Outbreak of War 1973
This coming October 6th marks the 40th anniversary of the start of the 1973 Mideast war. I remember I was home that day, Saturday the 6th and my brother had the radio on. Suddenly I heard that Egyptian forces had crossed the Suez canal and raised the Egyptian flag on the east bank. "What!" I exclaimed, "they went all the way!" Since 1971, Sadat had threatened to launch a military operation, but nothing of this magnitude was expected. Drew Middleton, military correspondent of The New York Times, suggested Egypt might resume shelling of Israeli positions (which had ceased in 1970). Only a few months earlier, Newsweek reported Egyptian claims that Sadat was "not contemplating anything as suicidal as a fullscale crossing of the canal." That of course was disinformation, as the events of the 6th clearly showed.
Soon after the radio report my family was watching TV when the regular programming was interrupted by "a CBS News Special Report." A map of the Mideast appeared, with arrows from Egypt and Syria jutting into the Israeli occupied Sinai and Golan respectively. This was the first I had heard of Syrian involvement; it was a joint attack. The Syrians, they said, had taken a mountain--Mt Hermon, as I later learned.
On the regular news that day they said "the ultimate victor will be Israel." That turned out to be true but failed to take into consideration lengthy planning by the arabs, which resulted in a longer, tougher battle than was originally expected. In fact with better leadership the arabs probably would've won.
Soon after the radio report my family was watching TV when the regular programming was interrupted by "a CBS News Special Report." A map of the Mideast appeared, with arrows from Egypt and Syria jutting into the Israeli occupied Sinai and Golan respectively. This was the first I had heard of Syrian involvement; it was a joint attack. The Syrians, they said, had taken a mountain--Mt Hermon, as I later learned.
On the regular news that day they said "the ultimate victor will be Israel." That turned out to be true but failed to take into consideration lengthy planning by the arabs, which resulted in a longer, tougher battle than was originally expected. In fact with better leadership the arabs probably would've won.
posted by starman at 3:27 AM
2 Comments:
I also remember that day. My brother and I got up that morning. We sat down in front of the TV, which was in his room. My brother turned on the TV and we saw the special news report about the war that had just started between Israel and the Arabs. It was not a surprise; we had heard that war in the Middle East was a strong possibility. Better planning by the Arabs would probably have made a substantial amount of difference in the outcome of the war.
Sure, war was considered a possibility, although just prior to the outbreak there was talk of Sadat abandoning his attack plans in favor of oil diplomacy. But I remember a few clashes prior to the war, which seemed to be leading up to it. The biggest of these was the September dogfight. Initial Arab planning was fine, the problem was leadership in the days that followed. I'll address that in a coming post.
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