infantry unit from anybody. So we mounted an effort to build a new commando unit of our own from scratch. We wanted an infantry unit that would belong to the air force and be integral with our helicopters.
Simple? No. We found out that we were stepping on the toes of the commanders of the ground army.
“It’s unthinkable,” said the regular army, the “greens.” (The air force was called the “blues.”) “To give the air force permission to build an airborne commando unit. They’ll be drawing water from the same well of first-class recruits. What about us?”
Those greens were ignoring history. Infantry units had operated in other wars under air force command and had had a fair amount of military success (and failure as well). And the navy had a superior commando unit, Flotilla 13, which did dangerous jobs successfully, although it was commanded by officers wearing not green but white uniforms. The reason for this unit was historical. As early as 1941 the Hagana had sent infantry units deep behind enemy lines in boats (remember the mission of the Twenty-three?), and in the War of Independence in 1948 the Palmach was already using PT boats for special operations. In a natural way, maritime commando operations were seen as legitimate from the beginning of the IDF. But the blues were different, since in 1948 they didn’t have helicopters. Nobody had helicopters in 1948, and only visionaries such as British general Orde Wingate had imagined using helicopters in the 1940s. From its inception the Israeli Air Force focused on fighters. This is why no airborne commando force was ever developed.
“So what?” I responded when I grasped the context. “We just missed the first train. Well, 1977 is as good a year as any other to buy a ticket and start this journey.”
I began pushing this idea, too, and to my joy in this matter I didn’t find myself alone. Ido, of course, worked shoulder to shoulder with me, but even the fighter planners picked up on the idea. In the beginning, they certainly saw in it “backup, no; fifteen for missile elimination,” but in time some of them developed a more general outlook. Our voice began to be heard in the corridors of the General Staff. Right then we stepped on real land mines.
Most of the land generals saw in our idea an invasion of their territory, and naturally they reacted vigorously. The paratroopers were insulted more than everybody else. “Why can’t the air force just fly us to the targets and get us back, as we did in the good old days?” they asked. “Why does the air force need an infantry unit under its own command?”
Those operations from those “good old days” had plenty of bad operational examples, and good reasons not to do it that way. When we reanalyzed those improvised operations, we found in them many failures and mistakes, and always there was no integrated command structure to take responsibility and make corrections.
“Why do we need infantry?” we answered the paratroopers. “Because waging war behind enemy lines requires tight coordination of infantry with helicopters and fighter aircraft. This is expertise that must be learned, practiced, and commanded in place. And for this, an organic command structure is needed, to prepare in peacetime and control it in war.” “Opportunistic copulating,” I once told the paratroopers’ commander, “bears only orphans.”
The greens were hopping mad, but the alternative they proposed, taking the helicopters from the air force and putting them under the army, was just a provocation and unrealistic, and they knew it. They got even madder. The new vice chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Raphael Eitan (Raful), vehemently opposed the idea of letting the air force develop a special commando unit for itself. Raful was suspicious by nature, and I believe he had figured out our hidden plans for a future Israeli Attack Force. In one of many staff discussions he labeled me “General Popsky.” This was a ridiculous name taken from a book called
The chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Mota Gur, didn’t want to take a position on the matter. He also was a paratrooper, and in his last days in command. For some time it seemed we were at an impasse.
I FIRST MET COL. RAPHAEL EITAN when he commanded Paratroop Brigade 35. This was in the middle of the 1960s. Young Lieutenant Spector, a Super Mystere pilot, was sent south to the Negev, to join a training exercise with the paratroopers. The brigade was training to take some barren hill. I was given a radio, and my job was to direct close air support, what soon became known as a forward air controller.
The brigade commander was short, stout, and tough, his red nose peeling and his face pockmarked under his battered Australian field hat. He took me under his wing and sat me in his jeep. Before us was a rather large hill, its rocky sides mottled with bushes, and on the top were some whitish dugouts. We watched the soldiers advancing in line, running and falling face down. When the sun went down, a break was ordered. The battalion commanders assembled at the brigadier’s tent. I sat among them eating jam from cans with them; they were all legendary figures from my childhood.
In the morning there was another dry fire drill (with no live ammunition), and in the afternoon came time for the live fire attack. We stood, the forward command staff, on another hill. All was spread before us like a chessboard. The soldiers hopped among the rocks up the slope, firing in short bursts and raising squirts of white dust. From our position the shooting sounded like explosions of chains of caps. I saw another group of soldiers climbing the other side of the hill. Suddenly a great fart came from our side—a jeep had launched a round from a black pipe. The smell of burned powder spread, and a second explosion roared in the distance. A pillar of smoke sprouted on the hilltop.
“Loretta,” the commander’s female clerk said to me with a lovely smile.
“Call me Spike.” I clutched her hand warmly. She was only a little chubby, and the upper button of her collar was open. She had magnificent dimples.
“Not
“Some cannon,” she snapped. The way she turned away made me see that my chance of her seeing me as a real cannon was over.
The aircraft called me on the radio. They were already circling above us, waiting their turn. They were loaded with napalm. Raful turned to me: “Hit the target, now!”
With my hand on the mike, I scanned the battlefield again. The soldiers were already too close to the top in my opinion, perhaps 150 meters.
“Sir—” I began. Raful turned his back on me.
“Call him ‘Raful,’ not ‘sir,’” advised “Loretta.” I tugged at his sleeve.
“Yes, Spector?”
“The troops must pull back from the target… they’re already inside the safety perimeter.”
Raful threw me a contemptuous look. “The air force is not willing to fight?”
Embarrassed, I shrugged. I brought the aircraft in on a “dry pass.”
“Do not drop any ordnance!” I warned them. I felt the stare of the brigadier burning in my back.
The two Vautour fighters, large and noisy, passed one after the other low over the hill. I saw the soldiers getting up, waving, and applauding. Raful sent me a shadow of a smile. And again the soldiers began to run, firing their rifles.
A messenger came running. The drill was immediately stopped and the soldiers were called back.
“What happened?” I asked my confidante.
“Two soldiers were killed,” she whispered. Apparently someone was caught in crossfire between the two units that attacked the hill. A commotion began. The company commanders came running, got together, and conversed quietly. A command car started its engine in a din of noise and smoke, and drove down to the wadi below us, bouncing in the dust. I saw that it carried stretchers. The forward command group began to fold itself. Blankets, maps, binoculars, and water tanks were thrown in the jeep. The soldiers turned back down the slope. The aircraft still buzzed overhead.
“Sir… excuse me, Raful.”
“What now?”
“Permission to napalm the target hill?”
“Do as you like.”
The Vautours thundered in and loosed their bombs. A boom, and the hill was covered with flames and black smoke. The soldiers froze, then turned around and jumped excitedly and shouted “Bravo!” Chubby sent me a dimpled smile, and Raful shook my hand strongly. His hand was thick and hard, a hand of a farmer.
THIS STRUGGLE TO ESTABLISH my “private army,” which went on for a long time and became nasty at
