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The War of Atonement: the Inside Story of the Yom-Kippur War - Book Review
Youssef Aboul-Enein

by Chaim Herzog, Introduction by Brigadier General Michael Herzog, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 2003, 328 pp., $19.95 (paperback).

When studying the Arab-Israeli Wars, this book and The Arab-Israeli Wars: War and Peace in the Middle East, From the War of Independence Through Lebanon, Knopf Paperback, New York, 1963, by the late Chaim Herzog, are required classics on the subject. The War of Atonement was originally published in 1975, the author conducted numerous interviews from Israeli defense ministry officials down to the unit tank commander offering the clearest details of the tactics employed during the 1973 Yom-Kippur War, known to the Arabs as the Ramadan War. Herzog, who died in 1997, was a member of British forces in World War II before joining the Israeli Defense Forces, rising to become director of military intelligence and then President of Israel.

President Nixon is quoted as saying that the 1973 War was Israel's Pearl Harbor and war colleges throughout the world devote hours to the study of this war. This 2003 paperback edition is published on the eve of the 30th anniversary of this war and should be rediscovered by a variety of military readers. Readers of ARMOR magazine will enjoy the detailed descriptions of tank battles in the Sinai and Golan Heights, as well as the methods used by Arab forces to counter Israel's advantage in rapid mobile armor. Intelligence specialists will find this a valuable lesson in indications and warnings, understanding the elaborate deception plan concocted by the Egyptians and Syrians prior to the start of hostilities.

Herzog begins by arguing that the roots of the 1973 Yom-Kippur War can be found in the lightning success of the 1967 Six-Day War. The Israelis, overcome with the success of the Six-Day War, settled into the belief that Arab forces could not take the initiative. For the first time, Israel began to discuss the options of strategic depth that the capture of the Sinai provided, the West Bank offered 40 miles of depth through the Judean Desert and the Golan Heights offered limited depth, less than 10 miles. The author points out that Israel began to have a more defensive posture building the massive Bar-Lev Line along the Suez Canal with objections raised by General Israel Tal, arguing that the series of towers and logistical fortifications had become sitting targets for Egyptian air and artillery forces. The book details how the Israeli general staff argued about the Bar-Lev Line being a warning or defensive system. This lack of clarity, the book explains, is why Israel's defense leaders would be surprised.

The Egyptians and Syrians began studying the 1967 Six-Day War in detail; the Arabs began their first serious assessment of every Arab-Israeli War and engagement. They understood the speed with which IDF reserves could mobilize to answer Egyptian and Syrian attacks; they designed a plan to give the Israelis little of the 72 hours required for effective mobilization. The Israelis would have less than a 24-hour notice of a planned attack, which began on two fronts (Syrian and Egyptian) on 6 October at 1400 hours local time. The Arab plan also capitalized on the amount of their infantry and equipped them with SAGGER antitank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades to counter Israel's reliance on mobile armor with little to no infantry.

Herzog takes readers first to the critical Syrian Front; due to the proximity of the Syrian border to northern Israeli cities there was no margin for error. The 5th, 7th, and 9th Syrian infantry divisions hugged the entire length of the Golan Heights and were reinforced by the 1st and 3rd Syrian armored divisions. The Israelis focused their defense around Kuneitra and paid no attention to Brigadier General Raful Eytan's warning of the potential for Syria to concentrate its efforts on Kuneitra and the Rafid openings simultaneously. In the opening hours of the war, 60 Israeli tanks faced murderous artillery fire and 600 Syrian main battle tanks. Herzog describes how the Syrian armor order of battle consisted of tank dozers and bridging tanks leading their armored column in formation. The Israeli brigade picked off Syrian armor, yet they still came in formation. The book also discusses stories of individual Israeli tank commanders and gives a firsthand account of several of their personal experiences.

The author admires the methods Egypt and Syria used to find solutions to Israeli military proficiency. Initial Israeli air strikes into Egypt and Syria were met with a forest of surface-to-air missiles. Israel's 7th Brigade realized they had to get out of range from Syrian artillery, regroup, and maneuver around the Syrian 7th Infantry, which was reinforced by the Syrian 3rd Armored Infantry. Maps take readers from the initial Syrian breakout on 6 October to the Israeli counterstrike on 10 October.

On the Egyptian front, soldiers exercised along the Suez so that Israelis became desensitized as to when the real war would break out. Six October looked like a regular day along the Suez Canal, with Egyptian troops swimming and fishing along the canal. The difference came at 1400 hours, when 2,000 cannons, 240 planes, and 3,000 tons of ordnance landed on the 14 Israeli fortifications along the Bar-Lev Line. Herzog estimates 175 shells per second. What seemed like the Egyptians driving their pontoon bridge on the water's edge looked like what they did on a regular basis, except this time the bridges opened and rubber boats were placed in the water. Within hours, over 8,000 Egyptian troops overwhelmed more than 500 Israeli troops manning the Bar-Lev Line.

Eventually, IDF units cornered the Egyptian 3rd Army and were able to push back Syrian tank divisions, opening the road to Damascus. Herzog describes the relationship of Israeli field commanders under the pressures of war. In addition, the book goes into the superpower politics of the United States and the Soviet Union.

The final chapter describes lessons learned by the Israelis, with a focus on the intelligence failure. After the end of the war, the government of Prime Minister Golda Meir collapsed and the Israelis appointed Supreme Court Justice Shmuel Araganat to a commission. Herzog book's on the 1973 Arab-Israeli War is a timeless classic and will be read by many generations trying to understand the tactics and strategy of this war.

The War of Atonement: the Inside Story of the Yom-Kippur War (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAB/is_1_113/ai_112795897/print)