Bridge over troubled waters

On a wintry December day in 1969, two vehicles came to a stop on the outskirts of a forest in Europe. Four men in coats came out of the cars and wandered into the sea of green. After covering a good deal of ground, they came upon a bald spot in which 62 pieces of metal that were once amphibious landing crafts were abandoned like discarded waste.

The landing crafts were left untouched for years after NATO forces ceased using them. This was the moment in which a new unit was born – “The Crocodiles” [the Hebrew name given to the landing crafts]. Four years later, that unit would leave its mark during the battle on the southern front against Egypt, a key moment of the Yom Kippur War. It was a mark that enabled Israel to achieve its fateful victory.

Amikam Doron, the deputy battalion commander of the Crocodiles, the unit that incorporated the “scrap medals” into its ranks, was at the time a young, 24-year-old captain. He saw everything first hand, on the ground. In recent years, he has researched the topic and pieced together an entire puzzle of information.

Get the Israel Hayom newsletter sent to your mailbox!

Now, after almost 40 years, Doron, who ended his military career with a rank of colonel, has authored a new book entitled Sherut b’nativ hazlicha (“Serving on the path of the maritime crossing”). The book touches on an aspect of the war that is less known. It seems that behind the major success of the Yom Kippur War – the crossing of the Suez Canal and the landing of combat units on Egyptian territory – lurks a tenet that has been debunked.

Doron describes how Israel Tal, the former deputy chief of staff, Israel Prize laureate, father of the Merkava tank and modular bridge, and the decorated general who passed away a year ago and who is credited with being one of the shapers of the Armored Corps’ fighting doctrine, preferred a different means to cross the canal. His preference nearly led to the crossing’s failure during the war.

As Doron discovered, the crocodiles, which Tal viewed disdainfully as “an insurance policy,” prompting him to order the army to cease their refurbishment and rehabilitation, were deployed in the south as a last resort. This was after the army failed in its attempts to mobilize the Roller Bridges onto the canal during the initial stages of the war. For all intents and purposes, it was the Crocodiles that saved the war on the Egyptian front.

Originally, the Crocodiles were pieces of scrap medal that were on the verge of being deemed totally useless. Just before they were found, they were due to be buried in the middle of a European forest. The Europeans referred to them after the name of the French general who purchased them for NATO forces. The size of a bus, it traveled 60 kilometers per hour on land. Upon entering water, its wheels would be tucked into the belly of the vehicle, and its propeller would aid it in sailing.

Three of these vehicles that were attached together were able to transport a tank. In April 1971, Defense Ministry officials arranged for a number of Crocodiles to be loaded onto a Zim cargo ship. From there, they were hauled to a parts factory in Israel for refurbishment. The decision was to refurbish 32 vehicles. Their mechanical state was quite poor, so poor in fact that they needed to be disassembled to their tiniest components. New parts needed to be purchased so that they could be put together again.

In early 1973, the Defense Ministry ordered the refurbishment project halted. The reason was that the funds needed for their reassembly were now being diverted in favor of the development and production of modular bridges which would later come to be known as Roller Bridges (gesher haglilim) – an Israeli invention that earned its developers, Col. David Laskov and Maj. Gen. Israel Tal, the prestigious Israel Defense Prize.

According to Doron, “[Tal] for all intents and purposes sacrificed the continued refurbishment of the Crocodiles in favor of developing and producing the Roller Bridges.”

Yeshayahu Gavish, the former GOC Southern Command, and Uzi Ilam, a senior figure in the defense establishment, were convinced that Tal was wrong, but their protests fell on deaf ears. Instead of 32 Crocodiles, the battalion received just 19. Doron came under the impression at the time that “the luster of these vehicles was gone,” and that “they were perceived as superfluous among all of the tools that were available for crossing bodies of water.”

On October 12, 1973, with Israel still reeling from the surprise attack, the General Staff held its first meeting in which the possibility of crossing the Suez Canal was discussed. Then-chief of staff David Elazar preferred a ceasefire, while the commander of the southern front, Haim Bar Lev, and the head of the air force, Benny Peled, were pushing for a crossing of the canal. The deputy chief of staff, Tal, was opposed.

Instead, Tal demanded that the high command prepare the IDF for a decisive land battle. Despite the hesitation, a plan was conceived that called for a crossing to be staged from Duar Suar, just north of the Great Bitter Lake. Tal expressed reservations about the plan, claiming that the proposed crossing was not the one that was originally agreed upon. According to the initial plan, the crossing was due to be staged from the mouth of the canal, while the newer proposal first required that the IDF break through enemy lines.

It turns out that Tal was right, and he was wrong. The crossing bore absolutely no resemblance to the original plan. This was due to Egypt’s success in launching the surprise attack and reaching the Israeli side of the canal. But it is also because the means with which the army was to employ in crossing the canal, which Tal insisted on, were incompatible with the conditions and circumstances that emerged at the time.

On Oct. 14, the Egyptian tank offensive failed. That night, the government approved the canal crossing operation codenamed “Knights of the Heart,” the details of which were presented to the cabinet by Bar Lev. The plan was to provide reinforcements to the Paratrooper division headed by Ariel Sharon, conquer the bridgehead on the Israeli bank of Duar Suar, and to transfer the paratrooper and armored brigades to the Egyptian side of the canal on the night of Oct. 15. The Sharon division was tasked with deploying the Roller Bridge, while the division headed by Maj. Gen. Abraham Adan was tasked with breaking through enemy lines and deep into Egyptian territory. The planned crossing point featured a “yard” which was surrounded by mounts of earth. Sharon is the one who prepared it back in 1970 in the eventuality of a crossing.

In the afternoon the next day, tanks starting dragging the first Dovrot bridges from Wadi Um Hashiba to the direction of the canal. But the tanks came to a halt just six kilometers from Tasa in the northwestern Sinai. The highway was jammed up by an endless convoy of Israeli military vehicles and equipment. The transport of the bridges ran into further difficulty when a number of tanks were unable to tow them due to a tear in the hauling mechanism. Attempts to bypass the stuck Dovrot bridges led other vehicles to sink in the sand on the side of the road. The supply of bridges, without which it would have been impossible to bring tanks onto the western side of the canal, was stuck.

Sharon decided to continue the operation and make do with the Roller Bridge and the Crocodiles, those same Crocodiles that were outcast by Maj. Gen. Tal. Sharon feared that further delay would rob the IDF of the element of surprise. He also did not conceal his concern that the political leadership would recant its support for the crossing operation. A patrol force that reached the “yard” at the staging point provided some hope, but another force ran into the famous ambush at the Chinese Farm and took heavy losses.

The paratroopers who were supposed to link up with the boats were delayed in the huge traffic jam. The boats themselves were loaded onto half-tracks. It was only around midnight on the night of Oct. 15 that one could finally notice a smile on the faces of the commanders on the front. That was when company commander Avik Tamir reported in his radio: “Acapulco” – the code word that marked the successful landing of the first contingent of paratroopers on the Egyptian side of the canal after the soldiers crossed over on rubber boats. According to the plan, the Dovrot bridge was supposed to have been deployed right then, and tanks were due to begin moving toward the eastern bank.

In the forward command post, the events were being analyzed carefully, including the bitter battle over the corridor that had yet to be decided, and the stuck bridges. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan proposed that the paratroopers be called back, saying: “We tried and it didn’t work … In the morning, they will slaughter everyone on the other side.” The GOC Southern Command, Shmuel Gonen, opposed. “If there is no bridge [now], there will be one tomorrow,” he said. Haim Bar Lev backed up Gonen, saying: “There’s nothing to discuss. We are continuing.” The decision was made: the operation would continue. But when dawn broke, it became clear that the Roller Bridge, Tal’s baby, was stuck in the sand dunes.

“Everyone was mesmerized by the display in which this bridge was dragged across ideal road conditions with no obstacles and with a tractor that straightened it out, all at a distance of 800 meters,” Doron said. “They were satisfied by this. Nobody put the Roller Bridge to the test by trying to tow it dozens of kilometers on a roadway whose passage was more difficult.”

Now the army was only left with the Crocodiles, which to that point were last on the list of priorities. In a consultation between Ariel Sharon and Haim Bar Lev, it was decided to “push” them forward and to try and use them in order to transport tanks that would come to the aid of the paratroopers already on the other side of the canal.

The Crocodiles were now being mobilized. But they too ran into passage difficulties. Contrary to the Dovrot and Roller Bridges, however, they managed to move forward. From his armored personnel carrier, Ariel Sharon moved in front of them. At 5 a.m., the Crocodiles reached the yard, where the rubber floating devices on their sides were being filled with air.

Ninety minutes later, the first Crocodile entered the canal. It was followed by 14 other Crocodiles. The intense training that the battalion troops underwent proved to be quite useful. The Crocodiles hooked up with one another, forming five Dovrot Bridges. This enabled the first tank to cross the canal. A surprising, transient quiet could be heard in the background.

Four hours later, at around 10:30 a.m., there were already 28 tanks and 10 armored personnel carriers on the other side of the canal. Thirty minutes later, Bar Lev made one of the more controversial decisions of the crossing. He halted the transit of tanks to the Egyptian side of the canal. Bar Lev was keenly aware of Egypt’s incessant attempts to cut off the narrow Israeli corridor. That prompted him to decide against moving Adan’s division forward toward the canal. Instead, he rerouted the division to help purge the corridor of Egyptian forces.

Sharon was quite angry about this. He later wrote: “During this time span, we could have brought over hundreds of tanks on the Crocodiles.” According to Sharon, “The command and the General Staff erred in their judgment. None of them were at the scene. They were afraid and they delayed the continued crossing of our forces for more than 40 hours, during which the Egyptians concentrated a large contingent of forces.”

On Wednesday morning, Oct. 17, the first Dovrat bridge finally made it to the yard. At the time, there were still nine Dovrot Bridges that were stuck on the wide roadway, some of them in sand. They managed to reach the canal after much efforts, and they were deployed to form a bridge at 16:00. One of the Dovrat Bridges, which was commanded by First Lieutenant Yehuda Monheit, was hit by a mortar. Monheit and four of his crewmen were killed immediately. The damaged Dovra caught fire, and huge plumes of smoke blackened the sky. After the war, it became part of the memorial that was established to honor the memory of troops who fell during the crossing. Monheit’s son was born three days after his death. Two other soldiers on the Dovra died during their wives’ pregnancies. Among comrades, the Dovra earned the nickname, “The pregnant Dovra.”

Just seven hours after the Dovrot Bridge was deployed, Adan’s division arrived at the canal and started to cross over. The late arrival also became a source of bitter dispute after the war. Sharon was of the opinion that “seven hours were wasted due to Adan’s great, unjustifiable tardiness all the while the Egyptians were massing more and more forces against the bridgehead.”

Finally, with tardiness, the Engineering Corps constructed four bridges on the canal. By Oct. 19, three bridges were deployed: the Dovrot Bridge; the Roller Bridge that was dragged to the canal bank by tanks and bulldozers who absorbed heavy Egyptian artillery fire; and the Tzena Bridge, an improvised bridge that was constructed from the remnants of Dovrot bridges. A stable land bridge was built six weeks after the war. During construction, 350 cubic meters of clay sand and rock were sunk into the canal.

In his book, Amikam Doron writes candidly of the difficult moments in the yard, when everything was hanging by a thread: “I saw quite a number of troops around me, including those from my unit, who dug in, hid, and buried themselves in the mounds and did not lift their heads for the entire day, both due to fear of falling shells as well as the fear that they would be called upon to carry out missions … There were even those, including commanders, whom I didn’t see at all. They simply disappeared from the area.”

Doron does not bear any grudges against those soldiers, nor does he pretend to sit in judgment of them. Still, he said: “There should not be any misleading, deceptive idealization of what happened. Rather, we should face facts and not sweep them under the rug or try to whitewash.” It is difficult for him to reconcile with the fact that “the most senior ranks of the Engineering Corps did not do well enough to understand the unique characteristics of the Crocodile and instead was wrapped up in the charm of the Roller Bridge.”

“Perhaps this stemmed from the fear of presenting an opinion that contradicting that of the deputy chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Tal,” he said.

“Still, despite the mishaps and problems, particularly when the operation began at the staging point and the unforeseen scenario that played out, the crossing of the Suez Canal and the transfer of three divisions, including hundreds of tanks, will be remembered as the largest and most complex Engineering Corps operation in the history of the IDF,” he said. “It was a mission in which the crossing and engineering units stood up to the task quite successfully and impressively.”

Like our newsletter? 'Like' our Facebook page!

טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו