At the Decisive Point in the Sinai

Generalship in the Yom Kippur War

Jacob Even, Simcha B. Maoz

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780813169552
• eBook ISBN: 9780813169576
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

The Yom Kippur War pitted Israel against Syria in the north and Egypt in the south in October 1973. Caught by surprise and surrounded by enemies, Israel relied on the flexibility and creative thinking of its senior field commanders. After Israeli forces halted the Egyptian troops on the Sinai Peninsula, Major General Ariel Sharon seized the opportunity to counterattack. He split the Egyptian army and cut off its supply lines in a maneuver known as Operation Stouthearted Men. Sharon's audacious, controversial decision defied his superiors and produced a major victory, which many believe helped win the war for Israel.

At the Decisive Point in the Sinai is a firsthand account of the Yom Kippur War's most intense engagement by key leaders in Sharon's division. Jacob Even, deputy division commander of the 143rd Division, and Simcha Maoz, a staff officer, recount the initial stages of the Suez crossing, examine the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) response to Egypt's surprise attack, and explain Sharon's role in the transition from defense to offense. They detail Sharon's struggle to convince his superiors of his plan and argue that an effective division commander is revealed not only by his leadership of subordinates, but also by his ability to influence his senior officers.

The strategic failure of the Israeli high command during the Yom Kippur War has been widely studied, but At the Decisive Point in the Sinai is one of the few works to examine the experiences of field-level commanders. Even and Maoz challenge students of military leadership by offering a case study on effective generalship.

1

The Order and the Division

From Call-Up to Assembly

The Order

In the first week of October 1973, despite wishful thinking, fear was rising in the highest political and military levels that war was about to erupt on the Golan Heights and Suez Canal. By the end of the week, the IDF took critical steps, such as declaring a “C”-level alert (preparing for the mobilization of the reservists), calling up auxiliary air force units, reinforcing the northern front with armor and artillery, and issuing warnings at various levels to prepare for blocking battles and a general mobilization. These steps were carried out under the fading hope that the approaching war was only a bad dream that could be averted by dint of MI’s concept, which the political and military elite accepted, regarding the necessary conditions for the outbreak of war between Israel and the Arab states. According to this concept, Syria would not go to war without Egypt, and Egypt would not go to war until it obtained long-range weapons capable of reaching Israel’s heartland. This concept was the antithesis of the biblical sage’s twenty-three-hundred-year-old advice: “Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire” (Eccles. 6:9).

In the early morning of Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar), October 6, 1973, the uncertainty abruptly ended. At approximately 0400, the political and military decision makers realized that war would erupt that day. In the five hours that had passed since the CoGS, Lieutenant General David (“Dado”) Elazar, and the defense minister, Moshe Dayan, learned that war was imminent, the two had been bickering over the scale of mobilization. At 0900, Prime Minister Golda Meir gave the CoGS the green light to call up two divisions immediately. Elazar mobilized the 143rd Armored Division for the southern front and the 146th Division to serve as the General Staff’s reserve force. Twenty minutes later, the prime minister approved a full-scale call-up.

The 143rd Division

In the 1967 Six-Day War, the 31st Provisional Division had fought under the command of Major General Avraham Yoffe in Sinai’s central axis, where it captured the Gidi and Mitla Passes and reached the Suez Canal in the Port Fuad area. In January 1972, the 31st became the permanent 143rd Division. The general of the Southern Command in this period was Major General Ariel Sharon. In mid-July 1973, Sharon ended his tenure in the Southern Command, apparently unwillingly, and retired from the IDF, diving headfirst into the political arena. His replacement was Shmuel Gonen, who only a year earlier, in May 1972, had been promoted to major general. Despite the CoGS’s opposition, Dayan named Major General (Res.) Ariel Sharon commander of the 143rd. By doing so, he rectified to a degree his consent to appoint Gonen commander of the Southern Command. As commander of the 143rd, Sharon insisted on Colonel Jacob (“Jacky”) Even as his deputy. Even’s armor experience included several key roles, such as commander of the 520th Armored Brigade in Yoffe’s division in the Six-Day War, commander of the Armor School, and commander of the 7th Tank Brigade in the War of Attrition (1969–1970). Sharon needed Even’s professionalism, experience, and proven ability as commander of large-scale armor units. The 143rd was a reservist division. Many of its men and officers were veterans of the Six-Day War and the War of Attrition and as such were familiar with the areas east of the canal.

On October 6, the division consisted of the 421st Tank Brigade under the command of Colonel Haim Erez, the 600th Tank Brigade under the command of Colonel Tuvia Raviv, and the 875th Mechanized Brigade (formerly the 8th Brigade) under the command of Colonel Aryeh Dayan. On the following day, while the division was heading to the canal, the Southern Command requisitioned the 875th and annexed it to the 252nd Division (also known as the Sinai Division) under the command of Major General Avraham (“Albert”) Mandler. In its place, and on the same day, the 143rd received the 14th Tank Brigade, a regular army brigade, under the command of Colonel Amnon Reshef, which, since the start of the war, had been part of the Sinai Division fighting in the canal area. The 143rd—especially after the departure of the 875th (with its forty-five Sherman tanks) and the entry of the 14th Brigade, which was made up entirely of Patton (“Magach”) tanks, the IDF’s newest model—gave the Magach M60A1 tanks, the most advanced Magach model, to the 600th Brigade and the 87th Reconnaissance Battalion.

The level of manpower and the main armored combat vehicles greatly assisted the division’s commanders in their efforts. Many of the men and officers were young in age but already combat experienced. Many had served in the 79th Tank Battalion, which Colonel Even had established as the IDF’s first Magach tank battalion (equipped with Patton M48s and M60s). Many of the battalion’s men and officers who were serving in the 143rd had grown to maturity under Colonel Even’s tutelage. His acquaintance with most of them and his appreciation of their capabilities proved invaluable in working with them. Of no less importance was the fact that they recognized him as a leader and an educator of officers and soldiers and knew what to expect of him as a field commander and what he would demand of them. As Even remembers:

When I assumed my position in the 143rd Division, no one thought that war was imminent, but as soon as I arrived I assembled all the division’s officers and made it clear: “We’re preparing the division for war.” No one raised a brow. They all understood exactly what I meant: the division’s command intended to prepare the division for war in all earnestness. As a first step, every element of combat preparation was examined: the division’s operational plans, ammunition, equipment, vehicle outfitting, training level, manpower, and so forth. Next, work plans were drawn up. The level of the division and brigade staffs was very high. Their excellence stemmed from the fact that most of the officers, and first and foremost the division CoS, Colonel Gideon Altshuler, were experienced career officers with superb reputations. The core senior command consisted entirely of career officers. I was acquainted with most of them, both the career officers and the reservists, from my service in the armored corps and the 79th Battalion over the years.

(For details of the division’s order of battle and main officer roles, see appendix A.)

Shortly after 1400, the Southern Command informed the division’s headquarters that the Egyptian army was crossing the canal in large force and overwhelming the Israeli strongholds on the Bar-Lev Line. The report stunned the division’s headquarters. “Had the Egyptians gone mad?” Everyone was convinced that the IDF would crush the invaders, as Haim Bar-Lev once said, “fast, hard, and elegantly,” in a kind of repeat performance of the IDF’s victory in the Six-Day War. It should be noted that, on October 6, the upper echelons of the government and the IDF were still unaware of the Egyptian army’s superlative antitank capability, its infantry’s excellent training and courage, to what degree the IAF was neutralized, the limitations of Israel’s regular army, and the extent to which Israeli armor’s combat doctrine was already obsolete. Added to the magnitude of the surprise were the deficiencies in the IDF high command.

Now, years after the war, it is clear beyond the shadow of a doubt that the myth of the October 6 surprise cannot excuse the IDF’s blunders in the first three days of the fighting. The only surprise that the senior commanders of the division felt on hearing the reports of the two-front attack was that the Egyptians and Syrians had initiated an act of suicide. No one in the division doubted for a moment that the IDF would expedite the enemy in accomplishing its self-destruction. And this is where the IDF was caught by surprise.

The Call-Up

After the Southern Command headquarters issued alerts in the morning, the division’s headquarters and brigades began feverishly preparing for a general mobilization. When the call-up order arrived at approximately 0930, the mobilization network went into high gear. Because the entire broadcast system and communications network in Israel was shut down on Yom Kippur, a covert call-up was decided on. Yom Kippur made it very easy to employ this system.

After the war, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat boasted in his autobiography and on countless other occasions that the goal of Egypt’s war initiative was to shatter Israel’s security doctrine. At the basis of the doctrine stood the IDF’s structure as a reservist-based army that mobilizes regardless of the nature, aims, and initial conditions of the war. From this fundamental principle, Israel’s national security doctrine derived the rest of its concepts, such as a short war—that is, quickly transferring the fighting onto enemy territory—or relying on special force elements such as the IAF and MI.

The decision of Sadat and Syria’s president Hafez al-Assad to launch the war on Yom Kippur, the day when the Israeli media were shut down, was undoubtedly designed to hurt the IDF’s ability to mobilize the reservists rapidly and efficiently. (In his memoirs, the Egyptian CoGS, Major General Saad el-Shazly, explained that the choice of Yom Kippur for D-day was because of its historical-symbolic meaning for Muslims the world over.) But this reveals the Egyptian planners’ total lack of understanding of the way Israeli Jews observe this particular holy day. On Yom Kippur, the Israeli media are shut off and thus are useless for calling up the reservists, at least in the initial stages. But, by the same token, the main elements needed for rapid mobilization are at the height of availability: most Israeli Jews are at home or in neighborhood synagogues. Military and civilian vehicles designated for military purposes or the call-up are located in their regular parking places, telecommunications systems are open, and the road networks are empty of traffic. Once the General Staff signals the mobilization, it is not long before the reservists reach their assembly areas on the front. The bulk of the time is devoted to the arrival of the reservists in the emergency storage depots, converting civilians into military units, and getting them to the assembly areas. This part of the mobilization is significantly shortened if the road networks are open and the vehicles designated for requisitioning or use during the mobilization can be obtained quickly. Good weather also plays a part in speeding up the mobilization and deployment.

Regarding the reservists’ call-up, the enemy planners also made a major mistake. Theoretically, a public call-up is immediate: all the reservists, no matter where they are, simultaneously receive the order to report for duty, and very little time is needed to complete the process. But the covert mobilization system—largely based on the mass communications phenomenon of the exponential spread of information in a population—is also able to reach hundreds of thousands of men within one to two hours and have them report to active duty. The enemy planners failed to understand the tremendous power inherent in the swift spread of this geometric line and thought that the silenced media would lead to a slower mobilization. In reality, the mobilization and transportation of the men from their homes to their bases proceeded very quickly. The reservists began streaming into the emergency storage depots almost immediately after the start of the call-up. The slow rate of call-up that the enemy planners expected when selecting Yom Kippur as D-day was far outweighed by the advantages that the conditions of the holy day gave to the mobilization. As a result, the first armor units arrived at the southern front in less than twenty-four hours from the outbreak of war (much more quickly than such units arrived at the northern front). That Yom Kippur was D-day for the joint Egyptian-Syrian attack was a key factor in this phenomenal achievement.

The Egyptian General Staff, like its Israeli counterpart, estimated that the IDF would need at least forty-eight hours to transfer its reservists to the front. The Egyptian and Syrian General Staffs were obviously surprised to discover Israeli armored reservist divisions facing them on the front a full day before expected. There was room for the IDF to consider exploiting the enemy’s surprise by immediately launching massive, determined counterattacks in the north and the south.

Two main conclusions can be drawn:

1. The Egyptian army did not shatter the Israeli combat doctrine. On the contrary, that doctrine, which was based on the full-scale call-up of the reservists and their deployment to the front in great strength and with record-breaking speed, is what eventually caused the Egyptian and Syrian armies’ defeat and forced Sadat to seek, on his knees, first a cease-fire and then peace with Israel.

2. The balance of gain and loss between the Egypt and Syria, on the one hand, and Israel, on the other, that resulted from the enemy having decided on Yom Kippur as D-day proves for the umpteenth time the maxim, “The best is the enemy of the good.” Perhaps this maxim should be adopted as a principle of war.

Most of the division’s reservists received their call-up orders and reported to the emergency storage depots in the initial hours of hostilities. The rest of the day in the mobilization centers was spent mustering the perennial latecomers. By midnight, all the mobilization centers were closed. The organization of the units and divisions at the emergency storage depots was generally administered quickly and efficiently. Although foul-ups did occur, some of them disastrous, in equipping and preparing the troops and combat vehicles, they were miniscule in comparison to the chaos that had characterized the mobilization six years earlier at the state of the Six-Day War. After both wars, one heard the complaints of those who focused only on the chaos in the emergency storage depots. Such criticism is an annoying ritual that is better left to psychological and sociological studies than to the IDF. The undeniable fact is that, in October 1973, the IDF did not have three weeks’ advance notice to organize for war, as it had in 1967. Nevertheless, within one day, it succeeded in deploying seven or eight combat-ready armored and infantry divisions on two fronts. Despite the tears and lamentations over the chaos in the emergency storage depots, this was an achievement without parallel in the annals of military history.

Colonel Even recalled:

The division of labor at this stage between Arik [Sharon] and me characterized what was expected of a commander of his rank and his deputy. As the overall commander, Arik devoted all his mental and physical energy and time to learning the operational data on the front as they were happening, analyzing them, and piecing together a situation picture in the attempt to assess the future and formulate decisions that would be carried out. This was an evolving intellectual effort for him, given the kaleidoscopic events on the canal front that demanded continuous information collecting and reassessing the constantly changing situation. I saw my role as getting the division ready so that Sharon would be free to devote all his time, energy, and mental resources toward fulfilling his immediate role as the designer of the future. Together with the division’s staff officers and brigade and unit commanders, and in coordination with the division commander, I assumed responsibility for overseeing the division’s mobilization.

Sharon remained at the division’s base at Sde Teiman (on the outskirts of Beersheba) at the start of the call-up, where he was constantly updated on the mobilization’s progress. While he infused the effort with his personal authority and tenacity, he also dealt with matters that he deemed crucial for managing the division in the following days. Around noon, he moved to the Southern Command’s headquarters, which had still not advanced to its command and control center at Um Hashiba in northwest Sinai. After being updated and gleaning what he could of the ground situation—which was very little, the information with which he was provided being extremely confused and mostly unreliable—he returned to Sde Teiman, updated his deputy, brigade commanders, and staff on events at the front, and outlined his view of the situation, all the while being regularly updated on the progress of the division’s mobilization and organization. At this stage, he understood the Southern Command’s intention to deploy the 143rd Division in the central sector of the canal front, somewhere between al-Balah Island in the north and the Botzer stronghold area in the south.

Assembly

On the evening of October 6, it seemed that several tank units would be equipped and ready to move out within a matter of hours and that other units—companies and battalions—would follow suit throughout the night. In line with Sharon’s instructions, Even issued the following orders to the division’s staff and brigades:

Tank transporters will no longer carry Magach [M-48] tanks to the front as the initial deployment plan envisioned. Starting now the tanks will travel to the front on their tracks. Only the 875th Mechanized Brigade will send some of their Shermans to the front on transporters.

Since we can’t wait until the battalions and brigades are completely organized, every combat-ready company will immediately move out to the Suez Canal as soon as its tanks are manned, armed, and equipped in accordance with standing operation procedure. Every company will proceed to the front as an operational unit under the command of its officers.

Before moving out, the companies were briefed on their routes and final destination, as Sharon had conveyed them to the deputy division commander, brigade commanders, and division staff, as well as on traffic control points, maintenance, refueling, and communications procedures. Instructions were given regarding conduct and response in operational situations such as aerial attacks and ambushes. At midnight, the first companies pulled out. Before dawn, Sharon also set out to the west at the head of a convoy containing his FCP and the main elements of division headquarters. Even remained at Sde Teiman to make sure that the mobilization and organization continued at an accelerated pace, to solve sundry problems that always crop up in such an effort, and to push more units to the front as soon as they were ready.

It is not our intention to rehash all that has been said and written about the advantages and disadvantages (mostly advantages) of moving tanks on their tracks rather than on transporters. Nonetheless, an often-misconstrued point must be emphasized. While moving great distances from emergency storage depots, some tanks will always get stuck on the roadside because of mechanical breakdowns. This is the reality of equipment in storage. The majority of people attribute this phenomenon to the necessary evil of deploying tanks on their tracks, but the truth is that it should be attributed to their credit. Better that the tank, which will eventually break down after a certain number of hours of movement on its tracks no matter what the conditions are, should grind to a halt in our territory and be salvaged, repaired, and returned to service than during battle, when getting stuck because of a technical malfunction renders it a sitting duck. The fate of an inert tank on the battlefield is a foregone conclusion.

Sharon reached the 252nd Division’s headquarters at Refidim on the morning of October 7 and stayed there to receive updates, form a picture of the events, and draw up plans for dealing with the situation. Despite the inflow of information, the accompanying noise, confusion, and unreliability of the data prevented him from understanding what was actually happening at the front and stymied his attempts to assess the situation, plan the division’s deployment, and organize a counterattack. He reached Tassa at noon and immediately set out to observe the area and obtain a firsthand impression of the ground situation. True to his command style, he focused on developing an attack. But, at this stage, Gonen was mainly concerned that the Egyptians would exploit their success and move large forces to the junctions and areas dominating Artillery Road and even Lateral Road, especially in the direction of Tassa. Thus, he ordered Sharon to set up his headquarters in Tassa, deploy his division there when it arrived, organize for defense, and secure the area especially in the north and west. As day broke on October 7, most of the 143rd Division’s units were heading toward the canal. Colonel Even left the task of completing the mobilization and pushing the rest of the di...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• List of Abbreviations
• Authors’ Note
• 1. The Order and the Division: From Call-Up to Assembly
• 2. The IDF’s “Day of Infamy”
• 3. The Twice-Blessed Day: The Events of Tuesday, October 9
• 4. On the Defensive, October 10–14
• 5. The Egyptian Attack, October 14
• 6. The Crossing Battle, Part 1: Preliminaries
• 7. The Crossing Battle, Part 2: The Night of October 15–16
• 8. The Crossing Battle, Part 3: October 16 and the Night of October 16–17
• 9. The Crossing Battle, Part 4: From the Morning of October 17 to the Night of October 17–18
• 10. Eight Days: October 18–25, 1973
• 11. “Better Is the End of a Thing Than the Beginning Thereof” (Eccles. 7:8)
• Appendix A: Main Secondary Senior Commanders and Staff Officers
• Appendix B: The Bridgehead Compound
• Appendix C: Biographical and Career Highlights
• Bibliography
• Index