First thing in the morning, Isma`iyl returned to the topic. Now he gave a reason: to reduce enemy pressure on Syria. Again, I opposed him. Our attack would neither succeed nor significantly relieve the pressure on the Syrians. 

"Look," I said, "despite their losses the enemy still has eight armored brigades out there in front of us. The enemy air force can still cripple our ground forces as soon as they poke their noses beyond our SAM umbrella. We have proof of that. We don't have enough QUADRATs (SAM-6) to give mobile protection to our forces in the open. Advance and we destroy our troops without offering any significant relief to our brothers the Syrians." 

At midday, the Minister returned. "It is a political decision," he said. "We must develop our attack by tomorrow morning." 

1330 hours: Orders to advance had been prepared. They were taken to the army commanders by GHQ liaison officers: General Ghunaym to Second Army, General Taha al- Magduwb to Third.

1530 hours:Sa`d Mam'uwn, Second Army Commander, phoned me from his advanced HQ. "General, I resign," he said. "I cannot operate under such conditions. It is impossible to fulfil the orders you have just sent." A few minutes later, Wasil called from Third Army; his objections stopped short of resignation, but only just. I made no secret of my own objections, or of the fact that I had been overruled. Then I went back to Isma`iyl, arguing that to ask field commanders to do something they had both now told us, in advance, they could not do was to risk disaster. We decided they should come to Center Ten immediately for consultation. 

1800 hours: The conference began. Myself and the two field commanders pressed our objections. Isma`iyl overruled us. It was a political decision. We had to obey. His only concession, just before we broke up at 2300 hours, was that our attack could be postponed from tomorrow, October 13, to first light on October 14. But Ismail then ordered that, in mounting the attack, our bridgeheads were not to be weakened. Instead, our operational reserves were to be committed. 

Our operational reserves consisted of 330 tanks which comprised the bulk of two units: the 4th and 21st Armored Divisions. The 4th Armored Division had been deployed behind Third Army; the 21st behind Second Army. Each division comprised two armored brigades -100 tanks to a brigade and one mechanized infantry brigade. The 21st Division had already been stripped of half of its tanks: one brigade had been sent to the front line to give armored support to the infantry assault of 16th Division. Now, through the night of October 12 completing the process the next night, October 13-we were ordered to send the rest of 21st Division to the front and all but a brigade of 4th Division too. Our total reserves in the operational area behind our two armies were thus being stripped to that single brigade of 100 tanks from 4th Division. It was a grave error. 
 
 

So was the plan, devised by Isma`iyl, we were ordered to adopt. Four armored brigades and one mechanized infantry brigade were to make four independent thrusts. 

Southern sector: One armored brigade in the direction of the Mitlah Pass. One mechanized infantry brigade in the direction of Gidiyy Pass. 

Central sector: Two armored brigades in the direction of Tasa. 

Northern sector: One armored brigade in the direction of Baluwzah. 

Barring a miracle, the attack had no chance of success whatever. The enemy had 900 tanks in their operational zone. We were attacking with 400. We were doing so, against well-prepared positions, in precisely the "penny packets" which had cost the enemy so dearly over October 8-9. And we were condemning our tank crews to attack over open terrain dominated by enemy air power. 

The outcome was predictable. Our attack started at first light. Concentrated enemy fire from well-concealed tanks supported by a high density of anti-tank guided weapons and close air support halted all four thrusts within ten miles. By midday, our forces were ordered to return to the bridgeheads. We had lost 250 tanks more than we had lost in the whole war so far. The enemy had lost 50. 

1100 hours: When it was clear our attack was bogged beyond redemption, I phoned Second Army HQ and asked for General Ma'muwn. His Chief of Staff said he was having a rest. Now commanders snatch sleep when they can, but not usually when their troops are engaged in battle; and they tend to come when GHQ phones. But however surprised, I did not insist on rousing him. 

1300 hours: The President arrived at Center Ten. Having been told the fate of the attack, he ordered me to the front to raise the morale of the men. Within the hour I was on my way to the canal for the third time. 

1600 hours: I reached Second Army advanced HQ and asked for  Ma'muwn. I was told the truth. He was in bed with a breakdown. As news had come all morning of the repelling of the attack and the mounting losses among his men, he had found each report harder to bear.   Suddenly he had fainted. He had been in bed ever since, conscious but quite unable to discharge his responsibilities. 

I went to see him.  Ma'muwn wanted to sit up but the doctor beside his bed prevented him. In a few private words, the doctor said  Ma'muwn should be evacuated; he needed specialist treatment. But when I suggested to  Ma'muwn that he go to Maadi Hospital for rest, he begged to stay with his men: he would be fine in the morning and could go back to work at once. That I refused to allow; but at his entreaty I did postpone evacuation until we had seen his condition the next day. (His condition did not improve; he was in the hospital until after the ceasefire.) 

Then I set about picking up the pieces. I called a hasty meeting of  Ma'muwn's general staff, discussed the operational position and conveyed the President's greetings and encouragement. I phoned the divisional commanders in the field and passed the same to them. And I told General `Urabiy, Commander of the 21st Armored Division, that I wanted to drive over into Sinai to see him at once. (`Urabiy advised against it, saying it would be dark soon, my driver could lose his way, and a battlefield by night was no place for a Chief of Staff. But I insisted. The reconstruction of resources and morale was an urgent task.) 

1700 hours: I left Second Army HQ heading south to the nearest bridge. I arrived to find an enemy artillery barrage in progress and the bridge destroyed. I drove on to the second-to find it taken up to avoid destruction in the same barrage. There was no way I could cross in the central sector.

I decided to return to Second Army HQ. By now it was dark, and we made slow progress through endless identity and password checks. No sooner were we back at the destroyed bridge than the enemy barrage resumed. We sped through the shellbursts. My vehicle was unscratched, but the car behind me, carrying my squad of guards, was hit and one of the guards injured.

2000 hours: Finally back at Second Army HQ, I phoned `Urabiy  again, to explain why I could not see him and to wish him luck. Then I set off for Cairo.

2300 hours: Back at Center Ten. A full report to Isma`iyl.

Midnight: The President phoned to ask about my trip. I gave him a full report on our most calamitous day.

Even now, six years later, I have no idea why that attack was mounted. It was, of course, President Sadat's decision. He has since claimed he did it to relieve Israeli pressure on the Syrian front. That has to be nonsense.

Egypt could have forced Israel to switch resources from Golan to Sinai only by posing a significant threat to the security of Israel: At no point did our forces have that capacity. Well over 100 miles of open desert stretched between our bridgehead and the frontiers of Israel. Israeli air superiority rendered them impassable. This fact was so fundamental that I had made it forcefully at my first meeting with the Arab Collective Defense Council in November 1971. It was so obvious that the Council had accepted my point. It is a severe limitation of Egyptian power; but it will remain the case so long as Sinai is occupied or demilitarized and the Israelis retain air superiority.

But could we not have forced Israel to transfer armor from Golan to Sinai? No. Israel had eight armored brigades in Sinai, more than enough to contain any Egyptian attack.

Nor does the timing of the attack fit Sadat's explanation. By October 12 the Syrian front was already stabilizing. From October 11 two Iraqi divisions-one armored, one mechanized-had begun to share in the battle. The arrival of a Jordanian armored brigade on October 13 (to be followed later by a second armored brigade) provided additional support.

Finally, if our object was to help the Syrians, why did we not withdraw the 21st and 4th Armored Divisions to their assigned west bank reserve positions as soon as our attack had been broken?

There has to be another explanation for President Sadat's decision. Only he knows what it is.

Worse was to come. This morning a dot appeared on our air defense screens in Center Ten, moving swiftly north over the canal zone and nut over the Nile delta.

We knew what it was. We had seen it before. At approximately 1330 hours on October 13, as we prepared the last details of our doomed attack, a dot had appeared following the same route. I had watched its track for a few minutes, then called GeneralFahmy to ask why his SAM crews were letting this thing promenade over us. He replied giving me the speed and altitude of the dot: Mach Three plus and 20 miles plus. Then of course we realized what it was: an SR-71A, the American reconnaissance counterpart of the MIG-25.

On that first flight, its cameras would have noted enough to tell skilled analysts of our tank divisions' move across the canal. This second pass would reveal that the west bank was now virtually denuded of armor. We could assume the Israelis would learn this within a few hours. It added urgency to my request to Ismail this morning that we immediately withdraw the 4th and 21 st Armored Divisions to the west bank once more-including the 21st's brigade which had been attached to 16th Division. We could strengthen our bridgeheads with anti-tank mines; but the priority, as I saw it, was to return those two divisions to the second line to restore defenses which were now wholly unbalanced.

Isma`iyl replied that withdrawal might panic our troops. I disagreed. The operation need not be panicky. It could be carefully undertaken under cover of Second and Third Armies. Isma`iyl retorted that the enemy might interpret it as a sign of weakness. It seemed foolish to me to bluff. War is rarely determined by gestures, and in this case Israel would soon have the facts at its disposal. But I saw it was useless to argue. Isma`iyl 's unspoken reason was that he was to accompany the President to the People's Assembly next morning and wanted no suspicion of weakness to tarnish his triumph. So began Blunder Number Two

 Tuesday, October 16

Mid-morning: First news of the enemy penetration. Second Army HQ phoned to report that small parties of enemy tanks had succeeded in crossing to the west bank in the vicinity of Deversoir. Second Army was taking steps to destroy them.

Our planning, as I have said, had assumed the enemy would try to take our bridgeheads from the rear. We had figured out the enemy's three likeliest crossing points -that is to say, the points where a determined enemy thrust was likeliest to pierce our bridgehead. One point was Deversoir. (That was where 16th Division in the north met 7th Division in the south, a classic target for an enemy thrust.) We had even assigned units to deal with our predictions. To deal with a breach at Deversoir we had briefed and exercised the 4th Armored Division and 25th Independent Armored Brigade, both of which were now of course, on the other side of the Canal. Even so, those first reports gave no reason to panic. Second Army said it was coping. We still had the 250 tanks of our strategic reserve. Of those, the 130 or so not part of the Presidential Guard could be deployed. I alerted the reserve units we had in the Cairo area to be ready to move if Second Army lost control of the situation.

Midday: News was still confused. Some of our rear SAM units, stationed almost ten miles behind the canal, began to report attacks by enemy tanks. Nobody seemed to know where the tanks had come from. They would appear in the vicinity of a SAM battery, shell it from around 2,000 yards (these rear batteries had no longrange anti-tank weapons) and then disappear unhindered, to appear again who knew where. The reports spoke of 7-10 tanks in each party.

Afternoon: After Isma`iyl's return from the People's Assembly, we held a conference to decide how to deal with the enemy penetration. We decided to take concerted action against the penetration by next morning, October 17. But what?

Second Army's reserve, the 21st Armored Division, was now in contact with the enemy and could not be immediately withdrawn. I proposed instead we withdraw units from Third Army, which was under no pressure: specifically our other reserve formation, 4th Division, plus the 25th Independent Armored Brigade which, armed with those T- 62s, had been reinforcing the 7th Division bridgehead. That would give us ample troops on the west bank to cope with the penetration. It had the added advantage that 4th Division and the 25th Independent Armored Brigade had been trained to counter just this penetration. Our counter-attack could be launched from the southwest, driving directly northeast for the enemy crossing point. Simultaneously, 21 st Division would thrust south down the Sinai bank to close the enemy's corridor to the crossing.

Isma`iyl  rejected the plan. He was still against the transfer of any forces from Sinai. We agreed that 21 st Division should thrust south. But he wanted 25th Brigade to attack north from its existing positions in the Third Army bridgehead. Meanwhile, one of our infantry units held in reserve on the west bank, the 116th Infantry Brigade, should attack due east towards the crossing. It wa a reckless plan. Even when I explained the details to him, Isma`iyl seemed incapable of grasping the danger of asking an armored brigade, the 25th, to advance about 25 miles with its left flank trapped against water and its right flank open to enemy attack. I phoned Third Army HQ. Wasel said he and the Commander of the 25th Brigade both agreed with me. It was too dangerous to attack along the eastern shore. They proposed their attack be launched from the west bank. We were vetoed by the Minister.

I was deeply hurt. I tried to explain why such maneuvers were forced on us by our weakness on the west bank, but Sadat was in such a temper he would not even listen. I debated whether to resign on the spot. But I could not in all conscience abandon our armed forces now the tide had begun to turn. So I swallowed my pride and telling myself it was for my country's sake, I held my tongue.

Midnight: The orders had been issued for the Isma`iylcounter-attack. Secretly, I had taken one step that might help our position on the west bank after its inevitable failure.

The crucial reserves of any army are its armor. But as our own crossing had proved, infantry with enough anti tank guided weapons are a formidable anti-tank force. We had good numbers of infantry still in reserve on the west bank, the principal units being three parachute brigades and the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division. The problem was that we had stripped each of its anti-tank guided weapons battalion. The battalions had gone over in the crossing. Our plan had been to return them to their proper units as soon as possible; but Ismail's refusal, echoing the President, to move a man or a weapon out of Sinai had prevented even this "withdrawal." So while the battalions sat idle in Sinai-the enemy presenting no targets-their own units now faced the prospect of confronting enemy armor in a drastically weakened state.

I had a quiet word with the director of artillery, General Sa`iyd al-Mahy. On my own responsibility, and without telling Ismail, I ordered the steady withdrawal of those anti-tank guided weapons battalions from Sinai to their parent units on the west bank. Then I went to snatch a few hours sleep.

0300 hours: The chief operations duty officer woke me. General Wasil was on the line, wanting me urgently. I took the phone. Wasil said that because of technical problems the 25th Armored Brigade could not launch its attack at first light after all.

Privately, I appreciated Wasil's motives. But I told him it was an attack concerted with other formations; it was impossible to stop or postpone; 25th Brigade would have to play its part. Wasil pleaded with me to cancel or at least postpone the assault. I was adamant. Finally, he muttered the desperate words: "lahawla wala quwata ' illa billah. " ("Man has strength for nothing without the strength of God," the old Muslim prayer of those who find themselves powerless under superior force, in effect a prayer of resignation.) Then he said: "Very well, I will carry out the orders. But I know, and I am telling you, that this brigade is going to be destroyed. I put down the phone sick at heart. Wasil's views were mine.- But in any command at any level the distinction between discussion and decision must be absolute. The decision had been made. I did not believe it was right. But it was now my job, and Wasil's, to carry it out.

First light: The enemy bridgehead now stretched about three miles north from Deversoir. Their dispositions to protect and enlarge it were those one would expect:
 

I am ashamed to reveal our deployment on October 17. In all, we had 20 infantry brigades and eight armored brigades grouped into five infantry divisions and two armored divisions. Each infantry division has the following units as organic: four tank battalions; one BMP battalion; one anti-tank guided weapon battalion; one anti-tank battalion; nine artillery battalions (124 tanks; 36 MALOTKAs; 40 PMPs; 36 anti-tank guns, 85mm; 90 recoilless guns, 82 and 107mm; 535 RPGs; and 72 field artillery pieces that could also be used as anti-tank weapons). When well-trenched with these weapons, an infantry division could repel an armored attack of up to three armored brigades. 'Nevertheless, we reinforced each infantry division with 36 extra anti-tank guided weapons; 21 pieces of self-propelled SU-100 anti-tank guns; and an entire armored brigade. The armored brigade and anti-tank guided weapon supplementing each division had been added solely to raise the infantry's anti-tank capabilities during the crossing. Our plan had always been to return those reinforcements to their mother units. I was now pulling back the anti-tank guided weapons. But the political decision to withdraw not a man or weapon from Sinai kept those tanks over there. On the morning of October 17, then, the eight armored brigades which, somewhat depleted by battle, we had at the front were deployed as follows:
 
 
 

Less than 40 percent of our resources were massed in the combat zone. For the Battle of Deversoir we were pitting three armored brigades and one infantry brigade against an enemy force of six armored brigades and two infantry brigades-an enemy superiority of two-to-one. And our plan of attack was calculated to further worsen our chances.

That was Blunder Number Three. Through October 17 the Battle of Deversoir ran to its appointed conclusion.

Phase One: The three prongs of our attack were supposed to hit simultaneously. But as usually happens in such cases-technical approaches on external linessynchronization was lost. Each attacking force was left to fight its own battle. Our 116th Infantry Brigade advanced east into the enemy bridgehead. It succeeded in destroying several enemy tanks. But when our troops were barely a mile from the waterway the brigade came under heavy fire. With casualties mounting, it was forced to pull back.

Phase Two: Pushing south on the opposite bank, 21st Division succeeded in cutting the enemy's main route to Deversoir from the east. But it could get no further.
 

Phase Three: Advancing north, 25th Brigade was wiped out. The enemy division of three armored brigades waiting ten miles to the east for their bridge to open moved against our lone brigade and caught it in a classic ambush. One brigade moved to block our line of advance. A second took up position on our right. The third swung in a flanking maneuver to take our brigade in the rear. When our tanks rolled north in the killing ground, they were attacked from three sides and trapped against the lakes on the fourth. Our crews fought desperately against the odds. But when night came there were only a few survivors to pull back to Third Army bridgehead. It was an utter waste.

Morning: Through the night the enemy's first bridge had been laid. By dawn the enemy had on the west bank three armored brigades and an infantry brigade. Against this considerable presence we now sent the 23rd Armored Brigade, one of the two brigades of our ultimate, strategic reserve. It was repelled with heavy losses.

The enemy had won the Battle of Deversoir. Their next step must be to pour across more armor, split it and thrust north and south simultaneously behind both our armies.

Drastic action would be needed to stop this. But would the President and his Minister of War have the courage to take it? Already the regime was falling victim to its own lies. With cynical irresponsibility Ismail was announcing and our media were reporting that the enemy penetration still amounted to seven tanks hiding in the thickets around Deversoir. Our own armed forces were by now the principal victims of this nonsense. Convoys found themselves ambushed. Rear headquarters, guard units, and most damagingly, SAM batteries found themselves under sudden fire without the faintest idea what was going on. A general alert to all units had been forbidden as "likely to induce panic." All these men knew were the lies they read. Not that they could have taken many precautions. Their personal anti-tank weapons were all lying in Sinai, victims of the "no withdrawal" decree.

At least yesterday and today had brought back to the west bank some of the sub-units of the anti-tank guided weapon battalions we had split up and sent over the canal as reinforcements in the initial assault. (We had sent over two such anti-tank guided weapon battalions, split into six companies. These I now withdrew. Each division of course, also had its own anti-tank guided weapon battalion integrated into its structure. There was no question of withdrawing those, merely the reinforcements.) But so few even of our senior field commanders knew the position that the move brought vehement protest. Even among our divisional commanders, in other words, only the commanders of 16th Division and 2nd Division appreciated the magnitude of the threat. 

One divisional commander in Sinai within the Third Army bridgehead phoned me to say that removal of the reinforcement anti-tank guided weapon company he had would "endanger the stability of my defensive position." I gave him the alibi he wanted. "Yes, yes, I appreciate that," I said. "I bear sole responsibility. Just send them quickly."

Yet on the west bank hundreds of people were being killed and thousands taken prisoner. Swift armored thrusts with close air-support against unprepared men was the sort of war at which the Israelis excelled. Faced with a real fight east of the canal they had been unable to take a single prisoner. Now they were picking up hundreds to provide the propaganda at which they also excelled. And all the time the steady destruction of SAM sites was tearing a hole in our air defenses through which the Israeli air force could pass at will.

1400 hours: The President arrived in the Operations Room. Ismail described the situation. At last the pair were driven to adopt my own plan to withdraw armor from the east bank. They proceeded to sabotage even this. They decided we would withdraw only a single armored brigade from Third Army bridgehead, the brigade from 4th Division which had gone across for the attack. What good could that do now?

I was not asked to speak and I volunteered no opinion. It would have been a waste of breath. The President and his Minister of War, neither particularly competent military men, seemed unable to grasp that the job of a commander is to think ahead. A GHQ must be dealing with events foreseen two and preferably three or more days away. The imagination and foresight with which he manages that is one of the inescapable tests of a commander: because if there is one rule about a battle it is: "What is possible today may not be possible tomorrow." Sadat and Isma`iyl responded only to the present or the past: their decision lagged hopelessly behind events. This latest edict was a prime instance. They could not see that what might have sufficed two or three days ago was wholly inadequate now. Even as they deliberated, a fifth enemy armored brigade was starting across. Withdrawing one armored brigade over the coming night of 18 / 19 was not going to contain, let alone roll back, an enemy bridgehead now two divisions in strength.

Finally, the President turned to me. I was to move to Second Army to raise its morale and to do my best to stop its position from deteriorating further. The army must not be encircled. At 1445 hours I set off from Center Ten. Before I left the Operations Room, it was made clear that the tanks of 4th Division, which now had to cover the rear of both Second and Third Armies, would take orders directly from Center Ten. Second Army would not have a single tank under its own command west of the canal.

1730 hours: I arrived at Second Army HQ. This was the situation we faced:
 
 
 

When I discussed all this with General `Abd al-Mun`im Khaliyl, who had replaced Sa`d Ma'muwun as Commander of Second Army, his plan was:
 
 

I approved the plan. Given the limitations imposed upon us, there was little more we could do. For the next 24 hours, Khaliyl and I stayed together, save only when one of us would nap for an hour or two.

Our first concern was to strengthen and encourage the 182nd Parachute Brigade, which was now bearing the first brunt of Sharon's drive north. Every yard the enemy gained would widen the threat to the rears of 16th Division and 21st Division, forcing them to pull back north. Our other concern was to throw everything we had at the enemy crossing points. Through the night of October 18-19 the enemy tried to build their second bridge. But our artillery fire-well directed by our forward observation posts-disrupted the work. From intercepted radio traffic we knew we were causing heavy losses. But it was not enough.

Morning: The enemy tanks kept up the battering of our paratroopers. In the early hours, our troops forward positions were pushed back and we lost sight of the bridge area. Our artillery continued to pound away, according to data we received about the enemy bridge sites. The enemy got their second bridge across. Our paratroopers inflicted a heavy toll but in the end some of their positions were stormed. The rest could be only a question of time.

Late afternoon: I drove back to Center Ten and gave the Minister a full report on the position of Second Army. I was told of the situation facing Third Army. It was not good-and for the same reason as ever. We still had more troops on the east bank than we needed, but too few on the west bank to counter what was now a very real threat to encircle both our armies. What we needed was tanks. I proposed we withdraw the four armored brigades that were still on the east bank (two with 16th Division, one with 2nd Division, and one with 19th Division). Isma`iyl refused. No unit would be withdrawn from Sinai.

I went to confer with my assistants. I did not hide from them my conviction that unless we withdrew armor from the east to save the west, the outcome now But what could we do? One of them suggested I call the I went back to and told him that myself and my senior staff wanted the President to come to Center Ten to learn the situation for himself. Isma`iyl was reluctant. It was a bit late, he said. (It was about 2200 hours.) I insisted he call the President and left the room only after receiving an affirmative answer. Minutes later Isma`iyl came out to tell me the President was on his way. We need not make this a public meeting, he said; we should limit it to a minimum. I agreed and called only five commanders to attend: Mubarak (Air Force); Fahmy (Air Defense); Mahy (Artillery); Gamasiy (Chief of Operations); Nasar (Defense Intelligence Department); plus the Minister and myself.

2230 hours: The President arrived, accompanied by the Minister for Presidential Affairs, `Abd al- Fatah `Abd Allah. They went directly to Isma`iyl's office where they remained closeted for more than half-an-hour while the rest of us cooled our heels in the conference room off the Operations Room.

2310 hours: The trio emerged. The meeting began. In turn, Sadat asked each commander except myself to make his report. I was not asked to speak. The reports were truthful, detailed, frank. As the last one finished, the President said simply: "We will not withdraw a single soldier from the east to the west." Still I made no comment. "Say something," `Abd Allah whispered. I ignored him. What was there to say?Isma`iyl would have told him my considered judgment that the withdrawal of four armored brigades was our only hope; yet here was this man saying not a soldier must move. I had wanted the President to know the facts. Now he did. He could not now claim that he had been kept in ignorance. The fate of the country was in his hands. (In his memoirs, Sadat says I wanted to withdraw all our forces to the west bank, but that the other commanders at the meeting said "there was nothing to worry about." Nonsense.)

After the withdrawal of the four armored brigades I was suggesting, we would have still had in our bridgeheads 18 infantry brigades reinforced with 22 tank battalions, 5 BMP battalions, 5 anti-tank guided weapon battalions, 5 ATK gun battalions, 60 field artillery battalions, and 15 heavy mortar battalions. This force in figures, after excluding casualties, was as follows:
 
 

The enemy on the other hand had only about 300 tanks, and in the worst case could raise their number to 500, but only at the expense of the Syrian front or at the expense of the penetrating troops west of the canal. To suggest the withdrawal of all our troops from the east under such a situation is madness. To refuse to withdraw the suggested four armored brigades is a combination of madness, ignorance and treason. This was our fourth and fatal blunder.

Our situation on the west bank steadily deteriorated, but less than we had feared or the enemy hoped. The battle was fluid, without a continuous front. The triangle between the Bitter Lakes and the Cairo-Suez road was ideal tank country, and the enemy reverted to their traditional tactics of using small groups of armor with close air-support. Even so, the enemy's gains were surprisingly limited. The resistance of our infantry and paratroopers was tenacious beyond praise. And by now the enemy had learned healthy respect for our anti-tank guided weapons. So despite their air cover and unchallengeable superiority in armor-six brigades against our two, their progress was slow and cautious.

By 1852 hours on Monday, October 22, the time of the first ceasefire, they had in fact gained little significant ground. The northern thrust of Sharon's brigades had been more or less halted. To the south, Adan's division had made more ground, reaching the area of Geniyfah from where their artillery could shell the Cairo-Suez road. But their casualties were heavy and would have grown heavier. A few minutes before the ceasefire, we launched three R-17E missiles (SCUDs).into their Deversoir concentrations. (The barrage which the President promptly claimed had been by our own fictitious missile, al-qahir.)
 
 

Determined to improve their bargaining position, the Israelis promptly breached the ceasefire to complete their encirclement of our Third Army. They launched a concerted assault by four armored brigades. We had only two armored brigades west of the canal: one blocking any thrust westward by Sharon; the other blocking a similar thrust in the southern sector. The enemy, having concentrated four brigades in that southern sector used one to pin down ours, so allowing the other three enemy brigades to drive south without question.

To excuse this, the enemy adopted their usual expedient of claiming we had started it-as if a concerted attack by four armored brigades is whistled up in minutes. And ever since, their propagandists have depicted the drive south as a dashing and gallant action. Driving unopposed past administrative bases and rest camps full of wounded men, through checkpoints manned by weary soldiers relaxing in the knowledge of a ceasefire, does not strike me as particularly gallant, but perhaps I am old fashioned.

Still unopposed, the Israelis encircled the town of Suez and continued south to reach Adabiyah on the coast some ten miles below Suez. They were driving in a convoy, line astern with their lights on, while our scattered outposts gawked at them. Sporadically on the road south from Suez, a few shots were fired at them, usually on the initiative of some junior officer with the wit to be suspicious of this strange procession. But the naval garrison at Adabiyah was surprised and, after a savage little struggle, overwhelmed.

The only gallantry discernible in the episode came next morning. Reasoning that the enemy had broken the ceasefire, the commander of our Adabiyah sector launched a counterattack with the forces at his disposal. They consisted of one infantry company and seven ancient T-34 tanks. In corners of the Adabiyah naval base, isolated pockets of our men were fighting on. This little force set out to relieve them. The enemy's dash and swagger did not extend as far as combat. To deal with seven obsolete tanks they summoned their air force, which arrived with napalm and missiles. The seven tanks were destroyed, the infantry company wiped out. A few days later I went to see the blackened hulls. I was very proud-and very sick of the weakness and vanity and lying which had brought such a sacrifice.

By October 24 our military position was as bad as it could be. The Third Army-two reinforced divisions, about 45,000 men and 250 tanks-was completely cut off. They had four days' food and water. They were dominated by enemy armor on top of our own west bank ramparts. Out of range of our surviving SAM units, they were open prey to enemy air attacks. They could not fight their way west: air strikes had already destroyed most of Third Army's limited stock of crossing equipment. They could not be relieved: enemy air and armor superiority was such that we could not break through. And after the enemy air force started systematic work, the Third Army soon had 600 casualties needing evacuation. Hopeless.
 

(To be continued)

Next issue:  Episode 41 : Helping Hands