All,
AKA, the fifth and final fight in Operation Nachshon
It is 1530 on 7 April 1948, and the Company is preparing a counterattack. It's been quite an eventful couple of days: Operation Nachshon began yesterday with an attack by 1st Platoon on an Arab machine gun position that was holding up the advance of the Etzioni Brigade's attack on the Arab village of Al-Qastal. Things got tough when it turned out the Palestinians had a second machine gun covering their flank, which caught 1st Platoon in a crossfire. Despite this, Avi Peled's combat leadership carried the day, though the 1st Platoon leader, Baruch Eitan, was wounded bad enough that he would spend the rest of the war recovering. Early this morning, Avi led a second attack, this time on an old Roman Fort; the attack got off to a rough start when three Jewish soldiers, including 2nd Platoon's leader, Danny Tzur, stepped on landmines. Avi pushed the remainder of the platoon forward, but then he was wounded, with Eli Yadin and Hiram Laskov stepping up to take the objective. And then a few hours ago Haganah High Command tasked the Company to assault into Al-Qastal and take the Arab Liberation Army's headquarters. Dor Peleg, the 3rd Platoon commander, led his troops into the assault, but his plan was probably contained a bit too much tactical finesse. The left-hand assault element, including Dor himself, was torn apart by enemy machine guns, as was the platoon's base of fire; the attack succeeded purely on the personal bravery of Boaz Efrat.
Eliyahu Rabat assumed command of the Company and organized a defense, west of the Arab Liberation Army's headquarters building. The enemy came in strength, but they were channelized by the narrow village streets and the Jews were able to bludgeon them with small arms fire. With practically the entire enemy force suppressed by Jewish fire, Sergeant Eli Yadin charged into close combat and practically single-handedly broke the back of the Arab counterattack, personally killing four enemy soldiers and capturing another four.
But the enemy is holding onto a position in the northeast, and Lt Rabat has determined it is up to his men to eject the Arabs from the east end of the village.
Overview of the Arab village of Al-Qastal, north is up. Not much to say: The Plaza is at center, the Arab Liberation Army headquarters is at top center, and the food storage facility is at far right. The Jews are attacking in the center, west (left) and south (bottom) of The Plaza, against the Arab strongpoint in the northeast (top right), which is a home they are hurriedly fortifying and reinforcing. The Jews are again being a bit careless about concentration of force, yet there's not much tactical finesse as the plan essentially to have the machine gun team (bottom center right) engage the Arabs (top right) while one assault element charges up the street on the left (left center) and the other charges up the street on the right (center bottom).
I guess this is what happens when your Company Commander and all three Platoon Commanders are recuperating from their wounds…
Dor's assault, some might say predictably, is not going well. To see how the fight turned out, please check the blog at:
link
Operation Nachshon continued for another week, succeeding in temporarily opening the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, allowing several convoys to reach the Jewish Quarter. But it wasn't enough, and Arab forces soon blocked the road again, this time further east on some dominating heights near the village of Bab El-Wad. In Al-Qastal, the village changed hands multiple times, and the Arab Liberation Army local commander, Abd Al-Qadr Al-Husayni, was killed. The Palestinians retook the village in order to recover Al-Husayni's body, but then withdrew for several days in order to grieve their fallen commander. Following this the Arabs returned to Al-Qastal in force; the Jews withdrew from the village without a fight, but leveled every structure before leaving.
The re-closing of the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Road was a pressing issue, and once again Haganah leadership began drawing up plans for another offensive to re-open the road, christened Operation Harel. As part of this process, and in the process of better organizing the Jewish forces, on 16 April 1948 a new unit was created, the 10th Brigade, AKA, the "Harel Brigade." The Harel Brigade was comprised of four Palmach Battalions and commanded by Yitzhak Rabin. The Company made quite a name for itself in the Battle for Mar Gush and in Operation Nachshon, and so when the Harel Brigade was formed, Yitzhak Rabin himself asked Avi Peled if he would join them. Of course Avi agreed, and so that day Avi's men became part of Company A, 4th Battalion. And the men became a part of Company D because part of becoming a 'real' infantry unit was understanding their numbers placed them at the platoon level, not the company level; this also meant that some of the promotions were going to have to be walked back, in order to conform to the brigade's table of organization. That is, the men became 1st Platoon, Company A, 4th Battalion, 10th ("Harel") Brigade, and "Captain" Avi Peled would soon become Lieutenant Avi Peled.
As part of Operation Harel, the Harel Brigade, of course, would be leading the way. It was set to begin that same day, 16 April 1948, but of course 1st Plt, D Co, 1st Bn was not ready due to casualties. Their Company commander, Rafael Eitan, sat them out of the beginning of the operation to convalesce and absorb some replacements. But very soon Avi would be leading 1st Platoon into action as part of Operation Harel.
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wants to know if you can tell the difference between weaker and stronger magnets with 3mm aircraft.
