Sinking "Eilat", The Destoryer
General
Mohamed Abd Al-Ghany Al-Gamasy said in his memoirs (
On 21 of October, after a field
break, I came to headquarter of the front to find General Ahmed Ismail and
Brigadier Hassan Al-Gridly, chief of front operations ( I was not in that position
yet),
following up the movements of the Israeli destroyer
"Eilat" nearing the Egyptian
territorial waters by
the north of Port Said city.
Regularly, we were
receiving information from the naval leadership of Port Said
about the movements of the destroyer.
Forces of the base were on alert to get the
orders from the leadership of the naval forces to
attack the destroyer of the enemy
which kept on entering the territorial waters and coming
back repeatedly and provocatively to show the
weakness of our naval forces.
As soon as the commander of the naval forces gave
his orders to destroy the destroyer when entering
the territorial waters, two missile boats came out
of Port Said base to do the mission, the first one
launched a missile which hit directly
the destroyer that began to sink, after
launching the second missile the Israeli destroyer
sank completely with its crew in the
northern-east of
Port Said, After 5 p.m. of 21 of
October 1967, Eilat sank a mile away inside the
Egyptian territorial waters.
Then the two boats came back to
the base. All forces of the canal front and the
armed forces were very excited for the quickness
and efficiency that gave such outstanding result.
Sinking the destroyer "Eilat"
by two surface-to surface missiles, was a beginning
of new stage of
developing the naval weapons and struggle all
over the world. This day become, efficiently,
The day of Egyptian Naval Forces.
Israel asked the International
Control Forces to let
the Israeli planes rescue the destroyer crew from
drowning.
Egypt agreed not to interfere the rescue process
which happened on the lights of planes, and did not
take that advantage to kill the rest of the Israeli
force."
Source:
October War 1973, second
edition 1998. General Mohamed Abd Al-Ghany Al-Gamasy
chief of operations of
Egyptian Army during the
war.
