On Tuesday 9 October, General Dayan briefed the editors of the Israeli press. His talk exuded pessimism, and he hinted at the possibility of a defence line in the southern Sinai to cover only Sharm El-Sheikh. He believed that it would be necessary to decide on new and shorter lines. He also indicated his intention of going on Israeli television that night and of revealing to the public the scope of the losses incurred by the Israeli forces to date, including the loss in three days of fifty aircraft and hundreds of tanks. The atmosphere he created gave rise to much concern, so Golda Meir, the Prime Minister, sent General Aharon Yariv, the former Chief of Intelligence, to appear in his place.
On 9 October, General Chaim Bar-Lev, the former Chief of Staff who was now Minister of Trade and Industry, was asked by General Elazar to go to Southern Command and, in effect, to take command there as personal representative of the Chief of Staff with full command authority over General Gonen. As he surveyed the situation in Southern Command, it became evident to Bar-Lev that it would be very difficult to exercise command over General Sharon and, on 12 October, he proposed to the Chief of Staff that Sharon be relieved. Dayan, however, vetoed that proposal, on the grounds that it would create unnecessary internal political problems. Twice during the War did Bar-Lev recommend relieving Sharon of his post. . . .
As from 9 October, the Israeli forces succeeded in stabilizing the line and holding the Egyptian forces, who thereafter did not succeed in making additional territorial gains during the remainder of the war. The Egyptians daily launched a number of attacks, but gradually the Israeli forces got the measure of the Egyptian Army with its new equipment and, in particular, developed new methods for dealing with the Sagger anti-missile threat. By the use of co-ordinated smokescreens and concentrated artillery fire, the
Israeli forces succeeded in minimizing the effect of the Egyptian anti-tank missile concentrations.
As the Egyptian infantry attacked again and again, incurring heavy losses, Israeli respect for the determination and daring of their opponents grew. On 9 October, the Egyptians mounted a divisional attack on Amir’s brigade, penetrating the Israeli lines, but Adan, concentrating his armour, crushed the Egyptians by drawing them on to Amir’s brigade and then unleashing his other two brigades, one on their northern flank and one on their southern flank. On Wednesday 10 October, the Egyptians mounted five separate attacks against Adan’s division and, on the same day, Sharon’s division was attacked by units of the Egyptian 21st Armoured Division. Manoeuvring carefully in the desert, he smashed the Egyptian attack, which cost them some 50 tanks left on the field of battle. Also on the 10th, the Egyptian 1st Mechanized Brigade advanced southwards along the Gulf of Suez, but was held by an armoured force under General Yeshayahu Gavish, who was commanding the southern Sinai. The Egyptian force of some 50 tanks joined battle with the Israelis in the area of Ras Sudar — out of range of the Egyptian missile umbrella covering the Suez Canal. Consequently, the Israeli Air Force was able to attack and destroy the entire brigade. According to General Shazli, the Egyptian Chief of Staff, in his subsequent description of the war, he used this experience to oppose the pressure put on him by the Egyptian Minister of War, General Ahmed Ismail Ali, to advance and attack the Mitla and Gidi Passes. Shazli at all times opposed the emergence of the Egyptian forces from beneath the missile umbrella. This difference of opinion was ultimately to explode into a very serious controversy.
Gradually, the Israeli forces took control of the battlefield, allowing the Egyptian assaults to break up on the Israeli anvil. Confidence was growing. The ratio of losses had changed markedly, with the Israeli losses dropping and those of Egypt increasing. Israeli reserves were arriving, and the ordnance units were repairing tanks. Southern Command was gathering strength.
The Israeli Command was of the opinion that no decision in the field of battle could be made unless the Israeli Army crossed the Canal into Egypt proper and then developed its natural tendency for speed and manoeuvre. It must not get bogged-down in a static war for which it was not suited. The Israelis had all along planned the roads and the concentration areas, including the bridging equipment, for such a contingency. The concept of attack was now developed. It would be a two-divisional attack at the vulnerable boundary between the Egyptian Second and Third Armies at Deversoir, at which point, it will be recalled, a reconnaissance force had noted that the link in the Egyptian line was a weak one. Orders were given to assemble a preconstructed bridge, which would be rolled into position. Gonen presented his plan, which was accepted in principle by Bar-Lev. Deversoir was chosen as the point of crossing because one flank would be protected by the Great Bitter Lake; furthermore, the west bank at this point was far more conducive to a battle of manoeuvre than other areas that had been proposed. Above all, this was the junction point between
Two Egyptian armies and, by the very nature of things, constituted a weak link.
But the Israelis faced a dilemma. The Egyptian armoured divisions were concentrated on the west bank of the Canal, and this fact made the plan almost impracticable. The Egyptian force concentrated on the west bank — fresh forces that had not yet been deployed in battle — included two armoured divisions, two mechanized divisions and two independent armoured brigades, with a total of some 900 Egyptian tanks. Both Elazar and Bar-Lev felt that it was inadvisable to make the crossing until a serious dent had been made in the Egyptian armoured forces.
On both sides of the line, there was a sharp division of opinion that focused on the Egyptian armoured concentrations still on the west bank. On the Israeli side, pressure was developing to cross the Canal as rapidly as possible and not to wait for the Egyptian armoured forces to cross to the east; against this view, Elazar and Bar-Lev felt that it was essential to wait for the Egyptian armoured concentrations to cross over to the east bank, to lure them into committing themselves in battle, and only then to launch an attack across the Canal against an Egyptian army that had lost most of its armoured strength. On the Egyptian side, the Minister of War, backed by President Sadat, was pressurizing General Shazli to move the armour across to the east bank and to mount an attack against the Mitla and Gidi Passes. Three times in ihe course of 24 hours, he issued orders to this effect, and three times Shazli resisted the order, explaining the dangerous situation that might thereby be created. Finally, a direct order was issued to mount the armoured attack on 14 October.
In the original crossing of the Canal, the Egyptians had moved over
1,000 out of a total of 1,700 front-line tanks, leaving behind some 350 tanks in the vicinity of the west bank of the Canal, and 250 as a strategic reserve: the 21st Armoured Division was the reserve behind Second Army, and the 4th Armoured Division was the reserve behind Third Army. The decision to move them across the Canal has been characterized by Shazli as the major Egyptian error in the war. This move, in fact, left only one armoured brigade to protect the west bank of the Canal.
Meanwhile, in Israel, on Friday 12 October, Generals Elazar and Bar-Lev presented their plan for the crossing of the Canal to the Minister of Defence. Elazar proposed waiting for the Egyptian attack and dealing with it before the Israelis crossed the Canal. Dayan was sceptical and not very enthusiastic about the operation, but added that he was not prepared to ‘wage a jihad against it’: the Israeli crossing of the Canal would not decide anything, nor would it bring the Egyptians to ask for a cease-fire. He was sharply at variance with Elazar on the plan. Dayan brought the matter to a meeting chaired by the Prime Minister and attended by members of the ad hoc Cabinet in addition to a number of generals. During the discussion after Bar-Lev had presented the plan, many doubts were expressed by those participating as to the feasibility of the operation. It seemed to many that basing such an operation on one supply road would be in defiance of accepted military doctrine. In the course of the meeting, intelligence was received that the movement of the Egyptian
Armour across the Canal to the east bank had begun, and Bar-Lev thereupon proposed postponing a decision in order to enable Southern Command to prepare itself to receive the Egyptian attack and to break it. Indeed, indications were growing that, with the crossing of the Egyptian armoured forces, the long-awaited Egyptian attack was imminent. Elazar, the Chief of Staff, decided to postpone the crossing until after the main armoured battle, in which the Israeli forces would attempt to destroy the maximum number of Egyptian tanks and draw into the bridgeheads from the west bank as much Egyptian armour as possible.
General Shazli had been overruled by the Egyptian Minister of War on the specific instructions of President Sadat, but the Minister of War had agreed to postpone the attack from 13 to 14 October. However, on Saturday 13 October, the Egyptians launched probing attacks all along the line. The 4th and 21st Armoured Divisions were concentrated on the east bank of the Canal and prepared, against the advice of the Chief of Staff, to launch an attack towards the passes out of the range of the missile umbrella that covered the Egyptian bridgeheads. Their plan was to make for the Refidim (Bir Gafgafa) nerve centre by means of a wide pincer movement, with an armoured division and an armoured brigade advancing from the Gidi crossroads through Um Mahza to Refidim, and another armoured division advancing to Refidim from the area of Ismailia-Deversoir via Tasa.
Gonen meanwhile deployed the forces of Israel’s Southern Command with instructions that the efforts along the Mediterranean coast in the north and the Gulf of Suez in the south were to be blocked by armoured forces, and that thereafter the air force — out of range of the Egyptian surface-to-air missile system — would deal with the attacking forces. As for the central and southern sectors, should the attack be a frontal one, Mandler and Sharon were to hold it; if the effort continued towards Refidim, Adan’s division (in addition to part of Sharon’s forces) was to be held in reserve for a counterattack from the flank. One of Adan’s brigades was moved to the area of Refidim.
In the morning, the Chief of Staff went to Southern Command and flew on to Sharon’s advanced headquarters to review the plans for the armoured battle, which seemed imminent, and for the projected crossing of the Canal. Gonen flew to this meeting by helicopter. Seated beside him was Ezer Weizman, (then reserve major-general, former Commander of the Israeli Air Force and subsequently chief of the Operations Branch at the General Staff Headquarters). Gonen advised Mandler by radio that he would come to visit him at his headquarters after he had finished with Sharon, and they agreed a meeting place by codewords. Suddenly Mandler went off the air. He had been killed by Egyptian missile fire, which had zeroed-in on the observation point from which he had been speaking to Gonen by radio. Elazar issued immediate orders for Brigadier-General Kalman Magen, who was commanding the northern sector, to replace him.
With Mandler’s death, an officer of unusual integrity was lost to the Israel Defence Forces. His sense of loyalty to his superiors and to those
Under his command was most marked. After the outbreak of war, those near him could sense that he felt a degree of personal responsibility for not having acted according to his instincts, which had told him that war was imminent. He believed that the situation would have been radically different had his forces been in position according to the overall plan. He was, however, one of the most disciplined officers in the army, and not one person had heard a word of reproach from him after the outbreak of war.
On Sunday morning, 14 October, the Egyptian armoured forces launched their attack between 06.00 and 08.00 hours. In the northern sector, the Egyptian 18th Infantry Division, strengthened by a tank brigade equipped with Soviet-built T-62 tanks, attacked from the area of Kantara with the object of reaching Rumani. Commandp units were heliported to points in the salt marshlands to the east. In the central sector opposite Sharon, the Egyptian 21st Armoured Division, which had completed crossing into the Sinai that morning, with a tank brigade from the 23rd Mechanized Division, broke out of the bridgehead along the central route leading from Ismailia. In Magen’s southern sector, two tank brigades attempted to break out eastwards towards the Gidi and Mitla Passes, one brigade on each axis. Part of this force endeavoured to insinuate itself along the wadis towards the passes. To the south, a special task force (comprising an infantry brigade from the 19th Infantry Division, a tank brigade and 113 Mechanized Brigade from the 6th Mechanized Division) moved towards Ras Sudar in a southerly push along the Gulf of Suez. Three of the six Egyptian thrusts were directed by General Mamoun’s Second Army from its headquarters near Ismailia. Three further thrusts were mounted by General Wassel’s Third Army, the northernmost of which was directed due eastwards towards the Gidi Pass and the Israeli Southern Command headquarters at Um Kusheiba. Farther south, there was a similar armoured drive towards the Mitla Pass, some nine miles away, while the southern thrust was south-eastwards towards Ras Sudar.
Thus began one of the largest tank battles in history (apart from the battle of Kursk in the Second World War), with some 2,000 tanks locked in battle along the entire front. It was a heavy, sultry morning. The Egyptians opened with a heavy artillery attack. The Israeli forces had carefully prepared themselves for this battle and were waiting. In the north, the Egyptians pressed against the over-extended Israeli lines, and Gonen ordered Adan’s division to move in and assume responsibility. By early afternoon, Adan had thrown the Egyptians back to their starting point with a loss of some 50 tanks. In the central sector, the Egyptians fared no better against Sharon’s division: Colonel Reshef, who had sited his tanks well on high ground, allowed the Egyptians to advance in headlong attack against his fire base and, as they closed on the Israeli tanks, the Egyptian forces were engaged at ranges frequently down to 100 yards. Simultaneously, he threw the divisional reconnaissance unit, reinforced by a company of tanks, against the southern flank of the attacking forces. When the battle ended, the Egyptian 1st Mechanized Brigade had been destroyed; 93 knocked-out tanks had been counted.
While Reshefs brigade had suffered only three tanks hit, all by missiles — not one tank had been hit by Egyptian tank fire. On Reshefs southern flank, an Israeli brigade commanded by Colonel Haim Erez successfully beat back a parallel Egyptian attack. By the end of the day, the Egyptian 21st Division, which had been ranged against Sharon’s forces, had lost a total of 110 tanks.
To the south of Sharon, Magen’s division held the thrusts towards the Gidi and Mitla Passes, containing the Egyptian attack after initially giving up some ground before counterattacking and taking a toll of some 60 Egyptian tanks. The Egyptian southern effort, which endeavoured to make a deep flanking movement to the south and turn northwards to reach the Mitla Pass from the south, came up against Israeli paratroop forces holding the pass at Ras Sudar. Magen’s tanks were deployed in anticipation of such a possible flanking movement, and Shomron’s brigade was waiting at the Mitla Pass itself. A fierce battle ensued, in which the Egyptians were engaged by the Israeli paratroop forces and Israeli armour. After two hours of fighting, most of the 3rd Armoured Brigade of the Egyptian 4th Armoured Division had been wiped out. Brought to a halt by the Israeli forces, the concentrated Egyptian armour attempting to move southwards, by now out of range of the anti-aircraft, surface-to-air protective missiles, came under attack by the Israeli Air Force. Within two hours some 60 Egyptian tanks and a large quantity of armoured personnel carriers and artillery were in flames as a result. By the time this column retraced its steps towards evening, it had lost more than half its strength, approximately 90 tanks.
During the day, the Egyptians issued optimistic reports that were broadcast around the world and reflected reports being received from the two field army headquarters. However, towards evening it became quite clear to General Ismail Ali, the Minister of War, that these reports did not reflect the true situation, and that his forces were now exposed without the essential surface-to-air missile protection against the Israeli Air Force. He describes in one of his interviews after the war how, when he realized the true situation, he ordered all formations back to their original positions. Israeli Southern Command waited in vain for the Egyptian attack to develop further, with increased strength, and to penetrate deeper. But the Egyptian forces were poorly led and their tactics were unimaginative. The Israeli forces had a field day. Not a single lasting gain was registered by the enemy. In the northern sector, the Israelis counterattacked and reestablished contact with the ‘Budapest’ fortification, which had been cut off.
This battle was a major turning point in the war in the Sinai: 264 knocked-out Egyptian tanks were counted on the battlefield, and the attackers had suffered more than 1,000 casualties. The Israeli tank losses on that day totalled only some ten tanks. As the results of this, in many ways, major and fateful battle and its significance dawned on General Saad Mamoun, he suffered a heart attack: he was replaced as GOC, Second Army, by General Abd el Munem Halil. The Egyptian Command realized the seriousness of the defeat. General Saad el Din Sfiazli, Chief of Staff of the Egyptian armed forces, admitted in a document circulated to
All the commanders, that the Egyptian attacking forces had been surprised on all axes of advance by Israeli tanks and anti-tank battalions equipped with anti-tank guided missiles of the SSll type, which had succeeded in blocking their attacks and inflicting very heavy tank losses. Analysing the losses sustained by the Israelis in their initial counterattack to the Canal and against the Egyptian bridgeheads on 6 October, and the heavy losses sustained by the Egyptians by their attack on the 14th, he reached the conclusion that it was impossible to ensure the success of any attack — whether by tanks or by armoured infantry — without destroying or silencing in advance the anti-tank missile defences.
On the morning of 15 October, General Shazli proposed that the remnants of the 21st Armoured Division and the 4th Armoured Division be once again returned to the west bank of the Canal and concentrated there, so as to achieve the required military balance as he saw it. The Minister of War, General Ismail Ali, opposed this move, maintaining that the removal of these forces would affect adversely the morale of the Egyptian Army on the east bank, and that the Israelis would interpret such a move as a sign of weakness, which would invite additional pressure on the Egyptian forces. Shazli maintains to this day that the decision was a political one, because on the next day, 16 October, President Sadat was scheduled to deliver a political speech to the Egyptian parliament, the People’s Council, and he wanted to speak from a position of strength.
On the possibility of a major Egyptian offensive Dayan had been sceptical. Sharon had urged that the Israeli forces not wait for the Egyptian offensives but attack the bridgeheads and attempt to nibble away at them. In the final analysis, the position taken Jointly by Elazar, Bar-Lev and Gonen was fully vindicated. The Egyptians had decided on the offensive under pressure from the Syrians, who had hoped that such an attack would relieve some of the Israeli pressure on the Syrian front. However, when the offensive was finally mounted, it was spread out along a front over 100 miles long, in six major thrusts. Had the armour that had been brought over to the east of the Canal been concentrated in one, or at most two, strong armoured fists directed towards one or two of the passes, it would certainly have had a better chance of success than the spread-out effort the Egyptians actually mounted. Furthermore, the Egyptians did not learn from their initial success in crossing the Canal, and did not provide adequate forces of infantry to support their attack against the Israelis. In retrospect, it is clear that General Ismail All’s decision, based on direct instructions from President Sadat, stood a good chance of success only if the attacking forces were concentrated in a major armoured fist. In the manner in which the attack was mounted, it is quite clear that the Egyptians erred, and that they walked into the trap Elazar had prepared for them. His evaluation of the developments that should take place along the Canal before an Israeli crossing was a correct one, and one of the most important decisions he made in the course of the war.
So, on the Israeli side, the conclusion to be drawn from the battle was clear: Elazar issued orders for the Canal crossing to take place on the following night.
World History
