No Mission Is Impossible by Michael Bar-Zohar, Nissim Mishal Page A

anyone, anywhere, might receive even a hint of the massive takeoff. The ground crews directed the planes using signals from colored lanterns. At seven-fourteen, the first planes, French antiquated Ouragans, took flight, followed two minutes later by another takeoff of Ouragans. After they roared into the morning skies, in accordance with a timetable calculated down to the last minute, Vautours, Mystères, Super Mystères and Mirages took flight. The planes took off at a frenzied pace, from several bases, at a frequency of a plane per minute; at the Hatzor airbase, seventy-seven planes tookoff between seven-fourteen and eight-fifteen, an average of one every forty-eight seconds. Very quickly, there were 183 planes in the sky—in fact, Israel’s entire air force. They entered formations of four and set forth, each on its own flight path. Twelve Mirages were left to guard the skies over Israel.
    The planes’ takeoff was the opening act of the Six Day War.
    T he descent into war had begun three weeks earlier, on Israel’s Independence Day, May 15. Divisions of the Egyptian Army had unexpectedly thundered into the Sinai Peninsula, stationing themselves along the Israel border. Egypt’s president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, expelled the UN observers from Sinai, closed the Straits of Tiran and signed military agreements with Syria and Jordan. Even Iraq announced it was joining in. The Arab street reacted with tremendous excitement, the masses dancing in the squares, waving flags and posters, and screaming slogans of rage and hatred against Israel. Nasser’s image appeared across the media, smiling and confident, surrounded by Egyptian fighter pilots, young eagles clad in their G-suits, at the Bir Gifgafa airbase. Turning to the television cameras, Nasser made his historic statement, “If Israel wants war, ahlan wa sahlan —welcome!”
    Radio and television across the Arab world reported Israel’s imminent demise. Britain and the United States couldn’t find a way to solve the crisis and reopen the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. The president of France, Charles de Gaulle, abandoned his alliance with Israel and imposed an embargo on the delivery of arms to the IDF.
    The people of Israel sensed the danger of extermination hovering overhead. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and his government appeared hesitant, afflicted with paralysis and trying to buy time. The public forced the leadership to establish a unity government, in which Moshe Dayan, the celebrated hero of the Sinai campaign, was appointed defense minister.
    On June 4, the government decided to go to war. The first step would be the air force’s Operation Focus, and victory in the war would depend on its success.
    Operation Focus had been designed to wipe out the Egyptian Air Force—or, if needed, all enemy air forces—on the ground. Rafi Sivron, a young captain, had prepared the original plan, which rested on a surprise attack on the enemy’s airfields, the bombing of the runways to prevent landings and takeoffs, and the destruction of planes on the ground. In 1965, Sivron had been taken on by Major Yossi Sarig, a former commander of the 110 Squadron’s Vautour planes, who had been appointed the head of the Attack Section within the Operations Department. The new role fit Sarig like a glove. He had previously carried out dozens of daring photo-surveillance missions, both during the day and at night, over almost every Arab airfield in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. He knew the fields like the back of his hand. In light of the drastic changes that had occurred in the Middle East and within the region’s air forces, Sarig immersed himself in the detailed, constantly changing plan for the operation. The surprise factor would be an essential condition of the plan’s success. The attack planes would need to strike the Egyptian airfields suddenly and at precisely the same moment. Consequently, they would need