Bidspirit auction | Kol Tahanot ”Ayala” - All

Kol Tahanot ”Ayala” - All ”Ayala” Units - Edited by Avshalom Levi. The story of the 275th Armored Battalion on the Southern Front during the Yom Kippur War - October War. Unicom. - Kol Tahanot ”Ayala” - All ”Ayala” Units - Edited by Avshalom Levi. The story of the 275th Armored Battalion on the Southern Front during the Yom Kippur War - October War in 1973. Softcover with tanks illustrations near to the Suez Canal. Illustrated by Asher Gueta in 1975. 222 pp. The book devided to 6 chapters. Maps - including colored, rare photographs of the war, diagrams and other interesting archival material. The book is an internal publication of an IDF armor battalion, the 275th Armor Battalion in the 421st Brigade. The book was never distributed for sale . The brigade was an armored brigade in Arik Sharon's 143rd Division and was the first armored brigade to cross the canal before the first bridge was built. Its commander was Colonel Chaim Erez. The brigade operated ”Magach” tanks, which is the Hebrew name for the American ”Patton” tank that was upgraded in the IDF. The book describes different stages of the war and includes descriptions that are completely unknown to historians, most of them never heard of it because of it's rarity. The beginnig of the book is about the hasty mobilization, the chaos in the emergency warehouses, the shortage of tanks, equipment, poor packaging, the rapid organization and travel to the Sinai front, despite a shortage of binoculars, machine guns, and other equipment. The battalion's containment battles began on October 8th and were mainly focused on the ”Hamutal” ridge, where the battalion fought for several days - October 8th to 11th. The battalion then organized and armed itself and did a main part in the large Egyptian armor attack on October 14th. On October 15, as part of the Operation ”Abire Lev” [Heart's Knights] of crossing the canal, the battalion began towing the heavy ”Gesher Haglilim” [The Roller Bridge] The battalion was not trained for this. It  was the task of the 7th Brigade (82nd Battalion, Eli Geva's company), which was flown to the Golan Heights on the eve of the war. The training for the difficult towing and the towing itself were made in hasty act, and the crews were tired cause of the sleepless nights. Finally, they secceeded to tow the bridge about 1.5 km till the towing anchors broke . Moreover, the ”Tartor” axis near the canal, was blocked and fierce fighting took place on it for two more days, through which the the bridge supposed to be towed. The brigade commander gave an order and the battalion disengaged of the bridge, moved to the ”Akavish” [Spider] axis and crossed the canal on barges. In the eopration in the west of the canal, the battalion and brigade made an heavy damage on Egyptian missile bases, and made a free action for the  Air Force aircraft. All of the battalion's tanks were damaged in combat or broke down, but the mechanis crews fixed most of them through a very difficult work . The book also describes the important missions of  the headquarter and mechanized infantry companies which brought a supply, supplemented equipment shortages, secured overnight camps, and helped with ”replenishment, ” while the mechanized infantry company was also a reconnaissance, intelligence, and infantry force that assisted in observations and the endless war against the Egyptian infantry. A large number of commanders and soldiers, including battalion commander Shimon Ben-Shoshan and others, were injured in the battles, but most of them returned to their duties. The battalion also had a lot casualties. One of the companies commander - Oded Megido researched the ”Hanutal battles and published an important book about it, and also wrote a PHD about the battles of the brigade under the supervision of Prof. Yoav Gelber. Oded is also one of the investigators of ”Beeri Battle” in the rebirth war, which begun on October 7, 202323, also by and absolute surprise, one day (and 50 years) after the Yom Kippur War. Interesting, rare and important book about a war that ended in a great victory but left a severe trauma, which was quite forgotten because of the trauma of the last war, as Chazal said: ”Last troubles make forget the first”. Unicom : We didn't find in any library!