The Six Day War 1967 by Simon Dunstan

Author:Simon Dunstan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Six Day War 1967: Sinai
ISBN: 9781782002413
Publisher: Osprey Publishing

Israeli troops leave the PLO offices in Gaza after searching the building. On the gate pillars are posters bearing the image of Ahmad al-Shuqayri, the leader of the PLO, whose rhetoric espousing the destruction of Israel was excessive even by the standards of the Arab street. However, he spent the war safely ensconced in Damascus.

Having heard the order to turn north, I followed Capt. Amnon Giladi’s tank when it suddenly exploded in a ball of fire. I could see Amnon slumped over the commander’s cupola, seemingly already dead. I immediately took evasive action, outflanking the blazing tank and traversing to search for the source of the enemy fire. In my hurry I turned too far and found myself heading directly for the enemy anti-tank guns, which all fired directly at me. At full speed I shot through the position, guns blazing, squashing men and guns as we went, followed by the rest of the company. Amazingly, after losing our company commander, we all survived the terrifying charge. I was now leading the company with nine tanks following me. As we crossed a sand dune I saw two enemy tanks, about 2,000 metres away, but could not identify them at first, believing them naturally to be T-34s. However, as we got closer it dawned on me that they were much larger vehicles – in fact they turned out to be the Stalin Monsters, the dreaded menace that Uri had warned us about during his orders group! No sooner had I recognised my opponents then I expected them to immediately open fire with their big guns. There were six of them now, all in line, but strangely not moving or even traversing their monstrous turrets at us. All our gunners were quickly on target. Without me having to give any orders, they fired their 105mm guns, loaded with APDS. All scored hits. The enemy crews attention must have been distracted to the north for some reason. Totally surprised by our appearance out of nowhere, two Stalins were soon on fire and blazing. Now the rest of their crews tried frantically to change position and to fire at us. But they were too slow – they fired, but we had moved, so they missed. Having taken up hull-down positions Sgt. Benny Inbar and my own gunner set another three Stalins on fire, hitting them in their vulnerable rear and sides. Within minutes ten Stalins were blazing in the sand, their surviving crews stumbling frantically out of the blazing steel hulks. A few had been hit so hard, that their heavy turrets virtually flew off. It was a terrifying scene of carnage. Once we met up with Col. Granit’s force we were told that the very Stalins that we had just destroyed had actually been fighting his small force, causing deadly casualties. He must have been delighted with our appearance just at the right moment.

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