The control tower that took the bullets

Jul 04, 2016

Its four walls are uneven, making a rectangular vertical ‘strip’ towards the sky.

Painted grey despite very conspicuous ‘bullet scars', sustained when a group of 200 Israel commandos attacked in 1976 and freed hijacked hostages, the 3789 ft control tower at the old Entebbe International Airport stands thick, defying time and modern architecture.

The tower, built in 1952, when Briton Sir John Hathorn Hall still governed Uganda, bears all the hallmarks of 20th century construction — very thick gravel walls set against the sky and a little rudimentary and ancient in the make, lacking finesse and the pristine of contemporary creation.

Its four walls are uneven, making a rectangular vertical ‘strip' towards the sky. The height is rough; same as its conical roofing after level 3, under which the aviation officer directing traffic flow at the airport sat.

But it is in the manner this four-walled barbican was ripped, during that daring attack by Israel's elite commando unit, the Sayeret Matkal that grips the most. This place was a battlefield.

From slightly after midnight, when the four C-130 Hercules planes swooped in low over Lake Victoria undetected to when mission was accomplished 53 minutes later, the exchange (between the Amin-backed hijackers and the Israel commandos) was intense and swift. It left behind too many scars.

All the three levels of this barbican have scars of this battle. But it is level two and three and the very topmost, the roof top that took the most from the exchange. All their walls are bullet riddled. The railings lining the rooftop are shattered. The building is a shambles, but perhaps the only thing to vividly remind of that night in 1976 at this old airport near the shores of Lake Victoria.

The building has been preserved for posterity purposes. The Ugandan and Israel Governments plan to turn it into a museum.

At the rooftop, the whole of the airport runway with its black and white markings and the taxi area is a distance below. You can view the rest of the UN base and the new Entebbe International Airport (build by Amin in 1979) and peripheries (of Entebbe town) at this the altitude. The rest are the expansive ‘black and blue' waters of Lake Victoria.

From this point, a slight spot marked black in the center of runway mark lines 4 and 5, is also visible. It was here, at this spot, that the commander of the elite Israel Commando unit, Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu, was gunned down by the last standing Amin soldier, others called Captain Rafael Osacha.

According to the Jewish Virtual Library, after the commandos had infiltrated Entebbe and killed all the seven hijackers (four Palestinians and three Germans) and inadvertently three of the hostages and scores of Amin's men, they were helping the hostages onto the C130 plane, when the commander sustained the bullet wounds. He was pulled inside (the plane) but died shortly afterwards.

Netanyahu was the only Israeli soldier killed during the raid (along with three hostages, all of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine members, and dozens of Uganda soldiers). Netanyahu was shot outside the building being stormed, and would soon die in the arms of Efraim Sneh, commander of the mission's medical unit. The operation itself was considered a success by Israel, and was renamed as Mivtsa Yonatan (Operation Yonatan) in honor of Netanyahu.

"Those aboard C130 had little imagination that the lifeless body in the front cabin belonged to the commander of the daring heroes who had just rescued them," an excerpt from the library reads.

When Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives in Uganda today (on Tuesday), he is expected to move up the tiny steps inside the tower to its level 3 to pay personal tribute to the unit commander and his elder brother, who would be 70 years today.

Netanyahu is expected to hold bilateral talks with President Yoweri Museveni, especially on how the two countries can learn from each other on security matters.

The raid

Skimming above the choppy waves through the dark the four planes swooped in low over Lake Victoria, packed with over 200 elite Israeli commandos on a daring raid to free hijacked hostages.

Landing soon after midnight at Uganda's Entebbe airport on July 4, 1976, it took the paratroopers less than an hour to storm the base and free 103 passengers aboard an Air France plane, an operation that has gone down in Special Forces legend. The plane had been hijacked a week earlier on June 27.

The Israeli forces landed, with their cargo bay doors already open. A black Mercedes car that looked like President Idi Amin's vehicle and Land Rovers that usually accompanied Amin's Mercedes were brought along.

The Commandos hoped they could use them to bypass security checkpoints. When the C-130s landed, Israeli assault team members drove the vehicles to the terminal building in the same fashion as Amin.

As they approached the terminal, two Ugandan sentries, aware that Amin had recently purchased a white Mercedes, ordered the vehicles to stop. The commandos shot the sentries using silenced pistols, but did not kill them.

As they pulled away, an Israeli commando in one of the following Land Rovers killed them with an unsuppressed rifle. Fearing their cover had been brown off, the assault team quickly approached the terminal.

The rescue

The Israelis sprang from their vehicles and burst towards the terminal. The hostages were in the main hall of the airport building, directly adjacent to the runway (demolished for refurbishment of airport for the 2007 commonwealth heads of government meeting in Uganda).

Entering the terminal, the commandos shouted through a megaphone, "Stay down! Stay down! We are Israeli soldiers," in both Hebrew and English. Jean-Jacques Maimoni, a 19-year-old French immigrant to Israel, stood up and was killed when Israeli company commander Muki Betzer and another soldier mistook him for a hijacker and fired at him.

Another hostage, Pasco Cohen, 52, the manager of an Israeli medical insurance fund, was also fatally wounded by gunfire from the commandos. In addition, a third hostage, 56-year-old Ida Borochovitch, a Russian Jew who had immigrated to Israel, was killed in the crossfire.

According to hostage Ilan Hartuv, Wilfried Bose was the only hijacker who, after the operation began, entered the hall housing the hostages. At first he pointed his rifle at hostages, but "immediately came to his senses" and ordered them to find shelter in the restroom, before being killed by the commandos. According to Hartuv, Böse fired only at Israeli soldiers and not at hostages.

At one point, an Israeli commando called out in Hebrew, "Where are the rest of them?, referring to the hijackers. The hostages pointed to a connecting door of the airport's main hall, into which the commandos threw several hand grenades. Then, they entered the room and shot dead the three remaining hijackers, ending the assault.

Meanwhile, the other three C-130 Hercules aeroplanes had landed and unloaded armored personal carriers to provide defence during the anticipated hour of refuelling. The Israelis then destroyed Ugandan MiG fighter planes to prevent them from pursuing, and conducted a sweep of the airfield for intelligence-gathering.

Departure

After the raid, the Israeli assault team returned to their aircraft and began loading the hostages. Ugandan soldiers shot at them in the process. The Israeli commandos returned fire with their AK47s, inflicting casualties on the Ugandans. During this brief but intense firefight, Ugandan soldiers fired from the Airport control tower.  

At least five commandos were wounded, and the Israeli unit commander Yonatan Nentanyahu was killed. Israeli commandos fired light machine guns and a rocket-propelled grenade back at the control tower, suppressing the Ugandan's fire. The Israelis finished evacuating the hostages, loaded Netanyahu's body into one of the planes, and left the airport. The entire operation lasted 53 minutes — of which the assault lasted only 30 minutes.

All seven hijackers present, and between 33 and 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed. Out of the 106 hostages, three were killed, one was left in Uganda, and approximately 10 were wounded. The 102 rescued hostages were flown to Israel via Nairobi, Kenya, shortly after the raid.

As an operation, it was "a difficult one", remembered Amir Ofer, then a sergeant major and now a businessman, visiting Uganda earlier last month as part of preparations to mark the anniversary.

Bullet scars preserved

Uganda and Israel are planning the memorial to be one of reconciliation, preserving the bullet scars in the walls of the old terminal. The C-130 Hercules used in the evacuation was also flown back (from Israel to Entebbe) on Sunday.

Also yesterday, a batch of Israel soldiers arrived aboard a Booing to pay tribute to the commandos.

An Air France plane en route from Tel Aviv to Paris had been hijacked by two Palestinians and two Germans in Athens, and ordered to fly to Entebbe with 250 passengers aboard.

Uganda's President Amin, who had cut ties with Israel in favour of cash handouts from Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, allowed the hijacked plane to land.

On arrival, Jewish and Israeli hostages were separated and others freed, leaving about 100 hostages and crew members guarded by the hijackers.

Neither the hijackers nor Ugandan troops ever expected Special Forces could stage a raid from so far away, taking the airport by complete surprise.

"We fanned out without any one realising that we were an enemy force," Ofer said, describing how they rushed out of the plane after touching down in the dark. The initial force roared out of the plane in a black Mercedes that looked like Amin's personal car, but their cover was blown when they had to shoot a Ugandan guard.

"Within minutes of our arrival, we were able to arrive at the terminal, kill the terrorists and within an hour we were on our way back to Israel," Ofer added.

Enemies in 1976, the raid today is hoped to help build ties between the two nations.

Netanyahu's trip, the first by an Israeli premier to Africa since Yitzhak Rabin visited Casablanca in 1994, is a culmination of years of rapprochement and is hoped will boost links with African nations, particularly on security issues.

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