:

  The fighting day is over, it’s eleven o’clock at night. I’m alone in the bunker, going over the film from the gun cameras. I will watch the footage from every plane in the squadron and from every sortie. Details count. Has one of my pilots broken formation, run off on his own due to excess excitement, anger, or confusion? I must see how every four-ship formation has flown, and each pilot. Today already we have had two moments where I had to step in.

  Between the second and third missions I came out of my office onto the balcony and there is Asher Snir, alone, standing with his face to the wall. He is crying.

  “Asher, what’s wrong?”

  He says he has just learned that his dear friend Yoram Harpaz has been killed, shot down by an Israeli Hawk missile when his plane strayed into secure airspace over the nuclear reactor at Dimona.

  “Come with me.” I take him into my office and close the door. Asher is twenty-three, handsome as Montgomery Clift. He will finish his career with thirteen and a half kills, tied with Avramik Salmon for second all-time on the list of Israeli aces. He could have been chief of the air force if cancer had not killed him at forty-four, a brigadier general.

  “Asher, this is war.”

  He is trying to get ahold of himself.

  “Friends will die. We cannot think about this now.”

  “Yes, Ran.”

  “We’ll mourn later. Next week. Next month. But not now. Do you understand?”

  Asher straightens.

  “Yes, Ran.”

  I stand up. So does he.

  “You and I may die today, this afternoon. We know this. We accept it.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Ran. It won’t happen again.”

  During that same break, I’m in the operations room, configuring the formation for the Gardaka mission. I put my name on the board as leader. One of my deputies, Eitan Karmi, reacts.

  “You are taking all the plum shots for yourself, Ran.” He says this in front of the other pilots.

  I tell him to follow me into my office.

  Karmi is a friend, an outstanding pilot; in his career he will shoot down eight enemy planes in air-to-air combat, putting him in the all-time top twenty in the IAF. And he is a leader. But what he has just done cannot be allowed to stand.

  “Change out of your flight suit,” I tell him. “You are not flying any more with this squadron. Change out and go home.”

  I brief the Gardaka mission. When I come out onto the balcony, Karmi is waiting for me. “What are you doing here?” I say. “I told you to leave the squadron. Go home.”

  As I’m taxiing I see his Volkswagen pull out of the lot.

  Back from Gardaka two hours later, I have got two MiGs, Levushin has downed another, a fourth crashed, and we destroyed the base. As I’m crossing to the squadron, I see Karmi. “Ran, can I talk to you?”

  “Of course. We are friends.”

  In my office, Karmi apologizes. He was wrong, he says; he should never have spoken to me that way and certainly not in front of the others. Please, he asks, let me fly.

  I take his hand. “All right, you are back with us. From this moment forget the past. We will discuss this when the war is over.” I give him a mission to T-4 in Syria.

  I’m thinking of this now, watching the film from Oded Sagee’s formation, which hit T-4 right after Karmi’s. On the screen I see a row of parked MiGs being strafed and in the background a huge hangar. Suddenly from the right-hand edge of the frame a Mirage drops out of nowhere, moving like a bullet, completely out of pattern. It booms past the hangar, standing on its ear at zero altitude, nearly colliding with another Mirage.

  Now it is Shmul in my office. That was his plane. I have had him hauled out of bed. It’s after midnight. I show him the film and ask him if he carries a service pistol.

  “I do.”

  “Then take it out and kill yourself. I need that airplane. If you are going to commit suicide, do it in a way that doesn’t cost this squadron your own plane and whoever else you’re going to crash into.”

  I tell him he is grounded.

  Menahem Shmul:

  Ran is telling me I will not fly anymore. The war is over for me. I know he is right. What I did is inexcusable. But I also know there is no way I am going to let him ground me. This cannot happen. I cannot let it.

  I glance to the closed door. “May I speak?”

  “Of course.”

  I tell him about my father. This is no excuse, I know. I screwed up. But only because I wanted so badly to destroy the enemy. I will control myself tomorrow, Ran. You will never have a problem with me again.

  Ran Ronen:

  He is sitting across from me, this young guy, redheaded, brave as a l
ion, the kind of flier every squadron commander dreams about.

  “Goddammit, do you think I can let you fly like that? You almost killed yourself and Shelach!”

  “I fucked up,” he says. “I fucked up big.”

  Get out of here, I tell him. Let me think about this.

  From Shmul I am learning a very important lesson. You must know your pilots. I had believed that a squadron commander could know his men as fliers only. Now Shmul tells me of his father, whom he never saw, never knew, murdered by Arabs ten days before he was born. He grew up with this.

  You have to know what drives your people.

  Ran Ronen in 1976 as a brigadier general.

  Menahem Shmul:

  Ran comes out after the longest five minutes of my life. “You can continue to fly,” he says. He tells me he will keep me with him in every formation tomorrow. “If you so much as fart crooked, I will know.”

  I thank him and swear again that I will keep myself under control. I will fly for him like no one has ever flown.

  “And forget about the pistol,” Ran says. “You don’t have to kill yourself.”

  BOOK FIVE

  SINAI

  29.

  SADIN ADOM

  My jeep is speeding along a dirt track with broad, barren fields on each side. No people, no houses. We have crossed the border. The war has started.

  Yosi Ben-Hanan is operations officer of the 7th Armored Brigade. He is twenty-two years old, a lieutenant.

  Less than an hour earlier we saw Israeli warplanes streaking overhead on their way to attack the enemy. Every man in the brigade is on his feet; every tank and half-track is alive—engine running, radio channels open. Finally at 08:15 comes the go-code:

  Sadin Adom.

  “Red Sheet.”

  We are rolling. Up ahead is the 1st Platoon of the brigade’s Recon Company, led by Lieutenant Yossi Elgamis. His jeeps are leading Battalion 79, consisting of American-built M48A Patton tanks. I’m with the brigade headquarters right behind.

  One imagines that crossing a border in the Middle East is a big deal, with massive fortifications and guns and minefields. But here there is nothing. The frontier consists only of a sign that says STOP and a shallow furrow scraped by a bulldozer.

  So far there is no fighting and no resistance. Ahead, we know, wait two enemy divisions: the 20th, called “the Palestinian” because it is composed largely of refugee militia from the Gaza Strip, and the 7th, a regular formation of the Egyptian Army. What can we expect from these? The irregulars of the Palestinian Division could be hidden anywhere. They may be wearing uniforms or they may be dressed like civilians. They will fire Kalashnikovs and machine guns, mortars and rocket launchers from houses and hedgerows. The tanks, artillery, and antitank gunners of the 7th Division will be manning prepared positions along the main road that leads from the Gaza Strip to El Arish.

  El Arish is the Egyptian 7th Division’s headquarters.

  Our immediate objective is the road junction at Rafiah. From there the brigade will turn west toward El Arish. Then the real war will begin. At least that’s what we’re expecting. Our brigade command group consists of two tanks, the command half-track, the air force liaison jeep, and several others in support.

  I’m in my own jeep with my driver, Joshua Gaist. A lieutenant is not supposed to rate a jeep and driver, but because my billet is that of a captain, an exception has been made. Suddenly the radio crackles:

  “Screwdriver, this is Twenty. Where are you?”

  Screwdriver is the call sign for any operations officer. Twenty is the brigade commander, Shmuel Gorodish.

  “I’m coming in a minute!”

  The 7th Armored Brigade’s Recon Company crossing the border.

  Photo by Yosi Ben-Hanan.

  I tell Joshua to keep behind the brigade commander’s half-track and be careful. All my stuff and his is in back—canned meat, cigarettes, underwear, sleeping gear. I don’t want to lose this. We never know when we’ll need it.

  Lieutenant Eli Rikovitz is the twenty-year-old commander of the 3rd Platoon of the Recon Company of the 7th Armored Brigade:

  We’re moving at 20 kilometers per hour down a two-lane track that is off the edge of our maps. Plans have changed so frequently that the maps can’t keep up with them.

  Two days ago, our company was slated to cross the border near Kerem Shalom, leading the brigade’s tanks straight north toward Rafiah Junction—a route that would have taken us head-on into heavy fortifications manned by Stalin tanks of the Egyptian 11th Brigade. Stalins are the World War II monsters with 122-millimeter cannons.

  Last night those orders were changed. We have shifted positions to a featureless place called Gvulot Junction, where desert roads 232 and 222 meet, about seven kilometers from the border. Instead of going north, we are making a wide “right hook” to the east, bypassing the Stalin tanks.

  This is no small relief.

  The Israeli concept of armored warfare is blitzkrieg. Why hurl ourselves against the dug-in enemy? Go around. Hit him from a direction he doesn’t expect, or bypass him entirely.

  Our route now runs through a couple of small villages, then into the bigger town of Khan Younis. From there we will strike Rafiah Junction from the north, from behind. I have stuck a piece of white medical tape to my dashboard.

  Abasan el-Kabir

  Khan Younis

  Rafiah Junction

  Sheikh Zouaid

  Jiradi Pass

  El Arish

  This is it. This is where we are going.

  Zvika Kornblit is a twenty-year-old jeep commander in Eli Rikovitz’s platoon:

  We have been training for three weeks here, near the very spot where we will go to war, but now that we are moving, my legs are shaking. It is a serious thing, crossing a border. Your knees understand this.

  We are not in Israel now. We are in Egypt.

  Itzhak Kissilov is a nineteen-year-old trooper in Lieutenant Yossi Elgamis’s 1st platoon:

  Battalion 79 trails us. Patton tanks. We are leading them in our jeeps and half-track. A half-track is open-topped, like a farm truck. I’m up front with our lieutenant, Yossi Elgamis. The guys in back sit and stand. It’s loud. My friend Pinhas Yaakov is shouting up to Yossi. “Is this war yet?”

  “What?”

  “When does it get to be war?”

  Yaakov wants to know when he can start shooting. All around is nothing but fields of stubble and in front of us the impoverished village of Abasan el-Kabir.

  Yossi shouts back: “When someone shoots at you, Yaakov, I give you permission to shoot back.”

  Menachem Shoval is a nineteen-year-old trooper in Lieutenant Eli Rikovitz’s platoon:

  In those days at the main recruitment center, certain elite outfits were allowed to set up their own recruiting tables, with veteran sergeants seated behind, trolling for “good fish.” At the Recon table sat a sergeant named Moti Shoval—the same last name as mine. He asked my name. I said, “Shoval.” He said, “You’re in.”

  We laughed, but then I did get in.

  In my jeep now are Lieutenant Shaul Groag, an outstanding navigator and fighter who commands all four jeeps in our platoon; David Cameron, an American, driving; and me, in the backseat with the radio.

  When you are a simple soldier, which I am, you know nothing. We only have one map—Shaul has it—and it is 1:100,000. Terrible. Yet our job is to lead the tanks. We’re supposed to know exactly where we are at all times.

  Already we’ve passed through two Arab settlements. The civilians have locked themselves indoors, out of harm’s way.

  Our officers have told us over and over that in a battle of breakthrough, the first day is the most important. We must use these hours as if the survival of our nation depends upon it.

  We must break through the enemy at all costs.


  Yosi Ben-Hanan, 7th Armored Brigade operations officer:

  General Israel Tal commands our division. I will tell you a story about him, to show you what kind of man he is.

  A couple of years after the war I had left the army and gone to New York City, to Life magazine. My dream was to become a photojournalist. I had a letter of introduction from Bernice Schutzer, the widow of legendary Life photographer Paul Schutzer, who was killed in Gaza on the first day of the Six Day War.

  Sure enough, Life offered me a job. But when I left the editor’s office and got back out on the sidewalk, I started to have a bad feeling. I put a dime in a pay phone and called home to Israel. I phoned Talik—this is General Tal’s nickname—collect.

  He took the call.

  “Yosi, what are you doing in a place like New York? Life magazine? Are you crazy? You should not be taking pictures of others. They should be taking pictures of you!”

  Talik told me to come back to the army. This was where I belonged. He would make a place for me where I could do what I did best.

  “Yosi, I am going to give you the address of the Israeli Defense Mission in Manhattan. It is thirty blocks south of where you are. Start walking now. When you get to the mission, an envelope with a thousand dollars in cash will be waiting for you. Use the money to fly home. Pay me back when you can. Oh, and one last thing: Lay over for a few days in London and Paris on the way. Have as much fun as you can, Yosi, because I am going to work you very hard when you get home.”

  That is Talik.

  Yesterday he gave a speech to the officers of the division. This was not General Patton mounting to a big stage. Talik is a little guy, but when he stands in front of a tank you know he can take it apart blindfolded and put it back together piece by piece. Tal has commanded the armored corps since 1964.