The Eighty Minute War
MARSHALL, S. L. A.
The Eighty Minute War THE TANKS OF TAMMUZ By Shabtai Teveth Viking. 290 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by S. L. A. MARSHALL Brigadier General, U.S.A. (ret.); author, "Sinai Victory" A full two years...
...General Motta Hod's Israeli Air Force scored its decisive victory over the Egyptians two hours before anyone in the United States knew that a war had begun...
...as he saw things, it held only ruin and heartache for his nation...
...The vehicles were an oddly mixed bag, since Israel has had to shop for tanks wherever it can get them...
...It was only a dream or a Hollywood scenario...
...It is as preposterous as the fact that in some parts of the earth the Egyptian leader is still taken seriously...
...One exception was Israel Tal...
...The subject is too vast, its detail too fascinating...
...The old lion, David Ben-Gurion, did not want the war at any price...
...Three out of lour of the generals were not tank commanders but basically infantrymen, and the fourth...
...It is as unbelievable as Gamal Abdel Nasser's latest boast that he is all cranked up and ready to toss his troops into the same meat grinder again...
...above all, it concerns people, their doubts and fears, hopes and dreams, moods, personalities, and backgrounds...
...Included also is the evolution of its quite unorthodox theory, doctrine and tactical method...
...It is told in terms of fire and movement, weapons, blood and guts...
...From there on, the conquest of Sinai was strictly a mop-up...
...the writing fairly throbs with emotion, great love and an abiding respect for mankind...
...The strength of Israel's Army conies of the fact that its leaders are original thinkers...
...Launched westward as the clock struck eight that morning was a tank army of three divisions and two independent brigades...
...And Moshe Dayan, surprisingly, was dead set against going to war until, in the clutch, he was named Defense Minister...
...It should be called the Eighty Minute, not Six Day, War...
...What other army under the sun would dare operate on such an informal, catch-as-catch-can basis...
...head of the Armor Corps, whose division bounced off the Gaza Strip, smashed the Egyptian fortified line at Rafa...
...Shabtai Teveth, one of Israel's more brilliant journalists, was called to duty with Tal's force, and The Tanks of Tammuz is his eyewitness account of the experience...
...Aware that all of war is risk, they gamble big...
...author, "Sinai Victory" A full two years later, the event of June 6, 1967, still seems like the thing that never could have happened...
...If not the strongest, it was in some ways the strangest armored force over to hit out on its own...
...at that point he saw swiftly and clearly that there was no alternative...
...For a war book, it is done gently, tenderly...
...Here we have a history of how the Armor Corps developed from scratch beginnings before Israel was born...
...Israel's Armor Corps won its pivotal battles at Rafa, El Arish and Umm Gataf in the first 20 hours...
...The late Levi Eshkol was timid, dismayed...
...In discourse, as in battle, he is definitely overwhelming...
...The book is especially revealing where Teveth describes Israel on the verge of battle, during the torment and indecision of May 1967...
...Teveth's is a brilliant account, painstakingly written and handsomely illustrated...
...fumbling—grasping for any way out rather than tight...
...No review can do it full justice...
...and raced on to El Arish and the Suez...
...And there is much more...
...Yeshayahu Gavish, the Army commander, had not held a field command in 12 or so years, having been immersed in the training grind...
...Tal is the central figure in this book, a wholly refreshing soldier, a scholarly philosopher who will argue tactics until his audience throws in the towel...
...Avraham Yoffe, another foot soldier, had been retired from service for two years and was employed full time as the nation's chief of wild life conservation...
...Unreal...
...there is not that much military efficiency on earth...
...Arik Sharon, was a paratrooper...
Vol. 52 • May 1969 • No. 10
