It was the morning of October 6 1973 and I woke up in Rome, Italy. My wife and I were on our way back from Glasgow to Israel after a short holiday in Scotland to visit our families.

At that time, I was midway through my army service in the IDF and I received special permission to leave the country for an overseas visit. This was our return journey and a few days earlier we had visited a Citroen vehicle factory just outside Paris where we picked up a brand new Citroen GS saloon which I had bought with the intention of driving it back to Israel.

As we started to drive from Rome to Naples, where we were planning to embark on an Israeli ship, the Nili, owned by the Israeli Zim shipping line, to take us to Haifa, we heard on the news that a war had just unexpectedly broken out in the Middle East. Land forces from Egypt and Syria launched surprise attacks on Israeli positions on fortifications in the west of the Sinai at the Suez Canal and on the Golan Heights.

We decided to drive to the port of Naples in order to find out what the plans were for this vessel and whether it would set sail back to Israel, despite the war. That evening, we were able to board the ship in the hope that within days we would be back home.

The ship sailed that night but the next day, we noticed that the vessel was sailing in circles around the Isle of Capri and not making any progress along its planned route. That evening, back in Naples, all the passengers disembarked, the Israeli passengers were flown from Rome to Israel, with an allowance of only one small bag, whilst non-Israeli passengers received a full refund. A few stressful hours later, we were back in Israel and I returned to my army unit a few days into the war.

The war began on October 6, 1973, when the Arab coalition jointly launched a surprise attack against Israel on Yom Kippur. The fighting started when Egyptian and Syrian forces crossed the ceasefire lines with Israel and entered the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights.

The Arabs specially selected Yom Kippur as the day for the launch of their offensive. This was a time when traditionally Israeli forces were at minimum levels as many of them were on leave at home for the holiday. Along the Suez Canal, fewer than 500 Israeli soldiers were attacked by 80,000 Egyptians. On the Golan Heights, approximately 180 Israeli tanks fought off 1,400 Syrian tanks. The position of Israel during the first few days of the war was incredibly perilous as Israel attempted to respond effectively to the situation.

Early into the war, the Syrians had reached deep into Israel’s territory and if they were not stopped, they could have captured Tzfat and Tiberias. The Egyptians, who had successfully crossed the Suez Canal, were deep into the Sinai Desert. General Moshe Dayan the Defence Minister at the time had a nervous breakdown and was ready to appear on television to tell Israel that they had lost the war. That would almost certainly have been an utter disaster but it provides a picture of how bad the situation had become.

Although Israel initially suffered very heavy losses, once the army reserves arrived at their positions the tide of the war changed.

The Israeli military proceeded to launch a four-day-long counter-offensive deep into Syria, and within a few days, the Israeli artillery forces were able to shell the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus. The Egyptian forces pushed forward and further into the Sinai Peninsula, but were repulsed, and it was the unexpected, astute and incredibly well-executed manoeuvre by the Israeli forces, under the leadership of Ariel Sharon, who years later was Israel’s PM, to counter-attack the Egyptians that was the turning point of the war.

On October 16, ten days after Egypt crossed the Suez Canal, Sharon led his own troops across the canal through a narrow gap in the Egyptian front. The Israeli forces swiftly spread out behind the Egyptian forces, destroying the effective anti-aircraft batteries and successfully blocking the supply and reinforcement routes.

This surprise development completely cut off numerous Egyptian units, made them vulnerable to Israeli air strikes, and allowed Israeli forces to fully encircle them ensuring that no major Egyptian forces were left to stop the advancing Israelis all the way to Cairo. This surprise development forced Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to plead for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire.

Israeli leaders agreed with their Egyptian counterparts and ordered Sharon to stop sending forces across the canal. However, Sharon did not obey and by pretending to experience communication difficulties, he sent as many of his forces as possible across the canal. He knew that attacking the Egyptians from their own rear – destroying the missile batteries that impeded the Israeli air force, ambushing reinforcements and supplies, and simply causing massive confusion across the entire front, would induce the organisational collapse of the Egyptian army.

On October 22, an initial ceasefire brokered by the United Nations broke down and each side blamed the other for the breach. By October 24, the Israelis advanced deep into Egypt encircled the Egyptian Third Army and were within 60 miles of Cairo. This development led to dangerous tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, who had aligned with Israel and the Arab states, respectively, and a second ceasefire was agreed on October 25, 1973, to officially end the war.

The Yom Kippur War had far-reaching implications following the humiliation experienced by the Arab world after the 6 Days War in 1967 and they felt vindicated by the early successes in the 1973 conflict. As for Israel, although it won the war, it was at an enormous cost of 2,668 soldiers killed.

Israel would have not been successful in repulsing the Arab forces had it not been for the massive airlift of arms, tanks, and spare parts sent by President Richard Nixon. In total, over 8,000 tons of military supplies were airlifted to Israel over a few days. Ammunition, spare parts, tanks and fighter jets reached the country at a critical moment, replenishing heavy losses and enabling it to advance within 60 miles from Cairo and 25 miles from Damascus. Moreover, the political and military commitments made by the United States countered the Soviet Union which had threatened to intervene in the crisis on behalf of their Arab states.

On November 18, 1973, the government made a decision to establish a national inquiry commission to investigate the IDF’s function during the Yom Kippur War. The Commission members were asked to examine the intelligence available from before the war on the intentions of Syria and Egypt, the analysis of the intelligence by the authorized civilian and military units, the general preparedness of the IDF to fight, especially on the date of October 5th 1973, the day prior to the outbreak of the war.

Next time, lessons from the Yom Kippur War and what happened to my car with all the belongings left on the Nili.