Raid on the Sun(72)

No one dared ask him what had happened. If he wanted to tell them someday, he would. As the pilots turned toward the runway, Raz smiled grimly to himself and shook his head.

“He was punished!” he thought. “He went over everyone’s head, and he was punished!”

Nachumi was extremely upset by Spector’s obvious pain. By pulling in so close to the first four planes, had he taken attention away from his wingman at the most critical part of the bombing, when acquiring the target? The thought would haunt him for the next twenty years.

The squadron made ready to leave. The long day was not over yet. They still had to return to Ramat David and then fly in small planes to Tel Aviv to meet with the command and support teams who had gathered to congratulate the pilots and hear firsthand the details of the mission. Out in the maintenance bays the crew chiefs were busy refueling and cleaning the F-16s for the return flight north. The maintenance techs had found nothing wrong with either Raz’s or Nachumi’s plane. The only logical explanation was that they had dived so low to release their bombs that the shock waves from the explosions had shaken the planes before they could escape.

The men zipped up their flight suits, grabbed their gloves and helmets, and climbed the metal ladders back into the cockpits. Takeoff was much simpler and quicker than it had been some six hours earlier, when the planes were overloaded with fuel and bombs. Raz led the team home on full thrusters, streaking at supersonic speed the entire trip and rattling the windows of the towns and kibbutzes below—and breaking IAF rules against flying at supersonic speeds over civilian territory. He was sure they wouldn’t object this one time. The men were back at Ramat David in less than half an hour.

After landing, each of the pilots drove to his on-base home to clean up and change clothes before leaving for the assembly in Tel Aviv. The pilots were still sworn to secrecy, but many now elected to tell their wives what they had been up to for the last eighteen months. Yadlin’s and Yaffe’s wives, who knew about the raid in advance, were nearly beside themselves with relief after enduring eight hours of hell. Katz told his wife for the first time. She was stunned, but the two shared a laugh over her unconscious but nonetheless uncanny prognostication at his departure. The pilots showered and shaved and changed clothes, and, an hour later, were back out on the runway for the thirty-minute hop down to Tel Aviv on a small, cramped, twin-engine prop plane. As the plane flew south in the darkness, Yaffe shook his head in his seat. After all the meticulous planning and expense of the last year, this was a pretty bush league way to end the mission: to have all eight of Israel’s new heroes shoved into a rickety puddle-jumper that could crash at the bat of an eyelid.

The plane landed at the tiny airfield in north Tel Aviv. A van quickly transported the pilots to IAF headquarters just outside the city, where they were dropped off in front of a small auditorium. Heavily armed security ringed the building. As they marched down the aisle of the auditorium, the men were greeted by a standing ovation from Ivry, Eitan, the senior command, and the dozens of operational staff and IAF support teams that had toiled in secret over the mission planning for the last year and a half.

Again, the men were peppered with questions about every detail of the mission, and especially the attack. The excitement was such that soon the staffers were shouting over one another to ask questions. Raz had a hard time deciphering most of them. Instead he continued smiling and repeating: “It all went according to plan. There is nothing to say.”

Not satisfied with Raz’s nonanswers, the inquisition turned to the other pilots, relentlessly pressing for every detail.

“It was just as we planned in the briefing,” Yaffe answered. He recited a quick rundown of the mission. There was some AAA, maybe SA-7s. The defenders had been surprised as there were no MiGs. They had caught the Iraqis with their pants down.



Ivry and Eitan were nearly bursting with frustration. This was probably the most historic event in the history of Israel, and the pilots were treating it like some boring job!

“Nothing to write home about,” Katz repeated.

Relik Shafir was at his nonplussed, self-effacing best.

“I was just at the right place at the right time,” he quipped, shrugging off the compliments. “It’s like the game of golf—the more you practice, the luckier you get.”

Undaunted by the pilots’ disappointing, matter-of-fact answers, the Operations officers and ministers began debating the mission among themselves, examining and rehashing the minutest detail of every action.

Finally, Avi Sella spoke up.

“What was the meaning of the code word Alhambra? I did not see that in the operational notes. We worried we had missed something.”