text
stringlengths
0
7.06k
In front of the total failure of the attack , Shlomo Shamir ordered the retreat at 11 @.@ 30 am . But this occurred on open ground under a heavy sun and the soldiers had no water . Numerous men were killed or injured by Arab fire . It was only at 2 pm that the first injured men reached the transport they had left in the morning . However , the Arab Legion didn 't take advantage of this victory while , according to Benny Morris , it could easily have performed a counter @-@ attack up to the Israeli headquarters located at Hulda .
Jordanians and Arab irregulars had 5 deaths and 6 injured . The Israelis counted 72 deaths ( 52 from the 32nd Battalion and 20 from the 72nd Battalion ) , 6 prisoners and 140 injured . Ariel Sharon , the future Prime Minister of Israel , a lieutenant at the time , headed a platoon of the 32nd Battalion and suffered serious injury to his stomach during the battle .
= = = Reorganisation of the central front = = =
At the end of May , David Ben @-@ Gurion was convinced that the Arab Legion expected to take control of all Jerusalem . Moreover , after the fighting , the situation there deteriorated : the Jewish community had very small reserves of fuel , bread , sugar and tea , which would last for only 10 days , and water for 3 months . In Glubb 's opinion , the aim was still to prevent the Israelis from reinforcing the city and taking control of its Arab part . On 29 May , the UN Security Council announced its intention to impose a ceasefire for 4 weeks , which would prevent further capture of territory and thus prevent resupplying the besieged city .
From a military point of view , the 10th Harel Brigade required reinforcements and Ben @-@ Gurion dispatched a battalion of the 6th Etzioni Brigade . He considered it imperative that the 7th Brigade join the forces in Jerusalem as well as a contingent of 400 new recruits to reinforce the Harel Brigade . Weapons and spare parts that had arrived in Israel by air were also now ready for combat on the Jerusalem front . The commander of the 7th Brigade wished to neutralize the negative effects of the debacle on the morale of the troops and on his prestige . The central front was reorganized and its command given to an American volunteer fighting on the Israeli side , Colonel David Marcus , who was subsequently appointed Aluf ( Major General ) . He took command of the Etzioni and 7th Brigades , and the 10th Palmach Harel Brigade .
= = = Operation Bin Nun Bet = = =
<unk> Shamir was once again given the command of the operation . He sent the 7th Brigade and the 52nd Battalion of the Givati Brigade that replaced the 32nd that had been decimated in the previous battle . The 73rd Battalion was an armored force of light infantry with flame @-@ throwers and 22 " military cars " made locally .
The Israelis sent numerous reconnaissance patrols but they nevertheless had no clear idea of the adversary 's forces . They expected to fight 600 men of the Legion and of the Arab Liberation Army , so a force was allocated that was not enough to hold the 4 km ( 2 @.@ 5 mi ) Latrun front . Jordanians still had in fact a full brigade and are supported by several hundreds of irregulars . Taking into account the mistakes of the previous attacks , the renewed assault was organised with precision , and the area from where the units had to launch their attack had been cleared on 28 May . In particular the two hamlets of Bayt <unk> and Bayt Susin , where a counter @-@ attacks had been launched by the Arab militants during the first battle , and Hill 369 . The attack was once more foreseen on two axes :
The 72nd and 52nd Infantry Battalions were to counter @-@ attack on foot from the south up to Bayt Susin and then take Bab al @-@ Wad and attack respectively Dayr Ayyub and Yalu , then head for Latrun and attack this from the east ;
The 71st Infantry Battalion and 73rd Mechanised Battalion were to assault the police fort , the monastery and the town of Latrun by south @-@ west .
Around midnight , the men of the 72nd and the 52nd passed Bab al @-@ Wad noiselessly and then separated towards their respective targets . One company took Deir Ayyub , which was empty , but then were discovered as they did so by enemies on a nearby hill . They suffered the joint fire of the Legion 's artillery and machines guns . Thirteen men were killed and several other injured . The company , composed mainly of immigrants , then retreated to Bab al @-@ Wad . The 52nd Battalion was preparing to take the hill in front of Yalu , but received an order to retreat .
On the other front , the forces divided in two parts . The infantry of the 71st rapidly took the monastery and then fought for the control of the town . On the other side , the Israeli artillery succeeded in neutralizing the fort 's weapons . The volunteers crossed the defence fence and their flame @-@ throwers took the defenders by surprise . Nevertheless , the light coming from the fire they created lost their cover and they became easy targets for the 60 @-@ millimetre ( 2 @.@ 4 in ) mortars of the Jordanians . They were quickly knocked out and destroyed . The sappers succeeded nevertheless to make the door explode , but in the confusion were not followed by the infantrymen . Chaim Laskov , the chief of operations on that front , ordered company D of the 71st Battalion ( that had been kept in reserve ) to intervene , but one of the soldiers accidentally exploded a landmine , killing three men and injuring several others . They were then attacked by heavy fire from the Jordanian artillery and the men retreated towards the west in panic .
The battle was still not lost for the Israelis although the wake was coming , and Laskov considered that his men could not hold in front of a Legion 's counter @-@ attack and he preferred to order the retreat . It was also time for the Jordanians to regroup , their 4th Regiment was completely out of ammunition . 73rd Battalion suffered 50 % losses and the whole of the engaged forces had counted 44 deaths and twice that number injured . According to the sources , the Legion suffered between 12 and 20 deaths , including the lieutenant commanding the fort . In contrast , the Jordanians reported 2 just deaths on their side , and 161 of the Israelis .
David Marcus later attributed the responsibility for the defeat to the infantry , stating : " the artillery cover was correct . The armoury were good . The infantry , very bad " . Benny Morris considers that the mistake was rather to disperse the forces on several objectives instead of concentrating the full brigade on the main objective : the fort .
= = = " Burma Road " = = =
On 28 May , after they took Bayt Susin , the Israelis controlled a narrow corridor between the coastal plain and Jerusalem . But this corridor was not crossed by a road that could have let trucks supply the city . A foot patrol of the Palmach discovered some paths that linked several villages in the hills south of the main road controlled by the Arab Legion . In the night of 29 – 30 May , Jeeps sent into the hills confirmed there was a path suitable for vehicles . The decision was then taken to build a road in the zone . This was given the name of " Burma Road " , referring to the supply road between Burma and China built by the British during World War II .
Engineers immediately started to build the road while convoys of jeeps , mules and camels were organised from Hulda to carry 65 @-@ millimetre ( 2 @.@ 6 in ) mortars to Jerusalem . Without knowing the goals of these works , the Jordanians realised a game was afoot in the hills . They performed artillery bombings , that would anyway have been rapidly stopped under the orders of the top British officer , and they sent patrols to stop the works , but without success .
Nevertheless , it was mainly food that the inhabitants of Jerusalem needed . Starting 5 June , the Israeli engineers started to fix the road so that it let civil transport trucks pass to supply the city . 150 workers , working in four teams , installed a pipeline to supply the city with water , because the other pipeline , crossing Latrun , had been cut by the Jordanians . In O Jerusalem , Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins talked about heroic action , when during the night of 6 – 7 June , in fear of the critical situation of Jerusalem and to improve the morale of the population , 300 inhabitants of Tel Aviv were requisitioned to carry on their backs , for the few kilometers not yet ready for the trucks , what would be needed to feed the inhabitants of Jerusalem one more day .
The first phase of these works was achieved for the 10 June truce and on 19 June a convoy of 140 trucks , each carrying three tons of merchandise as well as numerous weapons and ammunition , reached Jerusalem . The siege of the city was then definitively over . This Israeli success was punctuated by an incident that became marked in memory : the death of Aluf Mickey Marcus , accidentally killed by an Israeli sentry during the night of 10 – 11 June .
= = = Operation Yoram ( 8 – 9 June 1948 ) = = =
Between 30 May and 8 June the status between the Israeli and Arabic armies became a stand @-@ off . They were used to fighting small , violent battles and taking heavy losses of people and arms , and the United Nations renewed its call for a truce on 11 June . It was in this context that David Ben @-@ Gurion took the decision to withdraw from Galilee the elite 11th Yiftach Brigade under the orders of Yigal Allon to launch a third assault against Latrun . He had at his disposal an artillery support composed of four 65 @-@ millimetre ( 2 @.@ 6 in ) mortars and four 120 millimetres ( 4 @.@ 7 in ) guns that were part of the heavy weapons recently delivered to Israel by Operation Balak .
This time , the general staff decided on an attack concentrated on the centre of the Legion disposal , with several diversion attacks to the north to disrupt the Jordanians . While a battalion from the Yiftach Brigade was performed some diversions attacks on <unk> , Imwas and Bayt Nuba , a battalion from the Harel brigade was to take Hill 346 , between the fourth and second Legion regiments and a battalion from the Yiftach Brigade was then to pass through it , take Hill 315 and Latrun village and the police fort by the East . The Israeli operation started with an artillery barrage on the fort , the village of Latrun and the positions around . Hills 315 and 346 occupied with a company from the Legion , were not targeted not to alert the Jordanians .
The men of the Harel brigade made leave on foot from Bab al @-@ Oued but took a wrong way and mistakenly attacked Hill 315 . Located by the Jordanian sentries , they launch the attack of the hill . The Legionnaires were outnumbered but counterattacked with violence , going as far as requiring an artillery bombing on their own position . The Israelis suffered some heavy losses . When the Yiftach arrived at the bottom of Hill 346 , they are targeted by firearms , grenades and artillery . Thinking that Harel men were there , they called by radio to the headquarters to ceasefire , and laid down arms . They refused , not believing that account of the events and Harel soldiers stayed in place .
Confusion among Jordanians was as important as among Israelis with the attack on Hill 315 and those of diversion . With the incoming morning and unable to evaluate properly the situation , the Israeli HQ gave orders at 5 @.@ 30 am for the soldiers to retreat to Bad al @-@ Oued . The losses were also significant . Indeed , the 400 @-@ strong Harel battalion numbered 16 dead and 79 injured , and the Yiftach an handful of dead and injured . The Legion numbered several dozen victims .
The following day , Jordan mounted two counter @-@ attacks . The first was over Beit Susin . The Legionnaires took several Israeli guard posts but could not keep them more than a few hours . The fighting took lives and some 20 injuries on the Israeli side . The second was at Kibbutz Gezer from where the diversion attacks had been launched . A force the strength of a battalion , made up of Legionnaires and irregulars and supported by a dozen armoured vehicles , attacked the kibbutz in the morning . It was defended by 68 soldiers of the Haganah ( including 13 women ) .
After the four @-@ hour battle , the kibbutz fell . A dozen of the defenders escaped . Most others surrendered and one or two were executed . The Legionnaires protected the prisoners from irregulars and the next day freed the women . The toll was 39 dead on the Israeli side and 2 on the Legionnaires ' side . The kibbutz was looted by the irregulars and the Legionnaires evacuated the area after the fights . In the evening the Yiftach Brigade retook the kibbutz .
= = = Attacks organised during Operation Danny = = =
After the month of truce , during which <unk> increased forces and re @-@ equipped , the weakest point of the Israeli dispositions were on the central front and the corridor to Jerusalem . The High Command decided to launch " Operation <unk> " with the objective of taking Lydda , Ramle , Latrun and Ramallah and relieving the threat on Tel Aviv on a side and West Jerusalem on the other .
To achieve this objective Yigal Allon in entrusted 5 brigades : the Harel and Yiftach ( now totalling five battalions ) , the 8th armoury brigade ( newly constituted as the 82nd and 89th battalions ) , several infantry battalions from the <unk> and Alexandroni brigades , and 30 pieces of artillery . The 7th brigade was sent to the northern front . In a first phase , between 9 and 13 July , the Israelis took Lydda and Ramle and reasserted the area around Latrun by taking <unk> , but the forces are exhausted and the High Command renounced to the objective of taking Ramallah . Two attacks was launched against Latrun .
= = = On the east of the Jordanian positions ( 16 July ) = = =
On the night of 15 – 16 July , several companies of the Harel brigade laid on an assault against Latrun by the east , around the " artillery ridge " and the villages of <unk> and Bayt Nuba . They carried on to the hills by way of the villages of Bayt <unk> and <unk> transporting their armoury using pack mules . After several hours of fighting and counter @-@ attacks by armoured vehicles of the Arab Legion , they were finally pushed back but could keep control of several hills . In total , the Israelis lost 23 dead and numerous injured .
= = = Frontal assault against the police fort ( 18 July ) = = =
One hour before the truce , the High Command decided to try a frontal assault against the police fort . Intelligence indicated that , in effect , it was " more likely than not " that the Legion 's forces in the sector were " substantial " . In the morning , reconnaissance patrols had sized up the sector , but could not confirm or deny the information that had been gathered by the intelligence . At 6 pm two Cromwell tanks driven by British deserters , seconded by a mechanised battalion of the Yiftach and supported by artillery launched the attack of the police fort .
When the Israeli forces arrived 500 metres ( 1 @,@ 600 ft ) from the fort , they were shelled by Jordanian artillery . Around 6 : 15 pm. one of the tanks was hit by a shell ( or sustained a mechanical damage ) and had to retreat to al @-@ <unk> for repairs . The remaining forces waited for its return and the attack resumed around 7 : 30 pm , but was abandoned around 8 pm . The Israelis counted between 8 and 12 victims . At the same time , elements of the Harel brigade took about 10 villages to the south of Latrun to enlarge and secure the area of the Burma road . The majority of inhabitants had fled the fights in April but those who remained were systematically expelled .
= = = The final assault = = =
After the ten @-@ day campaign , the Israelis were military superior to their enemies and the Cabinet subsequently considered where and when to attack next . Three options were offered : attacking the Arabic enclave in Galilee held by the Arab Liberation Army ; moving eastward as far as possible in Samarian and Judean areas , taken by the Iraqis and Jordanians ; or attacking southern Negev taken by the Egyptians .
On 24 September , an incursion made by the Palestinian irregulars in the Latrun sector ( killing 23 Israeli soldiers ) precipitated the debate . On 26 September , David Ben @-@ Gurion put his argument to the Cabinet to attack Latrun again and conquer the whole or a large part of West Bank .
The motion was rejected by 5 votes to 7 after discussions . According to Benny Morris , the arguments that were advanced not to launch the attack were : the negative international repercussions for Israel already accentuated by the recent assassination of Count Bernadotte ; the consequences of an attack on an agreement with Abdallah ; the fact that defeating the Arab Legion could provoke a British military intervention because of Britain and Jordan 's common defense pact and lastly because conquering this area would add hundreds of thousands of Arab citizens to Israel .
Ben @-@ Gurion judged the decision <unk> <unk> ( " A cause for lamentation for generations " ) in considering that Israel could never renounce its claim in Judea , Samaria and over Old Jerusalem .
= = Aftermath = =
At the operational level , the five assaults on Latrun were solved with Israeli defeats and Jordanian victories : the Jordanians repelled all assaults and kept control of the road between the coastal plain and Jerusalem , with Israel losing 168 killed and many more injured . Strategically , the outcome was more nuanced :
The opening of the Burma Road enabled the Israelis to bypass Latrun and supply the 100 @,@ 000 Jewish inhabitants of West Jerusalem with food , arms , munitions , and equipment and reinforce their military position there ;
If the control of West Jerusalem by Israel hold some of the Arab forces , the Arab Legion control of Latrun , 15 kilometres ( 10 mi ) from Tel Aviv , was a thorn in the side of Israeli forces ;
Latrun was a pivot point of the Legion 's deployment ; Glubb Pacha massed a third of his troops there ; its fall would have caused the one of Jerusalem and probably of <unk> as a whole .
At the discussions of the Israeli @-@ <unk> Armistice at Rhodes , the Israelis requested unsuccessfully the removal of the legion from Latrun . It subsequently remained under Jordanian control until the Six @-@ Day War .
= = Historiography = =
= = = Israeli historiography and collective memory = = =
According to Israeli historian Anita Shapira , there is a gap , at times quite wide , between the ' facts established by historical research ' and the image of the battle as retained in collective memory . This is certainly the case for the battle of Latrun , which has become , in Israel , a founding myth .
= = = = The clear @-@ sightedness of the Commander @-@ in @-@ Chief = = = =
The first version of the battle of Latrun was contrived by David Ben @-@ Gurion and his entourage .
Initially , the governing power within Israel remained silent . However , on May 27 , the Israeli daily Maariv printed a sceptical coverage of Arab accounts , which spoke of a great victory by the Arab Legion , involving some 800 Israeli dead . In response , the Israeli press stressed that the aim of the operation was not to take Latrun , but to strike the Legion and , on June 1 , it published casualty figures of 250 deaths for the Arab side and 10 deaths , with 20 badly wounded , and another 20 lightly wounded on the Israeli side .
From 14 June , the press shifted its focus to the ' opening of the Burma route ' and , in the context of a conflict between the military 's senior command and Ben @-@ Gurion , Yigael Yadin called the operation a ' great catastrophe ' while the latter replied that , in his view , it had been " a great , although costly , victory " .
The " official version " entered in the historiography in 1955 following the work of lieutenant colonel Israel Beer , whereas adviser and support of Yadin at the time of the events , who published ' The battles of Latrun ' . This study , considered by the historian Anita Shapira as " the most clever ever written on the topic " , puts the battles in their military and political context . It concludes that given the strategic and symbolic importance of Jerusalem , " the three tactical defeats that occurred at Latrun ( ... ) permitted the supply [ of the city ] and were a <unk> manoeuvre ( ... ) [ and ] are the consequence of the strategic clear @-@ sightedness of the Commander @-@ in @-@ Chief , able to identify the key points and subordinate to his general sight the tactical considerations , limited , of the military command .
Ber put the responsibility of the tactical defeats on the failures of the intelligence services and on the " absence de <unk> <unk> sur les <unk> fronts . " He also points out the badly trained immigrants , the defective equipment , and the difficulty for a new army to succeed a first operation targeting to capture a defended area that was organised by advance . He gives the first estimates for the losses : 50 deaths in the 32nd battalion of the Alexandroni brigade and the 25 deaths in the 72nd battalion of the 7th brigade ( composed mainly of immigrants ) .
Finally , Ber founded the myth and pictured the events of Latrun as " an heroic saga , as the ones that occurs at the birth of a nation or at the historical breakthrough of movements of national liberation " .
= = = = Criminal negligence = = = =
[ About the First Battle of Latrun : ] " the Jordanians broke the attack by noon , with fewer than two thousand Israeli deaths . "
Whereas many events in the war were more bloody for the Israelis , like the massacre at Kfar Etzion with 150 deaths or the one of the Mount Scopus with 78 , the Battle of Latrun is the event of the war to provoke most rumours , narratives and controversies in Israel . The main reason is that Latrun had still been the mainstay for the road to Jerusalem until the Six @-@ Day War , keeping the Israelis at the margins and having to go round and maintain the town , but struggling to bypass it , which played each day on their minds . According to Anita Shapira , the primary reason was nothing but people 's grievous memories , of David Ben @-@ Gurion and the veterans of the British Armies on one side and former <unk> and Haganah soldiers on the other . In this sphere of influence during the 1970s and in the controversies that continued until the 1980s , the " Strategic Necessity " was said , if it were not done , it would be " Criminal negligence " , with a heavy toll on bring in immigrants to the battle , and forging a new founding myth .
On one side , the opponents of Ben @-@ Gurion attacked his " moral authority " . They said that the intrusion into Latrun by the " scum of the earth " immigrants who died had changed the situation for the worse . And the number of victims , and the proportion of immigrants , inflated in the narratives : from " several hundreds of dead " to " 500 to 700 dead and even " 1 @,@ 000 to 2 @,@ 000 dead " . The proportion of immigrants making up this total of victims was up to 75 % . His opponents accused Ben @-@ Gurion of wanting to take out the myth of the " invincible Arab Legion " and to justify the abandonment of the city of David to Abdallah . ( Anita Shapira considers this story to be at the origin of the theory of Avi Shlaim who brought forth what she considers as the myth of the collusion between Ben @-@ Gurion and Abdallah . ) On the other side , those supporting Ben @-@ Gurion put everything to advance the case of the " historic sacrifice " by the immigrants , laying the failure to their poor training .
Many contemporary books about the 1948 War were published at this time : John and David Kimche , The two sides of the hill ( 1960 ) ( the more reliable ) ; Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins , O Jerusalem ( 1972 ) ( the best known internationally ) and Dan Kurzman , Genesis , 1948 ( 1970 ) ( the only one that got reviews in the Israeli press ) . With this political writing , historical research on Latrun tends to concentrate on the 1980s with the work of <unk> <unk> , " Latrun " ( in 2 volumes ) . It gives the exact number of victims , but , at the contrary of Israel Beer ( meanwhile caught as spying for USSR ) , it depicts the battle as " The hardest in the history of <unk> " , and it puts the responsibility of the defeat on Ben @-@ Gurion , who panicked about Jerusalem , and tactical errors on the brigade commanders and not on the immigrants who received ( from his point of view ) a sufficient training .
= = = = The drama of alienation = = = =
In the first years after its foundation , Israel met a problem with social integration of new immigrants who had arrived after the war , who had received much trauma from their exodus from Arab lands or from the death camps , and had suffered six years of war . Their integration was difficult with Sabra Israelis , born in the Palestinian Mandate , and taking the essential jobs and around who Israel had built an image of " <unk> , strong and courageous , fearless heroes , disdaining feebleness and trouble " . The phenomenon rose up again with the Israeli victory of the Six @-@ Day War .
All the while , these uncertainties and the reparations from the Yom Kippur War polished the sheen on the Shoah . The collective memory resurfaced and looked to reconcile its history of difficulties , suffering and sacrifices . A new elite arose from the Sephardic Jews and the " can @-@ do " of Menahem Begin . In this context , the " myth " of Latrun derived from the frustrations and the death of the new immigrants and was catalysed by their integration in a society where " the survivor of Shoah carried the new collective memory , immigrant refugees who had troubled pasts , and then were confronted with hostility and threat and still took their place with their blood and taking part in the war " .
This myth was founded in the factual knowledge of the immigrants ' participation in the battles , and the mythical knowledge because of the differences in the number of victims , the leaving of the injured on the fields of battle , and that the Latrun battle was the hardest and most important in the war . The influence on written history appeared primarily in books and commentary , where " the immigrants wanted only to make sure that their contribution at the battle was written in the collective memory with a plus sign " . It didn 't bring new documents but it expressed itself in memoirs , reminiscences and obituaries by or of those involved in the events . It was a view that was seldom heard in polemics giving two preceding versions of events but that had a life of its own , given to it by the immigrants .
= = = = Myth of guilt = = = =
In the 1980s , a schism arose within the post @-@ Zionism movement , and the history of the battle of Latrun came to represent the culpability of the Israeli state and a way of pointing out that it was born in the context of massacres and the exodus of the Palestinian population . It shouted " hypocrisy " , " false truths " , and " the blood of the escapees of Shoah who came to find a new life and yet found death " .
This version was put into several poems by the celebrated provocative poet Gabi Daniel ( pseudonym of Benjamin <unk> @-@ <unk> ) and entitled " Peter the Great " . Themes in the poem include dehumanisation and how Ben @-@ Gurion got Shoah into his pocket , by the work of the other " innocent young Jews of the Superior Race , who , without name or vision , found themselves the saviours of Israel " .
Peter the Great
Paved the city of St Petersburg
In the northern seas