Posted on 09/24/23
| News Source: i24
In crossing the Suez Canal, the 421st brigade changed not just the course of the war, but possibly even the face of the Middle East
It was a turning point which changed not only Israel, but the Middle East as well. Those who lived through it, like the men of the 421st Armored Brigade, have gone on to raise beautiful families and have successful careers, in Israel and around the world. But they will forever share an unbreakable bond forged in that bloody October of 1973.
It began with one of the most traumatic events in Israel’s history – a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria on the afternoon of October 6, 1973 – The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
For Amnon Amikam, who fought as a company commander in the war, the memories, even after 50 years, “are very strong.”
"We felt as if the state of Israel was in danger, there was a question mark over its existence. That is how I see it," he says.
The joint attack – the Syrians rolling across the Golan Heights in the north, the Egyptians storming Israel’s fortifications along the Suez Canal in the south – punctured the certainty, even arrogance that had taken root in Israel. Only days before the war, and despite the growing signs, IDF military intelligence had confidently declared that the chances of war breaking out were “lower than low”.
Not everyone shared that assessment.
“The day before the war broke out, I heard a lecture from a top intelligence officer. It ended with the assumption that since the Arab armies do not have a good response to the Israeli air force, there will not be a war in the coming years,” recalls reserve Major-General Chaim Erez, who commanded the 421st Armored Brigade during the war.
“I looked at the maps he presented and thought that the IDF must do something in this situation. I wasn't sure there would be a war, but I thought we have to do something. I called my deputy and told him to tell all the officers in the brigade to stay home next to the phone."
Sure enough, the phones rang the following day, as Jews in Israel were marking the somber Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. The officers of the 421st brigade were ready, but the rest of the army was not.
"We arrived at the IDF ammunition center and found our tanks completely dismantled,” Oden Megido, a company commander at the time, remembers.
“The turrets were in one place because that was where the soldiers were learning about them. The lower part of the tank was in another place, and the engines were in a third location because that is where the mechanical school was. The head of the base told me not to pressure him because he was told he had 72 hours until the tanks had to be ready."