Air Attack and the Onset of War

By identifying its own greatest weakness first ”susceptibility to Egyptian air attack ”Israel concluded that it must first remove the Egyptian air threat. Israel reasoned that air superiority was absolutely essential not only to protect its homeland but also to preserve its ability to wage a successful ground campaign. The smaller IDF ground force would need to conduct its lightning-strike-style attack across the Sinai without fear of enemy air attack. Unbeknownst to the Arab coalition , Israel would hurl all but twelve of its planes at Egypt. ^[4] This bold move, which left the Israeli homeland almost completely vulnerable to attack from the air, created the risk of catastrophic loss, but the potential reward of destroying the Egyptian air force on the ground was adequate justification.

Figure 2.1: Israeli Air Attack, 1967 ^[5]

The Israeli attack relied heavily on the element of surprise . Israel carefully planned the time of attack not at dawn, as the Egyptians expected, but at 8:00 a.m., during the Egyptians regularly scheduled breakfast and rest period. Israeli pilots stealthily approached at dangerously low altitudes and maintained strict radio silence to ensure that they were not detected by Egyptian radar or communication systems. And, by launching at carefully calculated intervals, the Israeli aircraft arrived at their targets at exactly the same time and delivered a simultaneous strike. Egyptian air bases could not warn each other of attack, because they were all under attack at the same time. Moreover, during the previous two years , the Israelis had staged some sort of flight exercise every morning at the same time. This repetition created ambiguity for the Egyptians in their interpretation of radar signals. When Egyptian radar spotted an unusually large number of Israeli planes taking off on June 5, air defense commanders dismissed the blips as simply a larger number of routine training flights .

The Israelis knew of the Egyptian practice of sending pilots to their planes as soon as enemy aircraft appeared on radar and exploited it accordingly . As they neared their target, the IAF pilots suddenly increased altitude and appeared on the Egyptians radar screens. This deliberate forewarning set a trap: as the Egyptian pilots scrambled to man their planes, the IAF was in prime position to eliminate both the aircraft and their crews.

The results were devastating. The Egyptians were not fully aware of the attack until some three hundred of their aircraft, over half of their Air Force, had been eliminated and one-third of their pilots had been killed . By 10:30 that morning, a top Egyptian general noted, The Egyptian Air Force ceased to exist. ^[5] The IAF had eliminated what it deemed the principal threat to the Israeli homeland and paved the way for the IDF ground forces to attack the Sinai with little threat of air attack.

^[4] Oren, Michael B., Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East , 173.

^[5] Ibid, 176

^[5] Ibid, 176