The Most Daring Hostage Rescue Ever - Assault And Rescue_ Operation Thunderball - Crime Documen

They told us it was an impossible mission. It's good for James Bond. It's as good of a plan as it gets. We didn't have any options. This operant will never take off. Go, go, go! Israel, June 27th, 1976. As the country starts its day, information about a developing crisis reaches its special ops team in Tel Aviv. It was Sunday morning and I was at my office and they said aircraft with many Israelis was hijacked. I got a call from Ehud Barak who asked me to come to his office in the IDF headquarters. When I arrived, there were four other intelligence and air force officers there. Okay, let's get to work. An Air France flight originating in Tel Aviv and bound for Paris has been hijacked by four terrorists. We learned there is about 250 passengers and many of them are Israelis. The hijackers identified themselves as two members of the German urban terrorist organization, the Baader-Meinhof gang, and two from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. They had guns, hand grenades and possibly bombs. They meant business. At this point, the whereabouts of the plane is not known. So the first day and the first night was just trying to track this aircraft. Then, early next morning, they get word about the missing aircraft. They found the plane. Air Force? Entebbe. Entebbe? My first reaction was, where the hell is Entebbe? I don't know, somewhere in Africa. I didn't know where is Entebbe. But I knew where Entebbe was. It was in Uganda. I was there in the early 70s training their paratroopers. Get me a map. So I sent an officer when the shops opened and we found some old maps of Uganda. Today you get it from Internet, but in that time it was published. And we measured the distance, and it was so far from Israel. It was about 5,000 kilometers, 3,000 miles. How did we even get in there? This was a unique situation, because it was so far away. Nobody took into account that one day we shall have to fly to Uganda. We don't have plan to go to Uganda or to the North Pole. Okay, it's 10 times further than we've gone before. Suppose we have to find a way to get there. How do we do it? But before the team can respond, they're interrupted by breaking news. Uganda's dictator, Idi Amin, has arrived at the Entebbe airport. Idi Amin hasn't changed a bit. Idi Amin appeared escorted by a lot of media people. Still playing the big shot every time he walks by a camera. We knew about Idi Amin. He was a media whore. He loved being in the public eye. With an ego as big as his body, Idi Amin is suddenly in the center of world attention, a position he has never sought to avoid. And so it made sense to us that he would spontaneously let the plane land in Entebbe. The crisis gave him a forum. He wanted to be the one who solved the standoff. As I watched him addressing the hostages, I realized they'd been moved from the plane. Oh, see that? That's the building. I recognize that place. Been there hundreds of times. I identified that they were in the old terminal. Show me where it is. Over the next night, the team picks Batcher's brain. I knew the basics of the structure and the area around it. When was that, five, ten years ago? More like six, seven. Have you been back? Have you seen it since the military took it over? No. Do you think they've changed it? I have no idea. What we needed was up-to-date intelligence. In a world without Google Earth and easy access to information, the Israelis are forced to improvise. Israel is very small and we're surrounded by enemies. We have to think originally. We have to innovate to stay alive. Do we have any friends in Uganda? None we can trust anyway. But I have an idea. Batcher now contacts a pilot who's also an agent from Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service. I asked him, could you possibly help us? And without hesitation, he said yes. He went to Nairobi and rented a small plane. The agent files a flight plan to tour the area and heads west towards Lake Victoria. The operation was so secret that I only got permission last year from Mossad to talk about it. Then, over three days into the crisis, the hijackers break their silence. Terrorists holding the crew and passengers of an Air France plane in Entebbe Airport have announced their demands. They wanted Israel to release 52 Palestinian prisoners. They also demanded the release of 13 other prisoners held in jails around the world. And finally, they're demanding $5 million in cash. These demands were clearly very extreme and they wanted them met in two days. Two days, when they start killing hostages. That's insane. From a logistical standpoint, these demands are impossible. So we had to do something. You cannot wait until you have all the information you need. You have to act. The general feeling was that we don't have an option. So we moved from negotiations to a military operation. With a military operation now imminent, their Mossad pilot makes landfall directly over Entebbe Airport. He told the tower he had a malfunction and wanted to circle the airport and try to land. All the while, he's getting us critical intelligence. We see everything, including all the runways, the terminal, Uganda's MIGs. Eventually, the agent told them the problem had resolved itself and he returned to his mother airport. That's how we got the pictures. At headquarters, we gave the intelligence to everybody and said, OK, come with whatever you have. What if we rent a boat in Kenya and send a small group of commandos across Lake Victoria into Entebbe? Skip the boat. They start planning for a small force to eliminate the terrorists and release the hostages. Why don't we just drop paratroopers into the waters around the airport and then make an assault on the terminal? The only problem with that was Lake Victoria was filled with crocodiles. When you have a brainstorm, you put everything into the basket. But then, 80 hours into the crisis, they get news from Paris. French authorities have revealed that terrorists holding the hostages from the Air France hijacking have released all the non-Jewish hostages. We learned that the terrorists did a selection and separated the Israelis and Jews and released the other passengers. News of this selection outrages Jews around the world. But for the Israeli forces, it discloses something completely unexpected. The hostages reveal they're up against a far more dangerous enemy. The four terrorists are not acting alone. The guns are pointed at us. It told us that actually Idi Amin's force, guys, soldiers are completely cooperating with the terrorists. We learned that everything Idi Amin had been telling the world was a lie. He was in league with the terrorists. It's a different story to come with a small group of experienced commando and kill four or five terrorists and release the hostages than to come and fight against the Ugandan army. The non-Jewish hostages from the Entebbe hijacking arrive in Paris. We were surrounded continuously by heavily armed guards. Both the PLO and the Ugandan troops. Leaving the remaining 102 Jewish hostages in the hands of the terrorists and Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. So now we have two enemies. We have the terrorists and we have the Ugandan soldiers. We have to overcome both. The last thing the Israelis want is to find themselves thousands of miles from home fighting an entire army. Uganda! But they quickly discover that the disturbing events of the last 12 hours have a silver lining. The terrorists did a big mistake. We started to get information from the hostages. So what we know at this point that instead of four we have ten terrorists guarding the hostages. Now we have a picture of what's happening inside the Taliban. How many terrorists are there? How many Ugandan military are there? Approximately 80 to 120 Ugandan soldiers around the building. The team now scrambles to adapt to this completely different reality. Which means we need to bring a larger force. Their first step is to find the commander of a new and little known squadron in the Israeli Air Force. I was in a wedding in Haifa and I got the call from the chief of the Air Force. He's calling a squadron commander directly. But you've got to understand the situation. The Israeli Air Force was fighter pilots, all of them. And I was the only commander with the knowledge of how to fly our new C-130 Hercules. Can you carry 100? So they said, can you get there? How much cargo? 200? No problem. The only thing that could do a tactical mission like this was the C-130. I love this plane. It has the fuel and range to bring forces that can be load quick and unload quick. So now they have the planes they'll need to carry this larger force from Israel down the Red Sea, then inland to Entebbe. But how do they fly there without being detected? It's a surprising concealment. Now we're talking about 76 and we didn't have peace with Egypt and definitely not peace with Saudi Arabia. So we knew we had to avoid the detection of the radar along the Red Sea from the Egyptian side and from the Saudi Arabia side. So we decided that we had to fly so very, very extremely low. We knew that the range of the radar in low level would not reach the middle of the Red Sea. But avoiding enemy radar means nothing if they can't see the Entebbe runway. So they target their landing for just after the last scheduled flight departs when the runway lights should still be on. We knew that the airport was being still operational but not busy. This gets them to Entebbe. But how will they land without attracting the terrorists? And I must tell you that an aircraft can land at night without immediately being attacked. Even if the tower see him on the radar, for instance, he can pick up the telephone and say to the Ugandan authorities, listen, somebody's landing at the airport and they will pick their telephone and then they will pick their telephone and call the terrorist. But once an airplane is on the ground, it's like a sitting duck. So the problem now is, how to get as quickly as possible from the plane to the old terminal two kilometers away? And how can we approach the terminal without triggering a massacre? This problem got me thinking about when I was in Uganda and I'd see how their soldiers would attack a high-ranking officer or even EDMN. It's at this moment that Muki Betzer has a brainwave. Does it run? Yes. It's going to have to do. My idea was to use a Mercedes and some Land Rovers to disguise ourselves as a military motorcade and drive from the plane to the old terminal. Now, if you're able to land that plane quietly without being recognized, then the enemy will think that I'm in himself who's coming to visit them. So we'll be able to get right up to the terminal entrance and surprise them. The whole idea behind it is to keep the surprise. And that was a very good idea. So we have to sink out of the box. We have to dare. As good of a plan as it gets. But there's a problem. We can't send our troops on a one-way ticket. The Hercules C-130 can only carry in a fuel to get them there. We have to find a way to bring them and the hostages back home. It's a big problem because we had to refuel the plane in some place around Uganda. And most of the countries don't have fuel from the Ugandans. I looked at the intelligence pictures and I saw where you can refuel your aircraft. But I was still really worried about it. It looked very risky. So risky that the Israelis sent Ehud Barak on a top-secret backup mission to try and secure fuel in Nairobi. But even with the pieces of the plan now coming they worry. What if the runway lights are off? If you reach there and the runway is dark, what would you do? Go back. So we had to find a way to land without using the lights, which is a big, big problem. We didn't have the night vision capability and we didn't have how we build in 24 hours the system that we hoped will tell the pilot the distance from the runway and the level of the aircraft. The idea behind this system is that radar waves bounce back more slowly from the water and sand than they do from the hard surface of the runway. You can detect by radar where is ground, and you can plan your approach. But the question is, how accurate will their makeshift system be? That was a crazy system. It was very, very, very risky. The leadership of the Air Force and the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, did not think that we are able to land in the dark. They wanted a demo. So what I did was I looked at the radar. He finds the angle of a normal approach. So he gave me the direction. I was under tremendous pressure that I will fail to convince them that because of me the Israeli government cannot do anything except surrender to the terrorists. And then we have to surrender just in case. As pilot Joshua Shanny attempts to land his Hercules C-130 on a darkened runway, he discovers he's got a big problem. I was about to land on the fence. I guess the radar picked it up stronger than the runway. I just told them, let me try it once more. Because the generals went back to the government, the minister of defense, the cabinet, and recommended we have a military option. The politicians still don't give them final approval, which creates an even more critical issue. The team now can't reach the hostages before the terrorists' deadline. We have to gain time to make it appear that we were negotiating with the terrorists in good faith, and they assumed we weren't going to launch an assault. So we used negotiations to delay the deadline to the 4th of July. With this new deadline now just 24 hours away, the base floods with elite specialists and commandos. At that point, the leader of our commando group, Yoni Netanyahu, returned from a mission in Sinai to take charge of the operation. As his deputy, I brought him up to speed on all the intelligence we had so far. Having assembled his team, Yoni Netanyahu orders the base locked down. They disconnected by surprise. Even our wives and family weren't allowed to know. But in spite of the lockdown, pilot Natan Devere gets approval to make a quick trip off base. My wife was giving birth, so I went to the hospital and I could not tell my wife about the operation. I just tell her that I do not have time. She had to finish giving birth very fast, because it's spot on. Back on the base, the team is struggling with contradictory intelligence reports. The big issue is how many ways there are into the terminal. Unfortunately at this point we don't have any confirmation. Some of them say three, some of them say two. But there are also some people that say there's only one door. Let's plan for three. If we're wrong, we'll just use whatever doors we find. On Friday night, we organized and checked each other's equipment. We made sure everything was okay. We also did something which was a huge secret. They swear a local seamstress to secrecy and put her to work creating Ugandan uniforms. But they risk paying the ultimate price. If you are arrested with the uniform of the local army, you are considered a spy and you are executed on the spot. The linchpin of the operation is the fake Ugandan motorcade. But the Mercedes the car wasn't in good condition. It was an old vehicle. We need it to go two kilometers. Even though we only needed it to drive from the plane to the terminal, if it stalls, we're dead. To be like a Ugandan car, we put a license plate with Ugandan number, we put a Ugandan flag on the car. We were thinking to sleep. At this point, Yoni went over the final plan. How the operation should be done and what every team in the staff should do. We will arrive on the first plane disguised as Ugandans. We have the key of the operation, we have to storm the building with the hostages and seven minutes later there will be a reinforcement of light armored vehicles in the other Hercules planes. The troops are now committed to the mission, but the politicians working behind closed doors in Jerusalem are still afraid to greenlight something so risky. If it will be approved, it will be either the biggest failure of the IDF or the biggest success. In spite of not having approval, the commanders realize if they don't take off by 4 p.m., they won't be able to arrive before the terrorists' deadline. If you wait until they take decision, it's impossible to do it. So you have to start. On Saturday, a force of four Hercules C-130s prepares to take off from Sharm el-Sheikh, the southernmost point of land under Israeli control. We got the go-ahead but without the final approval. We were facing an eight-hour flight from Sharm el-Sheikh. We needed all the fuel and everything is just all through. It's going to be over 100 degrees up there. Around 40 centigrade. Copy. They face two huge problems. Hot desert air provides dangerously little lift and the aircraft is 40,000 pounds overweight. We never operate like this. Now when you combine this weight to temperature of 40 degrees, it's like you lose an engine. This airplane will never take off. And just imagine if this would be a national disaster and shame for me for the rest of my life. I prayed. Let's see what happens. Joshua Shani, lead pilot in a top secret mission to rescue Jewish hostages, desperately struggles to get airborne. I stayed in the ground effect, in the cushion of air that you are flying over. Okay, you gained one knot. And the whole crew were looking at the speed and said, oh, you gained one knot, one knot, good, another knot. It was like a celebration to get five knots. And another knot, good, good. At the very end of the runway, we just got to the takeoff speed with no spare. We are very, very heavy. On the second Hercules, they're having the same problem. The one stage of the takeoff, I thought, are we going to fly to Entebbe or are we going to Texel because we never lift off. And then we finally took off. And the performance is limited. It's very hard in low speed to turn north because you have to take off against the wind. It's very difficult to fly so low. We flew by a radio altimeter because you cannot trust the normal altimeter at sea level. And it was like 30 feet, I could not fly more than trust in my hands. Remember, a movement of two millimeters will hit the water. Guys were everywhere, on hoods and even in the trunks of vehicles, anywhere where there was space. The flight was a terrible one, terrible. It was the worst in my life. I felt that I'm going to die. After three hours, the plane turns inland over Eritrea where Israeli intelligence confirms there's no radar and climbs to 20,000 feet. During the whole flight, I didn't sleep even a second. I was very nervous. But on the other hand, you don't really expect something will happen to you. When you're young, you don't think about it. You know your mission, you know there was hostages there. You don't speak too much. Time is passing by and before landing, they finally get official approval for the mission. I didn't listen to it. I didn't care about it. I was pressing on. We got the signal about 20 minutes before landing. All the soldiers woke up and prepared for the operation. The visibility was reasonably good and we saw the runway at a very early stage. Getting closer. The navigator still initiates the radar vector approach in case the Ugandans turn off their runway lights at the last second. There's a big risk because we didn't know if they were waiting for us on the ground or not. We are coming to the most important point probably in our life, maybe in the history of the new country, Israel. The fear was to fail. It has touched down at the beginning of the run. At that moment I understood that that's it. It's not a game anymore. It's going to happen. I sense that it is okay. No shooting, no noise, but you don't know. At that final moment, I remembered a terrible hostage tragedy two years earlier. Because we lost the element of surprise, the terrorists opened fire on the people, mostly children. This was my greatest fear. I stopped the airplane in the middle of the runway and then a few soldiers jumped from the doors with portable runway lights to mark a short runway in case somebody will switch off lights. Okay, let's go. Immediately I felt a terrible loneliness. Three vehicles in the middle of Africa and I had a feeling that within five minutes some of us will be dead. As we were approaching the terminal from a distance, I'm scanning everywhere looking for the Ugandan soldiers. We knew there could be as many as 180 of them. Where are they? Suddenly, as we approached the terminal, an armed Ugandan soldier appeared and blocked our way. Nobody shoots but I knew that if we just kept going he'd think we were a motorcade and wave us through. We won't do anything, that's what they're here to do. I told Yoni, leave it, he won't stop us. Suddenly Yoni gave an order, shoot them. At the very, very same moment Muki said, don't do it, shoot at him. The Ugandan immediately tried to get up and return fire. However, behind us took him out. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go! We lost the perfect surprise that we want to achieve. Immediately the Mercedes at the front accelerated and we followed him. Yoni gave the order to jump out and we start to run to the main hall. Commando teams raced towards their assigned entrance points. At that moment I looked and I couldn't see my commander. I just thought that he's already ahead of me, so I decided to run as fast as I could. From out of the darkness the Ugandan soldiers opened fire on us. At that time there were terrorists shooting at us and there was exchange of fire. I took one out with a chest shot, it took only seconds. Then Muki stopped for a while and Aguashani taxis toward the underground fuel tanks to hook up his plane. And then I turned to the direction of the old terminal, so I was watching the scene. There was tons of bullets in the air. I could see my door wasn't there. This was a serious problem. We had to find another way in. Negative on door one, negative on door one! At the same time Amir had found a door, and could see a terrorist inside taking aim at him. I saw the AK-47 shooting at me. I saw the whole glass shattering. I was right behind him. And without even thinking, I shot him three or four times. Suddenly, on my left, I saw two terrorists running at us. And only then I understood that I'm in a very great danger. I opened fire on them. I came next to cover Amir and Amnon. The hostages told us there were other terrorists on the second floor. He threw a grenade to the room, and he got some fire, and he shot into the corridor. It's going to be okay. Stay calm. We are here to take you home. There were several wounded, several dead, mostly the terrorists. I wouldn't like to be in this room again. These people were shot from very close distance, and not the nicest things to see. With the inside of the terminal now secure, the team prepares to move the hostages out to the plane. Yanni, we are ready to evac. But Yanni Netanyahu and his team are still in a firefight. Meanwhile, Natan Devere brings in the second Hercules, loaded with armored cars and reinforcements. It is exactly seven minutes since the first plane landed. And I enter final approach. And I saw the runway was still in light. In the beginning of my landing, everything went dark. I just saw the flashlight that's number one left for me. I was on the ground. I was safe. We started to refuel, but my fear is that I will lose an airplane. Yanni, I need a C-trap. Yanni, do you copy? Yanni, we are ready to evac. But Yanni doesn't answer. Yanni's been hit. Okay, Yanni's been hit. Hit? Where? How bad? He's trapped out front. Get them ready, but don't move them until you get the order. Understood? Outside there was a lot of fire. We are shooting with the RPG rocket. I leave the terminal and I see Yanni lying unconscious. He has a terrible wound. In casualties, bullets were flying. We still had to get the hostages to the plane. Hit the door! Hit the door! I hear from the radio that Ethiopian soldiers are approaching the airport. I really wanted to get the hell out of there. For the Israeli forces in Entebbe, getting the hostages out to the plane is now the number one focus. Okay, everybody up. Go! It's then they get word that Ehud Barak's secret mission has secured fuel for them in Nairobi. So my decision, together with the ground commander, was to stop the refueling and to fly before we lose an airplane. This is the news they've been waiting for. I give the order to evacuate. It's a hundred people and we need to move very fast. It's now or never. They have no choice. So I took this young lady in underwear. I think they were red. And I put her on my shoulder and I said to myself, this situation of the brave soldier with the half-naked beauty and running between the bullets, I think it's repeated in hundreds of war films that I'm the only one in the IDF who had the opportunity to carry such a beauty half-naked on my back. One hundred and three are hustled out to the plane. I tell my men, use maximum firepower. You think that you are in the Second World War, but actually the reason for it was that we have to clear the whole environment. There was a lot of people inside this airplane, so one Ugandan soldier, he just can destroy this operation. Our men shoot with heavy weapons, RPGs, and it becomes silence. It was quiet completely. There was no fire anymore. We knew we had to get out of there as fast as possible. So the airplane with the hostages left. They were safe. When I saw the silhouette of the airplane with the hostages taking off to Nairobi, I said, mission accomplished. The runway was completely dark at that time. And we took off. With all but one of the Hurks heading to Nairobi for refueling, the Israelis have a final piece of business. And then we had to destroy the line of MiG-21s and MiG-17s. So that there is no counterattack from Ugandan forces. Amateur Kaepernick is the last man to leave. I wasn't going to leave the Mercedes there. We said, forget it. The projected operation time was 60 minutes. The mission was accomplished in 59. As we started to taxi into the runway, I saw a glow of light behind me coming from the explosion of the MiGs. We were elated. The operation was a success. But we lost Yoni on the way back. And all this happiness shut down like it was cut with an axe. On one hand, we lost our commander who was really an amazing person. On the other hand, we understood that we did something exceptional. After refueling in Nairobi, the team heads home to Israel. And on the way back home, the news exploded. First was the BBC. So I put the radio on the loudspeaker. Now when we hit Israel, we already knew that every single person in the country that we know, Hercules, was coming. So we took advantage of it. We went a little bit low level. We waved. We did things that we're not supposed to do. So we had some fun. We enjoyed it on the way back. As the world greets the released hostages, the heroes of the operation return under a cloak of secrecy. The whole country was exploding with joy. But at that time, it was a huge secret. I mean, nobody knew how we did it. And it was absolutely forbidden to identify us. But over the years, this incredible operation became a defining moment in Israeli history and sent a message to the world. It shows the international community that there is a way to fight terrorism. It was important as a deterrence to other terrorist organizations. And actually, after 1976, we didn't have, I believe, even one hijacking of an airplane. Going to Entebbe was important because it was a milestone for the soul of the nation. And when I got home, my father was there sitting in the middle of the room. My father lost his family in the Holocaust. And I looked at him, although I was exhausted and tired, I looked at him and I said, we are now involved in saving Jews, which nobody did when he needed it. It made him so excited and so happy and so proud that I said to myself, you did right, Sheki.