By Shlomo Aloni
The sunshine and agile A-4 Skyhawk was once the 1st smooth American jet to be provided to the Israeli Air strength, marking the purpose the place the USA took over from France as Israel's leader army provider. Deliveries started too past due for the A-4 to struggle within the Six-Day conflict, however it quickly shaped the spine of the IAF's ground-attack strength. From 1969 to 1970 it flew unending sorties opposed to Egyptian forces within the battle of Attrition. Then, through the Yom Kippur struggle, 5 squadrons of A-4s observed strive against and 50 planes have been misplaced as they battled opposed to the Arab armored onslaught. utilizing formerly unpublished first-hand money owed and infrequent images from the IAF documents and pilots' deepest collections, Shlomo Aloni tells the definitive background of the IAF's A-4 squadrons, together with the tale of Ezra "BABAN" Dotan who grew to become an ace with an exact double-kill of MiG17s.
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A Golden Eagle Squadron pair rasked ro arrack an arrillery piece hidden in a small foresr west of Nabariya duly Sl'ruck rhe exacr locarion as required. However, when rheir films were analysed, rhe arTillery piece was nored as srill being inracr inside a rrench several hundred merres away from rhe aiming poinr. By evening, ir became apparenr rhar IDF/AF aircrafr and IDF arrillery were unable ro suppress Palestinian arrillery shelling and rocker arracks. This could hardly have surprised anyone wirh knowledge of Arrririon War operarions and previous Israeli campaigns againsr rhe Palestinians in Lebanon.
With hindsight, the SA-7 option was the probable cause of this loss. Reserve pilot Aharon Achiaz ejected and was held prisoner by the Palestinians until released on 20 August 1982. Targets bombed during the hours that preceded invasion included artillery, fortifications and roads. Additionally, the Skyhawks flew leaflet drop missions, their 'cargo' addressing Lebanese citizens in effort to explain the Israeli invasion. Once IDF units crossed the border, CAS was added to the Skyhawk portfolio of missions, as well as smoke screening to disrupt the observation ofIDF movements.
This information prompted a maximum effort, with No l] 5 Sqn launching 74 sorties on the 22nd. This set a unit-level record. No 109 Sqn continued flying CAS missions over Mount Hermon from sunrise until the bloody batrle came ro an end during the late morning. ""Y. J ICL « I U Perhaps the finest IDF/AF show of determination on a unit level during the Yom Kippur War was 102 Squadron's continued operations from Day 1 to Day 19. The squadron lost 17 Skyhawks, seven pilots were killed in action and five pilots became prisoners of war.