Not by the Air Force Alone: The IAF and the IDF during the Six Day War

A reread of Ezer Weizman’s, “For You the Sky, For You the Land.”

04.06.17
Alon Kadish


For the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War, the IDF Archive made available in February 2017 new materials, including radio transmissions made by pilots during the war. A journalist referred to the Israel Air Force’s (IAF) Operation Focus as destroying the Egyptian Air Force, “launching the Six Day War and deciding the fate of the entire campaign.” [2] The ambiguity of the statement that the IAF was instrumental in bringing about victory through Operation Focus reflects a central war narrative etched in the minds of the Israeli public.

Descriptions of the IAF's role were more qualified before and immediately after the war. The opening words of the Operation Focus order in March 1967, also made available by the IDF Archive, were written under the “General Information” clause: “The first mission of the Air Force…is to attain aerial superiority.”[3] In addition, under the “Mission” clause, the scope was expanded: “to paralyze the enemy’s air force through striking its runways and destroying most of the airplanes on the ground, while protecting the country’s skies and carrying out other missions depending on the war's development.”[4]

There was concern from some government officials over air support to the ground forces. When asked to what extent such air support would be important for victory in the Sinai desert, IDF Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin was adamant in his response:

          "The airstrike on the Egyptian forces destroyed Egyptian mobility and prevented the Egyptians from deploying their armor as needed. As a result, two counterattacks planned by the Egyptians were never carried out."[5]

In addition, David Kimchi and Dan Babli from the Mossad added that even though:

          "The victory of the Air Force was the most dramatic event of the entire war, no less important was the Armor Corps attack (Tal Division) on the northern route and the opening of the Abu Adila area (Umm Katef) by the Sharon Division, which cleared the way to the Sinai center." [6]

A more ardent statement about the relationship between air support and ground-based success appeared in the book authored by Shmuel Segev, during the war Maariv’s Middle East reporter, entitled Red Sheet Six Day War:[7]

         " It is obvious that the IDF had to achieve success quickly and that victory would be possible only after the destruction of the enemy’s armor."

Yigal Alon, then Minister of Labor, made a similar statement in a book introduction released after the war:

Air superiority is, as everyone knows, the key to victory, though it doesn’t have the power" itself to bring about victory during a war." [8] 

In this context, the book by Randolph S. and Winston F. Churchill, the son and grandson of the prime minster, that came out shortly after the war, is also interesting with regards to Nasser's vision that heroic fighting by the Egyptian air force was similar to that of the Royal Air Force in the 1940 Battle for Britain. This concept was fundamentally flawed:

         "Even supposing the Israelis had not got in their first decisive blow, catching virtually all the Egyptian Air Force on the ground, there is little reason to suppose that the outcome would have been any different."[9]

In other words, the war would have ended in Israel’s favor even without Operation Focus, in the ground operations of the Tal and Sharon divisions.

At the same time, other arguments were made that the IAF had in fact won the war during Operation Focus. Daniel Molad, during the war a deputy editor of Air Force Magazine, wrote in a journal:

          "The Egyptians didn’t have a chance to respond and be a deciding military factor if its air force was destroyed…the wings over the desert air and seas meant an historical and unprecedented military capability, a capability that would echo in history for some time."[10]

To him, the doctrine of Ezer Weizman, the head of the Operations Branch and former commander of the Air Force, was undoubtedly proven:

        "The doctrine that he developed and used with regards to the IDF’s air force, its objectives and successes, was proven in a way that only a few doctrines around the world have been proven…the theory that air power should always be a central factor for the IDF has been decided.  The theories of striking with a concentrated, surprising and rapid attack in the heart of enemy territory, at the start of the war, leading to the elimination of the enemy’s air force and providing air superiority, ensuring final victory, and made certain by armor units and fighting units breaking through, have finally been recognized. These theories will be memorized as classics, and their implementation will be evaluated, by militaries and military academies around the world, for some time."[11]

For You the Sky, For You the Land, by Ezer Weizman

 At least as far as Ezer Weizman is concerned, Michael Oren confirms in his book about the war that for Weizman “ground battles were not particularly interesting…He trusted the Air Force and Operation Focus.”[12] The development of Ezer Weizman’s concept for deploying the air force and the its role in the IDF’s operational concept are a matter for a rereading of his book For you the sky, for you the land.[13]

 Weizman’s views attest to a developed self-awareness (“Weizman, I told myself”[14]) and a lack of interest in being chronologically accurate, even though these are his memories. For instance, he described that when Israeli pilots left Czechoslovakia in 1948, where they were taught to fly the Messerschmidt plane, the commander of the Czech air force base Halodek shook our hands and wished us success: “Try to catch the Egyptians on the ground and screw them on the ground!” It took us 19 years until we took Mr. Halodek’s good advice.[15]

Weizman recalled that he began to think about the role of the air force in the IDF – “the relationship between its operational and intellectual independence and the need to view it as a part of the fighting forces”[16] – in 1950, after the annual command (northern, central, southern) war games, on the eve of becoming commander of the air battalion, when for the first time he began aware of “general discussions in the IDF.” During the same drill Weizman recalled: “questions about the organization integrated with operational questions. For years these questions have included serious doubts. The solutions were not inconclusive, there were doubts, questions, attempts, concessions, successes and renewed attempts.”[17] However, in Weizman’s mind there was clearly a desired direction.

Weizman described General Aharon Remez, the second commander of the Air Force, as the person who persuaded him to stay in the military and helped promote him. Remez, the son of David Remez of the Mapai party leadership, served at the end of World War II as a fighter pilot (with the rank of sergeant) in the Royal Air Force (RAF) in northwestern Europe and brought with him the British concept according to which the air force has a role, in addition to defending the skies of Britain, to fulfil strategic missions. The most important of these is achieving victory from the air through heavy bombing of population centers, and military and civilian strategic targets. These bombings would break the will of German society. This effort included the deployment of heavy bombers protected by fighter jets that were tasked with protecting them from German fighter jets. Weizman remembered that Remez’s message was: “The air force is not the ground force’s auxiliary! It is a decisive force! Air superiority will determine the battle’s fate.” Due to the lack of sufficient heavy bombers in the Israeli Air Force, the secondary objective of destroying the enemy’s air force has become the principal one, to the point of it being identified as vital to achieving victory in a war.[18]

One can find the doctrine of achieving victory through strategic bombing  in the preliminary plan for creating an air service, submitted to Ben Gurion in October 1947 by Aharon Remez  and Heiman Shamir, who was a long range bomber pilot in the US Air Force.[19] The plan was to divide the air force into “wings” of combat squadrons that would serve the needs of territorial commands and the air command’s wing which would include bomber squadrons. The jobs of the service would include tactical missions, operational objectives such as isolating the battlefield and striking the enemy’s transportation routes, as well as “acts of harassment and punishment by attacking residential concentrations deep in enemy territory.”

 Weizman reached his conclusion, based on the command war games, that the Royal Air Force and US Air Force’s experience justify the need for the air force’s independence.[20]  His position doesn’t evidence a deep understanding of the issue. The conventional bombings of the Allied air forces in Europe didn’t end the war, and the importance given to the independent missions of the fighter jets in attaining air superiority, in defending Britain from the German air force and protecting bombers during their attacks in Europe, came at the expense of combined arms missions assisting ground forces. Lessons learned about close support in the western desert were not available to the air force in general, and the allies had to learn the close air support doctrine while fighting in Western Europe after landing in Normandy. The independent status given to the British air force in 1918 and the US Air Force in 1948 did not nullify the importance given to close support missions even when this meant an organizational split.[21]

Weizman assumed that ground forces opposed equalizing their standing to that of the air force in order to “preserve their dominance.” As he understood it, they suffered from a “little jealousy” that was expressed in their desire to “weaken a little the hubris” belonging to the pilots.[22] The argument reached its climax when Remez demanded the IAF receive “specific independence” and recognition of “the priority of its needs compared to other force” including “unusual funding for procurement and the strengthening of the force.” To him, Chief of Staff Yigal Yadin’s reply was: “You will do exactly as told and when told.” In other words, the air force would be a “air brigade of the ground forces.”[23] Remez resigned following Yadin’s words, but Weizman’s commitment to an independence air force only grew stronger.

Weizman’s position reflects a renewed prioritization of the air force’s missions which centered around achieving victory. It is supposedly a combined effort in which the “air force will gain dominance and ensure open skies over the battlefield and population centers only if it is assured superiority during ‘routine’ dogfights.”[24] Hence the preference for fighter jet purchases. These became part of the IDF’s military doctrine before the Sinai War. Thus, for example, in the Basic Ground Air Warfare (interim) doctrinal manual of 1955[25] the following was written:

The first mission of the service during war was achieving aerial superiority. The complete list of missions was:

  1. Achieving and maintaining air dominance.
  2. Strategic patrol.
  3. Strategic bombing.
  4. Assisting ground forces.
  5. Assisting naval forces.[26]

Accordingly, the rules of operation when “assisting ground forces” were “in order of importance”:

  1. To obtain and maintain aerial dominance over the battlefield.
  2. To prevent the enemy from freely being able to use the battlefield for movement of soldiers and transports.
  3. To provide assistance to friendly forces currently in contact with the enemy.[27]

 Given that the “airplane’s greatest enemy is – the airplane,” therefore:

        "The first and foremost preferable mission of an air force is to damage and neutralize the enemy’s air force, so that aerial superiority is reached and allows deploying of the air force against the most valuable targets, without regard to enemy aircraft. This mission should not be seen as the first or only step. This operation must be carried out on an ongoing basis so that air superiority is maintained."[28]

As such, the main role of the air force throughout the war is not to directly assist ground maneuver but to enable it based on the claim that:

         "Ground warfare is based on an intelligent use of maneuvering, whereas enemy aerial pressure has the ability to deprive “friendly ground forces” their freedom of movement, especially in broad daylight. Any means that allows this freedom of movement, through the neutralization of enemy aerial pressure, is an important contribution for efforts on the ground."[29]

The main priority that was attributed to the achievement of aerial superiority using fighter jets was expressed by Weizman’s insistence, as commander of the Air Force, on the purchase of the Mirage jets, even though their payload capacity was low[30] and their ability to directly assist ground forces was limited. The term “flying artillery” was not part of this conception. As Daniel Molad described the Six Day War: “assisting ground forces – this is not a favorite term in the Air Force.”[31]

Weizman admitted that in 1956: “Focusing on the missions of the Air Force took the attention away, naturally, from my interest in land operations that I only generally knew.”[32] With reference to the ground forces Weizman was clear but careful, with regards to the Navy he was much more forceful. In his estimate, it was a waste to provide more manpower and funds to this service because the Air Force was better able to protect the country’s beaches than them.[33] Through this, it appears that Weizman was proficient in the "language" of combined arms and paid lip service to its parallel operational concept. Nonetheless, his belief in the true mission of the Air Force determined his policy vis-à-vis force design and preparation. The dualism implied by Weizman’s words can be seen, for example, in remarks made about one of the lessons of the Sinai War: “The maximum combination of ground and air forces, and the mutual exhaustion of these joint capabilities, have affected the need for placing the commands of both forces under one roof and unifying the commands of the combat elements.”[34] As if the building of the Air Force headquarters, within the Kirya base in Tel Aviv, was the fulfillment of the combined arms concept.

As for the unity of command, air doctrine emphasized coordination and cooperation, but also independent command: “The meaning of centralized control is that air units are not to be allocated for ground-air combat while under a different command, and air forces should not be assigned missions which will lead to a loss of centralized control, if even for just a short time.[35]

Optimal combination of arms required, according to the Warfare Doctrine, deployment of all available assets by one commander. According to the doctrine, every commander had to “deploy his assets in concert, so that the advantages of one type of weapon would complement the limits of the other weapon, with the main goal of giving the enemy the most crushing blow.”[36] Combined arms, according to Weizman, was deployment of weapons separately so to achieve the main goal – victory.

There cannot be a war without the Air Force, and goals can’t be met if if the Air Force does not destroy the enemy air forces so to ensure full control of the sky, and there is no clear and decisive victory unless our ground forces operate without fear of enemy planes, and our ground forces cannot move quickly unless our air force fights alongside it with full force.[37]

And:

        "The speed of our armor, rushing to impact the battle, depends on the strength of the Air Force, and its two functions. Preventing air attacks on our ground forces, and having the ability to strike enemy ground forces and armor, as well as to disrupt their maneuvers and moves."[38] 

 Here as well, along with the methods of the combined arms doctrine, Weizman’s additional remarks raise a different concept of how the IAF can be used to reach military dominance before the ground attack, to the point of distorting the events of the Six Day War:

        "Control of the skies [in the Sinai] without the threat of MiGs, by an early destruction of enemy aircraft, or by deterring them from operating, allows our aircraft to destroy the enemy ground forces, even while they are getting ready and not yet on the battlefield. That's exactly what happened during the Six Day War."[39]

This war narrative was partially parallel to the scenario presented in the Warfare Doctrine, whereas the IAF could, nonetheless, "use its firepower on the enemy and therefore increase the overall firepower belonging to forces on the ground," but even though "this act has great importance…there is no decisive change when compared to the land-based weaponry." In contrast, the Air Force:

"can almost completely paralyze ground forces maneuvering…This Air Force action has a decisive impact on fighting on the ground, because a side that has air dominance could…almost completely paralyze the possibility of enemy maneuvering, and as such create the preconditions for beating the enemy. In order for the Air Force to be able to make a vital contribution to the battle on the ground, and to prevent the enemy's air force from stopping our moves, the Air Force will first of all seek to defeat the enemy's air force and only then to actively participate in defeating the enemy engaged in battle on the ground."[40]

Dividing the Air Force’s main missions into two separate and binding stages allowed for an unequivocal placement of their importance and urgency. There will not be substantial assistance by the Air Force to efforts on the ground until absolute air superiority is attained through the destruction of the enemy’s air force.

The attainment of the upper hand during the Six Day War in the Sinai came during the two divisional battles of the Tal Division (84),[41] on the northern route, and the Sharon Division (38) in Umm Kataf on the central route. In both, participation of the IAF was minimal - using Fouga Magister training jets armed with missiles to attack artillery. Only on the war’s second day, after the Egyptians' ground positions in the Sinai’s front were breached, did the Air Force act against the Egyptian army by attacking forces moving from the canal eastward.

Squad commanders did not participate in the ground order of battle and had no knowledge of ground objectives. Ran Peker, commander of the Mirage squadron (201) during the war, testified that during the waiting period: "We dealt with two very important issues - flying at very low altitudes and the squadron’s organizational and operational management.”[42] An extraordinary exception was the arrangement made by Rafael Eitan (Raful), commander of the active duty paratroopers brigade (35), with "the commander of our Mirage squadron, a seasoned man, that if he heard on the air-ground radio the words ‘red acid,’ would leave everything he was doing and come to me,” which indeed happened at an advanced stage of the fighting, after the battle in the Gaza Strip, when the brigade was moving westward toward the canal.[43]

With reference to the significant contribution made by the Air Force to the effectiveness of the ground forces, Weizman provided another justification for the Air Force’s exclusive focus on destroying the Egyptian Air Force (followed by the Jordanian and Syrian air forces) and its maintaining of aerial superiority. He claims that this is in fact the only course of action open to the Air Force by its very nature, whereas "the entire strength of the aircraft lays in being on the offensive"[44]:

"Armored and ground forces can prepare for defensive battles and bombardment countermeasures, and as a result the enemy's strength may be weakened and the path paved for pursuing a devastating counterattack on the enemy's dwindling power...The possibility of doing so in the air did not seem reasonable to him. We did not assume then that Air Force defensive measures could be effective. We believed that the strength of the Air Force and the strength of the planes were based on them being on the offensive."[45]

In his words:

        "Since the Sinai War, we have preached the need, and that perhaps it is vital (emphasis in the original) that the Air Force will be fully used as a decisive element during the next war by launching the first blow. We saw it as a guarantee for victory."[46]

The necessity of an initial strike by the IAF against the Egyptian Air Force for a quick and overwhelming ground victory was accepted by at least some members of the General Staff. On May 28, 1967, during a meeting between General Staff members and the Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Levi Eshkol, who was accompanied by Minister Yigal Alon, and David Elazar, commander of the northern command, declared: “The constant assumption is that the IDF must be the first to act, and to deploy the Air Force. If the enemy attains aerial superiority, the IDF will not be able to attain a crushing victory, and if it succeeds it will come with a heavy price.”[47]

Weizman’s concept was be implemented during Operation Focus and had an impact on the IDF’s timing while it pursued gaining the upper hand at the war’s onset. The concept became a doctrinal and binding order of battle: “These three hours in June 1967 contributed to a full realization of the Air Force’s operational concept: attacking the enemy’s bases, reaching aerial superiority, and later integrating into the ground battle.”[48]

The possibility of assisting the ground battle, pushing away the enemy's air force from the battlefield before destroying it, and at the same time assisting the ground effort, was not deliberated – and we know what happened.

This research does not attempt to be complete, but rather a partial attempt at expressing the frustration that stems from the challenge of pursuing an in-depth analysis of the historical difficulties the IDF has had to fully and successfully implement the combined arms doctrine that all agree on. It is similar to the saying (mistakenly attributed to Mark Twain) about the weather that everyone talks about but no one does anything about.

 

 Bibliography

Alon, Amir and Somfalvi, Attila. “’The plane turned into a ball of fire.’ A pilot's testimony from the Six Day War.” Ynet. 13.02.2017.

Alon, Amir. “The radio transmissions of the pilots from the Six Day War have been uncovered: ‘They destroyed the enemy planes on the ground.” Ynet 12.02.2017.

Alon, Yigal. “Think before you act.” War and Victory. Tel Aviv: M. Mizrachi. 1967.

Bar-On, Mordechi. Six Days 5.6.67 Israel Defense Forces. General Staff – Chief Education Officer. Ministry of Defense – Publishing House. 1968.

BarTov, Hanoch. 48 years and 20 days. Tel Aviv: Maariv Publishing. 1979.

Drezi, Tzvi. Heiman: The Man and the Era. Tel Aviv: Zemora, Bitan, Modan. 1980.

Dromi, Uri. “The Air Force during the first two decades – from the War of Independence to the Six Day War.” In Rising to the Sky. The Air Force – Challenges and Missions. “The Broadcasting University” The National Security Series of the National Defense College, Ministry of Defense. 2011.

Eitan, Rafael (Raful) and Goldstein, Dov. The Soldier’s Story. Tel Aviv: Maariv Publishing. 1986.

Golan, Shimon. War on three fronts. The IDF’s High Command’s Decision Making during the Six Day War. IDF – Maarachot/Ministry of Defense Publishing House, History Department. 2007.

Ground Warfare Volume 1. General Staff, General Volume 1-2. November, 1964.

Kimchi, David and Babli, Dan. The Firestorm. The Six Day War, roots and ramifications. Tel Aviv: Maariv edition. 1968

Molad, Daniel. “Pure Skies – the Air Force Operations.” War and Victory. Edited by Naftali Arbel. Tel Aviv: M. Mizrachi, 1967.

Oren, Michael. Six Days of War that Changed the Face of the Middle East. Or Yehuda: Kinneret Zemura – Bitan, Dvir, 2004. (Hebrew edition)

Randolph, S. Churchill and Winston,  F. Churchill. The Six Day War. London: Heinemann, 1967.

Ronen, Ran. Hawk in the skies. Shalom Danny (editor). Tel Aviv: Yideot Ahronot,  Hemed Books. 2002.

Segev, Shmuel. Red Sheet Six Day War. Tel Aviv: Taberski, [first edition]. August 1967.

Shalom, Danny. “As a thunderbolt during a clear day. Operation Focus, this is how the Arab air forces were destroyed during the Six Day War.” In the Air – Air Publishing: 2002.

Weizman, Ezer and Goldstein, Dov. For you the sky, for you the land. Tel Aviv: Sifriyat Maariv. 1975.

 

 Notes

[1] Professor Alon Kadish is a lecturer in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and head of the Institute for the Study of the Land of Israel and its Communities at Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi.

[2] Amir Alon, “The radio transmissions of the pilots from the Six Day War have been uncovered: ‘They destroyed the enemy planes on the ground,” Ynet 12.02.2017. This is the day the materials became publically available. This narrative repeated itself in Amir Alon and Attila Somfalvi. “’The plane turned into a ball of fire.’ A pilots testimony from the Six Day War,” Ynet 13.02.2017.

[3] Air Force Command, Air Battalion, Air Branch/3, “Focus Order” Operation Order 11/67, 16 March 1967.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., 152-165.

[7] Shmuel Segev, Red Sheet Six Day War (Tel Aviv: Taberski, [first edition] August 1967), 106.

[8] Yigal Alon, “Think before you act,” in: Naftali Arbel (editor), War and Victory (Tel Aviv: M. Mizrachi, 1967), 16.

[9] Randolph S. Churchill and Winston F. Churchill, The Six Day War, (London: Heinemann, 1967), 91.

[10] Daniel Molad, “Pure Skies – the Air Force Operations,” In Arbel (editor), War and Victory, 28.

[11] Ibid., 46.

[12] Michael Oren, Six Days of War that Changed the Face of the Middle East (Or Yehuda: Kinneret Zemura – Bitan, Dvir, 2004), 214 (Hebrew).

[13] Ezer Weizman and Dov Goldstein, For you the sky, for you the land, (Tel Aviv: Sifriyat Maariv, 1975).

[14] Weizman, For you the sky, 166.

[15] Ibid., 56.

[16] Ibid, 93.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid., 100.

[19] The document was published in the Air Force Magazine 43-44 and in Tzvi Drezin’s book, Heiman: The Man and the Era, (Tel Aviv: Zemora, Bitan, Modan, 1980).

[20] Weizman, For you the sky, 93.

[21] In the British military in 1918 the formation of an independent bombing air force with separate missions from close air support under the RAF responsibility. In the US, the separation of the air force, which received strategic missions, from the military’s air force in 1948.

[22] Weizman, For you the sky, 93-95.

[23] Ibid., 98.

[24] Ibid., 137.

[25] Ground-Air Warfare (provisional), General Staff/Ahad, Research and Development Department, Basic Doctrine Manual 1-75, Instruction Manuals, (IDF Command, 1955).

[26] Ibid., 1.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid., 1-2.

[30] See Danny Shalom, “As a thunderbolt during a clear day. Operation Focus, this is how the Arab air forces were destroyed during the Six Day War,” In the Air – Air Publishing (2002): 64.

[31] Molad, Clear Skies, 28.

[32] Weizman, 155.

[33] Ibid., 156.

[34] Ibid., 164.

[35] Ground-Air Warfare, 4.

[36] Warfare Doctrine Volume 1, IDF Command, General Doctrine 1-2, November, 1964, 4.

[37] Weitzman, 173.

[38] Ibid., 175.

[39] Ibid., 175.

[40] Warfare Doctrine, 6.

[41] In relation to this, the words of Major General Tal, during a briefing before the battle, are interesting. “Our battle will be the test of the ground battle…He who wins will move, on a morale level, to the offensive, and he who fails will retreat on a mental level…The fate of the battle depends on the success of our battle, which means the fate of the country depends on what we do (the emphasis is in the original)”, in: Col. Mordechi Bar-On (Editor), Six Days 5.6.67 Israel Defense Forces, General Staff – Chief Education Officer. Ministry of Defense – Publishing House, 1968), 38.

[42] Ran Ronen (Peker) with Danny Shalom, Hawk in the skies, (Tel Aviv: Yediot Ahronot. Hemed Books, 2002), 169-170.

[43] Rafael Eitan (Raful) with Dov Goldstein, The Soldier's Story, (Tel Aviv: Maariv Publishing, 1986), 96-97.

[44] Weizman, 178.

[45] Ibid., 177.

[46] Ibid., 178.

[47] Shimon Golan, War on Three Fronts: The IDF’s High Command’s Decision making during the Six Day War (IDF – Maarachot/Ministry of Defense Publishing House, IDF – History Department, 2007), 125. In retrospect, Elazar explained that his words were tactical: “We want to attack immediately, and we must say that we need to attack immediately.” See Hanoch BarTov, 48 years and 20 days (Tel Aviv: Maariv Publishing, 1979, 2nd Edition), 123.

[48] Uri Dromi, “The Air Force during the first two decades – from the War of Independence to the Six Day War,” In Rising to the Sky. The Air Force – Challenges and Missions, (“The Broadcasting University” The National Security Series of the National Defense College, Ministry of Defense, 2011), 29.