command post in the Sinai, part of the intelligence base our military engineers had built after the war into a 2,400-feet-high mountain called Gebel Um-Hashiba, 20 miles back from the Suez Canal. When I radioed in to tell him I’d decided to abandon the operation, I could hear the surprise in his voice, and w

vision near the canal; and Chaim Bar-Lev, the former chief-of-staff whom Golda had called back into emergency service. I even knew the bunker. It was Um-Hashiba, the command and intelligence post from which we had run Sayeret Matkal operations into Egypt after 1967. So during the last, decisive 10 days of th

ht actually have been strong enough: parachutists, tanks, artillery. I felt I knew at least part of the answer from the two nights I had spent in the Um-Hashiba command post before joining Bren’s division. By dawn on October 16, the first of Arik’s men had crossed the canal. By the afternoon, although the big

command post in the Sinai, part of the intelligence base our military engineers had built after the war into a 2,400-feet-high mountain called Gebel Um-Hashiba, 20 miles back from the Suez Canal. When I radioed in to tell him I'd decided to abandon the operation, I could hear the surprise in his voice, and w