No Mission Is Impossible (4 page)

At the next Fantasy Council meeting, one of the officers suggested preparing a “double” of Idi Amin. When the Rhinos started landing in Entebbe, Amin would still be at the African nations' conference. So it might work to have a black Mercedes, similar to Idi Amin's, drive at the head of the Israeli troops. Inside would be an Israeli soldier with his face painted black. At midnight the Ugandans wouldn't clearly notice the figures inside the “presidential” car, and they'd clear a path out of respect for their leader. On the spot, Gur ordered his people to find a large black Mercedes that could be used.

The black Mercedes on its way to Entebbe.
(IDF Spokesman)

Gur ensured that the elite units chosen for the mission were kept exercising without respite. Their commanders were measuring every yard and counting out every minute in the operational plan, every soldier's assignment and every vehicle's course. The critical moment, of course, would be the first Rhino's landing. Gur detailed the timetable: “From the turning on of the plane's landing lights and until it stops—two minutes. Two more minutes to get the men out of the plane. Five minutes to reach the target. Five more to complete the operation . . .”

Peres, Gur and Hofi hurried to Rabin's office. Gur presented the plan in detail and received guarded approval from Rabin, who ruled that the final decision would be made by an extraordinary cabinet meeting on Saturday, shortly before the planes were set to leave for Entebbe. The code name was to be “Thunderball.”

During the meeting, Peres wrote a note and slipped it to Rabin:

Yitzhak—here is the last refinement in the planning: instead of a military ground service vehicle—a large Mercedes with flags will descend. Idi Amin will appear to be coming home from Mauritius. I don't know if it is possible, but it is interesting.
—

The IDF planners couldn't find a black Mercedes similar to Idi Amin's, but they did find a white one of the same size in Gaza. It was immediately brought into the departure area and painted black. Amin's double was at hand, and the Sayeret mixed black dye to paint his face.

Then, just as all the pieces seemed to be coming tenuously together, an unexpected problem arose. Peres was scheduled to host a distinguished foreign visitor for dinner at his home: Polish-American professor Zbigniew Brzezinski, the future U.S. national security adviser during the Carter administration. Gur was also invited, but he had to cancel when his father-in-law suddenly died.

Brzezinski was cordially received, and Sonia, Peres's wife, cooked her specialty for him: honey chicken. Mid-dinner, Brzezinki surprised his hosts by throwing a direct question at Peres:

“Why don't you send the IDF to rescue the hostages at Entebbe?”

For a moment, the defense minister was speechless. But then, determined to preserve the secrecy, he explained why the mission was impossible:
Entebbe was too far, Israel didn't have enough intelligence and MiG fighters and Ugandan battalions were stationed at the airport.

Brzezinski was not convinced.

A
t the Fantasy Council's last meeting, the participants felt confident that the mission would succeed. The officers asked Peres a few-last minute questions:

“If the control tower asks our aircraft to identify themselves, should we answer?”

Peres and Gur decided that the pilots shouldn't answer.

“And what about the Air France crew?”

“Bring them home,” Peres said. “We should treat them as Israelis in every way.”

With the final cabinet meeting approaching to decide if the mission would occur, Peres asked Gur, “When should the planes take off?”

After considering this, the chief of staff answered, “From Ben-Gurion Airport to Sharm el Sheikh in Sinai—at one P.M.; then from Sharm el Sheikh—between four and five P.M.”

This meant the planes should leave before the decisive cabinet meeting even took place. Peres then authorized the planes to take off before getting approval from the top. He reasoned that if the cabinet decided against the mission, the planes could still be turned around and brought back.

On Saturday, at 2:30
P.M.,
the cabinet met; having a meeting on the Sabbath was unusual and it had happened only a few times in Israel's history. Rabin expressed his full support of the operation, so now all three main players—the prime minister, the minister of defense and the chief of staff—were united. After a brief discussion, the cabinet voted and unanimously approved Thunderball.

A
t 3:30 P.M. the good news was radioed to Sharm el Sheikh, and fourteen minutes later four Rhinos took off. They carried 180 elite soldiers and their arms and vehicles, and the black Mercedes. The soldiers spread swiftly over the large bellies of the Rhinos, curled on the
metal floor and tried to get some sleep. A bit later, the flying command post, an Oryx (IAF Boeing), took off, and yet another Oryx, one carrying medical teams and equipment, flew toward Nairobi. The four-thousand-kilometer journey had begun.

A
t 11:00 P.M., the pinpoint lights of Entebbe began to emerge from the darkness. The Rhinos had flown at an extremely high altitude, so as to elude all radar stations along their way. A minute later, the first Hercules landed on the illuminated runway, hiding from Ugandan radar behind the British airliner that had landed just before it. It rolled forward on the tarmac, miraculously unnoticed by the control tower.

Soldiers of the Doron and Tali units leapt from the plane and placed lit torches by the runway lights. Their assumption was that in a few minutes the built-in runway lights would be turned off by the Ugandans as a defensive measure, and so only their torches would illuminate the runway for the planes yet to come. The soldiers ran ahead of the Rhino and placed their torches intermittently along 540 yards. The aircraft then stopped, and out of it drove the black Mercedes and two Land Rover jeeps; they sped toward the Old Terminal. In the Mercedes, beside the black-painted “Idi Amin,” crouched Yoni Netanyahu, Muki Betzer, Giora Zussman and their men.

They were barely one hundred meters from the old control tower when two Ugandan soldiers appeared in front of them. One ran away but the second pointed his weapon at the Mercedes and tried to stop it. Yoni and Giora drew their silenced handguns. “Don't shoot,” Muki grunted, certain that the Ugandan was only going through the motions and probably wouldn't open fire; but when the Ugandan did not lower his weapon the two men shot him, first with their handguns and then with a Kalashnikov. Their shots echoed loudly in the night and cost the Israelis their element of surprise. Instead of reaching the Old Terminal gates the cars were forced to stop fifty yards from the old control tower, where the commandos jumped out of their vehicles and sprinted toward the building, killing another Ugandan soldier who tried to block their path.

Muki and his men broke into the Old Terminal through a side door.
The former departure hall was illuminated, and the hostages were lying on the floor inside, most of them asleep. With bursts from their guns Muki and his men killed the four terrorists who were guarding the hall's corners. Only one of the terrorists managed to fire back; the others were all killed before drawing their weapons. Using portable megaphones, the soldiers warned the hostages, in Hebrew, to stay down where they were. Some unfortunately got up and were shot at once. Six were wounded and three killed. Despite this tragic loss, the first stage of the mission was a success, with only fifteen or so seconds having passed between the shooting of the first Ugandan and the takeover of the departure hall. Phase one was now completed, and four terrorists lay dead.

While Muki Betzer was scanning the departure hall, he received a call over his radio; it was Captain Tamir Pardo, the twenty-three-year-old Sayeret communications officer (and a future head of the Mossad), who informed him that Yoni had been shot in the garden adjacent to the hall entrance. “Muki, assume command!” Pardo urgently said. He had just killed the Ugandan soldier who had shot Yoni. Some later claimed Yoni had been shot by Ugandans firing from the old control tower; others believed he had been shot by a terrorist.

An IDF doctor soon arrived and got Yoni to the Rhino. Muki picked up his radio transceiver and announced that he was assuming command.

Other commandos systematically mopped up the remaining passages and halls in the building. In the “small hall” behind the departure hall they found no one, but when Giora's detail moved into the VIP lounge they clashed with two Ugandan soldiers and killed them. Suddenly, two European-looking men appeared before the Israelis, ignoring their calls to identify themselves. At first the commandos thought they were hostages, but when they didn't answer the Israelis' calls, the commandos realized they were terrorists and opened fire. One of the terrorists was carrying a grenade, which exploded, and both were killed.

During the mopping up of the VIP lounge, the customs hall and the second floor, more Ugandan soldiers were killed, but nearly all of the sixty Ugandans stationed at the airport escaped and fled. In total, twelve Ugandans were killed in various firefights.

Suddenly, the lights in the entire airport were cut off, and Entebbe was plunged in darkness. Luckily, the runway where the first aircraft had landed was illuminated by the commandos' torches, and the remaining Rhinos landed easily and discharged more soldiers and armored vehicles.

Back in Israel, Rabin, Peres and Gur anxiously listened to the direct reports radioed from Entebbe. At 11:10 P.M. Dan Shomron's slightly hoarse voice came on, saying, “Everything is fine. I'll report later.” Eight minutes passed, and Shomron again radioed: “Low tide.” That was the code phrase that all the planes had landed safely. He followed this up with the code word “Palestine,” announcing the assault on the Old Terminal. Shomron himself drove his jeep to that building and continued commanding from there.

As gunfire was still blasting in and around the Old Terminal, the just-arrived units had set off on their assignments. The half-tracks of Major Shaul Mofaz silenced the old control tower with a lethal burst. Another Mofaz paratrooper squad killed eight Ugandan soldiers in two clashes. They then joined the forces still mopping up the Old Terminal.

Colonel Matan Vilnai led his forces to the New Terminal. After their breaking in, the brightly illuminated building suddenly went completely dark, and the operation had to be continued with no lights. In accordance with the plan, Vilnai's men did not open fire on the Ugandan soldiers they encountered, allowing them to escape, and in two cases arrested Ugandans and locked them up in the terminal offices. It was then that Vilnai heard two shots from the north of the terminal. On the stairs he found one of his soldiers, Sergeant Surin Hershko, lying wounded, probably shot by a Ugandan security officer. Hershko was quickly evacuated, and his comrades kept advancing, but because of the darkness they couldn't find the entrance to the new control tower.

Yet, even as Vilnai and his men struggled in this confusion, the battle had already reached its finale. The IDF had conquered the airport. Its commanders had located the fuel dumps but decided not to refuel the Rhinos in Entebbe, as that would have delayed their departure by two hours. Matan Vilnai and the captain of the first Rhino, Colonel Shani,
advised Shomron now not to delay their departure unless absolutely necessary, so Shomron agreed that they would refuel in Nairobi. There an IDF unit was already waiting, commanded by Ehud Barak, along with an airborne field hospital with twelve doctors and two operating rooms, which had arrived from Israel.

In the Entebbe Old Terminal the liberated hostages were stunned. The arrival of the Israelis and the lightning speed of the encounter, which had left their captors dead, seemed to them a miracle. When they came to their senses they clustered around the soldiers, hugging and embracing them in an explosion of joy and gratitude. Some wept, others joined in prayer. But the troops swiftly put an end to the euphoria. They told the hostages and the Air France crew to gather their belongings and in orderly fashion led them out of the building. They escorted them in the dark and kept counting them, to ensure that all the hostages were accounted for.

At 11:32 P.M. the code word “Jefferson” echoed in radio receivers in Tel Aviv. It meant the evacuation of the hostages had begun. And a minute later: “Move everything to Galila,” meaning the hostages were boarding the Rhinos.

The soldiers carried the wounded and the bodies of the hostages killed in the crossfire into an aircraft. One woman was missing: an elderly Israeli, Dora Bloch, who had taken ill earlier and been transferred to a Kampala hospital. Soon she would be murdered by the Ugandans.

Everything else proceeded according to plan, but at 11:50 P.M. the powerful antennae at the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv intercepted a worrying message radioed from “Almond Grove,” the Sayeret of Yoni Netanyahu, to the unit's medical officer in Entebbe. It was a laconic call for medics, mentioning “Two Ekaterina”—code for “two wounded.” But nothing was said about the identity of the wounded.