____________________________________________ 5 IICC Perspectives speaking honestly and openly in the operations room’s bunker, all of us, including the commander, it was like a kibbutz general meeting, because it was obvious that help wasn't on the way and we had to decide what to do next. Since I knew what the Egyptian OOB (Order of Battle) was, I said in effect we were a tiny enclave of 33 soldiers surrounded by an immense Egyptian force. As we were speaking, the stronghold to the south of us called Matzmed reported that an Egyptian force was deploying to attack them, and we knew we would be next. We decided we had to leave before the Egyptians arrived because it was clear we would be unable to withstand their attack. The commander consulted with his second in command and decided to contact General Arik Sharon, the commander of the 143rd division, which was responsible for the area, to tell him we wanted to evacuate the stronghold. Sharon immediately authorized us to leave and go east. The stronghold commander coordinated with the commander of the 14th Brigade on where to join the IDF forces, which were about 9 miles east of us. Tuesday, October 9, 1973 The stronghold commander decided we would leave at 2:30 a.m., when the moon set. At 1:30 a.m. we organized in two lines, one headed by the commander and the other by his second in command. Before we left, the commander briefed the soldiers, explaining what had to be done militarily and raising morale. We set out, walking eastward as quickly as we could, about 110 yards from the road to Tasa. We carried our personal weapons and machineguns and a bazooka from the stronghold. The commander wanted to put Baruch, who had been wounded, on a stretcher, but he insisted on walking and even carried a communications device on his back. We were walking through an area packed with Egyptian forces and our main problem was how to keep from being discovered. The commander ordered radio silence and no talking. I suggested that one of the radio operators, who spoke Egyptian Arabic quite well, walk with him, and if an Egyptian soldier spotted us and asked something he could say we were an Egyptian commando on our way to hit the Jews, in the hopes the moonless dark would help us get away with it; my suggestion was accepted. After a few miles we heard people shouting in Arabic only a few yards from us. An Egyptian APC drove along the road and directed a searchlight toward us. We froze. Luckily, the Egyptians didn't see us, but apparently, they heard something. A couple of minutes later the APC drove off and the shouting subsided. Later the stronghold commander told us we had entered an Egyptian forces' overnight bivouac area. Once the Egyptians calmed down, we ran to the dunes to distance ourselves from the road and kept walking quickly eastward. We often passed Egyptian forces but were careful to bypass them. At around 5:30 a.m. the east began to lighten, and according to our calculations we had walked more than nine miles. I saw tire tracks in the sand and told the
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