Battle of Abu-Ageila (1956)

Background

Israel opened Operation Kadesh at 16:59 on 29 October 1956 with a drop of paratroopers at the Mitla Pass, part of a secret plan agreed at Sèvres with Britain and France, who were to issue an ultimatum and then bomb Egyptian airfields. Dayan, as Chief of the General Staff, had to keep Israeli forces from engaging Egypt too deeply before the Anglo-French intervention began.

Abu Ageila, the road centre of north-eastern Sinai, lay on the central route from Nitzana to Ismailia. Wikipedia calls it the road centre of the entire Sinai. It was one of four Egyptian strongpoints, with the Umm Qatef and Umm Shihan positions east of the crossroads, held by the Egyptian 6th Infantry Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division. The plan was for the 4th Infantry Brigade to take Qusaymah, the jumping-off point, on the morning of 30 October, after which the 10th Infantry Brigade would attack from the east and the 4th from the south. The 7th Armoured Brigade was not to enter the battle before 31 October.

Both sides afterwards counted Abu Ageila as the key to Sinai. The Egyptian general Salah al-Din al-Hadidi called its defence a major success of the 1956 operations and a source of great pride, and Dayan wrote that Umm Qatef and Umm Shihan were the only sectors where the Egyptians had fought extremely well and the Israelis extremely poorly (both quoted by Gawrych). This page covers the 1956 battle only; the Israeli night attack on the same position in 1967 is the separate Battle of Abu-Ageila (1967).

The armies

The Egyptian defenders were infantry in prepared positions. Umm Qatef had minefields, trenches and the Archer self-propelled anti-tank guns that did much of the killing, supported by 25-pounder artillery, and 57 mm guns held the Ruafa Dam. The 6th Brigade's commander Boulos was lost on 30 October, but the 3rd Division sent Colonel Mutawalli, who ran a notably active defence, moving guns and machine-guns between positions. The weak points were supplies, which were not designed for isolation (fifteen days' stocks), and the isolation itself once the crossroads fell.

The Israelis attacked with a collection of units rather than a single formation. Wallach's 38th Ugdah (Task Force 38) had the 10th Brigade, a reservist formation with many men over 40, and was reinforced by a task force of the 37th Armoured Brigade from the strategic reserve; Ben-Ari's 7th Armoured Brigade, with Adan's Sherman-equipped 82nd Battalion, the 52nd Mechanised Battalion and AMX-13 light tanks of the 9th Battalion, was taken away from him by Dayan and then, because of a lucky discovery, partly returned. Radios were unreliable at long range. The Israelis also had air support, including napalm from Israeli and French aircraft on 1 November, which sometimes hit their own side.

The battle

30 October: Qusaymah and the first probe. The 4th Brigade, delayed in assembling reservists and short of ammunition, was behind schedule, so Southern Command's Simhoni committed Ben-Ari's 7th Armoured Brigade against Dayan's orders. The Egyptian National Guard battalion left Qusaymah at about 07:00–07:30. About 12:30 the 52nd Mechanised Battalion, with Sherman tanks, probed to within 600 metres of the Umm Qatef perimeter. Boulos was wounded or fell ill at about 13:00; Egyptian fire destroyed two to four Shermans and Ben-Ari pulled back. Dayan met Simhoni, Wallach and Ben-Ari near Qusaymah and ordered the 7th Brigade to bypass Umm Qatef. Then the brigade's reconnaissance company found the Daika Pass unguarded, and by 16:15 a platoon was in sight of the Ruafa Dam. Mutawalli took over the 6th Brigade by 17:00; the 10th Brigade seized Tarat Umm Basis, nine kilometres east, by 19:00.

31 October: the crossroads and the 10th Brigade's failure. Adan's force came through the Daika Pass and at about 06:45–07:00 took the Abu Ageila crossroads, cutting the 6th Brigade off from al-Arish. A mistaken air report of Egyptian armour near Gebel Libni drew Ben-Ari west, leaving Adan with fourteen Shermans and an infantry company until a second tank company reached him about 16:00 (some 500 men and 30 tanks). Meanwhile the 10th Brigade under Goder did not attack; Dayan visited about noon, found its battalion commanders unprepared, took command and ordered an assault. A half-track attack in daylight by the reconnaissance unit and an infantry company was shot up by Archers and artillery and withdrew. In the evening Britain and France began bombing at 19:00.

Night of 31 October – 1 November: the second assault. At 18:00 Adan attacked the Ruafa Dam. The infantry broke through, but the tanks lost direction in the dark; the dam fell, but an Egyptian counterattack retook it by 23:00, and a second try at 03:30 on 1 November failed. East of Umm Qatef the 10th Brigade's 104th and 105th Battalions got lost; a platoon broke into the perimeter and fought hand to hand before retreating. Dayan and Simhoni dismissed Goder. At about 04:00 on 1 November Golinka's 37th Brigade, without its tanks, attacked frontally in half-tracks with headlights on; Archers, artillery and mines cost it 20 killed and 65 wounded, Golinka among them.

1–2 November: withdrawal. Nasser ordered a general withdrawal from Sinai after the bombing; Qadi told Mutawalli about 17:00 on 1 November. The Egyptians pulled out in three phases from 18:30 on 1 November, leaving a skeleton gun crew firing, and the Israelis made no attempt to enter for sixteen hours; Dayan suspended operations late that morning. About 04:00 on 2 November Wallach sent a tank company and infantry in; they found no Egyptians and occupied Umm Qatef. His tanks, moving west towards Ruafa, were then taken for Egyptians by Adan's men, who destroyed eight of them and forced four to retreat.

Aftermath

The Israeli army took the position without breaking it. Gawrych's verdict is that the Egyptian 6th Brigade did what it had been asked to do: it held for four days against a superior force, until the armoured division crossed the canal. The Israelis, for their part, had encircled the position by a daring armoured move into the Egyptian rear. He also calls the fighting of 31 October – 1 November perhaps the IDF's worst performance of the whole war. One brigade commander was dead, another dismissed, and the battle ended with Israeli tanks destroying each other in daylight while Egyptians died of thirst in the desert.

The lessons were absorbed. The IDF learned that men over 40 should not be in combat brigades, and Dayan's remark on Simhoni's disobedience, that it was better to restrain a noble stallion than to prod a reluctant mule, became a founding statement of the Israeli principle of initiative. Egypt kept its own legend: Mutawalli's 26-day journey through the desert to Cairo, partly propaganda, made him a national hero, and he later rose to lieutenant-general. Egypt also decided that forward positions needed more than fifteen days' supplies.

Overall, Israel lost 172 dead and 817 wounded in the campaign, and Egyptian losses are estimated at 1,000–3,000 dead and 4,000 wounded; no battle-specific figure is established. Gawrych notes that Egypt lost only because of the combined power of Israel, France and Britain, and argues that the lesson Israel drew shaped the 1967 operation at the same place.

Wargaming it

Abu Ageila 1956 is a battalion-scale game of cross-purposes. At company-per-stand scale on a table of about 2 by 1.5 metres at 1:300 it can cover the Daika Pass, the crossroads, the Ruafa Dam and the east face of Umm Qatef, with the Egyptian line as fixed objectives (minefields, trenches, Archer positions and 25-pounders).

The fun is friction. Israeli forces should start fragmented, with the 7th Brigade's battalions, the 10th Brigade and the 37th's task force each on its own timetable. Use hidden orders, unreliable radio and a Dayan intervention card that lets the umpire swap objectives mid-game. Adan's problem is real: he has a bone in the enemy's throat but few tanks, little fuel and ammunition. The Egyptian player's decision is whether to counterattack Adan from Ruafa and al-Arish on the afternoon of 31 October, something Egyptian sources later admit they should have done.

The night attacks reward rules for lost units in the dark and for friendly fire. A scripted ending lets the Egyptians slip out on the 1 November evening withdrawal, or have the umpire tell the Israeli player to take Umm Qatef at any cost. The what-ifs are Ben-Ari left at Qusaymah in one piece, or the Egyptian armour at Bir Rod Salim arriving in strength.

Maps and pictures