"Shells Falling on My Right and Left, But I Refuse to Leave"

"I am lying beside the commander jeep - behind me spare parts on trucks, shells are falling to my right and left, and I am engrossed in repairing the wheels of a Sherman tank, trying to get it back into action," Emmanuel Amibar describes the situation he found himself in during the Six-Day War, himself struggling to believe the magnitude of the risk he faced.

Yet he never thought for a moment that he did anything extraordinary. "I didn't do anything special, I simply did what was required of me," he explains. He's not trying to be humble but means every word. He truly doesn't understand what was special about his actions when called to rescue a tank with soldiers from enemy territory.

But when he looks back more than 50 years and recalls the details of the event, he shudders. "I have no explanation for what we experienced that evening, it was a great miracle from start to finish. We truly witnessed miracles."

War Without Maps

On the eve of the war, when Emmanuel was drafted for a mission, it was clear to him and his company they would fight in the northern sector. "I remember us before the war preparing among eucalyptus trees, in the Hamat Gader area," he explains, "My military education was in tank mechanics, and I was busy with friends fixing a tank issue in the north. But at the last moment, the division general and our battalion commander informed us of a mission change, telling us that we would fight towards the Jenin area. In a moment, the plans changed, and we rushed full force towards Jenin, with the goal to catch the Jordanians from behind. We had only one small issue – since we were in enemy territory, we didn’t know the area at all, and even more than that – we didn't even have maps."

How can you fight like that?

"Honestly, I have no answer, but one thing I know – the first task given to me by the company commander was to enter the wadi and reach a Sherman tank with a malfunction, and more seriously – there were soldiers stuck in it, in life-threatening danger. Truthfully, it was the first war I fought in, and the excitement was huge. I wanted to do what was required of me – I understood what a malfunction is, I also understood what stuck soldiers mean, but I couldn’t grasp how I could get there without maps. But the commander showed me the direction and explained: 'Drive straight until you see the tank.' So I set off, not before organizing a truck with the necessary spare materials for the tank and some soldiers following me. We all advanced for a few minutes, with me occasionally asking the commander for direction, and he bellowing: 'Keep going until you see the tank.'

"We constantly saw shells exploding, but at some point, we reached a bend where they were precisely exploding, and I realized we were in a firing zone. From that moment, I acted almost automatically. I told the soldiers behind me: 'I am going ahead now, and you wait behind. Only if you see I am not hit do you continue forward.' So I continued alone, and since I noticed the shells were falling at intervals, I waited patiently and immediately after a big explosion, took the opportunity to move forward."

Then it happened: just after the bend, he finally spotted what he was looking for – the stuck tank. From the first inspection, it was clear that the track had slipped off the wheels and was stuck between the tank's chassis and suspensions, requiring complex repair with several tools.

Then an unusual scene occurred: "I'm lying beside the tank," Emmanuel describes, "shells are falling to my right and left, and I'm struggling to cut the chain and reassemble it link by link. Meanwhile, my friends joined me, and together we did the job. I can't remember ever fixing a tank so quickly before, but I also can't recall ever doing such a thing when under such significant risk. To this day, I have no explanation for the fact that the shells fell one after another, and nothing happened to us. Simply nothing. It was a miracle from the heavens."

Saving the Soldiers

While fixing the malfunction, Emmanuel heard the tank's tanker and gunner shouting: "Soldiers are approaching us!" "Since we were far away, we could not identify if they were ours or the enemy's," he recounts, "but as they got closer, we saw them in IDF uniforms, one of them holding a wounded man limping behind him. When we asked who they were, they replied that they belonged to the division's engineering units. Very quickly, I discovered they were dehydrated because it was a very hot day. We gave them water, then I noticed there was more than one wounded, and the truth is that everyone was smoked and burned, and we didn't even have a medic to treat them. Suddenly, it struck me that we must leave urgently, because it was not only the tank but also the wounded.

"I remember speaking on the radio directly with the battalion commander, updating him on the need for an ambulance to evacuate the wounded, without even knowing how to tell him where we were. Meanwhile, I was trying to finish fixing the problem, making it clear to the soldiers and the tank commander: 'We continue working, the tank will get out of here,' and eventually, that's exactly what happened. I will never forget the incredibly moving moment when the tank commander signaled me 'we succeeded' from his place in the turret."

Emmanuel Amibar from the Six-Day War

And now honestly, how is it that you weren’t afraid?

"Of course, I was afraid. But I understood that this time, it was not an exercise but war for real for the first time in my life. I was fully determined until the end, but I don't think I did anything that someone else wouldn't have done. It's also why I was so amazed afterward when several months later they decided to award me a 'Medal of Valor' for what happened in the war. After all, that's exactly what is required of us during wartime – to carry out orders and take care of our brothers."

He pauses for a moment, then adds: "One thing I can say, and this is what I repeatedly tell my children and grandchildren: when you are under fire, shells falling to your right and left and none of you or your team gets hurt, you begin to understand that there truly are miracles in the world. Today, I have no doubt that this war was entirely one big miracle."