grunting under the high g-force, and beginning to pull my gunsight toward his tail, Hertz kept watch on our “bubble.”
“Vapor trails approaching fast from the west,” he announced.
I looked up and saw them, too, and I saw that Hertz was clean. The vapor trails were still remote, and both our MiGs flew before me. Hertz watched my six, and I had time to do my thing calmly. I fired, one MiG was hit and caught fire, and I passed near it, canopy to canopy. There I had the rare sight of the pilot in his white helmet looking aside, meeting my glance, and then tensing his body, lifting his hands, and pulling on the ejection handles. His ejection seat fired, flew out of his aircraft, and was lost behind me.
We changed target and jobs—I pulled up to the observation post, and Hertz passed in front of me on his way down to get the other MiG. Far lower, under us, Baharav and Sharon were closing their pincers on their pair of MiGs. Just then the radar controller called on the radio,
“Abort battle! Everybody turn east.”
“Abort battle,” in the IAF’s lexicon, required absolute obedience. When you heard those two words, you had to drop everything and return by the shortest route to our area.
I understood what motivated the controller. He had just seen the approaching enemy force on his radar screen. But my view was better than his. I saw those four white trails coming at us at top speed from the west, and I could estimate when they would reach us and in what direction we would meet them. Even though I didn’t see Menachem and Baharav with my own eyes, I heard their communication on the radio and knew where they were, and on which heading they were flying down there under me. It was clear they were together on their two MiGs, and defending themselves from any surprise. I had a complete grasp of time and space, and knew everything, including things I didn’t see physically. The circle we were drawing in the sky was leading us to a head-on pass with the new MiGs—a classic opening situation. On the other hand, the order to abort combat and turn east would have put the approaching MiGs right on our six. The right thing to do was to continue the same turn another full circle— from the west to the west—and this was exactly the time needed to finish the job on the MiGs we were dealing with.
I pressed my transmit button and commanded, “Belay that order! Everybody continue your turn—and shoot them down!”
WHEN I SAID THAT OVER THE RADIO, it was clearly an offense against air force discipline. And not just an offense; this was real insolence. The voice of the controller is the voice of the air force commander, and usually the air force commander is sitting behind the man with the mike. I had no doubt that they all heard my answer and had recorded it, and I was going to hear about it—not that I had any intention of disowning what I had said. But this was my moment. Not that I wanted to violate orders—definitely not—but I was a commander and leading my men in battle, and I knew what was right and what was wrong. After the last hard month I got it all clear; I was not asking anybody for authority to do my job. The responsibility was mine, no matter what happened. I took over.
NOBODY ARGUED, AND THINGS lined up like clockwork, tick-tock every ten seconds. First Baharav announced a kill. Then Hertz closed on his MiG and chopped it to pieces while I was guarding him from above and watching the incoming new enemies. I put him on my wing, and we received the four new MiGs in a well-organized formation as they came and streaked between us head-on at ultrahigh speed and passed far to the east, tearing themselves apart and churning the air in an effort to turn back to us. I really felt Hassan sighing under the high g- turn while he tried to keep eye contact with us while maneuvering to avoid colliding with his wingman. I even grinned wickedly to myself.
Then the fourth MiG crashed into the ground with Baharav on his tail, and the circle was completed. Sharon and Baharav were on our right-hand side, climbing to re-form the four-ship division, all facing east at the new MiGs, pressing them to the canal.
“Eye contact?” I asked.
“Eye contact.”
“Full power.”
Our voices were calm. We were spread aside in a wide formation of two fighting pairs, heading east, and before us the four new MiGs, weary and confused, with no energy. We could start a new dogfight, the conditions were perfect, but there is a limit to arrogance.
“Aborting battle.”
We passed among them face-to-face and continued home, leaving Hassan to collect his buddies and hurry to return to his airfield at Inshas, not to miss his friends’ funerals. This was the most beautiful dogfight of my life.
ON THE GROUND I GOT a phone call. Colonel Somekh, the likable deputy of the air force commander, had been following the battle. He listened to my explanation and accepted it, even laughed, and I heard he liked telling the story of how I had refused an abort-battle order. I took note of that.
A week later we were ordered to get a formation together for a similar operation. This time I appointed my deputy, Sharon, as division leader. Before he went out, the air force commander called. He asked me to lead the formation myself.
“Sir,” I told him, “I am developing Sharon.”
“This is not high school,” General Hod said. “Remove him and get out there yourself.”
“Moti, I trust him.”
“For me he is not good enough yet.”
I breathed deeply and said, “Okay, I’ll do it. But when I get back, I’ll wash Sharon out of the First.”
After a silence Moti said, “Do what you want, then.” Sharon led the division for the mission and brought back good results.
I WAS PRACTICING disobedience.
The rules of my life began to formulate inside me, for now in secrecy and soon loud and clear: You, the operational commander, are responsible to all. An order is just an instruction; its aim is more important than learning its details by heart. You know? So act according to what you know. You already received authority. Don’t ask for it again—don’t roll the responsibility back to your superiors. You don’t need permission to do your job. Blind obedience does not relieve you of responsibility for the results, because a nondecision is a decision in itself. What did they make you an officer for, if not to change the orders when they are inappropriate in your view?
And what about guilt? Who knows? Anyway, it shall be determined only after trial. And who shall try you if not you, and who can punish harder than you, yourself?
WITH A CERTAIN LACK of intellectual integrity, I demanded iron discipline from my subordinates. In the dogfight I described above, Baharav launched his missiles in a way totally contrary to the instructions I had dictated. Both missed. I called him to my room.
“But Spector, both my missiles were Atolls! No Atoll has ever hit a target!”
I admitted he was right, but an offense is an offense. If you were out of the envelope, you were not allowed to launch. And so Baharav, with two additional MiGs to his credit, packed his things with a sour puss and left the squadron. With him went another young pilot who lost eye contact with his leader on the way to battle. Both were exceptionally good pilots, but I demanded discipline.
On the next day in a training dogfight, I scolded Slapak for some flying offense. Immediately an answer came on the radio, “No problem; wash me out, too.”
I understood I had passed the limit, and soon I might be flying out here alone.
14
Challenge
