All this talk of America sending PGMs to Israel reminds me of Operation Nickel Grass, the emergency resupply of Israel via airlift during the October War.
Known as the “Airlift that saved Israel,” Nickel Grass employed American C-5 Galaxies and C-141 Starlifters to deliver critically needed weapons, spare parts, and munitions to the embattled Israeli Defense Force. With the Soviets already aggressively resupplying their Arab allies, President Nixon ordered a duplicate effort in support of Israel. Unfortunately for the Israelis, the Europeans refused to play ball, denying American transport aircraft the use of their airspace. After seemingly endless negotiations, Portugal agreed to allow the US to use Lajes Field in the Azores. With a route “green,” Nixon gave the order to “send everything that can fly.”
Thus, under fighter escort from bases in Italy and US carriers, a massive fleet of American transport aircraft flew a precise line down the center of the Med to Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel. The war supplies enabled Israel to push back against the devasting Arab assault, penetrating to the outskirits of Damascus and across the Sinai Canal in Egypt.
An American C-5 Galaxy unloads an M-60 tank at Ben Gurion International Airport during the October War.
If you ever forget what Nickel Grass accomplished, use our handy air force phrase “Nickel Grass saved Israel’s ass.” heh.
u must be very proud to have helped Iraq to civil war ….now its the turn of the lebanese ….well done …u r fine examples of american intelligentsia
ugh, is Kos Kommand assigning us extra trolls this week??
European countries wouldn’t let us use their airspace to help Israel. I guess somethings never change.
I noticed at the time they never had problem when we ran REFORGER.
What is also forgotten is that the SecDef didn’t want to go ahead with it. Nixon basically had to order him to carry it out. And nixon wasn’t known as a “jew lover” either.
Undoubtedly the US resupply of Israel during the 1973 war helped out, but it was far from “saving their ass”. By the time the US airlift had arrived, Israel had already turned the tide in the Sinai and had held off the Egyptians on the Golan.
As to the PGMs being delivered now, its unclear why they were rushed. About 2 weeks ago I spoke with one of the top missile and bomb designers at Israel Militry Industries. According to her, Israel had plenty of PGMs and it was unclear to her why the US PGMs were rushed to Israel.
In no way am I trying to diminish the support that the US provides Israel. But the airlift then, and the PGM deliveries now probably had as much to do with politics as with militry need.
USA made the C141 air refuelable after the 1973 war. We also got the C-5 to be operationally refuelable. Now the C-17 is refuelable. Israel also changed its war reserve muntions levels after that near nuclear disasster…
Some of the shells we delivered in the first waves of airlift get shot within twelve hours of arrival. Ever see a passenger airliner converted to carry cargo(munitions) try and take off from the USA and fly direct to Israel. Sometimes they had to make two or three attempts before they had burned off enough weight to get off the ground.
Obviously I meant Syrians in the Golan, not “Egyptians on the Golan”. Ooops.
Unfortunately, though this article makes good drama, it’s rather poor history.
The airflift didn’t start until _after_ the Egyptian forces had been decisively checked in their attempts to expand their Sinai bridge head, and a _long_ time after the main Syrian drive in the north had been stopped.
Kissinger and Nixon also held the airlift off for a few days after they had seen the Soviet airlift begun. This was done as a way to pressure the Meier government into accepting the US preferred settlement, about to be posted at the UN. The European overflight hold-up was an unforseen 24 hour inconvenience on top. But ultimately the US was able to cajole the Israeli’s to accepting its terms.
The airflift _did_ make Israel’s life easier in the closing week of the war; allowing them to develop their counter-offensives against both Syria and Egypt with confidence. It might also be argued that the political strings attached by the US enabled the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt several years later. However it did not “save” Israel, the IDF had already effectively done that in the previous weeks of fighting.
As I understand it, while the IDF had broken the Syrian offensive and the Egyptian bridghehead breakout attempt, the airlifted supplies were vital to any ongoing operations. An inability to capitalise on victory renders that victory worthless. While the IDF had already saved Israel, they had done so at the expense of almost complete expenditure of some critical supplies.
Veteran actor William Franklyn, known for voicing the 1960s Schweppes TV adverts, dies aged 81…
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