CIA Comments on the Israeli Air Campaign: 5-10 June 1967

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79B00972A000100060002-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 14, 1999
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: August 14, 1967
• Content Type: REPORT

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The following information is in response to a request from
Mr. Robert Yalta, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Regional
and Resource Analysis, for additional data on the Israeli air cam-
paign of 5-10 June 1967. His specific requirements are underlined
and followed by our sc ents. A table showing damage to the Arab
airfields is appended.
1. t o ia.
a. afar: t a kgfo-re attack.
The number of Arab aircraft at each field immediately
before the Israeli attack is unknown.
b. d o la s de and
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op_iQA tai d wigItU gas or &' weeks.
The attached table summarizes the numbers of Arab 25X1 D
aircraft destroyed at each field
that at least 30 and probably around 60 Arab aircraft were
Given these 7.imits, 256 aircraft are counted as
destroyed. This represents almost 57 percent of the 452 aircraft
the Israelis claim to have destroyed. If we take into account
downed in air-to:-air cobat, some 63-70 percent of the .Israe
,n be accounted for. An additional consideration is
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ome Arab airfields - probably about six or seven
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?he time needed to repair damaged aircraft is mown. We have
report that an of early August about 100 LIAR aircraft had
been, or som would be, repaired and returned to service.
ore, to say how many aircraft were for
practical purposes destroyed and how many were left repairable.
a. 21bugg at oh fis
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(2)
The defenses at each field varied. Most seem to
have had some kind of AAA, and most Israeli losses can be attri-.
bated to it. Reports vary as to the effeeotiv , f Arab air
defense. Some say that most Israeli aircraft were hate some as
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Is fired something tike half a dozen
s Israeli plane was downed IV a ,
For the most part, the Israeli
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Rumors persist that the Egyptians built acme
underground hangars, using straight stretches of road for air strips,
that the Israelis neutralized these stretches of road. We have
'ormationn to confirm or negate these rumors, but they appear
.bie.
d. Hm-ber of aair-oraft a ie alloca:k2d !a each a&rfj&ld_
The Israelis used varying numbers of aircraft In their
attacks. general, they struck in flights of four aircraft at a
time.
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We have eyewitness reports of two aattaacka, the ones
on Damascus and Amman. tnsaeaua=s, was hit by four flights of four
aircraft each over a two-hour period. The number of aircraft
attacking Amman is a town; individual attacks were made by flights
of four aircraft.
It appears that the Israelis attacked
each field only as often as necessary until they were satisfied
that the field was out of ccaiaaion or all the aircraft on it
destroyed.
MlftE o Ian eli. aircraft lost, by airfield.
The Israelis lost about 46 aircraft during the war.
One of these was a Noratlas destroyed by strafing in one of the
very few Arab a.ttaeks on an Israeli airfield. We don't know which
airfield this was. Two Mirages and one Vaautour were lost in the
second attack on H-3 in Iraq. These planes were downed by Iraqi
aircraft while on bombing runs. These are the only lasses for
which the place and cause are known.
5X 1 C f. Number of Raesgo per beragI4 as - ft.
This tactic appears to have applied only to attacks on airfields
but even then it was not followed in all instances, since we know
from the attack on Damascus that rockets were used on some second
passes and at least two airfields were apparently not boar'
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a used and. to eaten
ounted foa tied n.
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Only conventional immitions were used. Those included
bombs, rockets, and cannon. Napalm was apparently not used against
airfields. The damage to aircraft can be attributed
largely, if not ti e~y, to 30 mm cannon using arm=-Piero
Incendiary a ition. Such a> nmition was used In the attack on
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Liberty and would be the moat logical choice for attacking
d. The actual mechanism of destruction was
fuel tanks; most of the Arab aircraft were apparently
fueled and armed.
The - damage to runways could have been caused
by ordinary HE bombs. Much has been made of secret weapons and new
types of bombs, but the available evidence show t no evidence of
them. Acourtcy the bombing of runways may have been the secret.
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or retro-rooket to kill forward speed after release and
;van into the runway by rockets attached to the rear.
one tog was intended to penetrate the runway before exploding.
The other exploded on the surface, and its fragments were supposed
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o pit the surface enough to render the runway unusable.
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Two types of now bombs have been mentioned. Both are
for law-level,, high-speed delivery. They use either a
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in
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a British aviation magazine, the runway at Jebel Libni. was pictured
two shallow bomb craters very close together which the magazine
were multiple kills of aircraft both on the
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ground and in the air. On the ground the multiples were caused
both by closely parked aircraft being set afire by adjacent aircraft
which were struck by strafing passes, and by Bevel aircraft being
struck on the same strafing run. There apparently were several
multiple kills in aerial combat during the war. This can be attri-
buted both to the skill of Israeli pilots and the incomtence of
!iab Pilots.
2.
of the war.
ted to a new tie of Israeli bomb.
estimated. Various estimates place the rate at about fo
grtiea flown bx lasraeli Air Foroe
a. The numbs' of sorties the Israeli Air For
rs per day per operational aircraft. With a total
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Dry of about 2.40 aircraft, the Israeli Air Force could have
own 900 to 1800 sorties per day, at least In the first day or two
The high sortie
Mwsllent maintenance
from 93 to..100 percent of available aircraft.
probably many others as short as half an h
(2) Short missions, many no longer than an hour and
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(3) Very short turn-araund timesii, pro'
motes, perhaps lass in scene oases.
25X1 C (4) Apparently excellent pro-p1 vm .
The fact that most miss ions wei
own in day-
light, giving ground caws the whole night for maintenance and
repairs.
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b. geaggt: gDak hourss.
Israeli pilots reportedly fly more hours per month
than those of any other air force. Regular IAF pilots fly a
day, presumably five days per week. This would make monthly indi-
vidual flying hours range around 30-40 hours.
Zxtet of Mintezai oa etanddc u
of maintenance in the IAA' is extremely high.
of reserve pilots meant that many practice
ded. If there was a stand n# it was most likely
4 Juno and the night of 4-5 June.
sasttties .
The extent of any maintenance stsnddt t prior to 5
own. It probably was not great for two reasons. First
d aircraft
n say very little about the allocation of aircraft by
and mission. On 5 Jui very few aircraft were hold in reserve
or air defense. General S.L.A. Marshall states that 12 aircraft
were held on the morning of 5 June, when eight were sent up in
tsponse to Arab attacks. It is quits' possible that there was not
even this, .oh of a reserve and that every flyable aircraft was sent
to attack A ab airfields. The aircraft left behind probably we
those that could not be made flyable in time.
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sualtise, and materiel losses due to air action can
d in rough terms.
The total number of killed in action may aaount to some
20,000. Air action probably accounted for very few of those
or wounded in a etion .
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Several factors indicate that the 10 may have had rela-
ly good success against tanks. These include the IA `se control
e air, the open desert terrain, and the Arabs' habit of carrying
wel loads on their tanks. At the same time,, a tank is
unlikely to be destroyed unless it is hit with bombs or rockets,
although it may be disabled by machineguns and cannon. Also the
Korean mar experience indicates that it is extremely difficult for
an aircraft to destroy a tank.
On balance, It is likely that the bulk of the Arab armor
that was destroyed fell to Israeli ground forces, especially tank
forces whose primary mission is to counter hostile armor.. N
thelesa. the Iii' probably contributed substantially and was
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aponsible for the damage wee a% zas Nvca
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d tAe. Israeli+s use in. c1 see a
1 Iirl~
I^P~II
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The munitions used in close support were 7.62 mm
guns,, 20 mm and 30 mm cannon of various types includin,
ry, 82 mm rockets, and bombs. Napalm was used to
concentrated targets.
6. y, :to
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doted in aerial combat. The Israelis claim they did
tweet 5 and 10 June swathing like 30-60 Arab a:
oee a single aircraft in. aerial combat. (No Arab has eve:
25X1 C dcnm an Israeli in air-to-air combat.)
7. rdM 32 X2&- W 2U a
Information on the daily support given by the Imo' to parti,
cular units is unavailable.
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Initially, the Mitla Pass was an all-LA? show, and the IAF
appears to have done nearly all the damage. The Israeli ground forces,
which did not reach Mitla until the evening of 7 June, pretty much
oenfined themselves to blocking foot troops trying to retreat through
the pass.
9. 2W 2a air 2z gmmd forces des&= 1k b
Jordan I ver-1
is t# Asa n tofthatroll
in the Zaattlea at MitlA Plea?
We do not know who destroyed the bridges over the Jordan.
uniZg b b the t e't-d MUMS?
lo. Dia the W.
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era t tactics if their cr ter air strikes failed?
We do not know what Israel would have done if the counter
air strikes had failed. Certainly there were plans taking that
possibility into account. If the IAF had been forced to fight a
relatively undamaged foe,. it would have taken longer to establish
air superiority, but them was never any doubt in the Israelis'
minds as to the eventual outcome. .An agreed community estimate
before the war was that it would take the IAA' from 24 to 48 hours
to establish control of the air without a preemptive strike on
Arab airbasee.
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. d Ill use =wh ara.tr4ht?
. We would like to add a comment on the Ierae
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concept of their air offensive. They obviously anticipated a short
war and had limited objectives. This conclusion is based on. the
they did not try to attack either the Arab air forces'
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or basic illations such as repair shops or depo
e sole focus of the initial attack was the neutralization of Arab
air forces by destroying either their aircraft or their runways.
later? after air superiority had been gained, other installations
such as radars and SAM sites were attacked to give the IA? freedom
f movement ever the battlegrounds.
This 3.9.mited concept of operations has matte it possible
for the Azbs,: especially the UAR, to reconstitute their air forces
by patching runways and taking delivery of new aircraft. Morale
factors aside, the only limit on the Arabs attaining their prewar
level of air oapabi3lby is the speed with which new aircraft are
delivered,
obvious that greater efforts would have been
%sio structure of the air forces and personnel
tended to carry the war into Egypt proper or if Israel
had had any doubts as to its ability to swiftly defeat the Arab
amiss on the grid.
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