Warrior by Ariel Sharon

Author:Ariel Sharon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2001-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

22

The Crossing

October 8 had been a disaster, a tankman’s nightmare. We had sent in one of our renowned armored charges, and the Egyptians had not only stood up to it, they had destroyed it. With the opportunity for rationalization provided by our eventual victory, it has become popular to say that a farsighted command decision was made that night after a careful analysis of the battlefield. We would assume a static posture while the Egyptians moved the bulk of their armor over the canal, then we would smash their formations up in a defensive battle, after which we would strike across the canal onto the now sparsely defended western side. Unfortunately, that post facto interpretation beautifies what really happened. The truth was that the experience of the eighth left the upper levels of command in a state of shock, without an idea about what to do next except “to hold on.”

I was as upset with this as I was with practically every other decision that had been made so far in the war. For me, this was not the time to sit back and allow the Egyptians to build up their bridgeheads and their defenses. Why should we just wait while they brought the rest of their tank army over the canal? Quite the opposite. We should be pushing them, probing for their weak points, looking for openings to exploit. It is no exaggeration to say that by this time my confidence in the ability of either Southern Command or General Headquarters to read the battlefield properly was down to zero.

Nevertheless, in accord with orders I received, in the early morning of October 9 I gave instructions to my three brigade commanders—Amnon Reshef, Haim Erez, and Tuvia Raviv—that we would conduct a holding operation, containing the expected Egyptian advance. But I also expected them to use their initiative. In the kind of mobile defensive battle that tanks fight, they should watch for any opportunity to recover the ridgeline positions we had given up the previous day. That night too I had a long phone conversation with Major Weizel in command at strongpoint Purkan opposite Ismailia. “It’s up to you,” I told him. “Try to break out tonight and find your way to Hamutal” (a ridgeline hill six miles east of the canal). “I’ll have tanks waiting there to pick you up.”

Early the next morning several tanks and APC’s from Amnon’s brigade (with Amnon himself in command) penetrated down Talisman, the east-west road that ran past Hamutal. Already the area was engulfed in battle as Tuvia Raviv’s force fought off an attack by Egyptian armor and infantry. In the hail of missiles and gunfire three of Amnon’s vehicles were hit. But one tank succeeded in locating and picking up the survivors whom Wiezel had led out with great coolness from Purkan. With all thirty-three of them clinging to its hull, the tank emerged out of the maelstrom looking like something from an alien world. A little to the south, near Hamadia,

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