October 1973 — Arab-Israeli War
The Great Crossing

Columnist Col (Retd) EAS BOKHARI describes the opening initiative by the Egyptians in the 1973 War.

“... The October War has torn away the halo of glory surrounding the Israeli soldier’s qualitative superiority. Egyptian fighter’s success in this war was due to the fact that he was not intimidated by nor did he underrate the enemy’s capabilities....”
The above quotation sums up, and rather succinctly the basic profile of the October, or the Ramdan War. This war as the fresh Arab (Egyptian) scholarship has brought out was more or less a subtle political action to bring peace in the region and no geographical gains were envisioned by the Egyptian political leadership, nor any Manstein like armoured action was to be undertaken in Sinai after the bridge head operation.
This being so, the bridge head operation and the crossing of Suez may well be considered as cardinal to Egyptian strategy. No opposed crossing can ever be easy, and in this case the Israelis had a series of strong points though not very dense, and the Barlev Line strung along, and both these artifacts were considered to be impregnable. It was the ingenuity, and all arms cooperation especially, anti-air, air, engineers and artillery which made the crossing possible, and for that matter the crossing went as smoothly as one could imagine. It was perfect. I would recommend to the readers to go through a very delightful, and stirring account of the crossing by German journalist Erich Helmensdorfer, “The Great Crossing”, The New Spirit of Egypt.
The Great Crossing allows the recognition of Israel’s right to exist by the President of Egypt, which made for the first time in decades some sort of peaceful arrangements possible in the fractured and war-torn Middle East. And as stated earlier on, the Egyptians were able to surprise the world. “The success which nobody had expected from the Egyptians after the disaster in the six days War of 1967 has been very clearly brought out in the book. In the presentation that follows, the crossing technology, and some of the innovations of this technology have been explained in some detail to bring into focus, this tremendous military event.
By any military standard, the opposed crossing of the Suez by the Egyptians on October 6, 1973 was a great achievement. It was a great crossing which restored the prestige and honour of the Egyptian soldiery.
Even an ordinary crossing needs what can be termed as rare ‘management’ skills. The Suez which is about 180 to 200 meters wide presented some unique problems. It goes to the credit of the Egyptian Sappers to have solved the problem with dexterity and unmatched innovation.
By the crossing operation I mean a successful one which entails the dovetailing of administrative, operational and engineering skills in a big way, besides the judicious selection of crossing sites and time of crossing.
In a nutshell, the problem consisted of the movement of the assaulting troops from the peace locations to forward concentration areas, then to the river line, made with crossing equipment, cross the obstacle (i.e. fight through it) and then land on the other side ready to face the enemy. Having crossed over, the security and consolidation of the bridgehead becomes the most important task, as without that no further operations can be developed. This is a gigantic task and without detailed planning it cannot be executed successfully. The Egyptians proved to be past masters in this art on October 6, 1973.
Like other armies of the world, the ‘Sappers’ played a major role in the ‘Great’ crossing. Sappers are a unique band of troops and are ‘maids of all work’ in Egypt. Even in our Army, it seems strange but the Sappers even deal with mail and use of rail in war. Erich Helmensdorefer, renowned journalist who spent a lifetime in Egypt, writes thus about the ‘Great’ crossing (especially about the role of the Sappers). “The Sappers played a major role in the crossing of the Suez Canal. Much more fell to them than the classical Sapper activity of military bridge building. In Egypt the Sappers are ‘maidens of all work’. In the case of road building, building fortifications, earthworks, construction of airfields, clearing mines, overcoming obstacles of all kinds, whenever anything has to be blown up, removed, levelled, constructed or overcome the order rings out ‘Sappers here’. The (then) head of the Sappers in Egypt, General Abdel Sattar Megahid says that the Sappers have been preparing for this war from the June War of 1967, defence posts had to be established on the West side of the Suez Canal and then in January 1968 began the preparations which were not to end until the 6th October 1973.”
A few words about the obstacle which had to be negotiated by the two Egyptian armies (crossing simultaneously). The Suez has very steep banks, covered by reinforced concrete which makes it a unique obstacle preventing amphibious vehicles from landing and climbing the banks without engineering pre-arrangements.
In addition and to the chagrin of the Egyptian military planners, the canal has a tide change of 60 centimetres in the North increasing to 2 meters near Suez in the South. This factor had a great bearing on the overall Egyptian plan, especially on the establishment of ferries and bridges, etc.
The other problem with Suez is that it is unswimmable. “Because of the tide, the canal has a strong and rapid current, which reaches 18 meters per minute in the northern sector. The direction of the current changes every six hours with the change of the tide... The width of the canal varies from 180 to 220 meters and its depth varies from 16 to 18 meters. The water level is about two meters below the bank. It is thus impossible to swim across the canal or to ford it with any kind of equipment at any point in its 175-kilometer length.”
There is no doubt that the Sapper plan was cardinal to the launching of “Op Badi” (October 6, 1973), 10th of Ramazan. The Sappers appear to have prepared for this great day since 1968 when they started practising the crossing of the canal in right earnest.
The building of ramps as pointed out was not easy as it involved the making of deep cuts in the sand walls, and this would involve moving great quantities of earth. “No explosives or bulldozers could, accomplish that in an acceptable time! Furthermore, it was not conceivable that the enemy would allow such heavy equipment to be brought across the canal to work on their banks”.
The Egyptians used a somewhat novel method to solve this problem. “Someone eventually hit upon the idea of using jets of water... During the building of the ‘Sadd el Ali’, the Aswan High Dam, this method was used to bore holes to take the explosives. After no fewer than 380 attempts, the Sappers established that the sand wall could be washed away by powerful jets of water from diesel pumps. The heavy duty pumps, West German product by the way, were secured to rafts and to the surprise of the Israelis the Egyptians succeeded in crossing the canal in a time which was considered by military experts to be impossible. The crossing involved not only the building of ramps for the approach and retreat, but also the throwing across of bridges. This was a further surprise engineered by the Sappers.”
A few words on the bridges. The Egyptians had obtained a special kind of pontoon bridge from the Soviet’s (former). “These series of floating rafts with ‘self-rolling’ pontoons on the surface allowed a bridge to be built in a fabulously short time.” According to Gen. Megahid, the Russians had sent two such “PNP” bridges to Egypt and the Egyptians simply made more like them at their convenience. It is worth noting that the Egyptians were thus able to put up a bridge in the short time of 6 hours only, whereas the Israelis took much more time to do the same operation.
It is interesting to record the timing of putting up of the bridge by the assaulting Egyptian armies. The 2nd Army managed to do it in 5.5 hours. Because of rather unfavourable terrain in their sector, the 3rd Army took a longer time. “These times certainly helped to surprise the Israelis who had counted on a longer process and had erroneously believed that they would have plenty of time to repel the Egyptians.”
In sum, an opposed crossing is a complex operation especially at the scale at which the Egyptians attempted it on October 6, 1973. It surely needed exhaustive preparations, skills and innovation. There is no doubt that the Egyptian Sappers had achieved a very high state of training and confidence without which the crossing would have been impossible. In a later interview in his simple office in the Abbasia Barracks. General Megahid said: “During the lengthy training our Sappers have acquired great self- confidence. That was already half the battle. “He also said that the main factor which had helped the Sappers to accomplish their task was the Egyptian air defence of the bridges” without them we would have failed”.
The Egyptians thus achieved something miraculous which they had never done before, i.e. a successful opposed crossing of Suez, and penetration through the much dreaded and strongly held Bar-Lev Line.
October 6, is a very significant day in the modern Egyptian history or rather modern Arab history. It was one of the few occasions when the Islamic Ummah joined hands and jointly shattered the much fancied and hallowed shibboleth of the IDF’s (Israeli Defence Forces) so-called invincibility. It is unfortunate that some of the Middle Eastern Muslim countries could not join and support Egypt and Syria during these momentous operations due to time and space considerations.
For us in Pakistan the Ramadan War is also an important watershed and of special significance as the Pakistani Air Force pilots flew air planes of the Syrian Air Force while operating against the Israelis successfully and shot down many enemy aircraft.
Yet from another angle, and as a corollary to the above, and now, that Israel is a major supplier of the state of art weapons and weapon techno-
logy to India, our declared enemy especially UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and other sophisticated hardware, therefore, it will be good for us to study the Egyptian/Syrian technique of handling the IDF successfully. As it is, there is no doubt and President Anwer Sadat clearly deserved the praise lavished on him by Dr Henry Kissinger who lauded him in his memoirs ‘White House’ years as one of the truly outstanding leaders he had met and “who had the boldness to go to a war no one thought he could sustain.”
There is not doubt that the Arab success, more precisely their initial storming of the Bar Lev Line and the opposed crossing of Suez, had surprised both the Arabs as well as the Israelis, and nothing like this was expected (notwithstanding the eventual result of the war). Mohammad Hussain Heikal in his definitive account of the war, The Road to Ramadhan (1975) writes. “... Execution of the plan (for the war) had gone like clockwork. Credit for the success, which exceeded the wildest dreams of the planners, must without doubt go to the junior commanders, and to the NCOs and men of the infantry, artillery, engineers and armour, many of whom were later to speak of the sense of exaltation they felt when, after the monotony of training had at last been replaced by the reality of war, they found themselves with the opportunity to wipe out the stigma of defeat and humiliation under which the Egyptian army had suffered for six years since 1967.”
This short presentation brings out some of the more important facets of the October War, especially in relation to the Egyptian Armed Forces as they bore the brunt of the war and it was on their planning that the war was conducted and fought.
One thing which stands out, and should be taken as the benchmark and the most redeeming feature of this struggle was the shattering (and perhaps once and for all) of the shibboleth that the Israeli defence forces are not defeatable. This war proved that the IDF can be humbled and they were actually humbled as the presentation will prove.
During the early 1980s Dr. Henry Kissinger while commenting on the turmoil in the Middle East often used to say “... No war is possible without Egypt, and no peace is possible without Syria.” We could profitably modify this dictum without losing much of its wisdom and say that no conflict is possible without Iraq and Libya in the Middle East. The point I am trying to make is that the Egyptians are hard-nosed soldiers and have seen considerable fighting against the Israelis and now when Israel is collaborating with India on a large-scale, both militarily and economically, we might as well take advantage and profit by the Egyptian expertise and experience. After this little digression let us go back to the October war. It is not possible to cover the entire range of operations and at best only a few broader issues can be touched upon. At the outset it must be conceded that even the most bigoted and biased Israeli generals have given full marks to Sadat for his skilful and subtle planning. His coordination with the Syrians was classical and perhaps one of the best in the recent military history. At one time the Syrian armour was only a few hours away from Tel Aviv. That was the nearest brush of the Israelis to annihilation, and rattled even the “Iron lady” i.e. formidable Mrs Golda Meir.
Sadat achieved a total political, strategic and tactical surprise. I suppose he himself would have been surprised when all went so well according to the plan. There were no hitches in his operations. Sadat gave an impression of a gregarious man yet he proved impeccably secretive about his war plans and fighting. He selected Yom Kippur and Ramadan as the D-day for good reasons, but I think that Yom Kippur’s selection was a double edged weapon as on that day no doubt the Israelis are busy in their synagogues, yet the roads are clear which makes troop mobilisation very easy as there is no possibility of cluttering up due to paucity of road space. There Sadat made a minor mistake.
All the same, the selection of D-day was a total secret and this achievement of surprise has been very favourably commented upon by General Herog, a former Chief of the Israeli Military Intelligence, in these words “I ought to mention in fairness to Israeli military intelligence that the Egyptian Deception Plan was successful not only as far as the Israeli Intelligence was concerned, but also with worldwide intelligence, 95 percent of the Egyptian officers knew for the first time that this ‘exercise’ would turn into war only on the morning of 6 October, one or two knew two days before but the very senior officers did not know. We have the story of a divisional commander who was told a night before.”
Sadat’s sagacious plan, was carried out in letter and spirit by his field commanders “Sadat in fact is credited for being bent upon wiping out the disgrace of 1967 Egyptian debacle.”
The Egyptians achieved something miraculous which they had never done before i.e. a successful opposed crossing and the
penetration through the Bar-lev Line. It was made possible by a skilful application of air and artillery fires whereby Egypt used some 222 supersonic jet aircraft which softened up the strategical Israeli targets. The air strike was closely followed up with the engagements of 3,000 field guns which provided barrages for the advancing assault troops. Lifting ahead of them, as they advanced in addition to taking care of targets of opportunity.
There is no doubt that Sadat scored very high on the surprise side and even his stark enemies have acknowledged his skill, at this. Moshe Dayan, when he was asked why he did not mobilise in time in October 1973, gave this reply, “...Sadat made me do it twice at the cost of 10 million dollars each time. So when it was the third time round, I thought he was not serious, but he tricked me....”
The Arab Press Relations (PR) are anything but effective so the Western media almost blanketed whatever the Arabs tried to put across and they were consequently totally misunderstood as far as their war aims were concerned.
The Western press is highly critical of the Egyptian bridgehead operations, especially the fact that no Rommel-like operations were developed through this bridgehead into Sinai, Egyptian scholarship has now brought out that there were no such plans and the Western media is unduly critical. Sadat from the outset played a subtle game and wanted a political solution after a limited armed conflict, which is in itself a way of conflict resolution. He eminently succeeded in his designs though ultimately he had to throw away the towel on 19 October when he could no more match the US assistance to Israel and he could not make up his tank losses. Unfortunately, by then the bulk of Egyptian Armour had crossed over and it was an easy target for rushing and beefed up Israeli armour from the flanks. Of all the predicaments, the Egyptians had the obstacle now behind them. The promised assistance from the then USSR never materialised although Marshal Tito was generous enough to send 140 fully fuelled and armed tanks. This succour was too insignificant for a raging tank battle in a perfect Sinai tank terrain.
At this stage, we might take an objective view of the war. I would say with full conviction that whatever may be the potential of the IDF (including their great defence production capabilities), the Israelis are beatable and are not infallible as was thought prior to 1973. The October War gave them many jitters. There is no denying this fact. The initial stages/phases of the October war clearly show this. The Israeli command was totally immobilised and became shaky and a number of commanders were changed in Sinai due to the nervousness at the higher levels when the war started.
We must give it to the Israelis that their mobilisation is anything but most functional and perhaps miraculous. They can get on to the road to fighting in (literally) no time, Yom Kippur, I should say, facilitated movement to some extent as the trafficability had somewhat improved. The Arab mobilisation, I suppose is a cumbersome operation, and some of the Arab countries like the Iraqis did not even reach the battlefield in time. This was unfortunate.
From the employment of tanks, the war proved to be highly tank attritive and some 5,000 tanks actually took part in the war.
Finally, it is time that the Arabs look back and study the October War and make amends in whatever shortages they had found in their plans and equipment. The Egyptian example is before them and we can all learn from their expertise and experience with the Israelis.
Finally, we should all join with our brethren the Egyptians in celebrating their auspicious day, i.e. the Defence Day with fervour.