Six-Day War 1967: Operation Focus and the 12 hours that changed the Middle East (Air Campaign, 10)

I have many Osprey books, but have never read one of their Air Campaign series until this volume. My first impression of the series is that I will be back for more! I read this in conjunction with Osprey Campaign books of the Six-Day War, being Campaign #212 Sinai and Campaign #216 Jordan/Syria, and together, the three books made a great summary of the Six Day War.My only knowledge of the 1967 Six-Day War was that the Israelis won it; I was quite unfamiliar with the details of the how and why of the war. This book offers an interesting look at the operation that allowed the Israelis to win: Operation Focus, the pre-emptive destruction of the Egyptian Air Force on the ground.The purpose of the book is to offer a concise history of the background, planning, and execution of Operation Focus, yet it goes into some detail by using tables to show different aspects of the campaign, without cluttering up the text with those minutiae. I found this to be a clever and useful way to handle such things as type and number of aircraft, and which munitions they carried on a particular mission, relative aircraft strengths of the opposing forces even to the point of a base-by-base breakdown, and damages claimed by the Israeli Air Force pilots, among others.Within the text, we read a mission-by-mission, strike-by-strike account of Focus. Interspersed within this are bits of personal stories and eyewitness accounts. One of the most bizarre of these was an account wherein an Egyptian pilot took off, moved to engage the Israeli fighters, and then ejected from his aircraft before firing a shot!The narrative is not a conventional, straight-forward chronology. Focus was a time-sensitive operation plan, and the author constructs his narrative in the same way that Focus itself was constructed, that is, according to what time aircraft would be over their targets. With so many missions in the air at one time, a true chronology would leave the reader lost in a maze of overlapping take-offs, strikes, and landings. I found the method used by the author provided great clarity by grouping his narrative segments into the same time-on-target plan.The book highlights the brilliance of the Israeli plan: go in low, surprise the enemy, and destroy the opposing aircraft on the ground. Modern tactics would have one first destroy the enemy radar systems, then destroy the anti-aircraft defenses, then destroy the runways, and only then destroy the grounded aircraft. The Israeli Air Force accomplished in mere hours what most modern air forces would spend days or weeks doing. By inverting the common tactical doctrine and destroying the aircraft first, everything else was made irrelevant.The bulk of the book deals with the first day of Focus, and rightfully so, for it is in the first few hours of the first day that the Israeli Air Force achieved its goal and created the conditions under which the Israeli Defense Force ground elements could engage their opponents under favorable terms.Operation Focus is a near-perfect military operation, an example of what can be achieved when bold ideas, accurate intelligence, and skilled personnel come together, and this book does justice to those who planned it and carried it out.

What do you want to know about each Israeli air mission in the 1967 War? This publication will tell a history buff a lot about the missions, weapons, and personnel that won the 1967 Six Day War in the first day. Admittedly, the flow could have been much better to interest a casual reader. The writing reminds one more of a carefully recorded diary than a smoothly flowing non-fiction work. It doesn't answer that popular question: were the Egyptian pilots at breakfast when the Israeli Air Force struck their bases? The question of losses and casualties on both sides is carefully addressed. There is much here to support historical research, a great deal of information compacted in a single volume.

I have only read one other Air Campaign book from Osprey, "Rabaul," which I found to be very good, so I was looking forward to reading this title on Israel's initial air campaign that opened the Six Day War. Unfortunately it didn't really live up to my expectations. Obviously, with a book specifically focused on a single day's events, I was anticipating a fair amount of detail. In this respect, I got more than I bargained for. A good chunk of the text narrative is a listing of scheduling of raids, departure bases and departure times, target destinations, and enemy aircraft destroyed, supplemented with tables showing types and numbers of aircraft involved.All of this is fair enough, I suppose, but the resulting narrative reads like a curious hybrid between a train timetable and baseball box scores. It's interesting in one sense – I know that avid railway / baseball aficionados find material like this to be an endless source of fascination. And of course, I know that modern warfare requires precisely this kind of approach. But it's perhaps not quite so engrossing or enlightening for those of us who are less wholly immersed in such preoccupations. It might have helped if there had been a bit more context provided. For example, I would have welcomed some preliminary discussion of the various aircraft types, their strengths, weaknesses and capabilities. I for one have a less than perfect picture of what exactly an Ouragon could or could not be expected to do, versus a Fouga or a Vautour. I suspect the author, who is clearly a highly informed, genuine expert (unlike some of Osprey's other authors!), assumed the reader has a sufficient fund of knowledge to make such inclusions unnecessary. Even so, his writing style is resolutely managerial and flat, more suited to a post-operational report than a narrative history for the general reader.There are however several interesting quotations from the memoirs of Israeli pilots which, if somewhat straightforward and unsophisticated in style, at least convey a sense of how it felt to participate in these history-making events as they unfolded. Finally, on the plus side, the maps and artwork are well done. In fact, to my own surprise, I found the original paintings to be one of the more engaging features of the book – in general, I regard most of the "battlescenes" that typically appear in Osprey Campaign books as laughable and a complete waste of valuable space. But in this book, they actually added to its appeal.So, in short, I wasn't really taken with this effort. I have a feeling there are better accounts to be found elsewhere.

In the run-up to the Six Day War of 1967, the Israeli Air Force planned and practiced a preemptive strike against its likely opponents in Egypt, Syria and Jordan. In the event, Iraqi airfields were also targeted. The goal of the strikes was to establish air superiority at the beginning of any war against an Arab coalition.In this Osprey Air Campaign Series book, author Shlomo Aloni details the planning and execution of Operation Focus. His narrative explores the political and therefore operational uncertainty leading up to the beginning of hostilities, and the difficulties of establishing the level of damage inflicted in the course of fast-moving air combat. His occasionally stilted English provides a wealth of interesting detail, supported by maps, charts, and period photographs. Well recommended to students of the conflict and of air warfare.

This is a very good read on the first day air campaign of the six day war o f 1967 , I found it well balanced between what can sometimes be just a long list of air attacks / missions and the personal recollection of persons involved in the actual campaign.

The six day war was mostly a land campaign but all this book mentions is the aircraft involved. I thought the title completely misleading and my copy is already out for disposal.

A book that has clearly been very carefully researched. I'd suggest reading it alongside a more personal account such as "The Lion's Gate".

Typisch gutes Osprey-Buch. Aus persönlicher Sicht kleiner Nachteil: Zu wenig persönliche Berichte der beteiligten Piloten.

A daring Operation seen in astonishing Details!