number tattooed on his arm, I opened up. Nathan listened to my tale of woe, shaking his head. A month later, unexpectedly, a truck arrived from Hatzor. It unloaded needed pieces of furniture we had been unable to get. A huge photograph was added, a picture of a Phantom taking off, to be hung in the office I didn’t have yet. I understood that Nathan had put his construction unit to work for us without asking his superiors.
When I told my men what had happened to our Daggers, they rebelled. I cooled them off. I understood. Harlev also knew the secret—he was the officer in charge, and so threw his weight around as much as he dared, and whoever wanted to sue him was welcome to try. This was the world I knew, and I didn’t take it personally. The order to transfer those Daggers got old in Harlev’s files, and the missiles stayed with the Falcons in Hatzor. All that happened was that my Orange Tails flew their initial operational missions without Dagger missiles.
Even so, I didn’t feel we were weak.
MAYBE IT WAS JUST THESE difficulties that conjured up the fighting spirit in us. Yes, we definitely were envious of our sister squadrons, the senior Phantom squadrons who sat safely in their padded nests. But we decided that we were in a good position to do well. In the Orange Tails we learned what we could from the other squadrons in order to copy, imitate, and then outshine them. We decided to learn it all and then select the best and filter out the worst. We were in a perfect position, free from any past encumbrances.
THE TIME OF ARRIVAL of our first six Phantoms was set for December 10, 1971. Now we had a timetable, ninety days to define how we were going to do it all a better way. We doubled our efforts. And—well, we were all veterans of the War of Attrition. We knew we had to prepare fast, because the next war was on the way.
AND THEN THERE WAS THE Phantom itself.
After a short conversion course I began to fly with the Falcons and the other squadrons as a guest. From the very first moment, I hated this aircraft. It was very large, very clumsy, very complicated, and always there was somebody in the rear cockpit making noise, and bothering me with advice and instructions. I felt as if I were back in the Harvard trainer, in an unending struggle against a noisy, unresponsive aircraft, together with an annoying instructor on my ass.
It was particularly hard for me to come to terms with the performance of this aircraft in aerial combat. Whenever I reversed turn, or just rocked it a little in the air, the Phantom would react with a long delay, as if the stick were on springs. And when it finally condescended to obey, it would start with a symphony of rattling and drumming, like forks in a dishwasher. At times I stole a sideways look to make sure that all the junk was still attached to the airplane.
During my second flight in the Phantom I sat in the backseat of Eitan Ben Eliyahu, to watch and learn. Eitan wanted to show me acceleration to twice the speed of sound. Halfway, one of the engines began braying. I told him,
“Eitan, this is the Phantom?”
“When you have two engines and one of them goes south,” he told me, “you still have the second one to take you home.”
“Aha.” I was not impressed. The Mirage didn’t need two engines to get to Mach 2 or to get me home.
MY PARTNERS WERE ALL HARD, tough men.
Major Uri Shachar, my designated second-in-command, came from the same job in a Skyhawk squadron. Gordon had already been flying Phantoms for few months. All three of us had grown up in the Fighting First, had fought together, and understood each other well. The designated technical officer was Maj. Jacob Baram, also a Mirage graduate, who came from Ramat-David. Everybody called him “Briar,” and he was hardwood indeed, much tougher than any of us. The fifth in the team was Lieutenant Shemer, a very sharp young officer, a go-getter, who had replaced the girl adjutant. Now we were a men-only team.
During the week we scattered over all the country, flying and learning what we could from the three active Phantom squadrons, and on weekends we gathered in Hatzerim and sat down to go over what we had learned and our new ideas. Sometimes, when our needs were not met, we were not ready to compromise. We had to squeeze a Phantom squadron into the headquarters of a Mirage squadron two sizes too small for it. We redesigned the space to use every corner, which required big changes in the internal structure—moving walls, power lines, etc. Then we were notified that the air force wouldn’t approve the budget for the changes, and we found ourselves facing an insoluble problem. When we realized that no money would be allocated for the necessary infrastructure in the squadron building, Shachar and I rose early one Saturday morning, drove down to the building with heavy hammers, and smashed down all the unneeded internal walls. The base commander appeared, and his face got very pale. He threatened us with dire consequences. But the next morning the construction workers came over with the drawings we had prepared for them before our budget was turned down. Over time I suspected Colonel Bareket, my commander, of sympathizing with his radical new Phantom pilots.
IN THE SAME WAY WE FOUGHT outside, we fought with ourselves. Our meetings lasted for days and spilled over into the nights, and usually were hot and noisy. None of us was pretty. Each brought with him loads of ideas of how to shape the material in our hands, and each was ready to die or kill for his ideas. We would struggle till late at night with everything: training programs, aircraft readiness, caring for the soldiers, furnishing the operations and technical control centers, and education of future pilots and mechanics. We spread maps and drawings on the floor till there was no place to step, and then shouted at each other from opposite sides of the room. Once I was called to decide on the way information should be transmitted between the squadron’s operations room and the technical control center. This is a crucial connection, especially in wartime, and here also we had an opportunity to set up a better system than any other in the air force. I came in and found a heated dispute under way between Gordon and Briar. They both came from opposing schools, and each had his arguments. There was no intermediate solution that could integrate all the advantages, and I had to decide either or. At last I decided, and chose Gordon’s way. Briar was entrusted with the preparation of the required tools—boards, magnets, communication terminals, etc. On the next week we met, and the tools were ready, all right, but they were not made exactly according to our specs. There were alterations. I threw a furious Gordon out of my office and shut the door.
“Briar, what’s going on here?”
Briar waved a large, bent finger in my face. “Spector, you made a mistake here. Let me explain to you again.” He was a warm man, radiating energy and power.
I pulled out a piece of paper, wrote something on it, and folded it in two.
“Give me the Scotch tape, please.” I sealed the page all around and put it into my notebook.
Briar stopped and watched me, not understanding.
“Briar,” I told him, “we had an agreement and you tried to get around it. The next time it happens I’ll use this page.”
The conversation that followed ended with a signed agreement that consisted of two words: “Everything clean.” Then we shook hands, and Briar went out to do his job over again from the beginning.
I DID NOT REALLY ENJOY the bitter struggle of “all against all” I was leading, but I convinced myself that I didn’t care. I was already far beyond the Fighting First and my failed tries to find grace in the eyes of my people.
In fact, I went to the other extreme. I had a mission to accomplish, and without realizing it I was hurled back to the forgotten rule of my youth: keep it all inside. I stopped taking interest in the outside. I accepted the reality that I’d lost the popularity contest, and I didn’t pay attention to it anymore. Instead, I invested a lot of effort in figuring out what I really wanted to accomplish. I listened to everybody, all the while writing and sketching in my notebook. When I came to conclusions, I worked hard to articulate clear decisions. Everything became technical— organization charts, timetables, construction processes—and every detail after processing came out bright and clear. Manpower was an important part of my equations, but human beings were not.
Home was all but forgotten. Ali and my two sons receded into the background. I learned that Ali had found a place for Etay in the first grade of a primary school in Beer-Sheva, and in passing learned that she had found work and was taking classes. This was all good news. I nodded and fell asleep while my kids fought to climb on my lap Friday nights.
