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General of the Southern Command in the Yom Kippur War: "There was no plan, we misjudged the Egyptian army" | Israel today

2022-10-03T13:13:46.214Z


General Shmuel Gonen was removed from his position after the war that broke out in 1973, and in rare recordings from the Agrant Committee, his claims are revealed • About his removal: "I was informed about it on the radio" • About the Air Force: "He did not help enough, I waited for his help every day" • About Ariel Sharon, who was The commander of the 143rd division in the war: "He disobeyed my orders, attacked against my instructions"


49 years after the Yom Kippur War, the version of the Southern Command's General at the time General Shmuel Gonen (Gorodish), before the Agrant Committee, which investigated the circumstances of the outbreak of the war in 1973, was released for publication.

In his words, Gorodish attacks the way in which he was removed from his position and says that "my transfer from the position was made by an announcement that I heard on the news on the radio, without prior notice, without the coordination and approval of the Chief of Staff (David Elazar, AG).

Powerful tools were used against me, agitated public opinion, rumors, the military censorship and the press.

Golda Meir visits one of the outposts, and to her left Major General Gonen (Yom Kippur War), photo: Segev Yitzhak

"Everyone described me as if I collapsed, became confused, that my orders were not obeyed. All these stories are a complete lie. I never collapsed and the difficulties I had in throwing conversions did not stem from my very skills, abilities and talents, but were mainly with one champion (Eric Sharon, A.G. .) that he did not carry out orders, not mine, not the Chief of Staff's, nor his other superiors."

There was no plan to evacuate the canal forts

An interesting question that Gorodish refers to is whether more Israeli soldiers could have been saved from the canal outposts captured by the Egyptians.

Here the general of the command reveals that "I did not find a plan or an idea, either written or oral, when I came to the Southern Command, to evacuate the strongholds during war, neither at an early stage nor at a late stage, on the other hand, the existing plan stipulates not evacuating strongholds."

Gorodish also blames Chief of Staff David Elazar for not evacuating the strongholds and says that "the problem was whether to rescue the people of the strongholds on Saturday night."

It was then possible to extract a large part of them.

The Chief of Staff instructed me to evacuate only marginal strongholds."

We underestimated the Egyptian warrior

In his testimony, General Gonen also refers to the IDF's concept of the fighting level of the Egyptian fighters, a combat that was underestimated, and states that "In my opinion, the Egyptian success in the first stage was not because the defense concept was right or wrong, but because our defense plans were based on an empirical assessment of a certain Egyptian warrior and in this war the Egyptian warrior was revealed differently."

The Air Force did not help

Regarding the Israeli Air Force, Gorodish says that "it had to be the main factor in containment. During the war, the reality was different - every day I hoped to receive the air assistance that was promised to me every day. But during the battle, it became clear to me that there was no air force for me to a significant extent."

Gorodish also refers to the decisions he made based on the information passed on to him by the division commanders in the field, and explains that this information is critical to the Southern Command's decisions in combat.

"In retrospect, it became clear to me that some of the reports were inaccurate, and did not match the situation on the ground. In some cases, he did not report on difficulties and lack of success in carrying out the mission."

A young champion commanding veteran champions

A central point that Gorodish brings up is that he was a commanding general who commanded four senior generals.

He notes that with most of them "everything went smoothly" and even in the case of Baran, who was a veteran champion from Gurodish, there was listening to the instructions of the command.

But that was not the case with Major Ariel Sharon "when he refused the order and attacked despite my express order. When I encountered this serious phenomenon of disobeying the order by a senior officer, I reported it to the Chief of Staff and asked for conclusions to the point of replacing him.

I did not respond in a positive way.

From this point on, the matter went from bad to worse."

Gorodish also points out a phenomenon that interfered with the fighting and says: "I would like to add here in a framed article, the phenomenon of the non-stop running around of senior reserve and regular officers who sat in HML as guests and in the BSA they also constituted a burden on the atmosphere in the incessant debates and the expression of different opinions."

In his testimony at the Agrant Committee, Gorodish states that from the first moment he believed that the Egyptians' intention was an extensive military operation and the seizure of large parts of Sinai.

This position of his made him manage the fighting with the intention of preventing this Egyptian success while also managing the deployment of his forces in the field in this way.

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Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2022-10-03

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