“There is no ‘elsewhere’”: Israel’s furious fight to the Suez Canal

It had not, so far, been a vigorous war for the IDF’s Paratroop Battalion 890. 

When the Yom Kippur War broke out on October 6, 1973, the battalion, which in the 1950’s had formed the nucleus of the IDF’s nascent Paratroop Brigade, had been flown to the Gulf of Suez. While desperate battles were fought further north in the Sinai Peninsula, the battalion spent its time hunting down Egyptian commandos.  

That would change on October 16. The battalion was tasked with an ambitious operation across the Gulf of Suez. But before it could be carried out, the men were abruptly transferred further north. They were about to take part in one of the fiercest, most critical battles of the war, whose outcome would turn the tide definitively in Israel’s favor.  

As the war entered its second week, the IDF was ready to go on the offensive. In the north, on the Golan Heights, the Syrians had been pushed back and the IDF was even pursuing them into Syria itself.  

In the south, the massive Egyptian tank force had finally pushed beyond the bridgehead it had established on the east bank of the Suez canal, and out of the protective umbrella of the SAM7 missiles which had been wreaking havoc. They met an IDF tank force that was ready and waiting for them and — after huge losses —  they retreated.  

The IDF was now determined to cross the canal, to force the Egyptians to agree to a ceasefire, and, crucially, to deal with the SAM 7 missile batteries which were preventing the Israel Air Force for attaining air supremacy over the battlefield. And more importantly, a daring IDF crossing would also reassert psychological supremacy after the trauma of the opening days of the war.  

But before the IDF could operate in Egypt proper, it had to get there. Israeli reconnaissance and field intelligence had identified a gap on the east side of the canal, between the Egyptian 2nd and 3rd armies, where the IDF could cross. Bridges would have to be brought to the crossing point, and to get the bridges there, the roads leading to it would have to be cleared.  

Tank forces were assigned the task. They were under no illusions about what lay ahead. According to historian Abraham Rabinovich, one battalion commander, Amram Mitzna (who would retire from the IDF a celebrated, if somewhat controversial, major-general) brought up a radio telephone and ordered his men to call their families. (Mitzna himself left a last letter for his wife — never sent — in which, among other things, he gave her permission to get rid of the family dog.) 

The Israeli tanks found the vital roads to the crossing point choked with Egyptian tanks and infantry armed with rocket-propelled grenades and Saggar anti-tank missiles, which took a terrible toll.  

The IDF plan soon fell badly behind schedule and the clogged roads created a traffic jam, preventing the IDF’s crossing apparatus, a pontoon bridge which had to be assembled, and a giant Israeli-designed, Rube Goldberg-Heath Robinson “roller bridge,” from reaching the canal.  

The apparatus didn't make it. While IDF tanks fought a furious battle to clear a corridor to the canal, a small paratroop battalion paddled across the waterway in dinghies to establish a bridgehead, followed by 28 tanks of the 421st Armored Brigade, ferried across on small rafts.  

However, it was only a small force, and it faced annihilation if the Egyptians realized what was happening. Amazingly, they didn’t, even as a small column of tanks followed Captain Yossi Regev, a diplomat in civilian life, on a marauding drive along the Egyptian side of the canal, destroying Egyptian armor and taking out SAM missile batteries.  

But it was only a matter of time until the Egyptians caught onto the fact that the Israeli force on the west side of the canal was not a small raiding party, but the spearhead of a much larger move. Getting the Israeli armored division onto the Egyptian side of the canal was a matter of urgency, the focus of the entire war.  

Major General Ariel Sharon (the future Israeli Prime Minister), whose division was spearheading the fight to the canal, reported that the Israeli force on the west side of the canal had so far met no opposition, and asked how things were going elsewhere.

It was Defense Minister Moshe Dayan who answered.  

“There is no ‘elsewhere’,” he said.

With the IDF unable to open the route to the canal, and 120 IDF soldiers killed in the attempt, the 890th paratroop battalion was called in, specifically to clear a patch of land abutting the main access route.  

It was actually a Japanese agricultural compound. When captured by the IDF in 1967, the troops, not very well versed in Oriental languages, had assumed the Japanese writing on the machinery to be Chinese, and the compound became known to the Israelis as “Chinese Farm”. It was about to enter into Israeli military legend.    

“We were told that this is the most important task,” says Yitzhak Mordecai, who led the 890th battalion during the war. “If we are able to clear the road from anti-tank squads, the crossing will continue. If we don't do it, the whole crossing operation will stop.” 

The Egyptians had captured the compound on the second day of the war. Knowing how crucial it would prove, they had fortified it, and fortified it well.   

"We were told there are anti-tank squads on the road and we have to eliminate them and reach the Suez Canal,” Mordecai remembers.  

The Israeli force knew about the anti-tank squads, but what they didn't know, because the intelligence never reached them, was that these squads were only part of a massive, and well-armed, division-sized force waiting for them. The Paratroop force went in after midnight, without aerial reconnaissance, without artillery support, and, crucially, fatally, without being fully aware of what awaited them.  

(Lieutenant Colonel Ami Morag, who had earlier led his tanks on a helter-skelter, near-suicidal run along the route, had noticed the masses of Egyptians in the compound. But he was in another division, and no one in the divisional command under which the 890th Battalion was operating aware of what Morag had seen.) 

“The Egyptians were entrenched there for 10 days and fought very hard to make sure our forces could not travel on the roads. At first, we were facing fire from rifles, then from tanks, and then heavy artillery," is Mordecai’s memory as he led his troops in shortly after midnight 

Greatly outnumbered, the 890th paratroop battalion quickly suffered heavy casualties and lost most of its command chain.  

At dawn, after a night of heavy, murderous, fighting, a tank battalion led by Lieutenant Colonel Ehud Barak, was sent in as reinforcement. With seven tanks at their side, the paratroopers prepared to charge. But anti-tank missiles took out five of the seven tanks. The charge never happened, and Egyptian fire, missiles and mortars rained down on the Israeli troops, killing many, keeping the others pinned down.  

Only in the late afternoon were those paratroopers who were still alive rescued by Israeli Armored Personnel Carriers. Mordecai was the last to leave the battlefield. His battalion had been decimated, with 41 killed, more than 100 injured.  

But while the battle was raging, and the Egyptians' attention was focused on the road abutting Chinese farm, Israeli tanks towing pontoon bridges had managed to reach the canal.  

Only on the following day, and as the Egyptians withdrew due to their own heavy losses, was the compound finally taken. The price paid was huge, but the Egyptian forces were kept busy fighting for the Chinse Farm and not looking for the Israeli forces using this time to cross into Egypt. 

The initial reaction of the paratroops was that their battle for Chinese Farm was an unmitigated disaster. But there is also an element of pride in what they did, although that came later. 

"No battle is even close to what I went through at the Chinese Farm. It cost us a very heavy price but it allowed the IDF to continue with the operation to cross the Suez Canal,” is Mordecai’s view today.  

Mordecai himself was decorated with the Medal of Courage, Israel's second-highest military medal, for his actions under fire at the Chinese Farm. That battle remained a very strong memory, even many years later, when Egypt was no longer an enemy but an ally. 

Yitzhak Mordecai retired from the IDF as a major-general. He entered politics, and in 1996 became Defense Minister under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in during his first term in office. During his tenure, Mordecai made an official visit to Egypt where he met his opposite number, General Mohammed Tantawi. Both men looked at aerial photos of the battle, and Tantawi mentioned how the Egyptians, knowing it was a critical fight, were convinced they were going to die.  

Disagreements with Netanyahu saw him fired before he could resign. He challenged him for the premiership in the 1999 elections, but withdrew in favor of his former comrade in arms, current political rival, and fellow Chinese Farm survivor, Ehud Barak.  

Read more stories like this:

• Crossing the Suez: The brigade that did the unthinkable and turned the tide of war >>

• "That year, 1973, Yom Kippur was not silent": A memoir of war >>

• Israeli State Archives invites public to '360-degree story' of the Yom Kippur War >>