Navy Stories

  • The Death of My Father During My Service in Sharm

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    One of the events in a person’s life that will be remembered forever is that bitter moment when they are informed of a death in the family. Wednesday, March 14, 1973.We set out on a special operational voyage. Three Dabur patrol boats were on a route to circle the Newport buoy at the southern entrance…

  • Photos from the pages of a service notebook. (1972)

    Once, before we even dreamed of digital notebooks, we carried small notepads in our shirt pockets to serve as our secretaries — ones that wouldn’t let us forget what we needed to do. As a young Dabur commander (873), I opened such a notebook and jotted down details that I’ve long since forgotten. Now, after…

  • “Montana” Patrols

    The voyages to patrol the Gulf of Suez, called “Montana” in military jargon, were carried out by pairs of Dabur boats through breathtaking landscapes. The combination of water, mountains, and sky left me speechless. The sea was often rough, with a 30-knot northern wind blowing for days on end, raising closely spaced waves that forced…

  • Naval Officers Course Admission Interview

    The experiences described in this post are those of a teenager who had no prior maritime experience. Around September 1968, after tests and exams, a group of candidates for the naval officers course had formed at the Bakum (IDF Recruitment Base). One day, we were loaded onto a truck with benches along its length, headed…

  • A Mission That is No Longer Top Secret

    In 1972, in the Gulf of Eilat, Flotilla 915’s Dabur boats participated in assisting King Hussein’s transfer to the Coral Island “Jazirat Faraon” for talks with Prime Minister Golda Meir. Already in the early days of my arrival at the flotilla, there were whispers about secret missions assigned to the commanders. It was clear that…

  • Diving Course in Naval Officers’ Training, Class No. 18

    We eagerly awaited the diving course. The sense of closeness to commando activity gave us the feeling of “we’re among the heroes too.” We arrived at the course after a very precisely run parachuting course. One instructor could switch with another mid-sentence and continue the explanation as if nothing had happened. It seemed as if…

  • The Taba training camp Ended with the S.G. Sailing to Sharm

    In our Class 18, there were delays in starting the sailing due to ambushes we were involved in to capture Egyptian commandos who had previously sunk the INS Bat Galim. For the mission, a team of Shayetet 13 fighters landed in Eilat on a Nord aircraft. They roamed the beach with their Speedo suits that…

  • Boat Trip in the Desert

    1972 In Flotilla 915, there was a tradition of organizing a trip for the crew. When it was our turn to go out (873), I took the matter seriously and approached the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) to get a proposal for an unconventional trip. Everyone else traveled to Saint Catherine,…

  • Hauling up to the dry dock in Eilat was an experience in itself.

    1972. The voyage through the stormy Straits of Tiran was sometimes difficult due to the high waves in the strait. Over time, I learned that we had not been aware of a natural phenomenon well known in other parts of the world — the phenomenon of current versus waves. In the northeastern United States (and…

  • Possible Mission, maybe?

    Evening of October 11, 1973 We set out—three boats under the command of the flotilla commander (who was new to me)—for a patrol in the Jubal Straits near Atur. I was commanding boat 865, number three in the fleet, with Lieutenant Gardos’s boat leading. The crew made hot tea and served it on the bridge.…