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1973 battle of the Yom Kippur War
The Second Battle of Mount Hermon was fought on October 8, 1973, during the Yom Kippur War between the Syrian Army and the Israeli Army. After the IDF outpost on Mount Hermon was captured by Syria on October 6, Israel decided to launch a hasty counterattack. The Syrians repelled the attack, and held on to the Hermon until October 21.
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The Second Battle of Mount Hermon was fought on October 8, 1973, during the Yom Kippur War between the Syrian Army and the Israeli Army. After the IDF outpost on Mount Hermon was captured by Syria on October 6, Israel decided to launch a hasty counterattack. The Syrians repelled the attack, and held on to the Hermon until October 21.
On Yom Kippur, October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a war against Israel that had occupied the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights since the Six-Day War. As part of the initial Syrian attack near 14:00, a commando force was landed by helicopters near Mount Hermon. The IDF outpost on the mountain was caught by surprise, and fell before the next morning. Several Israeli soldiers managed to escape.
Following the 82nd Syrian Paratroop Battalion's complete takeover of the Israeli Hermon outpost on October 7, the 82nd Syrian Paratroop Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Ahmad Rifai al-Joju, spent the morning clearing the site. He oversaw the burial of the Israeli bodies and the transportation of the Israeli prisoners out of the area. In the afternoon, he was ordered to prepare a blocking position downslope of the outpost. The battalion deployed between the upper ski lift and the Israeli outpost, getting ready for an Israeli counterattack. A company, reinforced by the battalion's supporting arms, deployed south of the lower ski lift, mostly west of the road. The fighters deployed along the slopes descending from the curves and built positions by heaping stones between the local rocks. A recoilless gun team took positions in a dugout east of the road. The engineering troops deployed a string of exposed mines on the road about 350 meters north of the "tank curve". The other two companies deployed in the commanding areas west of the outpost and south of the access road, from the landing-field to Hill 2072. one platoon positioned in the outpost, along with twenty engineering soldiers and the twenty-five men battalion mortar company without the mortars. In that area, two B-10 RCLs, aimed at the road leading from the upper ski lift to the outpost, and four Strela antiaircraft operators were also stationed. The battalion commander command post also took position west of the outpost, and a platoon was deployed near it to break counterattacks. Two observation officers were deployed in the outpost itself.
At dawn on October 7, the 183rd Commando Battalion was deployed on high point 1614 on the Hermon mountainside, southwest of the 82nd Battalion. The 183rd Battalion was the northern flank along with the 68th Infantry Brigade and the Moroccan expeditionary force in the 7th Infantry Division's breakthrough attempt. Its mission was apparently to capture Bunker 103 in Majdal Shams and then move through the Ya'afuri Valley to block the Majdal Shams-Masada road and later move across the Banias to Ghajar. On the night of October 6–7, it moved westward on foot from the Hadar area through the Hermon slopes and deployed on high point 1614. In the afternoon of October 7, its reconnaissance company seems to have attacked Bunker 103 and then retreated back to the battalion area. On the morning of October 8 the battalion was still set for defending high point 1614 and did not advance westward, since the 7th Division was stopped on the Hadar-Masada road.
Since 15:58 on October 6, when contact with the outpost was lost, the Israeli Northern Command (NC) knew the outpost fell to the Syrians, but did not know what happened to its soldiers. NC considered it imperative to recapture the Hermon, for both moral and strategic reasons. About an hour after contact was lost, the NC Operations Branch officer, Colonel Uri Simhoni, suggested to plan an infantry assault on the outpost. NC chief, General Yitzhak Hofi, agreed and delegated the planning to the 317th Reserve Paratroop Brigade, under the command of Haim Nadel, which was still being recruited and was transferred to NC. Amir Drori, the Golani Brigade commander, arrived at the command post at Nafakh and asked to be the planner. Hofi agreed, and Drori decided to attack as soon as possible, in order to deny the Syrians time to prepare. During October 7, Golani's 13th and 12th Battalions were fighting in the northern sector of the Golan. Two 51st Battalion companies with the brigade command post were deployed near the Masada crossroad. Shooting sounds were occasionally heard from the Hermon, leading the Golani Brigade commanders to think that the Syrians have not yet captured the outpost. At around 07:00, Drori spoke to the mortar non-commissioned officer, who escaped from the outpost, and questioned him. The questioning convinced Drori that the Hermon must be attacked quickly. At 11:00, he asked Hofi to attack, but Hofi refused.
At noon, when Dov Dror, the 17th Battalion commander, arrived in the northern sector with two squad commanders' course companies, Drori ordered Yehuda Peled, the 51st Battalion commander, to brief Dror and his company commander regarding the recapture of the Hermon. Since the evening of October 6, Peled had been studying the outpost using engineering sketches he received from the Israeli Defense Ministry's construction supervisor. When Peled briefed the 17th Battalion before sunset, he focused mostly on the outpost structure and the methods for clearing it, and less on the order of battle, the routes and the expected difficulties. The commanders had no information regarding the Syrian deployment, and the briefing had settled for a 1:50,000 scale map. At dawn on October 8, the Air Force unit commander and a reserve observation soldier, the last two escapees from the outpost, arrived at Bunker 103. The bunker commander called Drori, who questioned them on the spot. They said there were still a few dozen soldiers in the outpost, which convinced Drori that they must be rescued. Their sense of time was distorted, and they said that they escaped only one day before. At 06:47, Drori radioed Hofi, updated him on the survivors, and asked for a go-ahead, which Hofi granted.
When the go-ahead was given, Drori consulted with Peled and decided that the attack would be carried out by the following forces: The 51st Battalion with the battalion command post, the second company and the battalion collecting station; the 17th Battalion with the battalion command post and two squad commanders' course companies; two tanks from the 71st Armored Battalion platoon, which was attached to the Golani Brigade and Drori's command post. At around 07:00, Drori updated Peled on the attack and ordered him to arrive with his two companies to the bridge over Wadi Sa'ar. After consultation, Peled decided that company A would continue its blocking mission at the Masada crossroad and subordinated the tank company's third tank to it. At that time, the 13th Battalion's company B and a staff company from the Brigade Training Base (BTB), both under the command of the BTB commander, who had organized in Rosh Pina, arrived at Masada. Drori ordered them to defend the Masada crossroad. He also intended to leave half of the reconnaissance company at the crossroad, but after consulting with the company's former commander, who accompanied Drori, it was decided that half the company would join the 1st Battalion. The 51st Battalion's Company B commander, who was with his company in the middle of Majdal Shams, was ordered to wait with his company in the western entrance of the village and join the Brigade column.
At around 07:30, Drori quickly briefed Peled, Dror and his company commanders, the reconnaissance company deputy commander and the tank platoon commander, near the bridge over Wadi Sa'ar. In the ten-minute brief, Drori explained that the 17th Battalion would advance on half-tracks on the road to the outpost. The column was to be led by the two tanks, while the reduced 51st Battalion and half of the reconnaissance company were to move along the ridge on foot. Most of the briefing was about the outpost structure. The commanders were told that the first force to reach the outpost would be ordered to clear it. At this point, a Syrian shelling started, and the briefing was cut as Drori ordered the commanders to mount their half-tracks and start moving. The company commanders did not get the time to brief the fighters, and had no information about the Syrian dispositions. The brigade was not detailed any air or artillery assistance, but Drori assumed those could be provided along the way. The half-tracks were received or "borrowed" from the emergency reserve stores, and were only half equipped and in a bad technical condition. They had no machine-guns, machine-gun ammunition or machine-gun pedestals, so the units' machine-guns could not be placed. The 17th Battalion lacked rifle grenades and it departed without its battalion collecting station. The half-tracks had almost no fixed radio communication units other than portable ones, so the entire 17th Battalion used the same frequency.
At 08:00 the Golani forces started making their way up the road from Masada to Majdal Shams and from there to the lower ski lift. Their movement coincided with a heavy Syrian shelling aimed at the road crossing Majdal Shams, but most of the shells landed between the houses and the ridges above it, did not hit the forces and did not interrupt their advance. The column was headed by the two tanks, followed by the 51st Battalion Company B's half-tracks, the reconnaissance half-tracks and finally the 17th Battalion half-tracks. When the 51st Battalion column reached 1,500 meters from the village, where the road crosses the dirt road ascending from Neve Ativ (33°17′13″N 35°45′11″E / 33.287°N 35.753°E), the column stopped. The fighters dismounted and organized for a climb up the ridge. The tanks, Drori's command post and the 17th Battalion forces kept slowly driving up the road. At about 08:15, right before the climb, Peled briefed his Company B's commander and the reconnaissance deputy commander about the mission. The communication was conducted on the battalion frequency, and only Peled had another radio unit tuned to the brigade frequency. After several minutes, they began moving in the following order: the reconnaissance force of thirty-three soldiers under the deputy company commander, Lieutenant Shaul Lev, moved first on the path climbing up the ridge. The leading force moved on the ridge east of the path, on which the rest of the force moved. A few dozen meters behind the reconnaissance force was the command post. About 200 meters behind it the command post were columns of Company B, under Lieutenant Dov Schechter's command, with fifty-six soldiers. The battalion collecting station under Lieutenant Doctor Sidi Yehezkel was last.
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