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CHAPTER 90

When Mossad took delivery of Horst Wagner with all his  supplimentary documentation there were many pointed questions that Judith found im- possible to  answer, but such was her new fame, both  nationally  and internationally, that  the  intelligence service  was  severely  con- strained. The Prime Minister himself, David Ben-Gurion, told Mossad to back off and in his ancillary role as Defense Minister he brevetted Judith to the rank of Segen in the Israeli Defense Force,  equivalent to a junior lieutenant.

For the time being, as a brevet officer, she retained the pay of  Sa- mal, or Sergeant, from her service in the reserves. But having been grasped by the clutches of the IDF officer corps she was compelled to undergo her first physical. In the main Judith was in excellent condi- tion. The doctors noted the ugly mass of keloid whip  scars  on  her back, which limited her movement to a degree, and they noted the  six digit tattoo on her forearm and they knew how she got the scars.

In 1952 there was a coup in Egypt deposing King Farouk, who had ruled his country since 1936. One of the coup plotters, a leftist  revolu- tionary named Colonel Gamal Nasser steadily rose in influence to  be- come the usual President-for-life. In 1956 Nasser nationalized  the Suez Canal, seizing control from the British. He closed the Straits of Tirin in the Red Sea, which effectively put the southernmost  Israeli port of Eilat under a blockade. At the same time he refused to allow any ships bound for Tel Aviv or Haifa to transit the canal.

The United  Kingdom and France laid plans to take the canal  back  by force. They were interested in getting Israel involved in this opera- tion. Israel was already leaning toward a tussle with Egypt, the ques- tion was  simply when, not if. Cross-border fedayeen raids from  the Gaza strip had never ceased in the eight years Egypt had occupied it.

The French  began to arm the IDF, with special emphasis  on  the  air force.

In the third week of October Nasser moved part of his army into Gaza, including a number of artillery pieces which were used to  shell  the Israeli settlements near the border, of which Judith's kibbutz of Yad Mordechai was  the closest. But she wasn't there. Nasser also  moved troops into the Sinai Peninsula, supplied with the latest Soviet mili- tary equipment.

Judith was debouched by Michael in much the same way she had been tak- en from the Isle of Wight to Yad Mordechai, or from Yad Mordechai  to Argentina  and thence to Tel Aviv, except this time she moved  through time as well as space. Five years were shaved off her life. Judith arrived in 1956 at the still tender age of twenty-three.

When she reported to her unit she explained her absence from all  the scheduled drills with a claim that she had been overseas hunting  Na- zis. That was entirely sufficient. Her superior officers didn't even bother to verify the claim by requesting to inspect her passport, and indeed she had none.

On October 29, four Israeli World War II vintage P-51 Mustang fighter planes flew  into the Sinai and cut, with their propellers,  all  the telephone lines connecting the Egyptian forces in Sinai to their home office in  Cairo. On the same afternoon, 395 IDF  paratroopers  were dropped at  Mitla Pass, only fifty miles from the Suez  Canal.

Meanwhile, a force commanded by Colonel Ariel Sharon crossed the bor- der and seized (through very hard fighting) three Egyptian  positions along the  150 miles from Israel to the pass. Sharon then  disobeyed orders to halt and proceeded to seize Mitla Pass, at a cost of just 38 Israeli lives.

On October 31 an Egyptian frigate fired two hundred shells into Haifa from the  sea, but a French destroyer drove it off. Two Israeli  de- stroyers then chased it down and opened fire, and later  two  Israeli warplanes damaged it with rockets. The Egyptian ship surrendered, and it was subsequently boarded and towed to Haifa.

Israel fought a fierce series of tank battles for Abu Ageila, and af- ter two days the Egyptians withdrew. From this position, Israel could supply its  troops in the central Sinai without an  attack  from  the rear.

On November  2  the IDF seized El Arish on  the  Sinai  Mediterranean coast, which completely isolated the Gaza Strip. By that same evening, the Egyptian governor in Gaza surrendered. The Israelis penetrated to within ten miles of the Suez Canal and took possession of forty  Sovi- et-made T-34 tanks and sixty armored vehicles which were left  behind there.

Seren Judith Margolies's part in the war began at Eilat and ran  down the western shore of the Gulf of Aqaba. The objective was to seize the guns at Sharm el-Sheikh and lift the closure of the Straits of Tiran. Her commander was Colonel Avraham Yoffe, and she was part of a motor- ized infantry brigade of 1,800 soldiers and 200 vehicles.

Their route was along a camel track that was never designed to be used by wheeled vehicles. At one point at Wadi Zaala they all had to break out their spades, dig their vehicles out of deep sand, and push  them uphill.

At Dahab Oasis they had their first firefight against the camel-mount- ed troops of the Egyptian Frontier Force. They also were supplied with fuel from boats sent down the Gulf of Aqaba from Eilat. Meanwhile, a detachment  of Ariel Sharon's paratroopers advanced in a pincer  move- ment down the Gulf of Suez, nearly doubling the size of  the  Israeli assault force.

At Sharm  el-Sheikh a huge battery of naval guns were  positioned  to block  all shipping to Eilat. There, 1,500 Egyptian troops with their mortars and artillery held off the Israelis for four hours of intense fighting, and it was over the course of those four hours that  Judith and the company she led put forth her supreme fighting effort. The big guns of the fort were disarmed by 9 AM that morning.

The water route to Eilat was opened once more. Israel had achieved all of her  war objectives in just one week. Total IDF losses  were  172 killed and 817 wounded.

Having lost the war, Egypt was compelled by the terms of  the  cease- fire to  allow Israeli shipping to pass through the Suez  Canal  once more. Immediately, an Israeli destroyer squadron passed from the Medi- terranean to the Red Sea to support Yoffe, his battalion  commanders, Judith Margolies, and all their infantry at the tip of the Sinai Pen- insula.

In recognition of her contribution to the victory Judith was elevated from brevet segen to the regular company grade rank of seren, or cap- tain, with the corresponding pay.

Not by word, correspondence, telegram, or phone call did Judith Margo- lies appraise her father in England of any of the things that she had achieved since  she parted from him, nor any of the  historic  events that transpired daily around her.