Recounting an action during the largest jet-to-jet battle in history

Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement – is the holiest day in the Hebrew calendar and in Israel is marked by a national holiday but on that day in 1973 the unexpected happened. At 14.00 hours on 6 October the coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israeli positions. Thousands of Egyptian troops swarmed across the Suez Canal into Israeli-held Sinai whilst in the north nearly 1,500 Syrian tanks backed by artillery thrust west towards Israel.
Facing this sudden surprise attack on the Golan Heights were less than 200 Israeli tanks. In the air, too, Egyptian and Syrian air forces struck in a single, co-ordinated assault hitting the Israeli’s anti-aircraft defences and hoping to deliver a fatal blow.

Largely unprepared, Israel reeled however within hours it mobilised its fighting reserves and began a ferocious battle to stem the enemies advance. As Israeli tanks and infantry rushed to hold the front line and, in the north, push the enemy back, Israeli Air Force jets overhead fought a heroic battle to regain the initiative and control of the skies. It was grim work. Both Egyptian and Syrian forces were equipped with hundreds of Soviet-supplied SAM missiles but the tide of war was turning and a battered Israeli Air Force now went on the counter-offensive. And amongst their main targets were the heavily-defended Egyptian air bases that lay deep in the Nile delta.

Robert Taylor’s powerful and dramatic painting depicts one such strike that took place on 14 October 1973 during the final stages of the war when Israeli F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers made simultaneous strikes against the Egyptian air bases at Mansoura and Tanta north of Cairo.

After the first wave struck the elite Egyptian MiG-21 units at El Mansoura, the other Phantom squadrons attacked Tanta in waves, turning to dog-fighting immediately after dropping their ordnance. Tanta was also home to two squadrons of Libyan Mirage 5s and the ensuing air battle was so intense that at one point more than 180 fighter aircraft were involved. Despite bitter opposition, the successful IAF missions eliminated much of the effectiveness of the Eygptian Air Force and its Libyan allies.