, accompanied by General Ahmad 'Isma`iyl, arrived at Center Ten and went directly to the Operations Room. We had been at our places since early morning. The seats of the Supreme Command were on a low dais. The commands of each of the armed forces were stationed by their communications consoles and operations maps around the hall. Dominating us all was the map wall, its glass screen updated minute by minute to show at a glance every detail of the situation on both fronts. The background noise was a buzz of telephones, clatter of telexes, and quiet voices trying to mask their tension.

Methodically the pilots of our fighter-bombers were strapping themselves in, connecting their life-support systems, running through cockpit checks, while the armorers wheeled empty trolleys from under their loaded wings. The clocks high on the Operations Room wall registered 13 50 hours. The telephones on the air force command desk buzzed as bases reported: "Preparing for take-off." I suddenly pictured them up there in the sunlight. Sliding out of the gloom of the blast hangars into the white of the sun, silhouettes black against the glare, the clean lines of their wings broken by the armaments hanging from them, then the noise, the dust, exhausts shimmering the baking landscape as they rolled in glinting lines to the ends of the runways, slowly pivoted on their nose wheels and, the noise opening to a roar, accelerated to take-off...

At precisely 14 00 hours, 200 of our aircraft skimmed low over the canal, their shadows flicking across enemy lines as they headed deep into Sinai. For the fourth time in my career, we were at war with Israel. Their passing was all our artillery had been waiting for. We had massed more than 2,000 guns behind our lines. Now our high-trajectory pieces, the howitzers and heavy mortars, began to pour shells up and over onto the Bar-Lev forts and minefields and barbed-wire entanglements. It was 1405 hours. Under cover of the barrage our first men set off across the canal.

Engineer reconnaissance teams paddled over to check that the outlets for the inflammable liquid had been blocked by last night's raids. At the same moment, our first men scrambled over the enemy ramparts commando groups heading beyond the enemy's front line. Half-a-mile or so behind the sand barrier, the enemy had heaped individual sand ramps as firing platforms from which tanks could sweep those who had clambered over the first barrier. Our commandos, laden with portable anti-tank weapons, raced to get to the ramps first.

While our howitzer and mortar barrage kept the enemy infantry pinned in their shelters, the rest of our artillery the flat-trajectory pieces-deployed into firing position. At 14 20 hours, they opened direct fire against the BarLev strongpoints. The 4,000 men of Wave One poured over ramparts and slithered in disciplined lines down to the water's edge. The dinghies were readied, 720 of them, and a few minutes after 14 20 hours, as the canisters began to belch clouds of covering smoke, our first assault wave was paddling furiously across the canal, their strokes falling into the rhythm of their chant "Allahu Akbar. . . Allahu Akbar. . . . "

Down at Lake Timsah, the amphibious infantry company had just landed in Sinai. In the desert ahead of our assault, the first commando groups had seized their ramps and were setting up their anti-tank weapons. They were just in time. The enemy tanks were moving up. The enemy, at last, was activating their plan Schovach Yonim.

We knew the details of the enemy plan to defend the canal. Schovach Yonim was staff-college stuff, very traditional. They had divided the Suez front into three sectors-northern, central, southern-each sector encompassing one of the three possible routes of attack across Sinai.
 
 

FRONT LINE: Along the canal. The 35 Bar-Lev forts and strongpoints. Between the forts at hundred-meter (110-yard) intervals, firing positions had been built for tanks.

SECOND LINE:Three to five miles behind the canal. Three battalions, 40 tanks to a battalion. One battalion to each sector.

RESERVE: Held 12-20 miles behind the canal. Three brigades of tanks, 120 tanks to a brigade minus the battalions forward in the second line. In effect, each brigade-one to each sector-was divided: 40 of its tanks forward, the remaining 80 held in reserve.

ALERT: The second line moved up to its firing positions at the water's edge or the ramps just behind it. The reserves moved up to the second line. The front-line defense would then comprise the brigade of infantry in the Bar-Lev forts, plus 120 tanks in three tank battalions. The second line would be the remaining 240 tanks of three armored brigades. Any further reinforcements would have to come across Sinai.

SPEED OF RESPONSE: We estimated the enemy could counter-attack with sub-units the size of tank companies or battalions within 15-30 minutes of H-Hour. Major counter-attacks of brigade strength could be launched about two hours from H-Hour. To neutralize this force we were putting across the canal five infantry divisions. They were crossing on the widest possible front, virtually the length of the canal. But our assault would concentrate in five sectors, each sector the responsibility of a division. From north to south.
 

-18th Division to attack and then defend along the Qantarah-al-`Arisyh axis.  -2nd Division to do the same on the 'Isma`iyliyah-al-Tasah axis.  -16th Division along the Deversoir-al-Tasah axis.  -7th Division along the Shaluwfah-Gidiyy Pass axis.  -19th Division along the Suez-Mitlah Pass axis.

Moreover, across the Bitter Lakes and Lake Timsah we were sending the amphibious brigade and an amphibious company. The three northern divisions constituted the Second Army. The two southern ones were the Third Army. To think of them simply as infantry divisions would be misleading, however. Each division had to be prepared to hold its bridgehead against powerful enemy armor. We had therefore reinforced each one with a brigade of tanks (three battalions); one battalion of self-propelled SU-100 anti-tank guns; and an anti-tank guided-weapon (ATGW) battalion. On top of which the infantrymen themselves had every portable or draggable anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapon they could manage.

1430-1445 hours: Our first assault wave has landed. 4,000 men are astride the sand barrier between the strongpoints. The boats, each manned by two men of the engineers' boat battalions, are returning. For five minutes or so, clouds of dust have been sighted as the first enemy tanks race toward the canal. In many cases our commandos are already at their sand ramps before them. And our men perched on the sand barrier can begin to fire down on the approaching vehicles. But the main burden of repelling this first armor lies with our own tanks and heavy anti-tank weapons and anti-tank guided weapons firing over the Bar-Lev line from our ramparts on the west bank.