Swift Sword: The Historical Record of Israel’s Victory, June 1967 PDF
Preview Swift Sword: The Historical Record of Israel’s Victory, June 1967
SWIFT SWORD THE HISTORICAL RECORD OF ISRAELS VICTORY, JUNE 1967 by BRIGADIER GENERAL S.L.A. MARSHALL and the Editors of AMERICAN HERITAGE MAGAZINE and UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL \ '^Jerusalem / AvivO / \ Dead Sea I s i ISRAEL a n that least likely of all hours for achieving mili- tary surprise, between0740 and0815, onMon- day, 5 June, when the enemy camp was certain to be wide awake if not watchful and waiting, Israel went all out to destroy the fighting power of Egypt." So begins General S.L.A. Marshall's forceful narra- tive for Swift Sword, the Historical Record of Israel's Victory June, 1967. Swift Sword is the first account of this sudden and spectacular war to treat its subject as lasting history. Written by a noted military historian, illustrated with over 100 magnificent action photographs (more than half in color), the book gives a much more complete SINAI PENINSULA and balanced view of the rush of events than has been obtainable from the immediate and necessarily epi- sodic reports of the newspapers and television. It is a product of the combined skills of one of the world's largest news-gathering agencies, United Press International, and the leading publishers of history in the U.S., American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc. The editors of both UPI and American Heritage felt that the event—a pivotal chapter of Near East history, a classic in the annals of war—could and should be re-examined now in ordered fashion, and the story set down as coherent, dramatic history. The author of Swift Sword, Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall (ret.), is uniquely qualified to report the story in lasting form. He has been a soldier since World War I and has for many years been an eminent military analyst and historian. In the words of Carl Sandburg, he "rates among many ofus as the greatest of writers on modern war." [continuedonbackflap] to fcvph b 2V\ i^ IRAQ 7 L°~t fftv^ JORDAN \ \ \ / s / \ s s s s s \ \ \ \ NEGEV DESERT \ \ \ \ \ _-.-- ElatfN X ARABIA <Jl v» ^ [harm ^Sh^ikhd' SWORD SWIFT THE HISTORICAL RECORD OF ISRAEL'S VICTORY, JUNE, 1967 V \.<, I mi fj &£ SWORD SWIFT THE HISTORICAL RECORD OF ISRAEL'S VICTORY, JUNE, 1967 BY BRIGADIER GENERAL SLA. MARSHALL USAR Ret.) and the Editors of I AMERICAN HERITAGE MAGAZINE and UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL With Pictures by Fifteen Combat Photographers Including Special Coveragefrom UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL and MAGNUM PHOTOS, INC. Publishedby AMERICAN HERITAGE PUBLISHING CO., INC. LIRRARY OFCONGRESSCATALOGCARDNUMBER:67-29421 ©1967 BY AMERICAN HERITAGE PUBLISHING CO.,INC..ANDUNITEDPRESSINTERNATIONAL. ALL RIGHTS RESERVEDUNDERBERNE ANDPAN-AMERICANCOPYRIGHTCONVENTIONS. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PARTWITHOUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED. . *» ' tint ft* m :-vyy-jr9;H;3<* Vv FRANCE YUGOSLAVIA 400 PORTUGAL - / Middle East Fourteen independentArabstates(diagonal shadingon the map above) stretch across — North Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf. Thirteen excluding — Battleground Mauritania are members of the Arab League. Together they constitute a loosely knit alliance united by language, religion, culture, and a common enemy—Israel. The Arab League was born in March, 1945, when seven nations, led by Egypt, formed a political association to protect Arab interests against the rising influx of Jews into Palestine. When a boycott of Jewish goods failed to check the Zionist movement, the League sent arms and men to support their Arab brethren in the hos- tilities that raged with increasing intensity throughout the disputed Holy Land. After the U.N.-sponsored partition of Palestine in 1947 and Israel's subsequent light ? v_ RUMANIA lACK S£^ BULGARIA B TURKEY LEBANON.. Beirut* Damascus S E A ISRAELV* AA-mman TelAviv^- ' ' .Jerusalem KUWA'IT Kuwai^t Alexandria < l JORDAN "/• # \ •, NEUTRAL^ <^v> Cairo ZONE **# G SAUDI QATAR Sharmel Sheikh TRUCIAL V UNITED STATES. Riyadh ARAB ) , MUSCAT ARABIA REPUBLIC AND (EGYPT) OMAN % PROTECTORATE -v OF s SOUTH ARABI. SUDAN •Sana YEMEN ETHIOPIA /' - ^yyyyyyyyyyyyyyz, — for independence, the Arabs were forced to accept an armistice in 1949 but they refused to sign a peace treaty. In 1956 Egypt's seizure of the Suez Canal! triggered a second Mid-East conflict, from which Israel again emerged triumphant. Meanwhile Arab unity had disintegrated in internecine power struggles. In an at- tempt to restore solidarity and at the same time bolster his own position of leader- ship, Egypt's President Nasser called for an Arab summit meeting in 1964. With the elimination ofthe Jewish state as its goal, a United Arab Command was created as a military counterpart to the Arab League. While real unity remained but a dream in June of 1967, the Arab nations nonetheless posed a formidable threat as Israel and her neighbors headed toward their third war in nineteen years. Foreword In the early days of June, 1967, Israel was once again fighting for survival. Its citizen soldiers were called upon to accomplish by force of arms what the — Israelis had longed for since they had achieved independence in 1948 mili- tary security. Although the nation was surrounded and outnumbered by a hostile enemy that had sworn to liquidate it, in less than a week Israeli forces achieved victory in a war that stunned the world by its quickness and com- pleteness. The army that won the war was a citizen army but it was also a modern army; its morale was high, its leadership excellent, and it was su- perbly equipped to fight the type of warfare it knew best, over terrain suited to a high degree of mechanization. So swift were the events filling those six days in June that news from the ancient lands ofthe Middle East barely kept pace with the armored columns of the advancing Israeli army groups. To put the confused events into his- torical perspective, the editors of American Heritage and United Press International began collecting battle reports and photographs from the front and at the same time sent to Tel Aviv a man ideally qualified to piece to- gether the fragmented story into a cohesive historical account. Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall has been a soldier since World War I and a mili- tary analyst since the early 1920's; his book Sinai Victory, covering Israel's 1956 desert war, had already led him over much of the same ground, fre- quently in company with the same commanders. With the full co-operation of the Israeli government and the military, he visited battlegrounds where the firing had ceased only a few days earlier and interviewed field command- ers while the memory of battle was still fresh in the minds of those who had fought there. His report of the action forms the bulk of the narrative that follows. In preparing this book, American Heritage and United Press Interna- tional were also fortunate to secure the co-operation of Magnum Photos, — Inc., and particularly the work of three Magnum photographers Cornell — Capa, Charles Harbutt, and Micha Bar-Am who were in Israel when the fighting broke out and who covered much of the action with their cameras. Their pictures and those taken by United Press International photographers comprise a vivid eyewitness accompaniment to General Marshall's text. THE EDITORS A young Israeli takes a breatherafter thefirst day's battle against Syria.
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