Anyone still have this article?, About how Israel helped set up the SAF

I have the short version (below), but there is suppose to be a much longer version as well (used to be at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/451558.html, but that URL now reports a 404). Should have saved it when I could.

I would greatly appreciate a copy if anyone has one. Thank you!

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Haaretz
Israel
July 15, 2004

By Amnon Barzilai

THE Singaporean army, which is today considered one of the strongest in southeast Asia, was set up by Israel. In December 1965, an Israeli military delegation headed by Major General Ya'akov Elazari arrived in Singapore under a veil of secrecy and started to build the various branches of the armed forces there.

Since then, security ties between the two countries have strengthened, and Singapore is now considered one of the biggest customers for Israeli arms and weapons systems.

Singapore's founding father and first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, asked Israel to help establish his country's army almost immediately after Singapore received independence from Malaysia in August 1965.

He had earlier requested help from India and Egypt, but they turned him down.

The Israeli delegation consisted of six officers who were divided into two teams. One, headed by Elazari, set up the defense and internal security ministries, while the other, headed by Maj Gen Yehuda Golan, established the military infrastructure. They followed the model of the IDF, with a standing army and reserves.

The officers also served as instructors in the Singapore army's first basic training courses and its first course for officers, both commissioned and noncommissioned. The members of the delegation that went to Singapore were trained by the late cabinet minister Rehavam Ze'evi, who wrote the blueprint for Singapore's armed forces.

A team of IDF officers, known as the `Mexicans,' helped Singapore establish an army. It was the start of a very special relationship.

Christmas Eve, 1965, is the unofficial date of the start of the great and continuing love story between Israel and Singapore, a love affair that was kept a deep, dark secret. The international press, like the Israeli media, tried to bring the tale to light. Occasionally, scraps of information leaked out; some were published, some were denied, many were disregarded. The Israelis, as usual, wanted to rush to tell all their friends, but managed to overcome that desire. The fear that the thies would be terminated if they became public knowledge had its effect. Israel imposed a total blackout on the story and the secret was preserved. Until the other side could no longer contain itself.


In his book, "From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965-2000," published in 2000, Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding father and its first prime minister, disclosed the secret that had been kept for almost 40 years: It was the Israel Defense Forces that established the Singaporean army. The Israeli military mission was headed by Yaakov (Jack) Elazari, then a colonel, who was later promoted to brigadier general. After leaving the army, he became a consultant to the Singaporean army. Hedied 15 years ago. "To disguise their presence, we called them `Mexicans.' They looked swarthy enough," Lee wrote.

Singapore's army is today considered the strongest and most advanced of the military forces in Southeast Asia. The alliance between the Israeli and Singaporean defense establishments intensified and expanded, and it now encompasses cooperation between the two countries' military industries, as well. The scope of the deals, according to foreign sources, indicates that the Singaporean army is one of the major clients of Israeli combat means and military technology. Singapore's aircraft industry is cooperating with its Israeli counterpart and with Elbit Systems in upgrading the F-5 warplanes of the Turkish Air Force. A few years ago, Singapore's defense minister revealed that the Gil antitank missile, which is manufactured by Raphael (Israel Armaments Development Authority), was developed in cooperation between the two countries.

Surrounded by Muslims

Lee explained the need to maintain secrecy to his close friend in the leadership, and the first defense minister in his government, Dr. Goh Keng Swee. "We have to ensure, as far as possible, that the arrival of the Israelis will not become public knowledge, in order not to arouse opposition among the Malay Muslims who live in Malaysia and Singapore," the prime minister summed up. That, in essence, is Singapore's problem. The residents of the small island, which has an area of about 670 square kilometers (Israel is 30 times as large), are mainly Chinese, and they live between the two Muslim countries of Malaysia and Indonesia. Life in the shadow of the large Muslim majority and fear of a Malaysian incursion are an integral part of the history of the two countries. Until 1965, Singapore was part of Malaysia. In that year, the British government decided to withdraw from all its colonies east of the Suez Canal. In a rapid process it was decided to sever Singapore from Malaysia and to establish it as a new and separate country.

Singapore declared its independence on August 9, 1965. At the time of its creation, it had only two infantry regiments, which had been established and were commanded by British officers. Two-thirds of the soldiers were not residents of Singapore, and in any event the leaders of the nascent state had no faith in the strength of the minuscule army. The defense minister, Goh, contacted Mordechai Kidron, the former Israeli ambassador to Thailand, and asked for assistance. Kidron arrived in Singapore within days, along with Hezi Carmel of the Mossad. "Goh told us that they think that only Israel, a small country surrounded by Muslim countries, with a strong army, could help them build a small, dynamic army," Carmel says. The two Israelis met with Lee, who writes that he "told Keng Swee to put it on hold until Lal Bahadur Shastri, the prime minister of India, and President Nasser of Egypt replied to my letters seeking their urgent help to build up our armed forces."

It's not clear whether Lee, in fact, believed India and Egypt were capable of, or interested in, building up Singapore's army. Many Israelis believe the two leaders were approached only for appearance's sake. After a few weeks of waiting, India and Egypt congratulated Singapore on its independence but did not offer military aid. Lee ordered Goh to push ahead in contacts with the Israelis.

At the same time, in the wake of reports sent by Kidron and Carmel, the Israeli defense establishment deployed to supply military aid to Singapore. In discussions conducted by the chief of staff, Yitzhak Rabin, with the participation of the deputy chief of staff and head of the Operations Branch, Ezer Weizmann, it was decided to make Major General Rehavam Ze'evi, who was then deputy head of the Operations Branch, responsible for building the Singaporean army. Ze'evi (nicknamed "Gandhi" ) paid a secret visit to Singapore and the preparatory work began on his return. "Gandhi said he wanted to create an ideal army for Singapore, something we hadn't built here," Carmel says. "Instead of setting up a Defense Ministry and a General Staff, Gandhi suggested an integrated organization, a more economical structure. So there wouldn't be too many generals and too few soldiers."

Ze'evi appointed Elazari, who worked under him in the Operations Branch, as head of the team he established. Lieutenant Colonel Yehuda Golan, then-commander of an armored division (he retired from the IDF with the rank of brigadier general), was subsequently added to the team. Some members of the team "concentrated on writing the chapters that dealt with building army bases. I wrote the chapters dealing with the establishment of an infantry," Golan says. Initially they produced the "Brown Book," dealing with combat doctrine, followed by the "Blue Book," dealing with the creation of the Defense Ministry and intelligence bodies. The Brown Book was translated into English and sent to Singapore's government for its perusal. In October 1965, a military delegation from Singapore arrived in Israel.

"The delegation arrived in order to tell us: `Well done, but to implement the book, you are invited to come to Singapore,'" Golan recalls. Prior to setting out, the members of the military mission were invited to the chief of staff's bureau. "Dear friends," Rabin said, "I want you to remember several things. One, we are not going to turn Singapore into an Israeli colony. Your task is to teach them the military profession, to put them on their legs so they can run their own army. Your success will be if at a certain stage they will be able to take the wheel and run the army by themselves. Second, you are not going there in order to command them but to advise them. And third, you are not arms merchants. When you recommend items to procure, use the purest professional military judgment. I want total disregard of their decision as to whether to buy here or elsewhere."

Wake-up at 5:30

On December 24, 1965, about five months after Singapore became an independent state, six IDF officers and their families set out on an unknown mission. "Elazari and two other officers dealt with the establishment of the Defense Ministry," Golan relates. "My task, along with three other officers, was to establish the army."

Elazari operated according to a number of basic principles, from which the original Israeli team and those who followed did not deviate. The first was to build up a cadre of local commanders and instructors. The second was that the instructional material would be written by the cadets who would be trained as officers. And the third was that practical training would be conducted by Singaporean instructors.

"We wanted to recruit a group of 40-50 people who had some sort of military experience and would be ready to serve in a career army," Golan explains. "We organized things so that they would appoint one of their number to serve as commander. As head of the group, the cadets chose someone of Indian origin named Kirpa Ram Vij, who would eventually become chief of staff of the Singapore Armed Forces. For three months we gave an intensified officers course."

The first course had an IDF format: wake-up at 5:30 A.M., calisthenics, personal arrangements, parade. Training began at 7:30 A.M. and went until 1 A.M. "After a few days of training a group of cadets showed up and said, `Colonel Golan, the Arabs aren't sitting on our heads here. What do we need this madness for?' I called Elazari and explained the situation. He arrived a few days later with Defense Minister Dr. Goh, who told the cadets, `Do what Colonel Golan tells you to do, otherwise you will do double.'"

Parallel to conducting the course, the Israeli team supervised the establishment of the first military base, based on plans of the Israeli Engineering Corps. Construction of the base was completed in three months.

In under a year, the Israeli team conducted a course for new recruits, a platoon commanders course and an officers course, on the basis of plans that were sent from Israel. All told, about 200 commanders were trained.

Jobless instead of soldiers

Once the staff of commanders was ready, it was possible to start creating the standing army on the basis of conscription. The Israelis prepared to establish two more infantry regiments, according to the IDF model, with each regiment consisting of three companies of riflemen, an auxiliary company and an administrative company - a total of 600 soldiers. Lieutenant Colonel Moshe Shefi, who was an instructor in a company commanders course, was sent as an adviser. "We discovered that there was psychological resistance to conscription in Singapore," he relates. "Of 10 professions, that of soldier was ranked last. In first place was the artist, followed by the philosopher, the teacher and the merchant, and the thief was in ninth place. Soldiering was considered a contemptible profession. In Singapore, conscription was considered a means to overcome unemployment."

The Israelis faced a problem. To evade service, most of the young men of draft age (18-24) who were of Chinese origin furnished proof that they were employed. Some 70 percent of the inductees were unemployed and of Malaysian origin - the opposite of their proportion within the population. Elazari and Golan complained to Lee and Goh, but the prime minister was undeterred. "I want you to recruit the most primitive people in the country, the uneducated and the jobless," he told them. Stunned, the Israelis tried to persuade him to reconsider, but he was adamant: "In the Second World War, I saw the Japanese and the British. All the British soldiers were intelligent and educated. But as soldiers they were worthless. The most primitive Japanese soldier gets an order and executes it, and they were extraordinary soldiers. The fact is that the Japanese army defeated the British army."

Golan says, "Yaakov and I tried to explain to him that it's not a question of education but of motivation. The Japanese soldier was motivated because he was fighting for his emperor, who for him was God. For him, he was ready to sacrifice his life. What motivation did the British soldier have, who fought thousands of kilometers from his home?" The explanations about the spirit of combat and about how to generate motivation persuaded Lee.

Along with the two tracks of compulsory service and career army, Singapore also adopted the IDF's model of reserve service. Every soldier who completed his regular service was obligated to serve another 13 years, until the age of 33. A system to mobilize the reserves was established and the Defense Ministry carried out surprise call-up exercises. Because of its small size and its lack of areas for live-fire training, Singapore had to establish training bases in friendly neighboring countries.

Surprise tanks

The unquiet in Singapore, and above all the fear of an invasion by Malay forces, together with the rapid development of the Singaporean army, generated additional needs. With the creation of the infantry, the Israeli team made an in-depth study of the battles fought by the Japanese in Southeast Asia during World War II and of how they succeeded in invading Malaysia and Singapore. Shefi was given the task of delivering a talk on the subject to Singapore's government.

On the basis of the lessons the Israelis drew from the engagements fought by Japan and Britain, they created a naval force based on sampans. "The boats were made of wood and could carry 10 to 15 soldiers, and they were appropriate for the conditions of the sea and for the jungle rivers," Golan says. "On a stormy sea they can be operated with oars or a motor. We asked the Singaporeans to purchase 20 boats and we set up a small base where infantry companies trained in raids and navigation."

Retired Colonel Asher Dar says, "The second team that arrived in Singapore applied what Yehuda Golan did in the form of combat doctrine. We trained in flanking maneuvers with small boats and in live fire using artillery. When the head of the training department, Yitzhak Hofi, visited Singapore, we carried out a model landing of an infantry brigade that set sail in boats at night at a distance of 12 kilometers with the aid of shore navigation only."

The waiting period in Israel on the eve of the 1967 Six-Day War was a rough time for the Israeli team in Singapore. "We were relieved the Israelis were not defeated or our SAF [Singapore Armed Forces] would have lost confidence" in the Israeli instructors, Lee writes. In January 1968, Singapore decided to create an armored corps. In great secrecy, an agreement was signed for the purchase of 72 AMX-13 light tanks from IDF surplus. It was a bold decision: Malaysia, the country's large neighbor, didn't have tanks.

On Independence Day, August 9, 1969, a major surprise awaited the invited guests, including the defense minister of Malaysia: 30 tanks rolled past the reviewing stand. "It had a dramatic effect," Lee writes. Malaysia had cause for concern. Its defense minister recommended to his guests that they take steps to persuade the Malaysian government that its intentions were not hostile.

In the wake of the Israeli victory in 1967, the veil of secrecy over the ties between the two countries was lifted a bit. The Singapore delegate at the United Nations abstained in a vote on a resolution condemning Israel that was sponsored by the Arab states. Contacts began to establish full diplomatic relations. In October 1968, Lee permitted Israel to establish a trade mission and in May 1969 authorization was given for the establishment of an Israeli embassy in Singapore. The status of the Israeli military mission to Singapore was also strengthened, and the mission heads who followed held brigadier general rank. The first Israeli military delegation laid the foundations for an extensive network of relations between Israel and Singapore.

Foundations of the air force

The small Israeli team in Singapore was augmented by professional military advisers for the various corps. The chief armored corps officer, Major General Avraham Adan, arrived to give advice on procuring armored vehicles. In 1968, Adam Tzivoni, a retired colonel who had been head of the planning and weapons branch in the air force, was appointed adviser to the Singapore Armed Forces in regard to the creation of an air force.

"As compensation for the hasty departure of the British army, the British government gave Singapore a grant of 50 million pounds to acquire British-made aerial systems: planes, helicopters and surface-to-air missiles," Tzivoni relates. "The British didn't like me at all. My first task was to approve the deals. It turned out that the English tried to sell Singapore junk. Apart from a deal for Hunters, I vetoed all the deals."

Under Tzivoni's supervision, a flight school was established in Singapore, as well as a technical school, a squadron of Alouette 3 helicopters was purchased and 40 mm anti-aircraft guns were acquired.

Uzis and Israeli marching songs

After the creation of the Singaporean army's infantry regiments, the question arose of what weapons the nascent armed forces would use. The commanding officers wanted the Uzi, the Israeli submachine gun. The Israeli team took an objective view and rejected the idea. True, the Uzi was considered a superb weapon in the 1960s, but only for short ranges. A regular army needs an assault rifle, the Israeli team asserted. Representatives of Israel Military Industries exerted pressure on the Defense Ministry to sell the new Galil assault rifle. However, the team decided that the rifle wasn't yet full ready and recommended the American M-16.

Another major headache for the Israelis concerned the decision about which mortars to procure for the new army. Infantry regiments are equipped with 60 - 52 mm and 18 mm mortars. The weapons, which were developed and manufactured by the Soltam company, based in the town of Yokne'am, were sold to the Israel Defense Forces and exported worldwide. "Even though we thought these were the best mortars, we decided not to recommend them but to make use of an independent source in order to reach a decision," says Yehuda Golan, a member of the team sent to Singapore.

The Israeli team asked a British firm that dealt in organization and consultation on military subjects to examine a series of mortars and recommend the best one. The report stated that the best of the lot was an 18 mm mortar manufactured in Britain. However, considering the price, the recommendation was to buy the Soltam product. The Singapore Armed Forces acquired the Israeli mortar.

"The Israelis emphasized military skills and high motivation. Smartness on parade and military tattoo, the SAF [Singapore Armed Forces] never learned from the `Mexicans.' Whatever smartness the SAF had" derived from the British officers who commanded the army's first two regiments, Lee writes.

"Our motto was that we would not stick our nose into what the Singaporeans could do themselves," Golan notes. "They wanted us to organize the Independence Day parade for them. We argued that a state military parade reflects the country's mentality and its history." The Singaporeans didn't make an issue of it. However, they had a problem that demanded an immediate solution - which marches to play as the soldiers marched in unison. The head of the Israeli mission, Yaakov Elazari, brought notes from Israel and the Singapore army strode to Israeli marching songs.

The jungle combat manual

The Singaporeans took the Israelis by surprise when they insisted on getting a course on jungle combat. Singapore has a tiny natural jungle of no more than five or six square kilometers, but the neighboring states have larger jungles. Yehuda Golan: "I told them they were right but that I wasn't the right guy, because I knew nothing about jungles." Nevertheless, the Israeli team began to find out how to cope with the subject. It was decided to send two Singapore officers as guests of the Malaysian army for a course on jungle combat.

"Three months later, the two officers returned with the knowledge they acquired in Malaysia, and we decided to conduct a course in jungle combat," Golan continues. "Out of curiosity, I decided to join. It looked very bad - it was clear that they had taught them British methods from the Second World War period. I decided to take a group of 10 officers. We entered the jungle and started to engage in war games. We trained in navigation, deploying forces, search and assault. We went through the American training manuals on combat in Vietnam. We developed methods of night navigation. We learned how to function with a fighting company in the dense undergrowth. After a few weeks of training, I wrote the training manual of the Singapore Armed Forces for jungle combat."

I hope I found the correct article for you.

Thank you so much! This is exactly that Haaretz (July 15, 2004) article that I was looking for.

I have posted this quite sometime ago including one small picture, here the link to the thread :

http://militarynuts.com/index.php?showtopic=85

Clear to all that SAF started with Israel help. For a long time after that SAF depended on them for advice and consultancy.......

However we seem to have outgrown their influence and gone our own IFV way for example.

For some reasons, I think we are tracking US more.

Are the Israelis no longer willing to share?

This post has been edited by LaoTiKo on Feb 17 2005, 03:52 PM

Yes you did. Amazingly, I even have a reply in that thread. Another reason why military nuts needs to be more searchable... I should have just looked through the earlier posts rather than go googling.

The board's search function was disable by the server admins. There is nothing we can do about it. The seach engines did not index the site very well. Google index 1 page, msn index 8 pages and yahoo only 2 pages. It may take a long time for them to fully index. So in the mean time, either we wait for the search engines to index fully or wait for the admins to enable back search which is more desirable.

I think you are wrong that IDF is giving up in in using IFV, in fact that they are now looking for new IFV.

But their requirement is more of higher armoured IFV , IDF has always emphasis on protection.

At the end of the day, do you want well armoured IFV but heavier and less tactically mobile IFV or do you want a compromise between protection and mobility?

BTW, more armoured mean higher cost.

This post has been edited by gary1910 on Feb 18 2005, 02:09 AM

Here is another Haaretz article


w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Last update - 13:19 10/03/2005
The destroyer's last secret
Just hours before the Israel Navy destroyer Eilat was sunk by Egyptian missiles in October 1967, Military Intelligence picked up reports indicating Egypt's intention to carry out a maritime attack. Why didn't the reports reach Yitzhak Shoshan, the commander of the Eilat, in time to save his ship and his men?
By Yossi Melman

This is the last battle of Commander (res.) Yitzhak Shoshan. Shoshan, whose rank is the equivalent of a lieutenant colonel in the ground forces, was the commanding officer on the Israel Navy destroyer Eilat when it was sunk off the coast of Port Said, Egypt, in October 1967. Almost 38 years later, he has still not left the trauma behind. The anguish of the bereaved families continue to oppress his conscience. A relentless inner voice urges him repeatedly not to give up: to keep on investigating until the truth is revealed. Twelve years ago, he published a book, "The Last Battle of the Destroyer Eilat," but still the wound refuses to heal. Now, at the age of 75, he has decided to make public the last and greatest secret remaining from the affair: the story of the intelligence failure that preceded the sinking, and the ongoing efforts of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), to this day, to hide the secret.

Shoshan was wounded in the attack, in which 47 of the destroyer's men were killed and about 100 wounded. In the years since then he tried to expose the intelligence blunder, but encountered impassable obstacles. A few years ago, when he obtained concrete evidence, he pondered the matter long and hard and finally decided not to make it public, for fear of the impact on the bereaved families.

"I didn't want the families to understand that the tragedy could have been averted. I was afraid that they would feel their sons had died in vain," he says angrily. Now, however, with only one bereaved father still alive, he has decided to act. "I believe with all my heart that if the intelligence information that was in the hands of Military Intelligence before the attack had been transmitted to me, the disaster could have been prevented," he says.

Shoshan imputes responsibility for the blunder to the IDF's central listening unit, which is under the responsibility of Military Intelligence (MI) and is known today as Unit 8200, though at the time it was called Unit 515; and to David Leviatan, who was then an officer with the rank of captain in the unit. A few years ago, Shoshan tracked Leviatan down and tried to talk to him. Leviatan refused, saying he did not have the authorization of the director of MI to talk about the episode. Leviatan told Haaretz the same thing last week: "I am unable to talk about subjects which at the time were top secret, because I signed a confidentiality declaration," he said in his initial reaction. "I will do so only if I receive a written directive from the director of MI."

Haaretz, through the IDF Spokesperson's Office, asked the director of MI, Major General Aharon Farkash Ze'evi, a former commander of Unit 8200 himself, to permit the perusal of documents related to the sinking of the Eilat and to state that he has no objections to Leviatan talking about the case and making clear his position. The request was turned down.

The Eilat was a British-made destroyer. It was built in 1942 and launched in 1944, and took part in battles during World War II when it escorted supply convoys in the arctic. In 1955 the British government agreed to sell Israel, secretly, two destroyers of the same class. One was the Eilat, the other, Yaffo (Jaffa). The price of each was 35,000 pounds. The destroyers were overhauled and adapted for Israeli use in British shipyards and were placed in operational service in the Israel Navy. Shortly after the Eilat reached Haifa port, the destroyer saw action in the Sinai campaign, in the battle to capture the Egyptian destroyer Ibrahim al-Awal, whose name was afterward changed to Haifa. Eilat's logbook also recorded a 1959 voyage to Cyprus to assist victims of an earthquake there and take part in the shooting of the film "Exodus," starring Paul Newman.

In the 1967 Six-Day War, the Israel Navy, under the command of Rear Admiral Shlomo Erel, was meager in the extreme; it failed in every mission assigned to it. Fighters of the Naval Commando (Shayetet 13) and other naval forces sent to attack three ports in Syria failed to execute their missions. Another naval command force succeeded in infiltrating the harbor of Port Said but was unable to locate its designated targets. Yet another raid by the Naval Commando unit, this time in the harbor of Alexandria, ended in abject failure, with six of the commandos taken prisoner. The navy's only achievement in the war - and it, too, was a dubious one - was when a force of three torpedo boats under the command of Avraham (Cheeta) Botzer, the navy's deputy commander, sailed from Eilat via the Straits of Tiran and seized control of Sharm el-Sheikh, in southern Sinai, without a battle. After the conquest of Sinai in the war, with hundreds of kilometers of additional shoreline under Israeli control, the navy's missions were expanded. However, it had few vessels at its disposal: three submarines, three destroyers and three torpedo boats.

The Eilat was assigned to patrol opposite the shores of Northern Sinai, along a route that began at the port of Ashdod, continued opposite El Arish and ended at Port Said at the entrance to the Suez Canal. "The mission," Shoshan says, "was totally superfluous. It was intended to demonstrate presence, to show who was the boss." Shlomo Erel, a longtime opponent of Shoshan, believes the mission was important, being intended, among other goals, to block penetrations by Egyptian vessels into the area controlled by Israel and to prevent infiltrations by Egyptian intelligence personnel and smugglers.

In the `Bathtub Corps'

Shoshan was born Yitzhak Blatt in 1930 in Belgium to parents of Polish origin. Together with his parents, he survived the Holocaust. His parents joined the anti-fascist underground and he was sent to a boarding school for children of prisoners in Belgium. After the war he joined the Zionist youth movement Gordonia and in 1946 sailed for Palestine on a ship carrying illegal immigrants that was intercepted by the Royal Navy. He was released after a month's detention at Atlit camp and joined the group that founded Kibbutz Ramat David, afterward moving to a labor group in Hadera. He volunteered for the naval unit of the Palmach (pre-state commandos) and then became one of the first to join the fledgling Israel Navy, graduating from its second officers' course. In 1950 he was sent, along with forty other soldiers, to study at the French naval academy. It was then that his name was Hebraicized to Shoshan ("lily"), by an escort officer who did not bother asking for his consent.

After returning from France, in 1953, Yitzhak Shoshan served for 13 years in command, staff and training posts in the navy. His expertise lay in "DNC" - detection, navigation and communication - and in 1961 he was appointed head of the DNC section in the navy. In this period the Soviet Union sold Egypt rapid missile boats of the Kumar and Ossa class, equipped with Styx missiles, which had a range of 40 kilometers. The navy planned to acquire missile boats of its own, hoping they would be based on the German Jaguar class and built in German shipyards. (However, when the plan was reported in the international media, Germany retracted its agreement. Israel was forced to order the boats from France, which afterward also refused to hand them over, and they were smuggled to Israel in 1968 in the so-called "Cherbourg boats operation.")

In the meantime, in order to reduce the quality gap in the maritime sector, the navy sought solutions in the sphere of electronic warfare and tried to develop electronic means of obstruction that would deflect enemy missiles from their course. Responsibility for developing the methods was assigned to the DNC section, and thus Shoshan met Captain Tzemach Herut, an electronics engineer, who was loaned to the team that was developing the Gabriel sea-to-sea missile.

Shoshan and Herut, who would later be awarded several prizes for his contribution to Israeli security, tried to interest the navy and the General Staff in ideas for the development of electronic warfare measures. They proposed the development of an illumination rocket that would be launched from the vessel and spread chaff in the air to attract the missile. Thus, instead of homing in on the boat, the enemy missile would pursue the rocket. Shoshan drew the idea from a professional journal which described how the Allies had used similar measures in World War II. However, the two were unable to persuade their superiors to proceed with the idea. The small, under-equipped navy and the General Staff viewed them as dreamers. It was not until some years later that two systems of electronic warfare, called Amnon and Avshalom (Absalom) were developed, which contributed greatly to the navy's success in sinking Syrian and Egyptian missile boats in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

The only success enjoyed by Shoshan and Herut at that time was the development of a system known as Bat Kol, a receiver designed to identify radar emissions of enemy vessels and missiles and to provide information and data about their direction. This system was installed in the Eilat.

In July of 1966, Shoshan was appointed commanding officer of the Eilat, which had a crew of between 150 and 200. In the Six-Day War the destroyer patrolled the Israeli coastline, from Rosh Hanikra in the north to Bat Yam in the center. Shoshan described his sense of frustration in his book: "The navy has been in existence for 19 years, 19 years in which we readied ourselves for the test - and when it comes we do nothing." The general contempt for the navy's perceived impotence was summed up in the derogatory term "Bathtub Corps," which was often heard in the IDF and among the public.

The Egyptians seek revenge

The navy was eager to enhance its image, share in the glory of victory and be part of the euphoria that seized the country after the Six-Day War. A month after the war, at about midnight on July 11, 1967, during a patrol off the coast of Northern Sinai, the Eilat (along with two torpedo boats) was involved in a serious and controversial incident. The Israeli force identified an Egyptian naval force that was cruising in international waters and sank two Egyptian torpedo boats. There were no survivors. With this act, Israel violated the cease-fire. Shoshan says in his book that toward the end of June, Rear Admiral Erel had issued two different mission orders. The written order stated innocently that the Eilat and two torpedo boats were to patrol along the boundary of the sovereign waters near Port Said. But in an oral briefing, Erel had given an order to destroy every vessel found near the port city.

In his book, and in an interview with Haaretz, Shoshan states that Erel made it clear that "the purpose of the operation was to raise the morale of the navy's sailors and officers." According to Shoshan, "From the way the order was given, it appears to have been a private initiative of the navy commander." Shlomo Erel says in reaction that he issued "no order to destroy vessels. On the contrary, the order was to break off contact. Shoshan was simply gung-ho." At the same time, Erel admitted in a 1998 book he published, "Even though the event raised the spirit of the navy - a feeling that also affected me to some extent - I had mixed feelings. It was an easy victory which, like the victory over the destroyer `Ibrahim al-Awal' in the Sinai War, did not justify excessive boasting."

Immediately after the incident, Erel sent Shoshan a congratulatory cable. "Good work," he wrote. When the Eilat returned to Ashdod, Erel asked Shoshan to describe the event in a press conference as though it occurred on a "routine patrol" and to hide the fact that it had been an ambush planned to the last detail. The chief of staff, Yitzhak Rabin, was surprised at the incident, while the defense minister, Moshe Dayan, asked no questions but requested only that his congratulations be conveyed to the victorious force. Despite the many puzzling aspects of the event, the different versions and the contradictory orders, neither the navy nor the General Staff established commissions to investigate it.

The incident off the Northern Sinai coast - with its preparations, contradictory orders and absence of a proper debriefing or drawing of lessons - was an omen. It should have been clear to every sensible person that the Egyptians would seek revenge. But the feeling of achievement heightened complacency in the navy. The navy's command level, displaying conceptual atrophy, ordered its large, ponderous destroyers to continue patrolling along the coast, instead of assigning the mission to the small, agile torpedo boats.

Cables? What cables?

On Saturday, October 12, 1967, the Eilat, on routine patrol, was ambushed by Egyptian missile boats. The day before the destroyer left port, Shoshan was told by the deputy commander of the navy, Avraham Botzer, that according to intelligence reports the Egyptians had discovered the patrols and knew about the presence of the Israeli destroyer "under their noses" at the edge of their territorial waters. At 7 P.M., Shoshan wrote in his book, "visibility was still excellent. The houses of Port Said could be clearly seen on the horizon. We stood there, gazing at the sea, wanting to absorb the beauty and calm of the scene, when suddenly there was a report of a rocket from the direction of Port Said." The observer on the deck of the Eilat apparently did not understand what he was looking at. It was not a rocket, it was a Styx missile, the first of four that slammed into the destroyer. The Eilat's gunners managed to fire at it, but it was too late. "I stood there transfixed, watching the missile," Shoshan wrote.

Of the 200 crew members and cadets aboard, 47 were killed and 100 wounded, including Shoshan. Some of the victims died because the rescue operation mounted by the navy and the air force was so slow. The casualties were evacuated to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva.

Two examining officers were appointed to investigate the disaster. The navy's internal investigation, led by Commander Hadar Kimhi (afterward the commander-in-chief of the navy), who was appointed by Erel, was intended to examine the functioning of the Bat Kol radar detection system and its activation by the crew. According to Erel, the investigation found, on the basis of testimonies by the system's operators on the destroyer, that signals were discovered "which should have acted as an alert. But Shoshan took no interest in the system."

Shoshan, in contrast, says that Kimhi noted explicitly in the report that he had absolutely no understanding of electronics. "It was a sloppily written report, and I learned from the navy's history branch that Kimhi did not even talk to two of the three operators." Nor was Shoshan himself interrogated by Kimhi. "If he had questioned me," Shoshan says, "I would have told him that during every hour of the patrol we received and recorded dozens of different radar emissions. I personally spent many hours in the Bat Kol chamber in an attempt to identify, with the help of the intelligence identification booklet, the type of radar in question and the type of vessel on which the radar was installed."

Shoshan learned about the existence of the report 20 years late, after its contents were leaked to Haaretz in 1987. Erel reveals that in the second half of the 1980s, when he was comptroller of the defense establishment, he conveyed the original report to the chief of staff, Lieutenant General Dan Shomron. "I told him that I didn't want the report to go down into the grave with me without anyone knowing about it."

It was also from an old newspaper clipping that Shoshan learned about the second - and more important - report. Not until the end of 1968, after Botzer had succeeded Erel as commander-in-chief of the navy, did he allow Shoshan to read the report compiled by Major General Haim Bar-Lev, the deputy chief of staff. Shoshan believes that Bar-Lev's report is also superficial. He himself was not asked to testify. Bar-Lev made do with a brief visit to his bedside in the hospital, when Shoshan was in a daze from the morphine he was being given to ease the pain caused by a fractured spine.

The interesting part of Bar-Lev's report is about the serious intelligence blunder. The IDF, and especially MI, continue to try to hide that failure to this day. That is apparently why the director of MI and the Information Security Department (formerly Field Security) refuse to allow Haaretz to see the report and accompanying documents. That is also the consideration behind their refusal to allow former MI officers, notably David Leviatan, to be interviewed for this article.

Shoshan says that as early as the day after the attack, when he was hospitalized in the Orthopedic Department at Soroka, he felt that something was being kept from him. "I awoke to the sound of the military boots of a number of people," he relates. "I stretched my head and saw three figures standing by my bed." One of them was Major General Yeshayahu Gavish, the chief of Southern Command. "`Tell me,' he said, `didn't you get the two cables that were picked up yesterday from Port Said?' What cables, I asked, surprised." When they saw the look of amazement on the face of the commanding officer of the Eilat, Gavish and his escorts realized they had said something they should have kept to themselves. An embarrassing silence ensued, and they immediately changed the subject.

Seven bits of information

Since then Shoshan has waged a battle to uncover the essence of the intelligence foul-up. He was helped by Tzemach Herut, who suggested that he meet with Yoel Ben Porat, who at the time of the Eilat incident was head of Deciphering Intelligence in Unit 515 and was commander of the unit in the Yom Kippur War. Unit 515 was a small outfit compared to the large and prestigious Unit 8200 of today. It had two main sections: Sigint (signal intelligence), which tried to pick up messages of enemy armies, and Deciphering Intelligence, whose personnel had the task of trying to understand what was being said in the messages. If they failed, the message was sent for more thorough deciphering. Shoshan was assisted in his investigation by a number of soldiers in Unit 515 whose conscience bothered them. A few years ago, one of them waited for him in the cemetery after the memorial ceremony for those who died in the Eilat incident. He told Shoshan, "It is an open secret in the unit that there was great negligence - vital intelligence information that was picked up was not transmitted to the navy."

Later on, Shoshan received two telephone calls from soldiers who told him more or less the same version. Shoshan added one piece of information to the next and the result now makes it possible for him to grasp the dimensions of the blunder. His inquiry, together with an inquiry carried out by Haaretz, turns up the following picture:

On the day the destroyer was sunk, MI succeeded in acquiring two pieces of information that in retrospect indicated clearly that the Egyptians intended to carry out a maritime operation against Israel. One report disclosed that a state of alert had been declared in the artillery units on the Egyptian coast near Port Said, while the other indicated that an Egyptian helicopter had discovered the Eilat. However, the two most important items arrived between two and three hours before the missiles were launched. One was an order stating that firing from the harbor of Port Said was prohibited, but that authorization existed for firing outside the port. The second item was a directive declaring a high alert in all the Egyptian naval forces in the Port Said sector.

In his inquiry, Bar-Lev discovered that there was a breakdown of communications between Unit 515 and Department Yam-4, naval intelligence. The personnel from Unit 515 told the Bar-Lev commission that the secure teleprinter that connected them to naval intelligence had broken down and therefore they could not transmit the information. However, they insisted that they had made the information known by telephone to the duty officer of naval intelligence. The latter claimed that the information did not reach him. Bar-Lev was unable to decide between the two versions. As a compromise and way out, he stated that he could not say for certain, but that he had been impressed by the credibility of the naval officer and therefore he recommended that that the MI officers be placed on disciplinary trial for not ascertaining that the information in fact reached its destination.

Rashomon in Unit 515

The officer who faced a disciplinary hearing was David Leviatan.

Born in 1944 and raised in Ramat Gan, Leviatan acquired his knowledge of Arabic at home and expanded it by taking the Middle Eastern track in high school. Prof. Itamar Rabinovich, a former ambassador to the United States and current president of Tel Aviv University, was in Leviatan's graduating class. In 1963, Leviatan was drafted in the officer candidate academic studies program and sent to the Middle Eastern Studies Department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In addition to Rabinovich, who served in the research division of MI, another schoolmate and army mate was Brigadier General (res.) Ephraim Lapid, who like Leviatan was an Intelligence Network officer. Lapid subsequently served as chief of Sigint, head of the collection department in MI, IDF spokesperson and commander of Army Radio.

At the time of the Eilat sinking, Lapid was head of the reporting section at Unit 515. He, too, like Leviatan, refused to comment on the intelligence failure. His section at the time consisted of five officers in compulsory service whose task was to transmit the information that was picked up and deciphered by the unit to the "consumers" - IDF units and the other intelligence agencies (the Mossad, Shin Bet and Nativ). The reporting unit was known as "Shofar" ("trumpet") in the unit. Because of the small number of officers in Shofar, the section was beefed up with professional officers from other departments in the unit. Thus it happened that on Saturday, October 12, 1967, Captain Leviatan was the duty officer in Shofar.

There are several accounts of what happened to the information, and there is no way of deciding which is correct. "It's a kind of Rashomon," says a former officer in the unit. One version, the one that was given to Bar-Lev, is that the Shofar personnel transmitted the information to Navy intelligence in a telephone conversation. Navy intelligence maintains that it did not receive any such information. Shoshan heard from his sources in Unit 515 that Leviatan spent part of the time in his room on the base and not in the office where the cables piled up.

Shlomo Erel, the navy's commander at the time, heard that the information was not transmitted because the responsible officers in Unit 515 "went to eat." Another version, which is based on interviews conducted by Haaretz with former officers in the unit, is that the cable with the information simply fell on the floor and Leviatan didn't know of its existence. Yet another explanation, which is also being talked about in Unit 515, is that the message that was intercepted was transmitted in Egyptian code and it had been deciphered badly, so that it was impossible to send a written cable to naval intelligence - the information had to be conveyed in the famous telephone call, which may or may not have taken place.

Be that as it may, Leviatan was hauled before a disciplinary court and given a reprimand, along with several other officers who were deemed to have been negligent in other matters, not necessarily related to the Eilat episode. "One day," Shlomo Erel related, "after a meeting of the General Staff, the director of MI, Ahrele [Aharon] Yariv, came over to me with a document and told me in the corridor, `The table is clean.'"

What did he mean?

"He explained to me that officers in MI had been put on trial."

Didn't you ask for more details?

"No. There was a different atmosphere in those days. I was not even aware that they were looking for people scapegoats. And I myself did not want to look for people to blame, either. As navy commander in the Six-Day War and afterward, I really had to hold onto the navy tooth and nail for it to continue to exist."

People who knew Leviatan say he was considered a good officer. "He was just unlucky," says an officer who served with him. "There was no problem of receiving the report or in understanding it, as sometimes happens with intelligence information. The report simply slipped off the table. But there are mitigating circumstances. After the war, there was a general sense of euphoria in the IDF. The navy was not part of the IDF's priorities. It was considered a junior, unimportant corps. The unit didn't even know that the Eilat was patrolling close to the Egyptian coast."

Shortly after Bar-Lev submitted his recommendation, Leviatan left the army. In 1971 he joined Tel Aviv University. He was a section head in the personnel department, became head of the department in 1974, and in 1981 was appointed director general of the university. He left a few years later for private business, in which he works as an economic consultant. "The Eilat affair speeded up his resignation from the IDF," says an acquaintance, "and I know that he has been tormented by it ever since, and that he took it very hard."

After his initial refusal to comment, David Leviatan changed his mind and agreed to explain his position in brief: "I personally transmitted the report to navy intelligence and I also recorded it in the activity log. In my opinion there was no intelligence failure."

Why were you tried, then?

"I was not tried in connection with reporting the information but in another connection relating to the subject of the Eilat, which I don't want to talk about. In general it can be said that there were a few guys, including me, who had to take the rap."

What do you mean?

"The Bar-Lev report, which by the way I have not read - and anyway, Bar-Lev did not take testimony from me - stated that someone had to be punished. That is what I mean."

Avraham Botzer sums up: "There was a series of hitches, including an intelligence botch. But above all, the ship should not have been where it was. Everyone - the General Staff, which ordered the patrol, and the entire senior command of the navy, myself included - could have objected and got the order retracted."

Because of nonsense

Yitzhak Shoshan says he feels a certain sense of relief now, after disclosing the last secret that oppressed him, and that he still hopes to see the full truth made public during his lifetime. "I would like the officer himself to speak the truth. But I have no expectations from him. After all, he refused to talk to me. My expectations are directed at people of conscience who know what happened. Let them tell the truth. Forty-seven fighters were killed. Because of folly. There was a great deal of folly. But the intelligence failure was the greatest folly of all. What still eats me up is the fact that in the IDF there is an entire unit that knows the truth and is keeping silent. That silence attests to a worrisome norm. Only when the whole truth is revealed will I feel true relief."