During the Six-Day War, Israel’s very existence rested in no small part upon the shoulders of its pilots, aircrews, and ground crews.
On land, tens of thousands of graves had been dug to be filled by the anticipated casualties of war. Our young nation faced powerful enemies rounding upon it in the form of several Arab militaries.
To avoid what it perceived to be a looming second Holocaust, Israel needed to capitalize upon the first opportunity to push back the threats massing against it — most forebodingly, the mighty Egyptian Air Force.
Israel employed intelligence gathering, doctrinal contrarianism, logistical daring, the exploitation of the mundane, and communications discipline as it planned. It deciphered detailed intelligence as it studied its enemies, observing as they built up their militaries and declared their intention to eliminate the Jewish state.
In 1967, Arab militaries based their strategy and battle doctrine on Soviet concepts, which Israel closely studied. Combined with the ongoing intelligence effort, Israel came to receive rivers of information, both in the air and on land, on the military capabilities of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. As a result, Israel deduced the tactical and strategic calculations of enemy commanders, turning that information to its advantage, with particular focus on Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt, the leader of the Arab world.
Given that Israeli forces were not numerous, strict prioritization of targets was required. Priority No. 1 was to hit the Egyptian Air Force before it left the runway in a mission known as Operation Moked.
Calibrated to a precision of seconds and meters, the strike needed the maximum number of planes possible for a wave of attacks against the Egyptian Air Force. The first wave had to impede the Egyptian takeoff capabilities.
If that first wave failed, Israel would have been exposed to painful aerial attacks at home. Israel’s need to incapacitate enemy aircraft left very few planes reserved for defense; far fewer than is endorsed by any known military defense doctrine. Israel was all in.
Pilots typically learn of their destination just prior to takeoff. In Operation Moked, they knew their precise location in the attack formation and where they would be flying to, well in advance.
The need to reach the more distant Egyptian bases made fuel efficiency a priority. Israel’s airmen had to drain their supplies in order to target Egypt’s Soviet-supplied strategic bombers, which could reach Tel Aviv.
Attack planes would have to land, rearm, refuel, and be airborne for the next wave, without delay, to avoid retaliatory air raids.
Israel logged the precise details of when enemy air forces conducted routine defense air patrols, and when those patrols changed over. It did so not with a view to downing those patrols, but to avoiding them and preventing dogfights, freeing up Israeli aircraft to concentrate on bombing stationary targets on the ground.
Even rush- hour traffic in Cairo was exploited to Israel’s advantage. The first strike came as the Egyptian chief of staff and Air Force command officers were commuting to their offices. Israel struck while they were in transit. Because they lacked direct contact with their forces, Egyptian decision-making was effectively paralyzed, allowing additional time for the bombing waves to take place.
On the morning of the attack, the Israeli Air Force’s flight school conducted training flights, creating a veil of normality for the watching Egyptians.
Israel’s June 5 air force radio transmissions were prerecorded and transmitted over the airwaves as dummy communications for the consumption of Egyptian surveillance. Simultaneously, the bombing ran amid strict radio silence. The attack squadrons’ low altitude evaded Egyptian radar.
In case of midair malfunction, Israeli crews were to leave their formations silently, return to base at low altitude, and, if necessary, to eject.
Incredibly, every formation reached its target without a word being uttered over the radio.
Israel’s planning resulted in the successful bombing raids it needed against Egypt and set the stage for the remainder of the war and the lightning-fast Israeli victory that ensued.
These same attitudes and principles remain essential in the modern era and play a crucial role in combating enemies that threaten Israel today.
Avishai Levi served as head of Intelligence and Reconnaissance for the Israeli Air Force from 2007-2010. He is a publishing expert at The MirYam Institute.
