October 6–9, 1973 · Suez Canal / Sinai Theater
October 6–9, 1973
At 2:00 p.m. on Yom Kippur — the Day of Atonement, when most Israeli soldiers were fasting and radio stations were off the air — Egyptian forces launched the most sophisticated river crossing operation since World War II. Water cannons dissolved Israeli sand embankments, 8,000 troops crossed the canal in the first hour on rubber boats, and 100,000 soldiers poured across in the first day. The Bar-Lev Line, Israel's supposedly impregnable defensive fortification, was overrun.
Commanders