21. Flexing Muscles while Offering a Pullback
A. Countering Israel’s Shrikes: the Stratocruiser affair
On 18 August 1971, the interpreter Viktor Yakushev was reposted to Eg ypt and
assigned to Operations Headquarters, General Staff, where, he relates, “the future
offensive” was being drilled, based on the plan developed by the Soviet advisers.
Together with Eg yptian generals and lower officers, the Soviets conducted exercises
that included all branches of the Eg yptian services. With Eg yptian Army engineers,
Soviet advisers were achieving bridge construction twice or three times faster than
the Soviet standards, “which was hardly surprising, as the soldiers and sergeants had
been serving for six or seven years.”
One specific issue reflected a recent update:
Crossing water obstacles was rehearsed, including [enemy] use of flammable compounds
such as napalm. ... We came to the disturbing conclusion: so long as the napalm was not
burnt out, not only would it be impossible to cross the obstacle; it would be impossible
even to approach the water. Therefore, special units of Eg yptian paratroops were tasked ...
to guarantee the prevention of flooding the canal surface with napalm through pipes from
deep in the Israeli defenses. Later, during the October war, these trainees of the Soviet
advisers carried out the mission honorably, at the cost of their own lives.^1The IDF had indeed developed such a scheme to ignite the canal surface, code-
named Or Yeqarot (brilliant light), and even tested one system on site on 28 February
- Inflated reports in the Arab press about the resulting conflagration led the
Israelis to set some store by the system’s deterrent value, as Yakushev’s account con-
firms. But it was considered impractical for defense of the entire canal length. Only
two units were actually constructed, along with several dummy installations. Most of
the latter were subsequently destroyed by earthmoving, and the idea was dropped
from Israeli operational planning. A few hours before the outbreak of war on
6 October 1973 an engineering crew was sent to check the remaining systems, and
found at least one of them in working order. But the team was pinned down by the
Eg yptian cannonade before it could receive authorization to ignite the fuel, and was