Facing the initial onslaught of the Egyptian Army was the division of Major-General Avraham (‘Albert’) Mandler. A very fine and sensitive personality, he was known as one of the most disciplined and considerate officers in the IDF. A tall, taciturn, ruddy-faced officer, aged 45, with piercing blue eyes, he had commanded the armoured brigade that had performed the almost impossible in breaking the Syrian line holding the
Golan Heights in 1967. Now, as war broke out again, the forces at his disposal totalled some 280 tanks in three brigades, with a special command including an infantry brigade holding the northern area of marshland. However, the bulk of these forces were held as ‘immediate reserves’ in the eastern Sinai, ready to be activated by the ‘trip-wire’ of the Bar-Lev Line.
The full impact of the Egyptian crossing along the 110 miles of the Suez Canal fell upon a total of 436 Israeli soldiers in a series of fortifications seven to eight miles apart, and three tanks actually on the waterfront. They were men of the Jerusalem Brigade, serving their annual reserve duty, and constituted a typical cross-section of average Jerusalemites. Because Jerusalem had absorbed a large proportion of new immigrants of late, many of the men serving in the fortifications were inexperienced soldiers with little or no battle experience.
At midday on Saturday 6 October, warning was flashed to Mandler’s divisional headquarters in Sinai advising of an imminent artillery bombardment and instructing all forces to be on the alert. Brigadier-General Pino, Mandler’s deputy, again pressed his commander to instruct all forces to activate the ‘Shovach Yonim’ plan and move forward to the Canal. At midday Mandler agreed and the instructions were issued. Arriving back at his headquarters at 13.45 hours from the General Staff meeting in Tel Aviv, General Gonen called Mandler and reviewed the various orders that had been issued. In closing, he told him that he felt that the time had come for him to begin moving his armoured brigades down to the front. Mandler replied laconically, ‘Yes, I suppose v'e had. We are being bombed at this moment.’
Reports describing massive artillery bombardment, air attacks, crossings of the Canal and fighting were meanwhile pouring in from the strongpoints along the Canal. Some fortifications (particularly where the officers were in charge) reported in a matter-of-fact manner; others, whose officers had been killed at the outset, were in some cases hysterical. In some, NCOS, and in one case a private soldier, took command and led the men in battle. All pleaded for air and artillery support and for armoured reinforcements. All were promised that these were on the way.
By 15.00 hours it was clear to Mandler that the Egyptians were staging a major attack all along the front. And, an hour later, it was evident that the crossing of the Canal was a major amphibious operation taking place along its full length. Gonen tried to read the battle in his headquarters as the reports flowed in and the highly developed communication system in the Command provided a clear picture of what was going on in every strongpoint along the Canal. For two hours, he tried to identify the enemy’s main effort; in fact, the Egyptians had estimated that the absence of such a main effort would itself delay the Israeli counterattack. By 16.00 hours, it was clear to Gonen that there was no main effort, but that the crossing was more successful in the northern sector of the Canal than in the southern sector.
Meanwhile, the sixteen manned fortifications of the Bar-Lev Line continued to bear the brunt of the attack. In those fortifications in which the troops had manned the firing points, the Egyptians were beaten back.
But the Egyptian forces succeeded in penetrating those fortifications in which the men had been ordered to take shelter on the assumption that what they were experiencing was only an artillery attack. The reaction in each fortification reflected the determination of the commander on the spot, but in many cases the officers were the first casualties.
Each of the stories of the fortifications proved to be a saga in itself. Before authority was received to evacuate the fortifications on the morning of 7 October, most of the tank forces that had fought on the 6th and the night of the 6/7th, in an endeavour to reinforce the fortifications, were decimated. The units in the fortifications were cut off by surrounding Egyptian forces. Some succeeded in breaking through the Egyptian lines in hair-raising escapades. Others lost most of their personnel. The rest were taken prisoner.
A typical story is that of the unit holding the fortification codenamed ‘Ketuba’ in the northern sector of the Canal. They were being led in prayer by three boys from a religious seminary in Jerusalem when the Egyptian attack took place. The commander was wounded. Corporal Or-Lev took command and succeeded in beating back the Egyptian attack, sinking many of the Egyptian boats crossing the Canal. Again, in the darkness of the early morning of 7 October, Or-Lev — who was left with twelve fighting men, three of them wounded — fought back a renewed attack by two companies of Egyptian troops, who left the area before the fortification strewn with dead soldiers. When his force was down to seven soldiers, exhausted from battle, shell-shocked and with ammunition running out, Or-Lev saw that he was about to be attacked by more than a battalion of infantry backed by six tanks. He prepared for a final stand. Just as he did so, he received permission to evacuate. Under intense fire, with his whole force and the wounded loaded in one half-track, the men of ‘Ketuba’ fought their way out of the position, crossed a track through the swamps and finally reached the Israeli lines.
The southern end of the Suez Canal was held by the ‘Quay’ fortification built on the breakwater of Port Tewfik opposite Suez. It was manned by 42 regular army soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Shlomo Ardinest. As the Egyptian artillery bombardment opened up, a force of inflatable boats moved across the Canal and was beaten off by the Israeli garrison, which sank most of the boats. Ardinest, a ‘yeshiva’* student, was soon the only unwounded officer in the position. On Sunday night, 7 October, an Egyptian unit managed to break into the fortification from the south with the help of flame-throwers and set the stronghold’s fuel stores alight. The defending garrison wiped out the attackers in hand-to-hand fighting. For three days, this position, surrounded by water on three sides and connected to the mainland by a single road on a breakwater six yards wide, endured an intense artillery barrage and attacks by thousands of Egyptian soldiers supported by tanks. The Egyptian tanks were picked off by the guns of four severely damaged Israeli tanks, which had managed to reach the fortification on the first day of fighting; ranging their guns by
Orthodox seminary.
Improvisation, the crews of the Israeli tanks set one after another on fire. The medical officer in the position had by now run out of morphine, and was without infusions or syringes, while bandages were also rapidly running out.
By Tuesday morning, 9 October, the position had only ten men trained for combat capable of bearing arms, in addition to ten support personnel, including the doctor, the medical orderly, the cook, and two yeshiva students who had come to organize the prayers on Yom Kippur. The doctor performed the first tracheotomy of his life without any form of anaesthetic on a soldier who was hit by a bazooka shell, and saved his life. On Thursday 11 October, Headquarters queried Ardinest as to whether he could hold out for another 48 hours. The doctor, who had by now no means with which to treat another wounded man, suggested surrendering through the Red Cross, but Ardinest and his garrison sergeant would not hear of it. On Saturday morning, after holding out for a week against forces of the Egyptian Third Army, when the garrison was left with only twenty hand grenades and a few belts of light-machine-gun ammunition, the fortification was authorized to surrender via the Red Cross at 11.00 hours on the Saturday morning. Ordering his troops to wash themselves in the few drops of water left in the jerry cans and to change their battle-soiled clothes. Lieutenant Ardinest paraded his men and marched into captivity, led by a soldier carrying a Torah scroll from the fortification. The thousands of Egyptians surrounding the position watched the proceedings in awe. After the evacuation, the Egyptian officers searched high and low for non-existent heavy machine-guns in the position, unwilling to believe that the garrison had held out for a week with only four light machine-guns.
At the northern end of the Israeli line, on a sandbank some seven miles east of Port Fouad, was the fortification codenamed ‘Budapest’. It was commanded by a reserve officer. Captain Motti Ashkenazi, and manned by eighteen men. ‘Budapest’ was the only position along the line to be reinforced by a platoon of Israeli tanks in accordance with standing orders. On the Saturday afternoon, the Egyptians mounted a mixed armour and artillery attack from the direction of Port Fouad, with a force that included sixteen tanks, sixteen armoured personnel carriers and Jeeps mounting recoilless anti-tank guns, followed by trucks loaded with infantry. In the battle that ensued, eight armoured personnel carriers and seven tanks were set on fire. In the meantime, however, a force of Egyptian commandos established itself on the sandbank one mile east of ‘Budapest’, thus cutting-off the fortification completely from the Israeli lines. The position was engaged heavily by Egyptian air attack, and the Egyptian commando force that had isolated the fortification ambushed an Israeli relief force supported by armour and destroyed it. Heavy artillery harassment of the position continued without let-up. Meanwhile, Israeli pressure on the commando force was stepped up and, on the night of Tuesday 9 October, the Egyptian force was evacuated by sea. The Israeli Air Force attacked on the Wednesday, in an attempt to relieve the position, but lost seven aircraft shot down in the process. Then, on that
Same day, Brigadier-General Magen, commander of the northern sector of the Canal, led a force, with ammunition and food, which finally broke through to ‘Budapest’. On the Thursday, Ashkenazi’s unit was relieved by friendly forces. The Israeli forces, however, had not learned from the lessons of the previous mistakes, and once again ‘Budapest’ was cut-off by an Egyptian commando unit and the route had to be opened after heavy fighting by an Israeli unit. ‘Budapest’ held out until the end of the War and achieved the distinction of being the only front-line position in the Bar-Lev Line that did not fall to the Egyptians. (Captain Ashkenazi subsequently became one of the leaders of the protest movements against the Government, placing responsibility for what had occurred at the outbreak of war on the Minister of Defence, Moshe Dayan, and demanding his resignation: it was submitted in due course.)
The performance of the various fortifications in defence varied according to the standard of command in each position. In general, where the command was determined and experienced and had at its disposal a basis of well-trained soldiers, the fortifications held out for days. Most of the positions gave a good account of themselves, having regard to the overwhelming odds in favour of the Egyptians, the comparatively low standard of training that characterized the garrison troops along the Canal, and the incessant pounding by anti-tank missiles and tank guns being fired by the Egyptians point-blank at the Israeli positions from the ramp on the Egyptian side of the Canal. Some of the fortifications fought to the bitter end. Not one position was abandoned without orders. Many of the commanders exercised great ingenuity and skill in leading the remnants of the garrisons and carrying their wounded out through the Egyptian lines. Some came under attack as they endeavoured to cross into the Israeli lines, and in one case a young subaltern convinced an Israeli force, which was sweeping the sand dunes with murderous fire, to desist by having the ingenuity to wave to and fro a ‘talith’, a prayer shawl, tied to the muzzle of a rifle.
Despite all this heroism, however, the fortifications proved to be a liability. Over the years, they had become a compromise — between strongpoints designed to hold the Canal against Egyptian attack, and warning and observation outposts. As the former they were too weak and dispersed; as the latter they were too strongly manned. There is no doubt that the Egyptians would have succeeded in establishing a foothold even if the original concept of the Bar-Lev Line (including the complete Israeli plan to move forces to the front-line) had been executed on time, and the quality of the troops in the front-line raised (as was envisaged in the event of an emergency). But they would have found their task a much more difficult one, would have incurred very heavy losses, and their attack may conceivably have been beaten back in the final analysis. The Egyptian forces on the east bank of the Canal would in any event have been highly vulnerable to an Israeli counterattack. But perhaps the worst result of the Israeli error in relation to the fortifications was the absence of a clear picture of the situation along the Canal until the morning of Sunday 7 October.
World History
