- hace 7 semanas
Categoría
📺
TVTranscripción
00:00The Golan Heights. In 1973, this rocky terrain on the Israel-Syria border turns into a killing
00:11ground. The Golan Heights is Syrian territory and Syria cannot, will not, concede it. A few
00:25hundred unprepared Israeli tankers come face-to-face with 1,200 Syrian tanks.
00:33All I see, from horizon to horizon, the entire Syrian army starts to drive across from me.
00:41This was a no-holds-barred fight. Neither side backed down from it.
00:47The Golan Heights. 1,200 square kilometers of the most hotly contested real estate on
00:53the planet. It's Dante. It's inconceivable. It's an inferno.
01:23The Golan Heights. 1,200 square kilometers of the most hotly contested real estate on
01:29the planet. It's a barren volcanic escarpment that has been occupied by Israel since the
01:37six-day Arab-Israeli War of 1967. Both Israel and Syria claim it as their own. In the fall
01:46of 1973, that border dispute erupts into a sudden, ferocious and bloody war.
01:55October 6th. It's Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Most Israelis are at home, repenting
02:02for their sins and observing a fast, leaving the frontier with Syria lightly guarded. The commander
02:09of the 74th Israeli tank battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Yar Nafshi, begins a routine patrol.
02:16It was simply pastoral peacefulness, and I am patrolling the positions along my front. At
02:2212, a commander from the Hermann Post calls me, and he says, Yair, the Syrians are taking
02:28off their camouflage nets from their artillery. And then I act instinctively. So I turn my
02:38jeep around and gather all my men and say to them, Look, the scenario is that the Syrian
02:44army is removing their camouflage screens. I don't know what this means. And the men stop
02:55fasting, mount their tanks and start to prepare them. And as we are driving from the lots,
03:02the bombardment starts. The artillery lands on us, then planes of the Syrian Air Force attack.
03:16The Syrians have been planning the attack for nine months. Israeli intelligence had some clues,
03:22but for the men on the front, it's a complete surprise. What these Syrians do is lull Israel
03:28into a false sense of security. The Israelis have seen the Syrians move all their troops up,
03:34get geared up for war, time and again, only to have them all go back to their bases. And
03:39so on the 6th of October, when the Syrians don't go back to their bases, the Israelis are
03:44caught completely off guard. Israel is a small state and they have perfected the art of mobilization.
03:51So it is in the first shots of the war that you want to accomplish as much as possible,
03:55so as not to bring the bulk of the Israeli army against you. The majority of the Israeli forces
04:03are reservists who need 20 hours to fully mobilize. Consequently, Israeli forces on the Golan Heights
04:12consist of fewer than 6,000 light infantry, 60 artillery pieces, and two understrength armored brigades
04:24with 170 tanks. In comparison, the Syrians have massed more than 50,000 infantry, 600 artillery pieces,
04:37and 1,200 main battle tanks. This is a huge amount of armor. And over and above that, it was Yom Kippur in Israel.
04:46People were on holiday. The intelligence services in Israel were lax. The Arabs can't fight.
04:53And so, as a result, they were in for a very major surprise.
04:59I thought to myself, what's going on? Who are those pilots, crazy pilots? What they are doing?
05:08And I thought, this is Israeli. By mistake, they are blowing gas.
05:12I didn't realize that any aircraft from Syria can climb across the border and start to blow us?
05:19And I couldn't talk after that.
05:29I crossed through the barrage of shells, wave after wave.
05:36In five minutes, I'm finally at the edge of Booster Ridge, viewing over half the Golan Heights.
05:48At first, it's small. And then, like rings of cigarette smoke, it slowly gets closer, bigger and bigger.
06:03And all I see, from horizon to horizon, the entire Syrian army starts to drive across from me.
06:12But this is only part of a much larger war.
06:15Egypt and Syria have launched simultaneous attacks on two fronts, splitting Israeli defense forces.
06:22Their mission? To take back territory lost during the six-day Arab-Israeli War, including the Sinai and the Golan Heights.
06:31The Syrian body politic was humiliated, was traumatized.
06:38It is as a result of this that we had the 1973 war, a war that was made specifically in order to regain this territory that Israel occupied.
06:52Over the course of time, they developed a campaign plan that was specifically tailored to retake the Golan and repair Syria's tarnished honor.
07:04The Syrian battle plan is to use overwhelming force and penetrate the Israeli line at two points.
07:10Then, send armored divisions through the gaps to advance across the Golan Plateau and seize key bridges over the Jordan River.
07:22At the spearhead of the Syrian attack are masses of a Soviet-designed T-55 tank.
07:29The T-55 at 40 tons is relatively small for a main battle tank, making it hard to hit.
07:38Its 100-millimeter main cannon has an effective range of just 2,400 meters, no match for the bigger guns of the Israelis.
07:47But that disadvantage is offset by numbers.
07:52The Syrians attack the Golan Heights with more than 1,200 T-55s.
07:57The defending Israelis with their 170 tanks are outnumbered, almost 7 to 1.
08:03The Syrians had rehearsed the initial attack on the Israeli positions countless times beforehand.
08:09But apparently, one thing that they hadn't quite planned out properly was where to put the bridging equipment.
08:15The Israelis had built a deep anti-tank trench in front of their positions all along the Golan front.
08:21But the Syrians had put their bridging equipment far back in their columns.
08:26And as a result, the first thing that happened was you had Syrian tankers who bizarrely drove straight at the Israelis,
08:32drove right into the tank ditch, and as a result were picked off like sitting ducks by Israeli tankers sitting up on the heights overlooking this anti-tank trench.
08:44For the Israelis, the tank of choice on the rocky terrain of the Golan is the Shot Kal, an upgraded version of the Centurion main battle tank.
08:53It's protected by 152 millimeters of frontal armor and equipped with a 105-millimeter rifled cannon.
09:01Accurate, it ranges in excess of 3,600 meters.
09:06The Shot Kal is a formidable opponent to the Syrians' T-55s.
09:13When David goes out to fight Goliath, he made a decision to fight him with a slingshot.
09:19And he knew he could defeat Goliath because he wouldn't enter in range of Goliath's weapons.
09:25And from outside that range, he hits him with a rock and knocks him over.
09:35I am going to be David.
09:38The Syrians don't open fire from ranges further than 2,200 meters.
09:44But I, in all my training, can fire and hit targets at about 5 kilometers.
10:01The Israelis understood that in the terrain of the Middle East, where you often had very long fields of fire,
10:07being able to kill the other guy before he could kill you, was a tremendous advantage.
10:16And so the Israelis had put a tremendous amount of effort into developing long-range gunnery skills.
10:37When the initial Syrian attack in the north floundered, the commanders decided that they would nevertheless try to mount some kind of a night operation to see if they couldn't get back on schedule.
10:55And so they pushed forward in the darkness.
10:58At that moment, they had a tremendous advantage.
11:01The Syrian tanks had Soviet night fighting equipment.
11:04The Israelis didn't.
11:06And as a result, when the Syrians began to push into their lines, the Israelis were at a complete loss as to what to do or how to do it.
11:13The
11:19The hardest combat was during the night.
11:21It was dark and nobody used any lights.
11:24When you turn on the lights, immediately they kill you.
11:27Really the main problem is during the night they had infrared system.
11:39Syrian infrared projectors enabled the T-55s to see through the dark, detecting targets up to 1,200 meters away.
11:48It's a huge advantage for the Syrians.
11:54The only defense the Israelis have are night vision binoculars that can detect the infrared beam.
12:01One situation I was looking to identify them and I moved my face down and I saw all the parts of my tank.
12:09I was surprised what is dark.
12:11I moved my binoculars and it was so dark.
12:14I put it again in my face.
12:17It's every part.
12:19And I found the 200 metal in front of me.
12:23One projector looked straight to my eyes with the infrared system.
12:27And he was, he identified me.
12:29He was ready to shoot.
12:31I screamed to my driver, go far away.
12:35And we moved back.
12:37We shot in the direction they came from just to give them the feeling that we are there.
12:43We are there waiting for them.
12:45They didn't know that we are blind.
12:49The Syrians infiltrate Israeli positions through the night.
12:53And the line between the two tank armies becomes increasingly blurred.
12:58And he said, there is a tank there.
12:59Use the light and show me who is this tank.
13:00He didn't want first, of course.
13:01And I convinced him.
13:02And he said, there is a tank there.
13:03Use the light and show me who is this tank.
13:05He didn't want first, of course.
13:06And I convinced him.
13:07I ordered him.
13:08And he put the lights in.
13:09I saw the 55.
13:10I was in shock.
13:11Of course, I shot him.
13:12And I saw the 55.
13:13I was in shock.
13:15Of course, I shot him.
13:16The moment when he was on fire, I saw another tank.
13:19And I was in shock.
13:21And I was in shock.
13:23And of course, I shot him.
13:25I shot him too.
13:26And he was in shock.
13:27And he was in fire.
13:32I saw another tank close for him.
13:34I shot him too.
13:35And I was in shock.
13:38And he was in shock.
13:44And he was in fire, I saw another tank close for him.
13:47And I shot him too.
13:49I shall not do.
13:56After 18 hours of almost continuous combat,
13:59the tankers of the 77th and 74th Israeli battalions
14:03have held the line in the North Golan Heights
14:06and pay a terrible price.
14:08Hundreds of dead and wounded,
14:10and 75 of their tanks destroyed.
14:14But for the Syrians, the price is even higher.
14:17The casualties number in the thousands,
14:19and more than 100 tanks are lost.
14:24But in the open terrain farther south,
14:27the Syrian offensive has been far more successful.
14:30They've wiped out an entire tank battalion,
14:34clearing the way for a push into the Israeli heartland.
14:38Of course, I was as euphoric as all Arabs were
14:42to see images of Syria advancing in the Golan Heights.
14:46The future, not just of Israel, but of the whole Middle East,
14:52now hangs in the balance.
14:57October 6, 1973.
15:07Egypt and Syria attack Israeli forces on two fronts.
15:12They're determined to take back all the territory they lost in the six-day war of 1967.
15:18Syrian armored brigades strike at two points on the Golan Heights,
15:25throwing 50,000 infantry and 1,200 tanks into the battle.
15:31In the rugged and hilly northern sector,
15:33Israeli defenders hold the line through the first day of fighting,
15:36even though they're outnumbered almost seven to one,
15:39and take heavy casualties.
15:42But in the more open country farther south,
15:45the Syrians seem unstoppable.
15:48In the south, you had two very aggressive Syrian commanders.
15:52They dragged their bridging equipment forward.
15:55One of their commanders actually had his infantry fill in portions
15:58of the Israeli anti-tank trench by hand.
16:01They crossed over, and they were able to mass so much power
16:04against these themed-out Israeli defenses
16:06in the southern flank of the Golan
16:08that they were able to punch through.
16:12October 7, after a day of fierce fighting,
16:15the Israeli southern line falls apart
16:17under a massive onslaught of Syrian armor.
16:20By 8 a.m., Syrian forces are advancing across the Golan Plateau,
16:25driving towards key bridges crossing the Jordan River.
16:32The Syrian assumption was that if they could punch through
16:34those Israeli lines and drive as fast as they could,
16:37grab those bridges, they would effectively be able to prevent
16:41Israeli reserves from mounting a viable counterattack out of Galilee.
16:50At 2 o'clock, when I heard the alarm,
16:55I opened immediately the radio.
16:59I heard the BBC announcing that the war started in Israel.
17:03A heavy battle of arm-ex forces is continuing on the Golan Heights,
17:07as Syrian armor has been attempting to break the Israeli line
17:10and has, according to the news here,
17:13been checked by Israeli tanks and artillery.
17:16I called my unit, the brigade, and they told me,
17:21come immediately, there is a war.
17:23The water was empty, I drove like a hell,
17:26and the feeling was that they caught us.
17:29They caught us unprepared.
17:35In 73, the tanks were bare of ammunition and equipment.
17:39They had to be loaded with shells and all of the equipment taken out of storage and organized.
17:46If you have the full crew, which are four members,
17:50it takes something like four to six hours to prepare it really properly.
17:56But during the rush time, we didn't really prepare properly the tanks.
18:03Everybody went to the Golan Heights.
18:05It doesn't matter how many tanks they had,
18:07if the tanks are completely equipped or not.
18:10They just went.
18:15Syrian intelligence estimates it will take Israel 20 hours to mobilize its tank reserves.
18:20But the Israelis do it in 10.
18:23Throughout the night, Israeli reservists make their way to the battlefield,
18:27are hastily organized into units,
18:29and thrown into the fight against the Syrians.
18:33By the early hours of October 7th,
18:35the first tanks reach the Golan Heights.
18:38In the early morning, we advanced towards the enemy already inside the Golan Heights.
18:48Dawn was beginning to break, and we saw lots of tanks.
18:53A mask of sorts came down.
18:55Now we have to do what is necessary.
19:01We don't think about it too much.
19:03We opened fire on them,
19:08but directional alignments are required to match the barrel of the cannon
19:12to the cross of the telescope.
19:14But we didn't do this,
19:15because of our hurried exit.
19:21We didn't hit them.
19:23It is possible to make battle time alignments,
19:25but this is a lot less precise.
19:27But it's better than nothing.
19:29We hit a few tanks.
19:41But not long after this,
19:43I saw a very large cloud of dust coming from the southeast.
19:49And when this cloud got closer,
19:51it turns out that it was a very large Syrian force with T-62 tanks.
19:55It's the last thing the outnumbered Israelis want to see on the battlefield.
20:05The T-62 is an upgraded version of the T-55.
20:10Those upgrades include 240 millimeters of frontal armor
20:14and a bigger 581 horsepower engine.
20:18But the biggest threat is the T-62's 115 millimeter Malat main cannon.
20:23Its smooth-bore design increases muzzle velocity,
20:28giving it a range of nearly 3,000 meters.
20:41And then I honestly started to feel that I was being targeted
20:44and shells are falling beside me or behind me.
20:47And if the first one is long, the next shell will be short,
21:00and then the next will hit me.
21:05So I reverse off the firing ramp and look for a new position.
21:08We started a battle with maybe five or six tanks against this very large Syrian force.
21:19All that was left for us to do was try to fight a stalling battle,
21:26but they simply pushed us backward.
21:34It's overwhelming.
21:35Four Syrian brigades, 350 tanks, pushed through Israeli defenders
21:40and advanced towards the bridges over the Jordan River.
21:43Before dark, both of them run into very small groups of Israeli infantry.
21:49And even though at this point in time they're only a couple of kilometers from their objectives,
21:54both brigade commanders decide to stop for the evening,
21:58and with almost nothing standing in their way.
22:01The bridges were sitting there.
22:04They were theirs for the Syrians' taking.
22:05When they woke up the next morning, they found strong Israeli forces guarding those two bridges.
22:15My battalion meet them on the road from the Betecha Valley up to the Golan Heights.
22:25The first tanks in our column, they didn't see them.
22:29Only the last tank saw them, and they began to shoot.
22:32And the commander shouted at him,
22:39Why are you shooting? We are in our territory.
22:42He said, This is Syrians, already here.
22:44We didn't believe that they arrived so west.
22:49Their problem was that the T-55 have only five degrees of degradation.
22:56That means the cannon can't be aimed very far down.
22:59It's a disadvantage for a tank on higher ground, engaging an enemy approaching from below.
23:06Beyond that, the Israeli shot cows have a high degree of elevation,
23:10making it easier to hit targets above them.
23:12They had to expose themselves if they wanted to have enough degradation to shoot at us.
23:23So when they expose themselves, we shoot them.
23:28So by that way, we succeed to stop them.
23:37The real problem there was simply the Syrian junior officers allow small Israeli forces to completely derail the one thing that might have actually secured victory for Syria,
23:42the drive to take the Jordan River bridges.
23:57Israeli reserves from the 39th Battalion stopped the Syrian 1st Armored Division at Batea Road.
24:02But farther south, the Syrian offensive remains unopposed as 40 tanks of the 132nd Mechanized Brigade advanced towards the small village of El Al.
24:17I received orders to ascend to El Al and fill up what is known as the El Al position.
24:26It's a position between two deep canyons, about two kilometers wide.
24:32He who possesses it and successfully holds the position controls all routes down to the Sea of Galilee.
24:39At around nine o'clock through my binoculars, I start to identify what we in the Armored call masses of dust.
24:52This means that you can see the clouds of dust far before you hear the noise.
24:57And through the binoculars, I notice a movement from a distance of about four kilometers.
25:03That movement in the distance is an entire brigade of Syrian tanks.
25:07Their mission is to occupy the western edge of the Golan Heights overlooking the Sea of Galilee.
25:15From here, the flatlands of Israel lie almost undefended and at the mercy of the advancing Syrians.
25:22If they are successful and pass us, the Syrians will be at the Sea of Galilee.
25:30And I understand that a loss or even a retreat is not mine alone.
25:35It would be fatal.
25:40October 7th, 1973.
25:48It is 20 hours into the Syrian attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
25:54And in the rugged and rocky northern sector, two Israeli tank units struggle to hold off the Syrians.
26:01But in the flatter terrain of the southern Golan, masses of Syrian armor have rolled over the Israelis.
26:11And are pushing on towards bridges over the Jordan River.
26:15At around 9 o'clock, through my binoculars, I start to identify what we in the armored called masses of dust.
26:26This movement ahead becomes clearer and clearer.
26:32And then we start to identify Syrian tanks.
26:37They are getting closer and are stopping at distances of about 1,500 meters.
26:44And we start to notice a lot of strikes.
26:46At the plateau of El Al, it's absolutely flat.
26:58It's as if they put the tanks on a billiard table and said,
27:02Please, go ahead and play now.
27:05You can see huge distances.
27:08There is nowhere to hide.
27:09And the only thing that can save you is your own capability, your own skill, and to always be on the move.
27:20I always make sure that the tanks are always moving and not firing more than what's called a ball to the target.
27:27Which is just two or three shells, one after the other.
27:31We fire one and then adjust.
27:34We fire another and then move to another position.
27:39In order to get a target, you'd have to stop and stand.
27:43Then, you bring the turret to a point where it is in line with the enemy tank.
27:50You give the range according to your estimation.
27:53When everyone announces on, I give the command to fire.
28:02The Israelis, for their part, maneuvered constantly.
28:05They darted from firing position to firing position.
28:09Those Syrian armored units didn't maneuver at all.
28:12They simply drove straight at the Israelis.
28:15And so this is really the big difference between the Syrian and Israeli armies.
28:20The Syrians, when they gain the territory, they hang on to it to the death, which might be good, but is very bad if you need to maneuver.
28:28The simple fact is that the Syrian tankers are just no match for the Israeli counterparts.
28:32The Israelis have taken the best shots that Syria has to give, and they're now in a position with enough combat strength that they can begin to push back.
28:44So we started to move unit by unit, and I found myself alone in Rantania.
28:57There was two hills, and I was in the cradle, you know, of the hills, overlooking Khoshni'ai village.
29:04I saw a regiment getting fueled or rearmed and so on, and I started to shoot at them.
29:17And I saw some Syrian tanks leaving the hills, and I started to shoot one by one, because they were standing one next to the other, very, very close.
29:37The Syrian tanks are sitting ducks for the Israelis' high-explosive squash head, or Hesh round.
29:45On impact, they squash against the target and explode.
29:56Creating a shock wave that tears apart the inside of the tank.
29:59I think I destroyed something like seven tanks before they started to move, and to understand that somebody was shooting at them.
30:07They shot back.
30:14Our tank started to burn.
30:16As we evacuated from the tank, after a few minutes without the tank, the tank, our tank exploded.
30:22The outnumbered Israelis fall back and re-groove.
30:34And the Syrians gear up for a final big offensive.
30:42By late evening on the 8th of October, they've assembled an entire armored division, over 250 tanks in Khoshni'a.
30:49A tiny hamlet in the South Golan, which is about to become ground zero in one of history's greatest tank battles.
30:56One of history's greatest tank battles.
31:11Khoshni'a.
31:13Once a thriving village in the Southern Golan Heights.
31:17Today it's a scattered collection of ruins.
31:20A grim monument to the ferocity of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
31:24Syrian and Israeli tank forces clashed here, in a historic encounter, now simply remembered as the Battle of Khoshni'a.
31:37October 9th.
31:39The Syrian advance into the Golan loses steam.
31:42And they assemble an armored division, over 250 tanks at Khoshni'a, in preparation for a final big offensive.
31:49But in the three days since Syrian attacks on the Golan Heights began, the Israelis have mobilized hundreds of tanks and thousands of reserve soldiers.
32:00Most of them streamed towards Khoshni'a, for a showdown with the Syrians.
32:03I received an order to cross the oil pipeline and advance and capture Khoshni'a.
32:11The Syrians held this place as their last stronghold on the Golan Heights.
32:16And for the first time since the war began, there was a plan for an organized attack with artillery and jets.
32:26The artillery started falling on Khoshni'a.
32:33And we, in two squads of tanks, started to advance, crossing the territory from the oil line towards the village of Khoshni'a.
32:51It's dusk, the last light, and you can see the entire village blazing, exploding, and the mask of Khoshni'a in the middle of this whole thing.
33:02We advanced with the tanks, and the Syrians didn't escape.
33:12But it's dangerous, because everything is exploding and blazing around us.
33:19It's Dante. It's inconceivable. It's an inferno.
33:23And then, from within the village, outburst Syrian tanks and trucks.
33:32They are terrified, trying to escape. And I see a Syrian tank, and it isn't clear if it is able to get out.
33:40But then, his turret starts moving in my direction, but my cannon and my turret are farther away.
33:49And it's completely clear that I won't be able to target him.
33:53He's going to get a bead on me first, and if he does, then I'm a Ghani.
33:58Behind me is one of my battalion officers, and he launches a shell, and the Syrian tank lights up.
34:15They are difficult displays to describe, but the Syrians ran for their lives.
34:20The Israeli reserves destroy more than 200 tanks, stalling the Syrians' big push.
34:27By the afternoon of October 9th, the Israelis have retaken most of the southern Golan.
34:32But on the northern front, they are still struggling to hold off Syrian forces,
34:37in a place that will soon become known as the Valley of Tears.
34:41In the north, the remnants of the elite 7th Armored Brigade are still just barely holding back the Syrian 7th Infantry Division.
34:48The Syrians try one last time to blast through the Israeli positions.
34:53They've got 200 tanks, half of them T-62s, and the Israelis are down to less than 30 Centurions.
35:07We are currently located at the positions that control the Valley of Tears,
35:12which we see here in front of us.
35:14And when I arrive from Booster Ridge with six tanks, I realize that I am not going to make it to these positions,
35:23which are the best ones, and govern the entire width of the Valley of Tears.
35:28By now, Unit 7 has retreated back, and I find myself alone with six tanks.
35:37And I decide to make a defensive stand on the reverse slope.
35:42And I stop the six tanks and spread them out along the back slope of the hill that is located behind us.
35:52And I see the smoke from the exhaust of the Syrian tanks over the hill.
35:59And I tell my men, you see those moving on the other side of the hill?
36:04You, take those three.
36:05You, these two.
36:06You, these three.
36:07And I let the Syrians come right over the hill.
36:11I allowed the Syrians to advance, and they head towards the top of the hill with the barrel of their cannons pointed upwards.
36:30And I wait for them.
36:38The battle opens at close range, around 300 to 400 meters.
37:00And we stopped their advance towards the main road.
37:05But in this battle, after we stopped the Syrian army, we had only two tanks left.
37:14On this side, at the foot of Mount Hermonite, we see today the same famous valley where the commander of the 77th Battalion, Colonel Kahalani,
37:24stood and blocked the Syrian advance through this valley.
37:33When I came two kilometers from the hills, I saw far away Israeli tanks on fire.
37:42And another tank around them, it was Syrian tanks.
37:47And I moved with my tanks to the valley.
37:52It was a shock.
37:54I called my commander and I said,
37:57If you have any tanks in the area, send them immediately.
38:09October 9th, 1973.
38:13Israeli and Syrian tank forces have been fighting on the Golan Heights for three days.
38:18With heavy casualties on both sides.
38:20The Syrians outnumber the Israelis and quickly gain the upper hand.
38:25But the Israelis push back with their reserve forces.
38:29Now time is running out for the Syrian army.
38:32They make one last attempt to break through Israeli defenses in the north.
38:37Throwing an entire armored division into the battle.
38:39They've got 200 tanks, half of them T-62s, and the Israelis are down to less than 30 Centurians.
38:47They knew the main forces are just behind the hill.
38:56If they will come to the top of the hills, nobody can stop them.
39:00They will run all the way to the Galilee.
39:02And I have decided to move forward and to catch the hills and to catch them on the valley.
39:09It's a desperate gambit and the only chance the Israelis have.
39:14They must regain their firing positions.
39:18And to do that, they have to cross 800 meters of open ground.
39:21In the teeth of Syrian fire.
39:31I ordered to move forward like it was written in the book.
39:40And I decided to move all of them to my frequency, to my radio.
39:44Every gunner, loader, driver, and tank commander, surgeon listened to my voice.
39:50And I told them, look the Syrian soldiers.
39:54How they are fighting so well.
39:56Look at them.
40:00The motivation of them.
40:01What happened to us?
40:03And I see chicken in my unit.
40:06Start to move.
40:09And I started to move.
40:10I saw another tank join me.
40:13And another tank joined me.
40:17And I prayed to the God, just give me to arrive to the top of the hill.
40:23And we will catch them.
40:25And suddenly another tanks arrived to the hills.
40:30And we arrived.
40:35Finally it was dark from tanks.
40:40And we shot like crazy.
40:50The moment that we beat on the fire position.
40:54And they move on the valley.
40:57This was easier for us to shoot all of them.
40:59I fought to survive.
41:00Some of them, they stopped and they shot.
41:02And they killed my tanks.
41:16To survive around three, four tanks, no more than that.
41:21I remember that I would try to count the tanks that we shot all over.
41:30And I couldn't.
41:32There were so many.
41:33After the battle, Israeli observers counted 500 Syrian tanks destroyed in that defile.
41:49And as a result, it came to be called the Valley of Tears for all of the Syrians killed them.
41:54Syria's hope of retaking the Golan Heights ends in the Valley of Tears.
42:05On October 11th, the Israelis launch their own offensive into Syria.
42:10And on the 23rd, the Syrians capitulate.
42:12The battle for the Golan Heights is finally over.
42:22This was simply competent Israeli commanders out thinking, out moving, out fighting their Syrian opponents.
42:31But there's no question that the Syrians fought incredibly hard.
42:34They mounted attack after attack after attack into the teeth of ferocious Israeli defenses.
42:42And in many cases, they died to a man.
42:45This was a no-holds-barred fight.
42:48Neither side backed down from it.
42:55The 1973 Arab-Israeli War lasts just 16 days.
43:00But those days are among the bloodiest in the history of armored warfare.
43:05The battlefields are left littered with the hulks of destroyed tanks.
43:10The Israelis lose between 400 and 500.
43:14The two Arab countries, somewhere between 1200 and 2200.
43:20But the real tragedy is in the human cost on both sides.
43:2421,000 dead and tens of thousands more wounded.
43:30Most of my friends, I lost their wars.
43:33They were 19, 20 years old, no more than that.
43:37And I saw them how they fight.
43:40And it's unbelievable.
43:43And I was very proud.
43:48The war ended with disappointment.
43:51But it ended with a solemn promise by Syrians, and to Syrians, and of Syrians, that they will get back the Golan Heights one day.
44:03If the Golan Heights is not returned to Syria, I dare say that there will not be peace in the Middle East.
44:17If we thought we were in the Middle East.
Sé la primera persona en añadir un comentario