Pacifica Military History Free Sample Chapters.pmd

Free Sample Chapters 401
Note: The following article is excerpted from the book SIX DAYS
IN JUNE: How Israel Won the 1967 Arab-Israeli War by Eric
Hammel. The book is currently available in a $32.50 trade paperback
edition published by Pacifica Military History. This book is also
available in ebook editions.
THE JORDANIANS ATTACK
WEST JERUSALEM
by Eric Hammel
Copyright © 1992 by Eric Hammel
King Hussein of Jordan ordered his armed forces to open a war they did
not have to fight on the morning of June 5, 1967, as soon as he had
completed his 0930 radio address to the nation. Jordanian 155mm field
pieces located in western Samaria, opposite Israel’s narrow waist, and
in northern Samaria, opposite the Jezreel Valley and Beit Shean, opened
fire at carefully preselected targets as far away as Israel’s principal city,
Tel Aviv. The bulk of the slow, methodi-cal fire fell on Israeli military
installations.
While Israeli attention was riveted on the fall of the artillery shells,
tiny Egyptian commando raiding parties began working their way from
Latrun toward Israel’s international airport at Lod. It appears that the
commandos were acting on orders from General Riadh, in Amman, and
without the direct knowledge or approval of King Hussein or any senior
Jordanian officers.
For the time being, the Israelis knew nothing about the Egyptian
infil-trators and they were willing to forebear the Jordanian shelling in
the belief that it was Hussein’s way of showing other Arab leaders that
he was a brother in “the struggle against Zionism.” No Israeli leader
expected Hussein to plunge his nation into a war. Unfortunately, when
the Israeli guns remained silent, the Jordanians became bolder. At 1000,
a volley of 155mm shells reached north into the Jezreel Valley and fell