Consider the obstacle. To a modern army, rivers and canals present little challenge. Amphibious tanks and armored personnel carriers spearhead the assault and establish a bridgehead on the far bank. Mobile pre-fabricated bridge sections are brought up, unloaded, locked together and swung into place within minutes. By the time the main body of the army arrives, the crossing is ready. 

But the Suez Canal was unique. Unique in the difficulties its construction presented to an amphibious assault force. Unique in the scale of defenses the enemy had erected on top of those natural obstacles. It was only 195-220 yards wide. But to all who saw it, the Suez Canal seemed an impassable barrier. 
 

The first obstacle stemmed from the fact that the canal is an artificial waterway through sand, and sand erodes. To prevent it, the canal banks have been lined with concrete walls rising above the water line and dropping steeply to the canal bed. The canal has a tidal rise and fall. At high tide the water flows a yard below the top of the concrete wall, at low water two yards, and on the southern stretch, three yards below. Amphibious vehicles cannot leap, labrador like, from banks a yard or more high, at least not without serious risk. Even if they did, how could they climb out the other side (Cross section of the Suez canal, see plate # I) 

The second obstacle was a gigantic sand dune the enemy had raised along the length of the eastern bank. For six years, Israeli bulldozers had laboriously piled the sand ever higher-their most sustained efforts coming, naturally, at likely crossing points. There the barrier towered 60 feet high and as thick at its base. (The slopes of the bank rose at 45-65 degrees depending on the stability of the sand.) The barrier ran so close to the canal that its western face, which would confront our assault, merged with the steeper gradient of the concrete banking. (Israeli sand barrier, see plate # II) 

Above this formidable barrier rose the third obstacle: the 35 forts of the Bar-Lev line. Heavily dug in, their shelters are safe against anything less than a 1,000 pound bomb, with firing positions giving all-round cover. Each fort is self-contained and equipped to hold out under siege for a week, protected by minefields and barbed wire. On the average, there is one fort every three miles; but at likely crossing points they are clustered only 1,000 yards apart. To man all 35 took only an infantry brigade. To reinforce them, Israel had allotted three armored brigades: 360 tanks. The tanks would take up firing positions every hundred yards between the forts. Two roads ran the length of the sand barrier, one along its crest, the other just behind it. Hidden from our view, the enemy could maneuver their armor to reinforce any sudden weak point. If the enemy were alerted long enough before the assault to get the tanks to the barrier, the entire front would be swept by machine guns and anti-tank fire. If our men did brave all that and cross into Sinai, how rapidly they could then expect counter-attacks would also depend on the warning we gave the enemy. Depending on the distribution of their armor behind the canal, we reckoned the enemy might be able to mount counter-attacks of tank company and tank battalion strength within 15-30 minutes, and in the worst case at armored brigade strength within two hours of the start of our assault. 

But how could we even get across the water? The fourth barrier was a secret one. Deep inside the sand rampart the enemy had embedded reservoirs filled with inflammable liquid, their outlets controlled from the nearest forts. In minutes, the liquid could gush into the canal, turning its surface into an inferno. (The inflammable liquid, see plate # II) 

That was the obstacle: the Canal and the enemy defenses. The enemy had shown the obstacle to visiting military experts from all over the world. 

"All had declared it to be insurmountable. Our task was to surmount it." 

(To be continued )