Brig. Gen. (res.) Joshua Shani
July 4, 2012 was the 36th anniversary of the breathtaking Israeli ‘Raid on Entebbe’ that freed 105 hostages in Uganda, but lost one Israeli soldier – Jonathon Netanyahu, the brother of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Here are some excerpts of an interview about the Raid with Brig. Gen. (res.) Joshua Shani who was the lead pilot in Operation Entebbe”
On June 27, 1976, a Paris-bound Air France flight from Tel Aviv, via Athens, was hijacked and diverted to Entebbe, Uganda. Two of the hijackers were members of the German Baader-Meinhof Gang, and two were from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. They demanded the release of 53 jailed terrorists in Israel.
Jonathon ‘Yoni’ Netanyahu
On the third day of the crisis, the terrorists separated Israeli and Jewish passengers from the others. The captors freed the non-Jews and sent them to France the next day. Quietly, while the rest of the world talked but did nothing, the Israel Defense Forces planned a rescue mission.
Through the eyes of Brig. Gen. (res.) Joshua Shani:
”We began our journey from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, which at the time was under Israeli control. The takeoff from Sharm was one of the heaviest ever in the history of this airplane. I didn’t have a clue what would happen. The aircraft was crowded. I was carrying the Sayeret Matkal assault team, led by Yonatan Netanyahu. I was also carrying a Mercedes, which was supposed to confuse Ugandan soldiers at the airport, because Idi Amin, the country’s dictator, had the same car. And I also found room to pack Land Rovers and a paratrooper force.”
“
We had to fly very close to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, over the Gulf of Suez. We weren’t afraid of violating anyone’s air space — it’s an international air route. The problem was that they might pick us up on radar. We flew really low — 100 feet above the water, a formation of four planes. The main element was surprise. All it takes is one truck to block a runway, and that’s all. The operation would be over. Therefore, secrecy was critical.”
“At some places that were particularly dangerous, we flew at an altitude of 35 feet. I recall the altimeter reading. Trust me, this is scary! In this situation, you cannot fly close formation. As flight leader, I didn’t know if I still had planes 2, 3 and 4 behind me because there was total radio silence. You can’t see behind you in a C-130.”
The crew of the C-130 that landed at Entebbe. Joshua Shani is in the center of the front row.
I stopped in the middle of the runway, and a group of paratroopers jumped out from the side doors and marked the runway with electric lights, so that the other planes behind me could have an easier time landing. The paratroopers went on to take the control tower. The Mercedes and Land Rovers drove out from the back cargo door of my airplane, and the commandos stormed the old terminal building where the hostages were. While coordinating the assault, Yonatan Netanyahu, Sayeret Matkal’s commander, was fatally shot by a Ugandan soldier. READ THE REST
This is an excellent reenactment of the near-perfect raid and rescue operation. Makes you wonder why Jimmy Carter didn’t allow our military to do the same thing in Iran.
That was an amazing operation!!!!
Brilliant stuff, Israel. Well worth the celebrations. God is truly with them.
That’s how ALL free countries should deal with terrorists.
These were the days when the entire world cheered Israel. What’s going on?
France
Two arrested after anti-Semitic attack on Toulouse Lyon train
Two youths have been arrested in Lyon, following an anti-Semitic attack on a 17 year old boy who is a student at the same Ozar Hatorah Jewish school where 3 children were killed by Mohamed Merah in March
http://www.english.rfi.fr/france/20120705-two-arrested-after-anti-semitic-attack-toulouse-lyon-train
I saw that mate,the attacks upon Jewish people in France are getting out of control.
People like me in the EDL would help,but even the Jewish elders keep calling us Nazi’s,what can we do?
Sikh and Hindu elders do the same,i don’t know tbh?If we can’t get our acts together,we will fail.
Be suspicious that many of those “elders” are any or more of:
- terrified,
- bribed,
- ignorant,
- intimidated (by the TRAITOROUS British “government”).
Also, as you prove yourselves, people will learn that you’re better than what the Commies have been maligning you as being!!
I watched this on the National Geographic channel a few times, Jonathon ‘Yoni’ Netanyahu is a national hero in Isreal.
This story is well worth researching in more detail.
Excellent post, Bonni!!!
This still brings tears of pride.
Does anyone understand that Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim sympathizer?
Only Israel knows the danger of muslims and western leaders who support their evil
libralady, Check out the Categories in the Sidebar under ‘Islamobama’
An American born womman had been removed from the plane because of medicaal problems. After the raid ugandan soldiers killed her in the hospital. idi amin was allowed to live out his life in exile. A mistake.
The mistake was allowing idi amin to live any longer then it would take to push him out the plane on his flight out uganda.
LIKE button.
Idi Amin was going to be brought on charges of genocide in Uganda when the Soddy Barbarians not only granted him asylum but gave him a mansion and pension to live out the rest of his days in.
And of course the Saudis would do that because Idi Amin Dada was a Moslem just like them!!! [If things get ugly for northern Sudan, the same sanctuary will be granted for the equally-genocidal Ómar al-Bashir, who has also been indicted by the "War Crimes Court" in the Hague.]
I also have to lament that a few Ugandan soldiers and control-tower technicians who apparently wanted to escape with the Israelis were not allowed to board the aircraft and so were also murdered by Amin and his gangsters.
Otherwise, this truly was a BRILLIANT operation, matched only two years later by West German commandos seizing a hijacked Lufthansa plane that had been flown by Japanese and German Communist-terrorists to Moqdishu in Somalia. [The captain of the Lufthansa plane had been savagely murdered by those "Red Army / Baader-Meinhof" killers not too long before the commandos from the "Grenzschutzgruppe 9 Lederhäupte" arrived. 3 of the 4 hijackers were killed in the cross-fight, while the last one was subdued alive.]
In comparison, “Operation Eagle Claw” by Jimmy Carter in 1979 was truly an absolute FARCE from the beginning, especially when 3 out of 8 helicopters had troubles. Why didn’t Carter send 10 or 12 of them?? Was he being overly parsimonious, or was it more than accidental bungling???
Sorry to take up so much space on this column, but two more things:
1) Athens (and likely other Greek airports) were NOTORIOUSLY LAX in terms of their security! Not a few terrorists launched their attacks from there both before and after!!!
2) I’m so glad, dear Ms. BNI, that you featured this story on your Weblog: both it AND the others’ comments are most inspiring to me!!! Thank you so very, very much!!!!
ADHD, yes, I remember Greece as being very lax.
I had thought the problem w/Operation Eagle Claw was that the helos ran into a sandstorm that disabled their engines.
Yes, that didn’t help at all; however, they could nevertheless have had MORE on hand. Also, they should have waited until the sandstorm had stopped: they there would not have been that readily detected as they already were below the Iranian radar (especially for any traffic coming out of or into the country).
Jimmy Carter simply PANICKED!!!
Hello there…its me again..
I am humbled by the actions of men like these….and at times like these I am reminded of the words of Theodore Roosevelt as he spoke words to live a lifetime by, words spoken at Sorbonne, Paris, France on the 23rd of April, 1910……words from his speech; Citizenship In A Republic”
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
-Theodore Roosevelt
I wrote those words in a newspaper on a base while I went through basic training in the Canadian Armed Forces back in 1985….they stayed with me for many years along with the words of a poem my mother sent me…..from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses”…..
“For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy3.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts,made weak by time and fate, but strong in will; To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
And so ends the word of a poet who lived and walked the face of this glorious earth over 100 years ago…..I have sat upon many a high place as the morning sun thundered o’er the horizon and read his words…and was glad of his soul then as I am now……
Strange then……that the words of dead men and the fading embers of such gloriously lived lives would light the way for boys and men generations hence….
I recall several paragraphs from an essay I wrote many years ago called “Of Gifts and Reasons Why”…..it was written in response to those who asked me why I served…..here is an excerpt….
“November is a cold month. The edge of winter’s grip can be felt in the winds that clear the last stubborn leaves from the branches of slumbering trees. Strangely, I always felt warm standing on the parade square on the eleventh of November. As I stood with my fellow soldiers on those parade squares I would look across at the audience that sat in the bleachers and stood around its sides. Before me was the reason I was there; the veterans and their wives, the relatives and loved ones and most conspicuous by their absence, the Fallen.
As I looked across the parade square I realized I was looking at men with incredible courage and depth of character, men who were far more courageous than I could ever hope to be. I looked into their aged faces and saw strength, strength that saved a nation, strength that saved the world. These were remnants of legions who crossed oceans to confront a tyrant. Legions who stood with clenched fists, grit teeth staring straight into the storm. Legions who gave Europe her freedom. I looked at the silver, silk and bronze that glittered on their chests, the tokens of a nation’s gratitude. I wondered of the cost of those medals. Before me were men forever changed by the ravages of war, men who would pay the price for their participation long after the ticker tape parades and welcome-home parties had faded away.
Theirs was and is the curse of memory, memories to last a lifetime. Torn from peaceful sleep by the screams of a dying comrade, cradling the shattered body as a life’s blood drained away. The backfire of a car and suddenly they were in the midst of an artillery barrage, huddled in a trench and certain that the next moment would be their last. Of life in those trenches; knee deep in mud and gore, kept company by the moans of the dying and the sound of rats as they consumed the remains of friend and foe alike. The echoes of horrors so unspeakable as to strip a man of his faith and sanity in the twinkling of an eye. The memories of comrades who, unseen, would walk with these men for the remainder of their lives. Yet in spite of all that is the madness of war these men returned, covered the wounds visible and invisible and got on with the task of nation building and raising families. As I stood in silence I listened to the leaves rustling across the parade square and heard through that sound the voices of the Fallen. I heard the words of Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae and saw the faces of the legions who would never return. I knew then that my grandfather was in good company and that I was home.”
In closing, I ask those who read these words to look into the faces of those you love and those who love you……understand that life is fleeting but your legacy will last a 1000 years……I ask you to act as men….I ask you to act as women……I as you to act as American patriots……now and until the last ragged breath you draw from exertion wracked lungs……and remember this….never, ever, ever submit…..ever.
Here is the closing paragraph from “Of Gifts and Reasons Why”…
“A shadow can be a cold place in which to stand, so too a parade square in November. For brief periods I have lived my life in both those places and for me they have been places of warmth, comfort, inspiration and courage. I live in the shadow of men who came before me, who, when their country called, thought nothing of self and left kith and kin to die terrible deaths in lands far away. I live in the shadow of men far greater than I. There is little I can say, words fail me and cannot describe the gratitude I feel for the gifts they have given me and the sacrifice they made. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, on every day, I can only say; thank you.’
Semper Fidelis….
“DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI”
Regards, Don Laird
Edson, Alberta, Canada
True heros IDF rest in peace bros.
I was really blessed and inspired by this post and the re-enactment video.
At the same time I am so ashamed of some of those leading our US military for groveling at the feet of Islamic terrorists with endless apologies.
The Israelis rock! What a brilliant rescue.
We can learn a lot from them. Long live Israel!
The Israeli’s are expert at stuff like that. They have the brains and balls for it. The muzzies on the other hand, no matter where they’re from are bumbling, septic brained subhumans that only know how to terrorize with hidden bombs and hiding behind women and children when fighting. They’re good at collecting welfare and whining for stuff too.
I’ve gotta add that liberals are right down there with muzzies for being cowardly, whiney losers. The reason liberals like to praise muzzies or deliberatly refuse to report the murders and such of muzzies is because they are on the same level and any praise they give muzzies elevates them too, in thier demented minds.
The question was asked “Why didn’t Jimmy Carter do something like this in Iran?!….Mmmm, maybe because he was a balless dhimmi dip, quite similar to the muslime-in-chief currently occupying the Oval Office!!
I have watch both renditions off the Raid on Entebbe so often I sware I could almost recite the scripts. Loved it and went giddy when the Israeli’s pulled it off.
Excellent operation! Whoever planned it was a tactical Genius. When i was in the Golan Hgts in 86 , i got to know quite a few Israeli Airborne Troopers and met one who took part in this raid. He said after they intially engaged the Ugandan troops and killed a few, they turned and ran like the cowards they are. He said there was one terrorist piece of shit who tried to surrender…but the response was about a hundred rounds from a SAW. (squad automatic weapon ) God how i wish we could deal with terrorist scum this way today. Knowing that piece of shit we have for a President, he’d probaly send the Girl Scouts with cookies to respond to a situation like this. NOVEMBER CAN’T COME SOON ENOUGH !
well played IDF
Let men be free and live in peace. Pack every Goddamn AssWhole who denies it off to Hell.
Never, under any circumstances, negotiate with hostage takers. Kill every Goddamn one of them!!! Kill their supporters, suppliers, financiers and admirers.
Let terrorists burn in Hell, not rot in jail. A jailed terrorist is an incentive to seize hostages. Our motto should be: “You threaten one, we kill a billion!”.
A big thumbs up to the IDF for impossible jobs well done. I’m sure G-d had something to do w/it as well. He knows his own.