Fifty-one years on, the October War remains a milestone in the history of the Middle East, still inspiring new Egyptian and other Arab generations in their recurrent political and military confrontations with Israel. A number of the war’s veterans told Ahmed Al-Deeb that the current situation in the Palestinian cities and Lebanon makes revisiting the war stories a must as it shows the fakeness of the myth that Israelis are undefeatable.Group 39 Combat was a special operations unit created after the defeat in the 1967 war, known as Al-Naksa. It consisted of a combination of commandos from Egypt’s Saaqa or Thunderbolt force and ground and naval forces. It carried out 92 operations during the War of Attrition, some of which probed deep into occupied Sinai and into Israel itself, sending tremors through the rank and file of the Israeli occupation army.

One of the heroes of Group 39 Combat is Major General Mohie Nouh who took command of the unit after the death of Colonel Ibrahim Al-Rifaai. Former Egyptian presidents Gamal Abdel-Nasser and Anwar Al-Sadat, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, and President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi have all paid tribute to the valour and courage Nouh displayed in the operations. His heroism was depicted in the film The Passage (2019), about the journey from the trauma of defeat to ultimate victory. Nouh was injured four times during the many operations he took part in the years between 1967 and 1973. The operations include raids, ambushes, reconnaissance operations in Sinai, and infiltrations into Israel in the vicinity of Beisan and Eilat.

Major General Nouh relates the first steps in his military career: “I graduated from the Military Academy in 1962 with top marks in my field, which was special operations. I then served as an instructor in the Saaqa School before enlisting with the 103rd Commando Battalion which was sent to Yemen during the war in the mid-1960s. Afterwards, I applied what I learned in Yemen to the War of Attrition and the 1973 War. The war in Yemen gave me combat experience.”

After fighting in some of the first battles in the War of Attrition, such as the Battle of Ras Al-Esh, Nouh went to Cairo to join the Special Operations Branch under Major Ibrahim Al-Rifaai. “He welcomed me warmly because I knew him from Yemen. He then asked me to choose the best elements from the battalion to work with him. After I formed a company, we started conducting operations under different names such as the Egyptian Fedayeen, the Arab Sinai Organisation, and the Egyptian Commanders. When we had successfully completed our 39th operation, we called our unit Group 39 Combat.”

Group 39’s operations grew to 92. They included raids and ambushes. “Inside Israel itself, we struck in Sidom and Eilat. We also operated beyond the Bar Lev line, setting up ambushes between enemy positions. We broke through psychological barriers that kept Egyptian soldiers from feeling equal to Israeli ones.” The losses Group 39 Combat inflicted on the Israeli enemy testify to its efficacy.

“Our operations in the War of Attrition succeeded in destroying 77 half-trucks and 17 tanks. We claimed 430 Israeli casualties, including dead and injured. We captured the first Israeli prisoner, Yaacov Ronen. This boosted our morale and lowered that of the enemy.”

Nouh proudly recounts his group’s first Timsah Tongue operation in Ismailia. The operation was in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Egyptian Chief of Staff General Abdel-Moneim Riad while he was inspecting operations on the Egyptian front. Forty-four Israeli soldiers were killed in this operation. Nouh was injured in that battle.

President Nasser visited him while he was convalescing. “It was an amazing meeting,” Nouh recalls. “When the president asked me what I wanted, I said that I wanted to keep fighting and to develop the unit. He then asked me what I wanted for myself. I said that I wanted to take part in the next operation together with my unit even though I was wounded. The president smiled and said he would make sure my requests were met. Two and a half months later, I was back carrying out an operation at the same site.”

Expressing his confidence in the strength of the Egyptian Armed Forces (EAF) and its ability to deter any aggression, Nouh told Al-Ahram Weekly, “you have no need to worry about our Armed Forces. They are at the peak of their greatness. Anyone who approaches our borders will face severe consequences. Our Armed Forces are ready to fight when necessary and they’re equipped with the latest arms, which are far more advanced than the types of weapons we used in the October War and the War of Attrition. Also, all the men holding those weapons are equipped with the know-how to use them. We have long land borders, but our forces can protect them.”

On the difference between the Egyptian fighter and the Israeli soldier, he says, “the Egyptian soldier and fighter are sons of the Egyptian people. Israeli soldiers come from different peoples. They are weak. They have no solid military creed, and they quickly flee from any battle.”

The members of the Egyptian Air Force also penned heroic chapters in the 1973 War. Air defence was critical to the success of both the War of Attrition and the crossing of the Suez Canal in October 1973. The “missile wall” that the EAF, civilian workers, and construction contractors built together, through great effort and sacrifice, after the 1967 defeat was instrumental to neutralising enemy aircraft.

Major General Ali Al-Beblawi, one of the heroes of Egyptian air defences, recalls that after Israel launched its aggression against Egypt in June 1967, “the Egyptian people and their Armed Forces vowed revenge and girded themselves for the mission to free the occupied territory. The General Command rebuilt the army. In light of the lessons from the recent defeat, part of this task entailed building a missile wall to protect Egypt’s skies and the army’s positions along the Suez Canal and in the Egyptian interior.” As Al-Beblawi explained to the Weekly, a missile wall is an air defence system composed of a complex assembly of bunkers and fortified sites housing diverse missiles, launching platforms, and anti-aircraft artillery capable of repelling, intercepting, and destroying enemy aircraft. “The missile wall we built contributed to the successes in the War of Attrition. It drove enemy aircraft away from the canal and downed dozens of them. The way the air defence teams, supported by military engineers and civilian companies, held their positions under the enemy’s aerial bombardment testified to their spirit of heroism and self-sacrifice. It was a saga of grit, determination and defiance of danger.”

One famous chapter in the epic of the Air Defence Force occurred in June 1970 when, for the first time, they shot down two Phantoms aircraft and two Skyhawks and captured three pilots. By the end of that month, these forces had downed 12 enemy aircraft. The Air Force dubbed that week the “Week of Falling Phantoms” and declared 30 June National Air Defence Day.

Al-Beblawi, a major at the time of the October War, served as the commander of a SAM missile battalion, the youngest missile battalion commander at the time. His battalion was stationed west of Cairo and was responsible for protecting the skies of the Egyptian capital. He told the Weekly that he could feel the war coming because of the surge of preparations and activity in the EAF. On the morning of 6 October, his brigade commander told him to be prepared because the moment he had been waiting for had come. Air Defence shot down 325 enemy aircraft in the 1973 War, putting a third of the Israeli’s Air Force out of commission.

In Al-Beblawi’s opinion, that victory could not have been won without hard and intensive preparations, drawing from the harsh lessons learned from the Naksa of 1967. From that point on, the Egyptian command put the best military expertise to work in rebuilding, reequipping and training the Egyptian army.

Major General Mohamed Al-Ghobari, former director of the National Defence College, served in the armoured corps, which also contributed to the epic victory in 1973. His story, too, takes the determination to liberate the territory occupied by Israel as its starting point.

“The EAF didn’t have the capabilities to liberate the land because of the losses they sustained in the Israeli aggression. However, the solidarity of the people behind their Armed Forces raised the morale of the troops, which played a key role in the successes in the War of Attrition.”

The War of Attrition, itself, adopted a three-phase approach which he described as “the phase of steadfastness, the phase of deterrence and active defence, and the phase of attrition”. In practice, this translated into energetic preparations. Al-Ghobari described how the Armed Forces prepared the theatre of operations by creating trenches and fortifications for personnel, artillery, and tank positions, light and medium weapons, radars, missile bunkers, and airports, and runways for military aircraft. Troops were trained and put through intensive drills. As 1973 approached, these involved simulated crossings of the canal and assaults against enemy forces on the other side.

According to Al-Ghobari, units were trained on how to breach earthen ramparts, storm a water barrier, attack fortified positions, and repel and destroy immediate and tactical armoured and mechanical reserves. The army command was continuously preparing training areas to simulate the terrain and nature of an envisioned operation. Training also included preparing troops for diverse unanticipated exigencies to give them experience in thinking on their feet and extemporaneous problem-solving.

“Troops had begun training on how to cross the canal and storm the earthworks on the other side and other tactics many months ahead of the war,” the former director of the National Defence College said. “It is why, when the time came, they performed their assigned tasks with total competence and professionalism. Comprehensive scientific and strategic planning was the key to defeating the enemy in the October War.”

Al-Ghobari, who served in the second division of the Second Field Army, was one of the planners of the canal crossing. He revealed that one of the first steps before the crossing was for naval commandos to swim underwater to the other side of the canal to block the openings to the napalm pipes. The Israel enemy had laid four to six pipes at different points along the Bar Lev Line to pump napalm into the canal as soon as our forces crossed and turn the water into a chemical fire. Once the naval commandos had completed their mission, other forces advanced to perform their designated roles in the battles along the Bar Lev Line. The most famous of these was the Battle of Tabbet Al-Shagara. It was the key to the complete collapse of that earthwork defence that fell to Egyptian force the early hours of the war.

Brigadier General Tharwat Zaki was one of the heroes of the infantry who took part in the Battle of Tabbet Al-Shagara, helping to conquer the barrier that, until that point, was thought to be impenetrable. First, he seconded Al-Ghobari’s observations regarding preparation and training. His, like other units, had been thoroughly prepared well in advance in intensive day and night simulated exercises and drills. The soldiers were also properly equipped with the necessary weapons and gear to carry out their assigned tasks.

Brigadier General Zaki, who held the rank of lieutenant in 1973, was one of the youngest officers to take part in the October War. He was part of a unit tasked with attacking the fortified location of Tabbet Al-Shagara on 8 October. Their mission was to seize the enemy command centre on the hill, which was 10 km east of the Suez Canal. He relates that as his unit was engaging enemy forces at the designated site, an Israeli tank column arrived and opened fire on them. The infantry received orders to board the tanks. They succeeded in destroying one of them after killing all the soldiers inside. The enemy quickly withdrew the remaining tanks under the cover of long-range artillery fire. After that, the Egyptian forces captured and secured the stronghold at Tabbet Al-Shagara after forcing the enemy to flee, abandoning all the contents inside. The battle had lasted seven continuous hours.

As for the construction of the pontoon bridges to enable troops and armoured vehicles to cross the canal, Major General Essam Abdel-Halim, a military engineer who participated in the October 1973 victory, relates that famous chapter. Abdel-Halim graduated from the Military Technical College in 1968, then joined one of the bridge battalions of the military engineering corps. During the War of Attrition, he and his colleagues were tasked with constructing the concrete and sand foundations for various parts of the air defence missile wall, using reinforced concrete bunkers for aircraft, building shelters for pilots, and setting up operations rooms, as well as other installations and infrastructures. Ten days before the October War, Abdel-Halim’s unit received 15 rubber boats and, to his surprise, a significant increase in fuel supplies for their vehicles. That was out of the ordinary. When they also received emergency food supplies, he was certain that the war was imminent. He knew the challenge that lay ahead, because he was aware of the formidable defences on the other side of the canal: the steep earthen rampart, with its bunkers, anti-tank weapons, machine guns, and the pipes ready to pump deadly napalm — “a single burst would continue to burn with flames shooting up five metres high,” he said.

On the morning of 6 October, he recalls, the bridge units of the engineering corps were told to stay in the trenches. At nine o’clock, we were told that the war would start at two in the afternoon. We prepared for battle according to the pre-established protocol. Then, when we saw our jets fly overhead at precisely two in the afternoon, shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’ erupted from our unit in unison.”

The engineering corps succeeded in creating the breaches in the enemy’s defences in less than five hours. They also rapidly assembled 15 pontoon bridges sturdy enough to support the passage of heavy artillery and tanks to the other side as well as 10 light assault bridges for the infantry. Subsequently, the engineering and explosives units crossed over to deal with the minefields and explosives planted by the enemy east of the Suez Canal.

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* A version of this article appears in print in the 3 October, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly