“YELLOW ARAB HELMET, BLUE RUSSIAN EYES”The 8 September clash thus clarified Eg ypt’s estimation that it had regained
enough of its military capability to start the second phase of Nasser’s strateg y—
“deterrence” or “active defense,” as termed by Defense Minister Muhammad Fawzy.
In retrospect, Sadat would date the onset of the War of Attrition here, and this chro-
nolog y has been increasingly accepted in recent studies.^19 Previously, attention was
focused mainly on the period after consecutive hostilities began the following March.
As a result, the preceding events were dealt with briefly and superficially, even though
they largely determined the course and character of subsequent developments.
The Soviets in Eg ypt tended to agree that the events in the autumn of 1968 ush-
ered in a new stage, even though their podsovietnye (advisees) were not yet ready to
play it out fully. In the trenches with the II Army Corps, Serkov, whose specialty was
firepower management, noted in his journal that “the last 10 months were not spent
without benefit for the Eg yptian Army”:
Full rearmament was completed, as well as refreshing command cadres with higher-quality
personnel. The artillerymen’s readiness has been qualitatively improved. A lot of toil and
energ y was invested by the divisional artillery commander’s adviser, Varenko, and the
artillery brigade adviser, Azovkin. ... Eg ypt [now] held the advantage over the Israelis in all
the duels, not only in respect of gun numbers but in the quality of shooting ... Hundreds
of guns along more than 60km of canal unleashed a hurricane of fire.The preplanning of the cannonade on 8 September—denied by Eg ypt at the time—
was also indicated by the designated cue to open fire “simultaneously along the entire
front”: the Israelis’ detonation of a mine near Port Tawfik. Serkov’s account agrees in
this with the Israeli version, whereby the mine had been laid by an Eg yptian “com-
mando detail” very shortly before the incident, as the road in question was combed
daily. This use of a raiding party was in itself a major achievement for the Soviets and
especially Lashchenko, who had been stressing its importance for over a year. He and
Malashenko had visited the site several months earlier. At a range of 200 meters, they
had observed the Israeli flag flying over the Port Tawfik jetty, “even though the [IDF]
garrison was no more than a platoon and could easily be overwhelmed.”^20
Karpov noted after the 8 September engagement that the Eg yptians at the front
“rejoiced; their bosses were going through the formations and distributing medals ...
Dayan and his chief-of-staff came to Sinai to see our work.” The Soviet adviser took
pride in what UN observers disclosed that their chief had heard from the Israelis:
Eg yptian artillery “was shooting very effectively and accurately, and this could only
be accomplished by Russian artillerymen. [Israeli] radio told the Eg yptians: ‘don’t
jubilate—the Russians aim your guns and you only pull the trigger.’”^21
Israeli assessments for domestic consumption admitted that the achievements of
the Soviet advisers, now estimated at over 3,000, “should not be underevaluated.” But
the Israeli media were told that although Eg ypt’s weaponry had been restored beyond
its 1967 strength, “a substantive change in Eg yptian combat standards will require