Zahal Blitzkrieg

Zahal Blitzkrieg The Sinai Campaign of 1967 Exemplified Modern Warfare by Lieutenant Colonel SewaII H. Menzel The Israeli Sinai campaign, 5-8 June, 1967, reaffirmed certain tactical and strategic truths of long standing but sometimes scoffed at in this present age of modern technology. This campaign, carried out with precision and blinding speed, still serves as a valuable study and review of the strategic aims and principles of modern warfare. All the elements of modern day warfare played their part. Combined arms techniques, using all the combat arms, were paramount, as were all forms of deception and attack. It was truly an armor war where the mobile-mindedness of the field commanders was the deciding factor in the outcome of the campaign. Probably most important, the campaign demonstrated that an army is much more than a mechanical machine, whereby a mere pushing of a button produces a preconceived chain of events or actions. No, an army is human, if only because it is made up of human beings and the interaction of these beings ultimately determines the success or failure of that army. The human element has been and will continue to be the most important factor in war.

The eminent British military historian, Major General J.F.C. Fuller, commented on the study of military history: “It does not really matter much what a certain general did at a certain date, but what is of importance is - why he did it in a certain set of circumstances. The object of education is not so much to discover ‘what to think’, as to learn ‘how to think’.”’

Because the intent of this article is to‘review some of the more important strategical and tactical concepts as they influenced the conduct of the Sinai campaign, the political situation will be touched upon only as it applied to the particular strategy involved. In order to appreciate the why of this cam-The Sinai peninsula is a rugged wasteland, bisected north and Map A south by a mountainous ridge and crisscrossed by desert tracks. paign, it would be well to set it off as to its setting and major events; followed by a discussion of the concepts and ideas that influenced the conduct of the campaign.

During the twenty years preceding 1967, the Sinai peninsula (Map

A) had been a focal point for the animosities of Egypt and Israel. Its northeastern corner is the start of the 180-kilometer-long Egyptian-Israeli border. In 1967, the Sinai’s 24,000 square miles were bounded by the Mediterranean Sea in the north, Israel to the east, the Gulf of Aqaba to the south, with the Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal forming the western boundary. Tactical maps of the area show it to be rugged wasteland, with little or no cultivation and a population consisting mainly of nomadic Bed-As the Six-Day War approached, the Egyptians had garrisoned the Sinai with 90.000 troops and 950 tanks, many occupying 3-5-mile deep defense belts. Map ouins. Small villages are located at a few critical road junctions. The mountain ranges, steep ridges, deep wadis, and sand dunes tend to canalize vehicular movement. The northern, coastal region of Sinai consists of large, open stretches of rolling sand dunes, sometimes trafficable but often impassable even for tracked vehicles. Further inland, numerous wadis and sand hills are encountered, with the rugged central mountains forming up some fifty miles inland.

This central section of Sinai is characterized by a series of steep hills and terrain compartments forming a mountainous ridge running north to south and connecting with the southern mountain group which dominates the southern half of the peninsula. This central ridge line and its series of outlying hills dominate the several east-west routes of communication. The Mitla, Giddi, and Gifgafa passes are the key passage points through the central ridge.

The southern half of the Sinai consists of terrain ranging from sea level up to 3,000 meters. Acoast-a1 road circumventing the mountains is the only good communication route linking the northern reaches of the peninsula with Sharem El Sheikh, a village on the southern tip overlooking the Straits of Tiran. The mountains are too rugged for even tracked vehicles to negotiate without prohibitive amounts of engineer work. In late May, 1967, after the United Arab Republic closed the Straits of Tiran, effectively blocking the Israeli port city of Elat, Israel mobilized her army for the inevitable conflict. By the eve of 4 June 1967, the Egyptian Army had garrisoned the Sinai with a force of some' 90,000 men and 950 tanks2 to oppose an Israeli force approximately one-half that size in both men and tanks.

The Egyptian order of battle, (Map B), was as follows: Gaza - 20th Palestinian Infantry Division; El Arish - 7th Infantry Division; Abu Ageila - 2nd Infantry Division; Jebel Libni - 3rd Infantry Division (and one armored regiment); Kuntilla - 6th Infantry Division; Bir Gifgafa - 4th Armored Division, and Konerah - 1st Armored Division (Task Force Shaely).~ The Egyptian infantry division consisted of three infantry regiments, each with three infantry battalions and an antitank battalion equipped with 36 self-propelled guns (Soviet SUIOOs). An artillery regiment (72 guns) and one armored regiment (100 tanks) was a normal complement to the division. The armored division consisted of approximately 300 tanks divided into three separate regiments, with a supporting mechanized infantry regiment and with some organic artillery.4 Armored fighting vehicles generally consisted of Soviet T-34, T-54/55, and JS-series tanks. Soviet equipment made up the majority of the Egyptian vehicles and artillery.

Captured Egyptian documents indicated that Egypt intended, with ". . . Based on his government's del to attack on the morning of 5 General Gavish had three objectij accomplish ...

I I the cooperation of Jordan and Syria, to destroy the Israeli Air Force in a coordinated surprise attack and then strike across the Israeli Negev Desert to link up with Jordan, thus cutting off the city of Elat from the rest of Israel. The 20th Egyptian Infantry Division had been given the mission of harassing the Israeli forces in the vicinity of Gaza to distract the latter's main forces away from the intended area of attack by the 4th Armored Division in the vicinity of Nitzana. The 6th Infantry Division, in conjunction with armored Task Force Shasely, was to seize the city of Elat.5 From a defensive viewpoint, the Egyptians, guided by their Soviet advisors, had fortified and blocked all the principal avenues of approach from Israel into the Sinai. These positions consisted of fortified works and trenches in depths of from three to five miles. Minefields protected the frontal avenues of approach, while antitank guns, artillery, and armor protected the position in depth and covered the rearward approaches. This type of defensive system followed Soviet doctrine and generally consisted of three belts.

The first belt was the outer position, providing early warning, and was designed to delay and disorganize an attacking enemy force. It consisted of some minefields and interlocking trenches. The second belt, or the principal defensive position, consisted of trenches and antitank guns developed as strong points to destroy or contain any enemy penetrating the first belt. The third belt contained artillery and an armor reserve to destroy the enemy absorbed by the first two belts. The entire defensive position was normally flanked where possible by an artificial or natural obstacle obstructing vehicle and troop movernent.'j With all Israeli avenues of approach apparently blocked by positions constructed in the Soviet manner, the Egyptians appeared to have a very formidable and invulnerable array of defenses. The only disadvantage to the Egyptian Army was its long lines of communication stretching from the Israeli border to the Suez Canal. This was to be offset by the Egyptian Air Force, consisting of more than 500 combat aircraft, which could provide aircover for convoys traversing their way through the Sinai. Any Israeli penetration of the forward Egyptian positions was to be thrown back by a mobile reserve consisting primarily of the 4th Armored Division. The Egyptian forces in Sinai were commanded by Lieutenant General Abdul Mushin Kamal Murtaji.

The Israeli Army had allotted to what was known as its Southern Command one armored and two mechanized divisions and two other independent brigades with which to conduct operations (Map B). This force was commanded by Brigadier General Yeshazahou Gavish. Each of the three divisions was commanded by a brigadier general and named after its respective commander. Because the division headquarters in the Israeli Army at that time was a tactical headquarters containing a series of administratively self-contained brigades, each division differed slightly in composition from the other: Division Tal - two armored and one mechanized infantry brigades; Division Yoffe - one armored and one mechanized infantry brigades, and Division Sharon - one armored and two mechanized infantry brigades. Each brigade had a mix of armor, artillery, infantry, and engineer troop.^ Division Tal had approximately 200 of the 450 tanks in Gavish's command, with the remainder being evenly distributed to the remaining divisions and brigades. The tanks were American M4 Shermans and M48 Pattons, British Centurions, and French Based on his government's decision to attack on the morning of 5 June, General Gavish had three objectives. to accomplish. He had been ordered by Major General Itzhak Rabin, his commander in chief, to destroy the Egyptian forces in Sinai; capture Sharem el Sheikh, and occupy all of the Sinai from the Israeli border to the Suez Canal. Gavish planned to accomplish this through a three-phase operation. First, he would pene-AMX-13s. trate the Egyptian easternmost front with his three divisions; second, destroy the Egyptian reserve forces with an exploitation; and, third, conduct a pursuit aimed at seizing the whole of the Sinai and capturing or destroying any remaining Egyptian forces therein.8 General Rabin knew that success for such an undertaking would be determined to a large degree by air superiority over the battlefield, which would facilitate freedom of movement of the ground forces. Destruction of the Egyptian Air Force was to be carried out on the morning of 5 June in conjunction with the coordinated attacks by Gavish's three divisions. At 0800 that day, an 80-minute surprise air attack was initiated against selected Egyptian airbases in the Sinai and in Egypt. Brigadier General Morde-chai Hod's Israeli Air Force destroyed some 400 of the 500 Egyptian planes.9 The Egyptian Air Force had now been temporarily eliminated as an effective fighting force which could influence action on the battlefield.

While the air strikes were hitting their targets, General Gavish sent his divisions into the attack. Division Tal, commanded by Brigadier General Israel Tal, had been given the threefold mission of penetrating the Egyptian defenses in Gaza on the Mediterranean coast and destroying all the enemy encountered; striking southwest along the coastal road from Rafah to the Suez Canal; and being prepared to exploit in any direction on order, from the coastal town of El Arish through The Israeli plan was to neutralize Egyptian air power while Map c three powerful divisions attempted to penetrate the Egyptian ground force and exploit any opening in a run for the Suez Canal. the north central Sinai.

Division Sharon, commanded by Brigadier General Ariel Sharon, was to penetrate the Egyptian positions in the vicinity of Abu Ageila; then link up with either Division Yoffe or Division Tal; and be prepared to exploit southwest toward Nakhl or the Mitla Pass.

Division Yoffe, commanded by Brigadier General Abraham Yoffe, was to strike through the central Sinai between Divisions Tal and Sharon; conduct an exploitation to the Suez Canal via Gifgafa or Giddi Pass; and then turn back to the Mitla Pass striking that key terrain feature from the west or rear, as the situation warranted.

Theindependent brigadenear Kuntilla, in addition to preventing an Egyptian breakout into Jordan across the southern Negev Desert, was also to place pressure on the Egyptian forces to its front in order to deceive the latter's commanders as to the true Israeli intentions in the other zones of attack.I0 The other independent brigade near Gaza would assist Division Tal in clearing the Gaza area. Airborne and amphibious forces were held in reserve to exploit any initial successes with landings at Sharem el Sheikh in the south. General Gavish had planned as flexibly as he could, and on 5 June, he began to execute his plan. (Map C). At 0815 on 5 June, Division Tal began its attack to seize the critical Rafah road junction which dominated the coastal route to El Arish. The Egyptian defenses at Rafah and in Gaza were manned by the 20th and 7th Divisions. These defenses were based on the previously noted Soviet prototype and consisted of a series of strongpoints, fronted by minefields, and backed by artillery, dug in armor and antitank guns."

General Tal used a combination of penetration and envelopment (Map D), with armor and mechanized infantry battalions flanking the Egyptian positions by traversing the sand dunes to the southwest of Rafah and rolling up the Egyptian position from the rear. Another similar force of brigade size penetrated what had been determined to be a weak point in Egyptian dispositions at the village of Khan Yunis. This brigade struck the Egyptian positions from the .t + + northeast and rear.12 While the remainder of his division mopped up the Egyptian remnants, Tal immediately exploited his successful attack by sending an armor battalion along the coastal road towards El Arish.

The speed of advance of this attacking battalion was so great that it was able to pass through the strong Egyptian defenses at the Giradi defile and overrun the 7th Infantry Division headquarters at El Arish before the latter was fully aware of the success of Tal's initial attack. While the Egyptians at Giradi were able to recover from their initial surprise and reconstitute their defenses, causing considerable delay to the rest of Division Tal, the decisive damage had been done and the two Egyptian divisions at Gaza and Rafah were no longer fit to fight. By the morning of 6 June, General Tal was in El Arish and in a position to exploit his success. Division Tal had advanced 70 kilometers in eight hours and destroyed six enemy regi-ment ~ . ~ ~ Division Yoffe, with one brigade (the second brigade had been directed to follow Division Sharon), struck through what the Egyptian high command considered impenetrable sand dunes north of Abu Ageila. It reached Bir Lahfan late on the afternoon of 5 June and cut the road linking El Arish with Abu Ageila. That evening it blocked and destroyed a brigade sent by the Egyptian 4th Armored Division to relieve the unexpected pressure on _the 7th Division at El Arish.14 Division Sharon's route of advance into Sinai was blocked by the Egyptian position at Umm Gataf, ten kilometers to the east of Abu Ageila and the forward position of the Egyptian 2nd Infantry Division's defenses. Abu Ageila was important because anyone controlling its road junction could attack in any direction into western Sinai. The position at Umm Gataf met all the requirements of the standard, three belt, Soviet defensive system and sat astride the main route of approach from Israel to Abu Ageila. Its south flank rested on a high ridge consisting of a series of steep hills running the length of the position. Its northern flank rested on a series of sand dunes considered by Ma P D General Tal's force attacked to seize the Rahfa road junction. the Egyptians to be impassable to both man and vehicle. The position, four kilometers wide and seven kilometers long, was organized with the usual minefields to the front, interlocking trenches, and strongpoints. A regiment of infantry (3,000 men) occupied this position. More than60 tanks and as many artillery pieces supported the regiment with the mission of destroying any force penetrating into the two forward belts.'5 Realizing the high cost in lives and the expenditures of a grinding frontal attack into a position of this nature, General Sharon decided to execute a night attack during the night of 5-6 June, using armor, infantry, airmobile forces, engineers, and artillery in a series of coordinated attacks, intended to overwhelm the Umm Gataf position from not only the front, but from the flanks and rear. The detail of the attack is worth noting as it employed the combined arms attack concept in its fullest sense Sharon sent an infantry brigade around the north flank on a 16 kilometer forced march through the sand dunes to reach a position whereby the brigade's three battalions could attack and enfilade the trench systems of the Egyptians. After an intense artillery preparation, this attack jumped off at 2245 on 5 June. Simultaneously, an air-mobile operation was carried out by an infantry battalion, which landed on the high ridge overlooking the Egyptian artillery emplacements. From this position the battalion would infiltrate on foot down into the artillery position and destroy the guns. While these two (Map E).

P f Division Sharon's Night Attack on Umm Gataf 5-6 June 1967 Map E General Sharon's attack on Umm Gataf was a combined arms strike. Successful in their first phase, the Israelis raced to gain control of the mountain pases to prevent Egyptian withdrawal west to Suez.

Map F attacks were taking place, a battalion-size armored task force was sent on a still wider flanking march north of the flanking infantry brigade and through the sand dunes north of Umm Gataf. After extremely hard going and brushing aside several Egyptian outposts, the task force swept past Abu Ageila and onto the rear of the Umm Gataf position. Its attack was delivered at 0100 on 6 June and caught the bulk of the Egyptian armor as it was preparing to counter the successful Israeli infantry attacks which had overrun most of the Egyptian artillery and infantry positions. At 0230 on 6 June the remainder of Division Sharon, led by combat engineers, breached the forward minefields and entered the Umm Gataf position. By 0400 on 6 June, Egyptian resistance was finished.16 The remaining brigade of Division Yoffe was pushed through to link up with its parent unit. Division Sharon lost 40 men killed while destroying approximately 60 Egyptian tanks and 1,000 s01diers.l By the morning of 6 June, all of General Gavish’s divisions had completed the first phase of the planned operation and were prepared to exploit their initial successes. To prevent an orderly Egyptian withdrawal to a second defense line near the central ridge, Gavish changed hs original plan slightly and pushed his divisions forward (Map F).

Division Tal was ordered to continue not only the attack along the coastal road, but also to conduct operations to destroy Egyptian forces concentrated along the Jebel Libni-Bir Gifgafa-Ismailia road. Division Yoffe was ordered to seize the Giddi and Mitla Passes by the most direct route to prevent any Egyptian forces from escaping west to the Suez Canall8 Division Sharon was ordered to reorganize and drive south, across country, in order to cut off and destroy the Egyptian 6th Division and Task Force Shasely, which up to this time had been effectively held in place by the harassing attacks and feints of the Israeli brigade near Kuntilla. For Division Sharon, this would mean marching over broken desert terrain and would take two and one half days to accomplish. The division arrived in the vicinity of Nakhl on the 8th of June.19 With the situation confronting the Egyptian Army deteriorating rapidly, General Murtaji intended to withdraw the bulk of his forces to a line running from Bir Gifgafa to Bir-El Thamada. Units still intact at Jebel Libni and Bir Gifgafa (4th Armored and 3rd Infantry Divisions) were ordered to hold their positions and conduct counterattacks as appropriate. Unfortunately for the Egyptian Sinai command, the pace of the Israeli attack and the rapidly changing situation caused considerable confusion and, frequently, orders transmitted by higher headquarters were not appropriate to the situation confronting the commander on the ground. At any given moment General Murtaji could not explain precisely to his commander in chief, Field Marshall Abdul Hakin Amer, what the situation actually was.20 The highly accurate shooting of the Israeli tank gunners and the mobile, flanking tactics employed by the companies and battalions overcame Egyptian resistance with relative ease, and the attack was able to keep up its momentum. The Israeli Air Force interdicted and harassed Egyptian ground formations with devastating effect. Counterattacks by the Egyptian 4th Armored Division and 40th Armored Regiment were broken up before they could develop momentum.21 An Egyptian regiment a t Abu Ageila fell victim to Israeli air attacks in its assembly areas and never entered the battle.22 It was apparent that the Egyptian Sinai Army was on the verge of complete collapse. Its commander had lost control of his formations, and General Gavish held the initiative. The Egyptian division commanders were virtually left to fend for themselves as best they could. Division Tal's attack, 6-7 June, followed two axes of advance, with the southern axis carrying the main weight of the division (Map F). During the period 7-8 June, this portion of the division met and destroyed the remaining elements of the 4th Armored Division in a series of brigade-level flanking attacks which caught the Egyptian commanders by surprise.23 On 6 June, Division Yaffe became involved in destroying elements of the Egyptian 3rd Infantry Division in conjunction with Division Tal. When ordered to move toward the Mitla Pass, General Yoffe could only break away a small company team consisting of a tank company, two platoons of mechanized infantry, and three heavy mortars.24 This division vanguard, small as it was, was able to reach the 25 kilometer-long Mitla Pass on the night of the 7th. Its presence there (nine tanks in firing condition) and a tenacious resistance acted like a cork in a bottle and slowed down the retreating Egyptian columns, causing huge traffic jams and a bottleneck of trucks and tanks which became the targets of Israeli air strikes.25 Israeli planes eventually destroyed 1,400 vehicles of the withdrawing Egyptian army in the approaches to Mitla Pass.26 The remainder of Division Yoffe finally reached the pass just in time to relieve its company team, which had been reduced to about half its original size and was on the verge of exhaustion. Another small force was sent to secure the more remote Giddi Pass.

On 8 June, Divisions Tal and Yoffe continued their pursuit of the Egyptian forces to the Suez Canal and linked up with a small infantry force which had moved up the wesb ern, coastal road after having been landed at Sharem el Sheikh to secure the Straits of Tiran (Map G). Meanwhile, Division Sharon had pressed its advance to the south, closing on Nakhl just in time to cut off the Egyptian 6th Infantry Division and Task Force Shasely retreating toward Mitla Pass. Sharon maneuvered one brigade into a hasty ambush position blocking the road to Nakhl and, with the remainder of his division, waited to catch his opponent in the flank (Map H).27 As Egyptian troops attempted to retreat via the Mitla Pass, Israeli air power came into play while a strong, stubborn M a p G blocking force caused the Egyptians to jam up on the bottlenecked route.

Without aircover and unaware of the force blocking its path, the retreating Egyptian forces, harassed from the rear by the Israeli Kuntilla brigade, blundered into a perfectly executed trap and were destroyed. After mopping up this enemy force, Division Sharon proceeded on to the Suez Canal via the Mitla Pass. In the short space of four days, an Israeli force, outnumbered by more than two to one, had outmaneuvered and overwhelmed an opponent equipped with some of the most modern fighting equipment of the day. Egyptian losses in personnel were estimated at 25,000 killed and captured; while of 950 tanks employed, 850 were either destroyed or captured by the Israeli forces.28 Israeli losses were 275 killed and 61 tanks destroyed.29 Such was the effectiveness of the Israeli blitzkrieg.

Many reasons exist for this phenomenal Israeli success. Superior training, especially in the field of tank gunnery, esprit de corps, aggressive leadership, and the tremen-Map H Sharon's "perfect trap" at Nakhl. _ _ _ ~

~ dous personal initiative displayed by the junior leaders were all factors relevant to success. Also significant was the Israeli philosophy and approach to modern warfare. From the earlier campaigns of 1948 and 1956 to that of 1967, Israeli doctrine has been greatly influenced by certain strategic theories and concepts formulated by the British military analyst and historian B.H. Liddell-Hart. Liddell-Hart also had significant influence on the thinking of such successful military commanders as Heinz Guderian, Erwin Rommel, and George

S. Patton, all of whom professed to being students of his ideas. In September 1949, Israeli General Yigael Yadin wrote an article in Bamachaneh, the Israel Forces’ Journal, in which he noted many of the strategic ideas and concepts of Liddell-Hart. Based on these ideas and concepts, Yadin made a series of recommendations as to the aim that should be sought by the battlefield commander: OTo cut the enemy’s lines of communication, thus paralyzing his physical build-up.

OTo seal him off from his lines of retreat, thus undermining the enemy’s will and destroying his morale.

OTo hit his centres of administration and disrupt his communications, thus severing the link between his brain and his limbs.30 The paralyzing dislocation -both physical and psychological -of the enemy’s military organization by these three aims would tend to produce a favorable situation, which, if by itself did not produce the desired result, would guarantee success if fighting continued. Fundamentally, the dislocation pulled down the fog of war over the enemy to the degree that he could not recover his cohesiveness and was overtaken by events. It was, in effect, the essence of today’s deep attack approach to fighting outnumbered and winning.

Liddell-Hart wrote that striking the enemy along a line of least resistance or line of least expectation, while maintaining the possibility of alternate objectives to further confuse, was one method of mystifying and misleading the enemy. Speed and surprise were considered essential and complementary to each other, as well as driving deep into the enemy’s rear ar-Soviet-built tanks, like the T-54, were employed by the Egyptians, who had more than twice as much armor. eas to increase the crippling physical and psychological effect of the attack.31 A usually dispersed advance against multiple objectives, in order to have the opportunity of seizing an objective, was also a basic fundamental of the Liddell-Hart strategy. Sometimes called the “strategy of the indirect approach,” it was based on doing the unorthodox or at least the unexpected.

In 1964, General Rabin restated many of these precepts which he considered to be based on the element of surprise. He said that the condition of surprise worth working for is a “ ‘surprise which confuses and misleads top enemy military leadership till the very end of the operation.’ ”32 His concept dalled for attempting something new and unexpected at every possible opportunity. Overcoming natural obstacles which the enemy considers impenetrable or striking swiftly into an area the enemy considers secure, but where he has let his guard down momentarily, were deemed methods worth following. Modifying Liddell-Hart’s ideas slightly the doctrine was codified: OUnconventional and unorthodox thinking, planning, and execution.

OFollowing the line of two alternatives so that top enemy command will not be able to decide, until the final and decisive stage, what are the real strategic-operational aims of the attacking forces.

OPreparing two or more alternative sets of plans so that if something goes wrong or the offensive slows down, the attacking forces can be switched over to the alternative track without any delays or confusion.33 The disruption and breakdown of the enemy’s forces was expressed as: “....ultimate disintegration of enemy armed forces. This disintegration can be achieved by physical and/or moral damage inflicted upon the enemy army. Moral blows (panic, confusion, chaos, a stunned and shocked state of mind) are considered just as important as physical blows on the battlefield ....” “....never attack frontally, always infiltrate around the flanks and strike from the rear.”34 These ideas formed the basis for what armor calls mental agility, or the ability to adapt oneself to a rapidly changing situation and -most important of all -to be ableto think at least one step ahead of one’s adversary. Israeli planning in 1967 followed these concepts quite closely.

The Israeli Defense Force general staff knew that the Egyptians would anticipate a repetition of the successful operations conducted in the Sinai by Israeli forces in 1956. Initial Israeli attacks in 1956 had been conducted in the south-central Sinai, as well as in the north. An obstacle confronting the staff was the requirement to destroy, rather than merely disrupt, the Egyptian forces in Sinai so that they would not be reconstituted as an effective fighting force for some time to come.

Recognizing the importance of paralyzing the enemy’s command and control capability as a prelude to destroying his army, the Israeli Air Force was called upon to strike the initial blows designed to prevent Egyptian aerial interference with Israeli ground operations. The surprise gained and shock effect achieved by the continuous close air support of the Israeli Air Force contributed greatly to the serial aims of cutting Egyptian communications, sealing off the lines of retreat, and disrupting command and control capability.

It was further reasoned that the enemy must never be allowed to hold the initiative in order to conduct coordinated operations, thus overwhelming the Israeli Defense -w c M4 Shermans, many rebuilt with powerful new guns, were the backbone of the Israeli armored units. Force by sheer weight of numbers of men and weapons. General Moshe Dayan, the Israeli Minister of Defense, contributed to the element of surprise needed to gain the initiative by issuing numerous placid statements to mislead the Egyptian leaders into believing that an attack was not imminent.35 Surprise on the morning of 5 June was total.

The Israeli commanders knew their opponent, studied the best method of attacking his psychological and physical freedom of action, and, through a Zahal blitzkrieg, achieved total victory in the Sinai campaign of 1967.

Footnotes towards El Arish. The speed of his advance and Egyptian lack of knowledge of what was happening caused the latter to be completely taken by surprise when Harel’s force rushed through and by-passed the Giradi defenses. This battalion, consisting of British Cen-turian tanks. afteroverrunninatheEgvotian (ARMOR, July-August 1964). p. 51. ??Ibid., p. 51.

34Ibid., pp. 51-52.

“Jones, The Lightning War, p. 34. ‘Major-General J. F. C. Fuller, Generalship Its Diseases and Their Cure. (Hamsburg: Military Service Publishing Co., 1936), p. 78. 2Shabtai Teveth. The Tanks of Tammuz. (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1968), p. 252. %eo Heiman, “Infantry in the Middle East War, Part 11.” (Infantry, March-April 1968). pp. 19-20.

41bid., p. 21.

Slbid., pp. 19-20.

STeveth, The Tanks of Tammuz, p. 114. 7Randolph S. Churchill and Winston S. Churchill, The Six Day War. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1967). p. 105. 8W. Byford Jones, The Lightning War. (New York: The Bobbs-Merril Company, Inc., 1968). p. 106. $Brigadier General USAR (Ret.) S. L. A. Marshall, “The Army of Israel.” (Military Reuiew, April 1968). p. 5. ‘OHeiman, “Infantry in the Middle East,” pp. 18-19. ”Brigadier General USAR (Ret.) S. L. A. Marshall, Swift Sword: TheHistoricalRecord of Israel’s Victory, June, 1967. (New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 1967), p. 41. lzlbid., p. 42.

‘3Teveth, The Tanks of Tammuz, p. 206. In an interview with the author, Lieutenant Colonel Baruch “Pinko” Harel, the commander of this particular battalion in its dash to El Arish, stated that he realized that the Egyptians would more than likely have the road open for expected Egyptian units moving 7th Infantry Division headqu&ters,was on the verge of running out of ammunition and fuel when it was finally relieved by Division Tal.

“Dan Bawly and David Kimche, The Sand Storm, (New York: Stein and Day Publishers, 1968), p. 185.

15Marshall, “The Army of Israel,” p. 9. 16Churchill, R. and Churchill, E., The Six 17Marshall, Swift Sword, p. 61. ‘Slbid., p. 79. ‘glbid., p. 61.

2aJones, The Lightning War, p. 64. 21Bawly and Kimche, The Sand Storm, p. 221bid., p. 185.

Whurchill, R., and Churchill, W., The Six Day War, p. 173.

24Teveth, The Tanks of Tammuz, p. 230. 25Marshall, Swift Sword, p. 84. Whurchill, R., and Chruchill, W., The Six Day War, p. 80.

Z7Yael Dayan, Israel Journal: June, 1967. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1967), p. 84.

28Teveth, The Tanks of Tammuz, p. 252. 29Jones, The Lightning War, p. 128. 3oB, H. Liddell-Hart, Strategy, (New York Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1954), p. 387. 311bid., p. 337.

32Le Heiman, “Surprise and Conquer.” Day War, pp. 120-121.

179.

A 1 LIEUTENANT COLONEL

SEWALL H. MENZEL is a C&GSC graduate of the U.S. Army School of the Americas and commanded Armor/Cav-alry units in Vietnam. More recently, he completed an assignment at ODCS-OPS in Washington, D.C., and is currently on assignment as the U.S. Army attache in Bolivia.