1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (45 page)

The eastern arm of the offensive had failed. Meanwhile, at Latrun, the main, western arm got under way, with an artillery barrage on the fort and the village. The mixed column-the Seventy-third Battalion, with halftracks, two mounting flamethrowers, and armored cars, some with cannon, and the Seventy-first Infantry Battalion-achieved tactical surprise. Again, though, the effort was dispersed, with one unit heading toward the fort, and two companies heading eastward, for Latrun village and the wood around the adjoining Trappist monastery. The efforts against the village and the monastery were successful: the monastery fell, as did about half the village, pinning down Legion forces that could otherwise have been sent to aid the fort.

Nonetheless, the fort, the main objective, proved too much, though the initial omens were good. A preliminary artillery barrage effectively neutralized the guns inside the complex-the Legionnaires deployed two-pounders on the roof-and the Israeli armored column, composed of five half-tracks and several armored cars, an infantry platoon, and sappers, breached the perimeter fence and reached the fort's walls, spewing fire from the flamethrowers. For a moment, the defenders-Legionnaires and militiamenwere stunned. But the flames afforded clear targets for their six-pounders, overlooking the fort, and grenades. One by one the half-tracks burst into flames, including the one carrying Hadassah Lempel, the radiowoman, who was keeping HQ abreast of the battle. She died. The sappers, with 550 pounds of explosives, managed to blow a hole in the fort's outer wall, but the accompanying infantrymen, in the confusion, did not follow through, and the sappers were eventually overpowered and killed in the ground-floor rooms, the defenders shouting "Allahu Akbar." The operation commander, Haim Laskov, ordered his reserves, D Company, Seventy-first Battalion, to join in. But as they disembarked from their buses at the assembly point, a soldier accidentally detonated a mine. Three soldiers died, and several were wounded. The rest of the company, uncertain about what happened, panicked and fled westward. The explosion attracted heavy Jordanian artillery fire.21' Colonel Mickey Marcus, the American volunteer and adviser who had just been appointed head of Central Front, summarized: "Artillery cooperation was okay. The armor was fine. The infantry [was] very poor."220

The battle was not yet over; Israeli companies still had a foothold outside the fort and in Latrun village. But the news from the eastern arm, at Deir Aiyub, was bad, and, most important, dawn was fast approaching. Laskov understood that even if his troops somehow took the fort and village, they could not hold out against a daylight Legion counterattack backed by ar tillery. He ordered a retreat, directing it from a nearby field.22' He was the last to leave the area. He later recalled: "I didn't want to come back.... I wouldn't have. I no longer cared; if they shot me-they shot me.... Suddenly the American photographer Robert Capa arrived with a canteen full of brandy. We sat together. We drank. He said: `Mickey Marcus orders you back.' I couldn't go. I couldn't understand Jews retreating, fleeing. I couldn't do it. And then Capa said: "`Mickey" told me to tell you that what this nation now needs is honor, integrity and justice. Move back!' [So] I went back. "222

The Third Battle of Latrun, 8 -1o June 1948

The Seventy-third battalion had suffered about 5o percent casualties. Altogether, the two arms of Bin-Nun Bet had forty-four dead and twice that number wounded. Legion casualties are unknown.223 The Legion's main loss was Lieutenant al-Maaita, the fort's commander, killed either during the battle or in an artillery strike in its wake.

The IDF made one more major attempt against Latrun, on 8 - q June, codenamed Operation Yoram. The Seventh Brigade, sent to the rear to reorganize, was replaced by the Yiftah Brigade. This time the General Staff decided on a concentrated, two-battalion night attack-by Harel's Fifth Battalion and Yiftah's Third Battalion-in the seam between the Legion's Fourth and Second regiments. A third battalion was to provide decoy sorties around the Fourth Regiment's perimeter. The Fifth Battalion was to take the major position-Hill 346-overlooking Latrun and Imwas from the east; the Third Battalion was then to pass through it, take nearby Hill 315, and attack Latrun village and fort.

The operation kicked off with a barrage by four 65 mm cannon and four i 20 mm mortars on the fort, Latrun village, and surrounding positions. Hills 346 and 315, each held by a company of the Fourth Regiment, were left untouched to avoid alerting the Legion. The Fifth Battalion set off on foot from Bab al-Wad, took the wrong wadi, and mistakenly approached 315. Near midnight, the Fourth Regiment's sentries spotted them and opened up. The whole front came alive with illumination rounds and artillery. The Fifth Battalion pushed up the slope and, in hand-to-hand combat, successively took 315's two peaks. But the Legion subjected them to withering fire from neighboring positions and then counterattacked. The battle continued for hours, the Legionnaires even calling down artillery on their own positions. The Fifth Battalion sustained heavy casualties.

Meanwhile the Third Battalion, which had set off an hour late, began its climb. It lost eye contact with the Fifth Battalion. When it finally reached the slope of 346, it expected to find the Fifth Battalion in place. Instead, it was met by small arms fire and grenades, then artillery. The battalion radioed HQ and asked that the Fifth be told to cease fire; the Third assumed that the Fifth took them for Jordanians. But HQ refused to believe that this was what was happening, and the Third Battalion's radiomen failed to raise the Fifth directly. So the Third Battalion held its fire and stayed put. It didn't understand what was happening and had no way to solve the problem. It was night and all around were the sounds of battle, from the Fifth Battalion engaged on Hill 315 and from Yiftah's raids along the Fourth Regiment's perimeter, at Salbit, Imwas, and Beit Nuba, which caused little damage but sowed consternation in the Legion brigade HQ.

The Fifth Battalion had taken a key position at the center of the Fourth Regiment's perimeter, causing a partial retreat of Legionnaires from nearby positions. The confusion in Jordanian ranks was probably as great as among the Israelis. But Yiftah HQ decided to call it a day: with daylight fast approaching and without a clear picture of what was happening, in addition to the Fifth battalion reporting heavy casualties and the Third Battalion still out of the fight, Yiftah HQ probably had little choice. Third Battalion was ordered back to Bab al-Wad and at 5:3o AM, the Fifth Battalion was also ordered to retreat. It did so under Jordanian harassment, carrying its casualties through rocky, mountainous terrain to safety.224 The four-hundred-man battalion had suffered sixteen dead and seventy-nine wounded, all from the lead two companies.225 The Third Battalion suffered a handful of dead and injured. The Legion suffered several dozen casualties.226

Operation Yoram had a painful-for the Israelis-appendage. On io June, with the UN-imposed truce to begin the following day, the Legion mounted a last-minute raid; perhaps it was a private initiative of a British Third Brigade officer, Captain T. N. Bromage.227 A battalion-size force, composed of Legionnaires and irregulars, with a dozen armored cars, attacked I ibbutz Gezer. The settlement was defended by sixty-eight Haganah members (thirteen of them women). After a four-hour fight, the assaulting force, shouting "Deir Yassin, Abu Shusha," overran the kibbutz.228 A dozen defenders managed to flee; most surrendered. One or two were executed. The Legionnaires protected the rest from the irregulars. The next day, the Legionnaires released the female prisoners. Altogether, twenty-nine Haganah men and two Legionnaires died. The settlement was looted by the irregulars and neighboring villagers.229 The large IDF forces in the area had failed to intervene because of poor communications. That evening, after the Legionnaires withdrew, Yiftah troops retook the kibbutz from the irregulars.230

Operation Yoram had been, in a very real sense, superfluous. There had been no overwhelming need to capture Latrun. On io June, an alternative supply route to West Jerusalem was fully functioning, skirting south of the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road and Latrun. The "Burma Road"-named after a road that bypassed Japanese positions in the Far East in World War II-followed a series of dirt paths linking the Israeli-held abandoned villages of Deir Muheizin, Beit Jiz, Beit Susin, Beit Mahsir, and Saris before returning to the main road at Neve Ilan.

The possibility of an alternative route had first surfaced three weeks before when Palmah scouts had hiked from Kiryat Anavim to Hulda without encountering Arabs. On z8 May, the Haganah occupied Belt Jiz and Beit Susin. Their capture in effect gave the Haganah a continuous corridor from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The problem would be to render the stretch south of Latrun transport-worthy. On the night of 29-30 May two jeeps, one from the Harel Brigade, heading westward, and the other, from the Seventh Brigade, heading eastward, met just south of Bab al-Wad. During the following days, while engineers flattened out the rocky, steep stretches, jeep convoys from Hulda, hauling 65 mm cannon and mortars, reached the outskirts of West Jerusalem. The Jordanians heard the engineers and the convoys and from Latrun sent salvos of artillery and patrols to disrupt the work-but these efforts were half-hearted and unsuccessful.

Still, though useful in moving equipment, the rough route did not solve West Jerusalem's civilian supply problem, which grew more acute by the day. Starting on 5 June, IDF engineers began resurfacing the route for civilian trucks. By io June, it was ready. Thereafter a steady trickle of trucks reached the capital.231 At the same time, an alternative water pipeline was laid, from Na`an to Bab al-Wad (and from there to Jerusalem), replacing the old pipeline that the Jordanians blocked at Latrun.

By the end of the first month, both sides, though licking their wounds, were generally satisfied. Partition, as they had envisioned back in November 1947, had taken place. Abdullah had taken control of much of Arab-populated eastern Palestine, stretching from Jericho to Lydda-Ramla in the west and Tulkarm, Nablus, and Jenin in the north. He had also managed to save East Jerusalem for the Arabs and take the Jewish Quarter, and had administered severe setbacks to the Yishuv. The Haganah/IDF, for its part, had managed to deny the Legion a toehold in West Jerusalem and, despite defeats in Latrun, had found a solution for resupplying Jerusalem. It had held its own against a professional, British-led army and, more important, had regained the initiative. The Jordanians were to remain completely on the defensive for the rest of the war.

Both sides had managed to avoid a war to the finish. Indeed, the Legion had avoided attacking the territory of the UN partition plan Jewish state.232 But the Legion had suffered serious losses-one intelligence source put them at "some 30o dead and 400 - 50o wounded"233-and its stocks of am munition, particularly for artillery and mortars, were extremely low. The minuscule Legion could ill afford such a level of casualties or ammunition expenditure. By August, the Legion had shells left for only five days of combat. Indeed, for the six twenty-five-pounder batteries, the mainstay of its artillery, it had only two thousand shells left.234 And Glubb had no idea if and when more shells, mortar bombs, and bullets would arrive. Jordan, and its patrons in London, henceforward lived in constant fear that the IDF would turn its attention eastward and encircle and destroy the Legion, which all understood was the main prop of the monarchy as well as the only serious obstacle to Israeli conquest of the West Bank.