With a spectacular rescue operation, Israeli security forces ended the week-long hijacking of an Air France passenger plane by Palestinian and German terrorists in Uganda on the night of July 4, 1976. Patrick Huber has written about the operation in his new book “How King David’s sons conquered the sky” dedicated an entire chapter to the operation.
On the night of 4 July 1976, an Israeli commando operation freed the Jewish hostages held in Uganda and the French crew of Air France flight AF 139, which had previously been hijacked by the terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The entire rescue operation was so spectacular in military and aeronautical terms that no one would have thought it possible beforehand. That is why the element of surprise was on the side of the Israelis. The Jewish state thus impressively demonstrated to the entire world – 31 years after the end of the Shoah – its determination, strength and readiness to defend itself, which at least earned the respect of even critics of its approach. The drama began on June 27, 1976
Flight AF 139 was due to fly from Tel Aviv to Paris via Athens. The cockpit crew consisted of flight captain Michel Bacos († 2019), his first officer and the flight engineer. A cabin crew of nine stewards and stewardesses completed the crew. There were also 246 passengers on board the Airbus A300B4-203 with the registration F-BVGG (c/n 019), making a total of 258 people.
Shortly after take-off from the Greek capital Athens, four hijackers armed with firearms and hand grenades took control of the plane. Two of them were Palestinian terrorists, two others Germans: Wilfried Böse and Brigitte Kuhlmann, founding members of the left-wing extremist Revolutionary Cells, a German terrorist group. First, they forced the pilots and the flight engineer to fly to Benghazi (Libya), where the two-engine plane landed. There, the terrorists released the British Jew Patricia Martell after the woman had cleverly faked pregnancy complications. Martell was thus able to provide the Israeli secret service with the first valuable information about the hijackers. The A300 was refuelled and took off again from Benghazi after six hours on the ground. The hijackers initially did not give the pilots a destination, but eventually directed the flight to Entebbe Airport in Uganda, where the jet landed after a five-hour flight on the morning of June 28, 1976. The brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin – who had come to power with Israeli help in 1971, but became an opponent of Israel shortly afterwards – played a double game: on the one hand, he pretended to Israel and the West that he was working for the release of the hostages, on the other hand, he supported the hijackers and at least tacitly tolerated the fact that other Palestinian terrorists joined the original terrorist commando after the hijacked plane had landed.
The hostages were taken by the terrorists to the terminal’s old transit hall. The hijackers then selected the Jewish passengers (and those they mistakenly believed to be Jewish because of their names) and released the remaining hostages. This left 94 passengers and the twelve crew members as hostages. This selection to separate out the Jews was carried out by the two German terrorists Böse and Kuhlmann. A survivor of the Shoah confronted the German Böse with his tattooed prisoner number to remind him of the Nazi selection in the concentration camps. Böse responded by saying that he was not a Nazi, but an idealist. But didn’t many a Nazi once try to justify their cruel actions with their supposed “idealism”? The released passengers were flown from Entebbe to Paris on June 30th on a special Air France flight. The entire French crew of the Airbus had previously refused to leave the Jewish hostages, even though the terrorists would have released the crew. The crew later received high honours from the French state and Jewish organizations for their courageous behaviour. The terrorists now demanded the release of 53 political prisoners in the Federal Republic of Germany, Switzerland and Israel for the lives of the hostages – as well as a ransom of five million dollars for the Airbus. Military suicide mission instead of negotiations to rescue the hostages
On July 1, 1976, the Israeli government decided that it would not give in to the terrorists’ demands and instructed the military leadership to prepare a rescue operation. Israel benefited from the fact that the airport at Entebbe had been built by Israeli companies a few years earlier and therefore had the plans for the buildings, which were now useful. In the meantime, additional useful information had also been obtained from other released hostages. In order to prepare for the military rescue operation, the Mossad built a mock-up of parts of the terminal building. The Israeli commandos trained there for the attack.
Parallel to these preparations, the retired Israeli officer Baruch “Burka” Bar-Lev, who knew Idi Amin personally, tried to secure the release of the Jewish hostages who were still being held – in vain. And so, on the evening of July 3 – Shabbat – four Lockheed C-130 Hercules and two Israeli Air Force Boeing 707s took off from Sharm el Sheikh, which was under Israeli control at the time, and headed for Uganda. Objectively speaking, this mission was the proverbial madness, especially as even the take-off was life-threatening because the planes were hopelessly overloaded, as the pilot of the lead plane, Joshua Shani, recalls: “When we finally took off at the end of the runway, we were just two knots above the stall speed of the plane.” On board the Hercules were commandos from the special unit Sayeret Matkal – which did not even officially exist at the time – who were to carry out the actual rescue operation, medical personnel and security troops. The supreme command of Operation Kadur hara’am, Hebrew for “thunderclap”, was held by Brigadier General Dan Shomron († 2008), who also played a leading role in the planning. Shomron was an old warhorse of the Israeli armed forces who had served in the Sinai in a paratrooper brigade. During the Six-Day War (June 5-10, 1967), he had commanded a reconnaissance unit on the Egyptian front and was the first Israeli paratrooper to reach the Suez Canal. Shomron received a high decoration for this achievement. After the end of the fighting, he was transferred to the armored forces, where he commanded an armored division during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Two years before the liberation campaign in Entebbe, the experienced warrior had been given command of the Israeli infantry and paratrooper units. Specifically, the 100-strong force was made up as follows: The actual command unit of the Sayeret Matkal was 29 strong and was under the command of Lt. Col. Yonatan Nethanyahu (after he was killed in action, Major Muki Betser took over command). It was supplemented by the security force, which in turn was divided into three groups: The first group consisted of paratroopers under the command of Colonel Matan Vilnai. They were responsible for securing the tarmac, the taxiways and the runway for take-off. The second group, under the command of Colonel Uri Sagi, consisted of members of the Golani Brigade. They secured the C-130 Hercules on the ground and covered the evacuation of the freed hostages until they had boarded the aircraft. In addition, its task was to be available as a general combat reserve if required. The third group, under the command of Major Shaul Mofaz, also belonged to the Sayeret Matkal and was responsible for destroying Ugandan aircraft on the ground and fighting newly arriving Ugandan reinforcements.
Flying low through the night into enemy territory with a map, compass and stopwatch
To avoid being detected by Egyptian radar or the radar stations in Sudan and/or Saudi Arabia, the formation flew towards the target, sometimes just ten meters above the ground or the surface of the water, while maintaining radio silence – and in pitch black, using only a map and stopwatch, as GPS systems were not yet available in the Hercules cockpits with their completely analogue instruments in 1976. Unimaginable from today’s perspective …
“As the pilot of the lead aircraft, I had no visual contact with the other three planes, but their pilots overtook me from time to time and then dropped back again. That’s how I knew they were still there,” pilot Shani later recalled. West of Djibouti, the planes flew into Ethiopian airspace and then on to Kenya. Northeast of Nairobi, the formation headed west and flew over Lake Victoria in Uganda before approaching Entebbe. At first, it was not even clear whether the aircraft would even fly as far as Entebbe, as there was no political “go” for this daring commando operation at the start. It was not until they were in the air that the units finally received the news by radio that the Israeli parliament had finally approved the liberation plan. Now there was no turning back. The planes would arrive around midnight. The first plane to land, after a flight of around eight hours, was the Lead Hercules, piloted by the then 29-year-old Joshua Shani, after the crew had identified itself to air traffic control as a supposed airliner from London. The flaps to the cargo hold had already been opened in the air. Commandos emerged from the taxiing aircraft and positioned lights along the runway for the remaining three Hercules aircraft in case the tower switched off the runway lights. These planes were scheduled to land seven minutes later. While one Boeing 707, the flying command post with the commander-in-chief, General Yekutiel Adam († 1982), on board, was circling at a safe altitude near Entebbe, the second 707 (the medical plane) had landed in Nairobi. Fierce firefights
Immediately after landing, the Israeli soldiers unloaded a black Mercedes and two Land Rovers from the Hercules. The Israelis wanted to outwit the Ugandan guards and fake the arrival of dictator Idi Amin at the airport. However, the plan failed when Ugandan soldiers tried to stop the vehicles and were shot dead by the Israelis. The Israeli commandos then continued the assault on the terminal on foot and were immediately involved in fierce firefights with Ugandan military personnel. Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu – a brother of the future and current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – was killed. After the Sayeret Matkal commando entered the terminal building, the soldiers demanded that all the hostages lie down in Hebrew and English: “Stay down! Stay down! We are Israeli soldiers!” https://militaeraktuell.at/der-aethiopienfeldzug-und-die-abyssinian-campaign-medal/ The three Jewish hostages Jean-Jacques Maimoni (19), Pasco Cohen (52) and Ida Borochovitch (56) partially disobeyed this order and died in a hail of bullets along with all seven terrorists present. Another hostage, Dora Bloch (75), who was in hospital at the time of the rescue operation, was later murdered on the personal orders of dictator Idi Amin. Her body was only discovered after the end of Amin’s dictatorship and transferred to Israel, where she was laid to rest.
According to statements by Ilan Hartuv (* 1927 – † 2013), a son of Dora Bloch, the German terrorist Wilfried Böse initially pointed his gun at the hostages at the start of the battle, but “quickly came to his senses” and then asked the people to “take cover”. Immediately afterwards, Israeli soldiers shot the terrorist dead. In the meantime, the Israeli security forces from the other three Hercules also engaged in a fierce firefight with the Ugandan forces and destroyed Ugandan Air Force MiGs on the ground so that these jets could not pursue and shoot down the Israelis on their return flight. The plan was then to refuel the Hercules for the return flight to Israel using hand pumps. But in the midst of the battle, the pilots received word that Kenya had agreed to a stopover for the planes in Nairobi, eliminating the need for this risky and time-consuming maneuver. Flight to freedom
When the four Hercules finally took off for Nairobi after around an hour on the ground with 102 hostages alive on board, eleven MiG 17s and MiG 21s of the Ugandan air force had been destroyed and around 45 Ugandan soldiers were dead. The Israelis suffered several wounded (including a young paratrooper who remained paraplegic for the rest of his life) and the loss of Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu.
In Nairobi, the wounded hostages and soldiers received medical treatment and were transferred to the Boeing 707 ambulance plane before the four Hercules and the two 707s returned to Israel. There, cheering crowds welcomed the hostages and their liberators. International criticism of Israel
At international level, some states criticized Israel’s actions, with which the only Western-style democracy in the Middle East to date had saved the lives of its citizens, almost as if they were biting reflexes. In the UN Security Council, for example, the Afro-Arab and socialist states demanded a special session because of the “violation of Uganda’s sovereignty”. The then Secretary-General of the UN, Kurt Waldheim († 2007), personally condemned the Israeli military operation as a “serious violation of the sovereignty of a member state”, but at the same time welcomed the successful outcome of the hostage rescue. Japan also criticized Israel, whereas most Western states – including the Federal Republic of Germany – at least tacitly tolerated the Israeli rescue operation. And so the condemnation of Israel demanded by African states ultimately failed to find a majority in the UN Security Council. The German lawyer Ulrich Beyerlin († 2015) argued that Israel’s actions were not covered by the right to self-defense in the event of war due to the lack of an armed attack by Uganda against Israel. However, both Beyerlin and all other critics of the action failed to answer the question of what would have happened to the Jewish and French hostages in the hands of anti-Semitic Palestinian and German terrorists supported by an inhuman dictator if Israel had not claimed this special form of “self-defense” for itself. Israel’s UN Ambassador Chaim Herzog († 1997) therefore also made it clear to the UN Security Council: “We come with a simple message to the Council: we are proud of what we have done because we have demonstrated to the world that in a small country, in Israel’s circumstances, with which the members of this Council are by now all too familiar, the dignity of man, human life and human freedom constitute the highest values. We are proud not only because we have saved the lives of over a hundred innocent
people – men, women and children – but because of the significance of our act for the cause of human freedom.” German translation: “We approach the Security Council with a simple message: We are proud of what we have done because we have shown the world that in a small country, in Israel’s situation, which is now all too familiar to the members of this Council, human dignity, human life and human freedom are supreme values. We are proud not only because we saved the lives of over a hundred
innocent people – men, women and children – but because of the importance of what we did for the cause of human freedom.” Operation Thunderclap was also an important signal from the young state of Israel to international terrorism and all anti-Semites, sending a clear message: “We will protect our citizens from you, anywhere in the world!” In honor of the fallen Yonatan Netanyahu, the operation was subsequently renamed “Operation Yonatan”.
https://militaeraktuell.at/der-2cv-ein-sehr-unuebliches-militaerfahrzeug/ Der ugandische Diktator Idi Amin ließ als Rache für seine Demütigung durch die Israelis nicht nur die jüdische Geisel Dora Bloch im Spital töten, sondern auch mehrere hundert im Land lebende Kenianer. Im Oktober 1978 ließ Idi Amin dann Tansania überfallen ‒ der Anfang vom Ende seiner Terrorherrschaft. Nachdem nämlich tansanische Truppen im Frühjahr 1979 die ungandische Hauptstadt Kampala einnahmen, floh Amin zunächst nach Libyen, später in den Irak und wurde schließlich in Saudi Arabien aufgenommen, wo er in einer fürstlichen Villa residierte. Dort starb der Diktator, der während seiner Herrschaft 300.000 bis 400.000 Menschen ermorden ließ, im Jahr 2003, ohne jemals für seine Verbrechen zur Rechenschaft gezogen worden zu sein. Jene Boeing 707-131 (4X-JYD), die bei der Operation als fliegender Kommandostand diente, ist heute übrigens im israelischen Luftwaffenmuseum in Hatzerim zu besichtigen. Am 31. Dezember 1980 verübten palästinensische Terroristen einen Bombenanschlag auf das „The Norfolk Hotel” in Nairobi, das einem Mitglied der lokalen jüdischen Gemeinschaft gehörte. Dabei starben 20 Menschen verschiedener Nationen, 87 weitere wurden zum Teil schwer verletzt. Es gilt als gesichert, dass die Terroristen sich damit für die Unterstützung Kenias bei der Befreiung der jüdischen Geiseln vier Jahre zuvor rächen wollten. Gedenken an Ereignisse
Die Ereignisse rund um die Entführung von Flug AF 139 und die Befreiung der Geiseln durch israelische Kommandosoldaten wurden zwischen 1976 und 2018 mehrfach als Spielfilm verfilmt. Zudem existieren zahlreiche TV-Dokumentationen zum Thema. Die bekanntesten Verfilmungen sind „Unternehmen Entebbe” von 1976 mit Richard Dreyfuss, Anthony Hopkins, Burt Lancaster und Elizabeth Taylor, die unter der Regie von Marvin J. Chomsky spielten, sowie „… die keine Gnade kennen” von 1977. Hier spielen unter der Regie von Irvin Kershner internationale Größen wie Peter Finch, Horst Buchholz, Charles Bronson oder Yaphet Kotto. Letzterer war übrigens der im New Yorker Stadtteil Harlem geborene Sohn eines aus Kamerun stammenden afrikanischen Juden und übernahm im Film die Rolle von Idi Amin. Im August des Jahres 2012 gedachten Uganda sowie Israel gemeinsam des Anschlags und hielten eine Zeremonie am Fuß des alten Towers des Flughafens ab. In dessen Nähe war Yonatan Netanyahu bei der Befreiung der Geiseln gefallen. Beide Staaten bekräftigten während der Zeremonie ihre Verpflichtung, „den Terrorismus zu bekämpfen”. Israelische und ugandische Vertreter legten Kränze zum Gedenken an die Todesopfer beider Seiten nieder und hielten eine Schweigeminute ab. Dabei wehten die Flaggen Israels und Ugandas Seite an Seite. Eine Gedenktafel am Tower erinnert heute an die dramatischen Ereignisse des Jahres 1976. Auch in Tel Aviv existiert ein Mahnmal.
Exactly 40 years to the day after the liberation operation, the then and current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the brother of the fallen Israeli commando soldier Yonatan Netanyahu, visited Entebbe with an Israeli delegation. The scars left by the Israeli bullets during the firefight are still visible on the old tower in Entebbe. Yonatan Netanyahu (30) was laid to rest in the national cemetery on the Herzlberg in Jerusalem. And also in the USA (where he was born and spent parts of his childhood and youth), several memorials commemorate this extraordinary soldier who made the ultimate sacrifice to fight international terrorism and protect his people.
