Israel's Six Day War | Greatest Tank Battles | War Stories

the middle east 1967 with lightning speed the israeli tankers charge into sinai it was a big mistake for them to believe that the egyptian doesn't know how to how to fight [Music] at stake is the destiny of the middle east they're willing to stand there they're willing to duke it out with the israelis two armies six days and only one winner the fate of the war was in our hands this is the showdown in sinai this is the six day war [Music] [Music] the desert borderlands of southern israel a hotly disputed corner of the middle east which has been torn apart by conflict born in the throes of violent warfare to survive israel has had to learn to fight and in the desert battles of the last 60 years it's the tankers who've held the key to military success from its creation in 1948 the modern state of israel was besieged on all sides by hostile arab neighbors whose ambition was nothing less than its total and utter annihilation the first arab-israeli war of 1948 was swiftly followed in 1956 by a second war against egypt and ten years later with a conflict still unresolved israel and egypt begin to mobilize their armies once again since the end of the israeli war of independence in 1948 the israelis and the arabs had constantly been pushing against each other in 1967 all of this comes to a head the crisis gets out of hand egyptian forces build up the rhetoric on both sides escalates it sets and train a series of events that ultimately make the war unstoppable as the battle lines are drawn along israel's southern border in sinai egypt can boast not only a numerical advantage but also the superpower backing of the soviet union by june of 1967 the sinai bristles with egyptian manpower and weapons 100 000 men 1 000 artillery and more than 900 tanks the role of the tanks was extremely important in an open area like cyan in order to counter a tank you need a tank so it has to be tank versus that egyptian armor is overwhelmingly composed of the t-55 medium tank it has good armor a good gun good mobility and very rough and tumble in terms of being able to operate in the harsh climate of the desert the soviet t-55 weighing in at less than 40 tons it's light fast and carries a lethal 100 millimeter cannon and its wide tracks make it ideal for the soft sands of the sinai when you throw it all together the t-55 is on balance a much better tank than what the israelis had the israeli armored force is a hodgepodge reflecting the fact that in 1967 israel does not have a great power back the israeli forces are using relics from the second world war that they have collected from the scrapyards of europe they still have centurions they still have a few of the old sherman tanks but now there are american-made habitats the m48 patent medium tank armed with a 90 millimeter main cannon it's more powerful than the sherman more reliable than the centurion and the best tank the israelis can field the only drawback is the crisis comes to a head in june of 67 the israelis have far too few of them mobilizing along their southern border the israelis can only muster 700 tanks 70 000 troops and less than 200 artillery outnumbered out gunned and on the brink of war israel's only hope is to strike first and to strike hard out of the blue on june 5th that is precisely what they do it's fair to say that the israeli did their homework very well and the egyptians were sleeping and were not ready at all in less than three hours the israelis destroyed almost 300 planes on the ground all but obliterating the egyptian air force the israelis they have been training for this attack for almost 10 years especially the airstrike attack for the israeli tankers the dye is now cast and at eight o'clock they launched their ground defensive their plan a three-pronged attack blitzing into the sinai the northern arm under general israel tau aims to slam through the first line of egyptian defenses at khan yunus and rafa and reach el arish the northern gateway to sinai tao's order was it doesn't matter how many casualties we get on the first day of the war whether we can communicate or not we go forward we shoot and we charge the fate of the war is in our hands i've decided to cross the border and when i crossed the border i realized that we are in the world we drove between trees and we couldn't move to the left and the right and all the fire was straight to my face after maybe one kilometer two kilometer i lost my tank i jumped to the second one and after a few kilometers i lost the second tank and after that i was the first israeli tank in hanoi and they shot my tank from all over they shot every house every many many soldiers all over they tried to stop my attack because i was the first israeli tanker behind me nobody could protect me support me i found myself tried to protect myself but it almost was mission possible i used my main gun i shot some houses that i saw many soldiers waited for me there we're gonna order before that not to shoot with the main gun to the houses in this moment i said forget about that i to survive i didn't have any experience and even my soldiers and i was lieutenant young officer running all the time first time first tank all the time this was my mission by 10 o'clock cannes eunice has fallen driven by the urgency of their commander the israeli tankers barely pause for breath their next objective i had the feeling that nobody could stop us a normal man is afraid even i was afraid everybody i didn't see anybody in the first moment but suddenly i saw a black line uh one kilometer in front of me and i didn't know what is that the black line i came crawl and i saw thanks at this moment that i realized that we are in the middle of our division and this is my mission now to uh to attack them of course june 5th 1967 day one the six-day war israeli armored division strike first and crashed through the egyptian defenses in the sinai in the north general tal's division storms khan eunice and without stopping hurtles towards the egyptian fixed defensive lines at rafael so they realize that if they can move faster and think faster and make decisions faster than the egyptians they can constantly catch the egyptians at a disadvantage everything happened all of a sudden in one day or so so it was a big surprise to realize that we are in the middle of our division and this is my mission now to uh to attack them of course in rafael i put all the tanks beside of my tanks and it was the first time that i used all of them together we couldn't stop because go go go go all the time people support each other you know it's some tanks stop for a moment and other tanks move forward and they cover each other egyptian forces demonstrate a real capacity to fight from fixed defensive positions it's what they're best at they're willing to stand there they're willing to duke it out with the israelis if you put them in a position where they feel comfortable where they feel like they can fight back they will fight back hard they build special places like fire position they cover themselves with the dune with their sand and the just uh the top of the third we saw i remember one of them one metal in the front of my tank and i saw him and of course we we moved the gun and we shot him back the enemy can be in shock when you don't stop even you lose some some few tanks don't stop move and move and move and be behind him we run so fast when you stop you are a good target when they realize that they cannot stop us they jump from the tunnel and they start to run away from us and they took off the shoes and they threw away the rifles and they start to run to the ocean by noon the egyptian forward defensive line at rafael is decisively breached [Music] reeling from the explosive speed of the israeli advance the egyptian high command is in a state of denial [Music] the fog of war descends very heavily on egyptian forces it is humiliating for the arab commanders to admit that the israelis that the jews are beating them and so rather than admit that they're losing they claim the exact opposite they claim to be succeeding they claim to be beating the israelis back and so when those israeli formations that have now penetrated the egyptian front lines begin to push into the deeper egyptian positions those egyptians farther back are totally unready for them by early afternoon the first israeli units reached the jaradi defile a heavily fortified choke point on the road to el arish where they catch the egyptians off guard i approached the girardi is a narrow passage like the route to jerusalem this terrain is very difficult with soft dunes and landmines so i decided to go back to the technique of moving in a column with three tanks shooting forward the egyptians began shooting at us from the right from the left we returned fire we saw a few burning flames tanks during this event the first israeli tanks break through the jarati at breakneck speed but for those following on behind the element of surprise has been lost and as a result when the main body of the israeli force comes to the jaradi pass unlike its vanguard they now face an egyptian foe who is dug in armed and waiting for them i didn't know that few hours before two companies crossed the girardi already i didn't know that nobody told me that suddenly i saw two soldiers beside of the road i looked to his faces he was so fair and scared and he said something like be careful you have many tanks here suddenly it was a big bomb on the tanks june 5th 1967 israeli tanks smashed through rafael and charge into northern sinai the lightning speed of their attack catches the egyptians off guard and the lead tanks of general tal's armor division punch through the jaradi defile but by the time the main body arrives the egyptians are ready and waiting for them suddenly i saw two soldiers beside of the road and he said something like be careful you have many tanks here and i decided to move the main gun and put it in the direction that my gunner would try to identify them and i moved down to talk with him and to give them the the direction at this moment suddenly it was a big bomb on the tank at this moment i say bye bye the world shalom to the world and then i started to scream all my body was on fire two of my crew was killed by deputy that i was in his tank and the loader they would kill both of them outnumbered from the outset the israelis can ill afford casualties and by mid-afternoon of day one their losses mount alarmingly and said to myself seeing this such a heavy price for the first battle what is going to be next my feeling after this battle was not fair but water if this is how the wall continues we won't be able to carry on with so many wanted [Music] they found a real war in all aspects of the world and they have to fight and they have to suffer and they lost lots of their men and their armored forces in the seventh armored brigade the elite of the israeli army suffers its heaviest losses during that combat in the gerardi pass they just have to fight it out yard by yard pushing the egyptians back and there ensues one of the most ferocious fights of the entire six-day war we organized ourselves and i got a mission to advance and conquer jurassic we took control of the commanding terrain and we started to hit the egyptians that sat at the geradi from behind when a defending force sits in dugouts in positions and bunkers it was very difficult for it to change direction we attacked tanks cannons and bunkers from the rail that is what actually broke them [Music] and then they started to flee and that was the collapse of the girardi tal's division surges through the jaradi towards el arish but their momentum is so fast and so furious that their position is now dangerously overstretched the egyptians send their elite fourth armored division north to hit the israelis hard in the flank but racing through the desert to head them off where they least expect it is the second arm of the israeli offensive under general abraham yaffi south of the coastal roads the egyptians believe the trackless desert to be impassable to armored vehicles and impenetrable to tanks but not to general yafi our move was especially surprising because they didn't expect us to come from a direction they thought impassable there were heavy dunes on the right side and heavy dunes on the left side and we advanced on that pathway [Music] now the going's tough and a lot of israeli tanks do get stuck and it is hard to get the forces through there [Music] when joffee's forces get to the other side they're strung out they're piecemeal they're a little bit healthy and their task now is to intercept the egyptian fourth armored division which is advancing with hundreds of deadly t-55 main battle tanks this was a tank battle that was perhaps one of the biggest since world war ii but i yeah june 6th in the north of sinai general towels divisions have breached the egyptian front line but now his flank is dangerously exposed the tanks of general yaffi's division speed through the desert in a race to head off a massive egyptian counter-attack at beer lafaye the two sides come face to face 200 soviet tanks of the elite egyptian fourth armored division against just 100 israeli centurions the israelis have become expert at long-range gunman the superb guns on the centurion allow the israelis to engage the egyptian forces at much longer ranges than the egyptians realistically can we open fire at the range of 1500 to 2000 yards the 52-ton british centurion in service since 1945 has been upgraded by the israelis with a 105 millimeter cannon giving it more firepower and a greater striking range than the egyptians t-55 if you have better cannons and a good fire control system and if you are trained well then of course if you can hit from a bigger range than the enemy it gives you a great advantage [Music] the israelis have learned that the best way to kill tanks is not just by shooting them head-on but to get on their flanks hit them in the side hit them in the rear [Music] there is a saying in the armored call that the best tank is the tank that has the best call sometimes the call is more important than the tank the combat itself is a swirling tank fight that plays to all of egypt's disadvantages and all of israel's advantages if you have tanks that are heavy less to maneuver slow and counter by faster tanks or more maneuvering you left in the lane back in the sun the israeli tankers maneuver constantly they dart from firing position to firing position they get out on the egyptian flanks the egyptians lumber forward clumsily in large formations that are very difficult for them to maneuver general yafi centurions destroy as many as 80 egyptian tanks the rest of them flee but the israelis still face their biggest challenge farther south at abu aguilar the third arm of the israeli offensive under general ariel sharon has an even tougher task to crack open the massive egyptian fortifications defending the main axis of advance into central sinai the egyptians in 1967 are on the defensive they have the advantage of being able to sit behind very well-developed soviet-aided fortifications trench lines deep minefields positions dug in in depth interlocking fields of fire pre-registered artillery fire zones they're the heaviest fortifications in the whole of sinai the task of breaking through falls to battalion commander natke nier alex told me that he can't give me any artillery because i was too far from him this mission would be on my own all the trenches have been constructed to a soviet design with cement walls how to find places to climb up the dunes without sleeping they also had anti-tank missiles and this was a problem [Music] the first attack wasn't going our way we lost many tanks it was a big mistake for them to believe that the egyptian doesn't know how to how to fight i reassigned new people company commanders one company commander died another was injured four platoon commanders died i found a place where i would be successful [Music] [Music] the initial breaching operation is a tough one for the israelis that cost them a great deal of the casualties that they take in the entire operation but once they're through those fortified defenses they are effectively free their mission now encircle and destroy the egyptians defensive stronghold at abu aguilar in what will become one of the most audacious maneuvers in the history of armored warfare central sinai the tanks of ariel sharon's division penetrate the egyptians formidable fortified defensive line their mission to wreak havoc on the egyptian stronghold at abu aguilar sharon's plan to deal with the egyptian defensive system aguila is to hit it from all sides he pushes a battalion task force of armor through the soft sand dunes north of the abugila lots their main weapon is surprise and maneuvering in the dead of night confusion reigns the egyptian tanks that was sent against me got mixed up and got into my congo by the sound of their engines we knew they weren't centurions shut them after hours of treacherous maneuvers in enemy territory they ride into the egyptian's unprotected rear [Music] i didn't think even for one second the tanks or vehicles can cause as we move i also turned around cannons to the right and canons to the left in two columns i went and machine guns and it all caught on fire [Music] all of them supply all of their fuel the ammunition everything the command headquartered it was all burning it all exploded the entire place was on fire when we finished one pass through we turned around and came back but near's attack has alerted the egyptian armored reserve which in desperation throws itself into the fray egyptian units tend to stick together they will hold together they will fight as units for long periods of time even in very poor even desperate circumstances when other formations of other armies might fall apart without knowing where we are they just moved around like mice the moment i felt something was there we turn on the big projectile for a few seconds just so the gunner puts the course on the target you shoot one low one high and destroy the egyptian [Music] 15 meters away from six tanks seven tanks four times they tried to attack us the tanks got on fire we destroyed all of these attacks when the tankers jumped out they were burning like torches from their tanks at the same time many of our projectiles were being shot at and disabled the egyptians shot projectors that were turned on for too long a time it was a very difficult not to crack but thanks to the movement from the rail it all began to collapse with the decisive israeli victory at abu aguilar the egyptians face defeat on all three fronts and their command begins to panic cairo realizes that the jig is up and at that point in time field marshal amr makes one of the worst decisions in military history he simply orders all egyptian forces to retreat and they should get back across the suez canal as quickly as they possibly can that was a disaster that was the biggest disaster and they received the order to withdraw in 24 hours which is technically impossible a good withdrawal technique should take at least one week it should happen during the night the retreat becomes a route huge numbers of egyptian tanks flee westwards only to find their escape route blocked by israeli towers the sinai june 6 in a space of less than 36 hours the egyptian tank divisions are routed by the israelis and they flee the battlefield one of their main routes of escape lies through the midla pass leading to the suez canal and the safety of egypt beyond but in a headlong dash the israeli 200th brigade gets there first sitting at the mouth of the midla pass is a tiny little armored force no more than a dozen israeli tanks led by bren adam i gave an order to the 200 brigade to send the battalion quickly to the midlane and block them he has basically taken as many tanks as he could run south as fast as he could and every time they began to run out of gas he'd siphon it out of the tanks to keep as many as he could running to get down to the meet la pass with this tiny little force and there they engage in one of the great feats of long-range gunnery of the modern world using their long-range gunnery skills to keep the egyptians at bay they keep an enormous force of egyptians from getting through the meat la pass until additional reinforcements are finally able to come up hours later and seal off the muta altogether it's escape route blocked the egyptian armor now falls easy prey to the israeli air force with the egyptian army left reeling the israeli tankers press on through the midla pass towards their ultimate prize beyond the suez canal and complete domination of the in the sinai side what surprised me that the egyptian army was not in a situation of withdrawal they just stopped with all the i realized that i have a real enemy in front of me i knew that from the terrain point of view the maneuvering is going to be very difficult so i must use something which is very fundamental in any wall this is surprise i talked to all the 10 commenters and i told them look i'm going to to do something which is unusual with open lights and we will go towards the source canal if we will face the enemy we will shoot we will fight but it could be that the enemy will feel that it's egyptian trope going because otherwise they will not understand about the light just be ready with the guns to the right to the left the only one will give you orders to shoot is myself and we start moving and you know it was quiet nothing happened all of a sudden when the sun came up we were in the middle of a big deployment of ammo and infantry and it was a big surprise i hold the fire i said don't shoot because this army is a defeated army i'm not going to start a massacre because both sides will suffer once they raise their hand we want the battle without even one single shot [Music] it has taken the israelis just three days to destroy the egyptian army and reach the suez canal their conquest of sinai is absolute it's fair to say the military leadership on the egyptian part were not up to the challenge or up to the responsibility at all the army was not really ready and trained and prepared to fight the war in same eye against the israeli to lose it bad in two three days that was kind of humiliating in the course of a brief campaign the egyptians have lost more than 10 000 men and 700 tanks for the israelis victory also comes at a price with 1400 casualties and more than 60 tanks destroyed [Music] but for their tankers the six-day war is nothing short of a triumph israel's victory in the six day war is one of the most stunning military accomplishments of the 20th century a small israeli force takes on a larger better equipped egyptian force dug in in the right places in the sinai peninsula and they not just defeat it they destroy it we knew there wasn't any other option either you win or you die there is no middle way there is nowhere to retreat there is no place to escape outgunned and outnumbered a small but highly trained israeli tank force has proved to be unstoppable tanks qualities are important but they are not the main issues the same goals but the man that's driving this

Channel: War Stories

Views: 1,148,465

Rating: 4.7545433 out of 5

Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, history of war, tank battles, six day war, israel egypt war, june war, six day tank battle war, israel war

Id: 0oOI-eHePKo

Length: 43min 40sec (2620 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 25 2020