Sergeant Mahrous Rizk Attallah of the Paratroopers Corps fought in some of the fiercest battles of the 6 October War, single-handedly destroying 13 enemy tanks.
Sergeant Mahrous Rizk Attallah of the Paratroopers Corps has gone down in the annals of military history as the first paratrooper to jump out of a plane with a ready-to-fire Malyutka anti-tank missile. Former president Anwar Al-Sadat awarded him a medal of honour for this legendary feat, which won widespread admiration including from Soviet military experts.
Attallah relates that the Israeli assault of 5 June 1967 was the main reason he chose to enlist in Egypt’s Armed Forces. That aggression ignited in him an urgent desire for revenge and the restitution of dignity, and he was determined to be at the forefront of the campaign to free Sinai from the Israeli occupation.
After enlisting in the army, Attallah enrolled in the Artillery School, where he underwent intensive training on some of the most modern weapons at the time, such as the Malyutka anti-tank missile. The training was supervised by experts from the Soviet Union, which had developed this missile in the 1960s.
He proudly recalls the period that led up to the moment that earned him the Medal of Military Training for exceptional achievement in training, instruction, or military preparedness. His Soviet trainers described the achievement as a “military miracle”.
“I only learned of the zero hour 15 minutes beforehand,” he told Al-Ahram Weekly. The Egyptian command had kept the timing of the battle confidential, but “even so every soldier was at his post, fully alert, and familiar with his assigned task.”
As soon as the paratrooper platoon under Attallah’s command crossed the Suez Canal, it took up position in Sinai and began to engage the enemy tanks. His assiduous training paid off immediately, and he took out three Israeli tanks with three consecutive missiles, for which he earned a promotion in the early days of the war.
His unit continued to carry out raids and ambushes. By 14 October, they had destroyed 13 Israeli tanks. The following day marked the beginning of the breach period, in other words the enemy counteroffensive. Attallah and his comrades received orders to support the Second Army Artillery Command, then under Brigadier Mohamed Abdel-Halim Abu Ghazala, against the Israeli forces led by Ariel Sharon that were attempting to advance towards Ismailia.
“The fighting was at close range, and we were able to prevent the advance. We then moved to Mount Ataka to defend the Zeitiya and Adabiya ports, before returning to our base in Anshas after the ceasefire,” he said.
Attallah dismisses the distorted narratives that Israel has attempted to market about the October War. “The truth will not stay hidden. Israel itself admitted defeat in its internal military reports. Not only did Egypt impose the war on Israel, it also imposed the peace on its own terms,” he said.
Five decades later, the heroism of Attallah, along with that of all the other brave soldiers in the Egyptian Armed Forces, continues to stand as testimony that when honour and dignity are at stake the Egyptian soldier can achieve the impossible.
Brigadier General Essam Ali Hassan Attallah was one of the heroes of the Egyptian Air Defence Forces who contributed to the epic 6 October victory.
In October 1973, the Egyptian Air Defence Forces (EADF) performed one of the most remarkable military feats in the history of modern warfare, with its unprecedented success in neutralising Israel’s long-vaunted air superiority decisively tipping the balance of the October War in Egypt’s favour.
Through meticulous planning and careful deployment tactics, the Air Defence units forged an impenetrable shield against incoming waves of enemy aircraft. Beneath this cover, the ground forces were able to stage the famous crossing of the Suez Canal, delivering a strategic surprise and bursting the myth of Israeli invincibility.
At the time, Brigadier General Essam Ali Hassan Attallah commanded a SAM-7 air defence battalion.
He had first entered military service in 1967, taking part in the war that year as a first lieutenant. He then fought in the nearly 1,000-day War of Attrition, which helped pave the way for the victory achieved in October 1973. By this time, he had been promoted to major in the Air Defence Forces.
“The War of Attrition played a critical role in laying the groundwork for the 6 October War. The Egyptian Armed Forces were engaging the enemy and training simultaneously,” Attallah said. “My role was to shoot down the low-flying enemy aircraft that were targeting the missile emplacements being built as part of the missile wall under construction at the time.”
But the preparations involved more than the concrete installations. The Egyptian military command understood the crucial value of striving for perfection in building an army that was at the peak of its physical fitness, thoroughly trained, and properly equipped for the tasks that lay ahead.
Attallah played a role in this, and, as he explained in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, he put his officers and soldiers through their paces in physical strength and endurance drills, combat manoeuvres, and simulated battle scenarios executed on the terrain and under conditions similar to those the soldiers would encounter on the battlefield.
“The secret of the success in the October War lay in rigorous training and scrupulous preparation before the outbreak of hostilities,” he said.
One of his unforgettable memories of that time was when as commander of an EADF battalion he learned of the “zero hour” — the precise time that the 6 October military operations would start. “As soon as I opened the envelope containing those orders, I knew that the moment of our regaining our national honour and dignity was at hand,” he said.
The main task of his battalion, attached to the Third Field Army, was to provide air cover to ensure the successful crossing of the Suez Canal by the ground forces. His battalion, which crossed the canal alongside the first wave of infantry forces, succeeded in downing between 34 and 37 Israeli aircraft.
While intensive preparation and training were decisive in the battalion’s success, “Egyptian courage was the most vital factor in breaching the heavily fortified lines, downing enemy aircraft, and securing the crossing,” he said.
“It was not just a victory in military terms; it was a victory of resolve, discipline, self-sacrifice, and tenacity.” These were the factors that enabled the Egyptian Armed Forces to prevail over a technologically superior enemy.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 9 October, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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