The Two O'Clock War: The 1973 Yom Kippur Conflict and the Airlift That Saved Israel
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- Published by: Macmillan
- eBook Publish Date: August 31, 2002
- Print ISBN: 0312273037
- Filesize: 1.34 MB
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Overview
October 6, 1973. Yom Kippur. The holiest day of the Jewish calendar. At 2 p.m., a blinding shower of high explosive rains down on a collection of concrete bunkers and observation posts sunk in the Sinai sand. Minutes later, 600 Egyptian tanks roll onto pontoon bridges to cross the Suez Canal. Simultaneously, 100 Syrian MiGs and Sukhoi bombers scream through the skies above the Golan Heights. Burning at both ends, Israel was caught completely by surprise.
In two weeks time, the U. S. armed forces would be on Def Con III and nuclear tensions mounting within the Kremlin. Surprised by the fury and excellent excution of the Arab onslaught, and perhaps more than a little complacent, Israel suddenly found itself on the point of losing a war because of a lack of ammunition, planes, and tanks.
Editorial Reviews
Boyne's focus on Israel's initial defeats after being surprised by Egypt and Syria in the fall of 1973 establishes the key scenario of his book: a near-ultimatum to U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that Israel's continuing deferral of the nuclear option would depend on American delivery of diplomatic and military aid. The best and most useful parts of the book are those devoted to the U.S. decision to mount a massive airlift, using the old reliable C-141s and the newer, larger C-5s, whose acquisition costs and technical reliability had been major points of controversy in earlier years. Boyne (Beyond Wild Blue), a retired air force colonel and former Air and Space Museum director, credits the U.S. Air Force's military airlift command with establishing a lifeline of vital equipment and spare parts that in turn sustained the Israeli Defense Force as it rallied and counterattacked enemies unable to exploit their initial victories. No less remarkable was the air force's ability simultaneously to sustain its other commitments in Vietnam and Europe a sharp contrast with a similar Soviet airlift to Syria and Egypt that suffered constant, embarrassing gridlocks. Initially unable to convince its Arab clients to accept a cease-fire, the Soviet Union turned to Kissinger. In face to face negotiations, the superpowers hammered out an agreement which almost collapsed when a Soviet-sanctioned Egyptian missile launch generated a chain reaction that culminated in the U.S. escalating its alert status to DefCon III and the Soviet Politburo debating a direct response. Boyne concludes that war was avoided less by positive decision making than because specific mistakes were not made. His emphasis on the importance of contingency informs the book as a whole and makes it a useful counterpoint to Michael Oren's recent account of the 1967 conflict, Six Days of War. (Sept. 20) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.
Author Information
Bio of Walter J. Boyne
WALTER J. BOYNE is a retired colonel of the United States Air Force, and the former Director of the National Air and Space Museum. He has written forty books of fiction and nonfiction, including the bestsellingWeapons of the Gulf War and The Wild Blue (written with Steven L. Thomson). He makes his home in Ashburn, Virginia.
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Additional Info
Imprint
Macmillan
Filesize
1.34 MB
Number of Pages
320
eBook ISBN
9780312707811
Excerpt from: The Two O'Clock War by Walter J. Boyne
Introduction: The War Begins
October 6, 1973, Yom Kippur. 1:50 P.M. (Local Time)
A rough knock on the door rouses Yacov Gore from his sleep. Guilt-stricken, he shuts down his record player -- for bidden on this holiest of Jewish holidays -- and glances out the window. A burly trooper stands at the door, impatient, a paper curled up in his fist -- the emergency recall list. Gore, a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, pulls off his kitel,the white garment worn for Yom Kippur, and grabs his rifle. As always, his kit is in his car; he will drive to his infantry unit at the front.
Ten minutes later a blinding shower of high explosive rains down on Mifriket, a low-lying collection of concrete bunkers and observation posts sunk in the Sinai sand. Artillery and rocket fire from the Egyptian Eighteenth Division upends every inch of the tiny fortress area, turning sand into tiny glasslike meteors. Inside the bunkers, thirty-one Israeli soldiers stare wildly, mouths open to ease the pain of the endless concussive waves, ignoring the chunks of concrete plummeting down from the ceiling. All this for a few yards of dirt overlooking the Suez Canal. Within twenty-four hours, all thirty-one soldiers will be dead or captured.
Simultaneously with the artillery barrage, more than a hundred Syrian air force planes attack targets in the Golan Heights, with MiG-21s flying top cover and MiG-17 and Sukhoi Su-7b fighter-bombers striking defensive positions. Communication centers, antiaircraft batteries, and Hawk missile batteries receive careful annihilating attention. Twenty Su-7bs bomb Brigadier General Rafael Eitan's divisional headquarters. For the first time -- but not the last -- the cry goes up: "Where is the Israeli Air Force?"
