Latrun: Myth and Reality

The telling of history, and especially military history, is often pervaded with incorrect and sometimes outright false information. This stems both from the unclear and disorganized nature of battle itself, as well as intentional disinformation spread by various parties. The Arab-Israeli Wars are perhaps the prime example of this. Many wild accusations have been made over the years, some of which are still prevalent today - such as the "240" dead at Dir Yassin (it was around 120) in 1948. One of the strongest and most emotionally charged of these stories is the "popular" description of the First Battle of Latrun at the end of May 1948, known also as Operation Bin-Nun Aleph. According to this version, David Ben-Gurion cobbled together a group of Jews "just off the boats" from Europe into a brigade (the 7th) and sent them - before they could be properly trained or even understand Hebrew - on a suicide mission to attack the Latrun area, fortified by two Arab Legion battallions, in order to relieve beleagured Jewish Jerusalem. He did this in flagrant disregard for both the advice of his operations officer (and de-facto Chief of Staff), Yigael Yadin, as well as the brigade commander himself, Shlomo Shamir, both of whom pointed to the unpreparedeness of the brigade on almost every level. The result: a slaughter unheard of in the annals in the Israeli War of Independence. The number killed, according to this version, range from the hundreds to the thousands. Needless to say, this makes Grant's attack at Cold Harbor (also inaccurately told - see Gordon Rhea's book on the subject) look like a skirmish. It is also incorrect in almost every aspect. Whatever isn't exaggerated is taken out of context. There isn't room on a blog to rebut everything here, so I'll stick to some of the main points, with a bibliography at the end for the rest. 1) The 7th brigade was not compiled solely of immigrants "just off the boats" at the time of the First Battle of Latrun. Several, more experienced units, including the veteran 32nd battallion from the Alexandroni brigade, were attached to balance it out. The 32nd was compiled of native born Israelis or veteran immigrants. 2) Neither Ben-Gurion nor the brigade command knew that the Arab Legion was at Latrun at all, let alone entrenched with a strength of two battallions. According to the (outdated) intelligence in their possession, the positions in and around Latrun were held by Palestnian irregulars. 3) On the basis of this information, the brigade planned to attack Latrun and neighboring Dir Ayub with only three of the nine available companies. The rest were to provide support or perform other tasks. Of the three companies that were to attack, two belonged to the 32nd, and were to attack the Latrun police station itself. Only one company was from the 72nd, which was one of the two battallions made up of new immigrants, and was to attack Dir Ayub. 4) The number of those killed at Latrun is as follows: 32nd battallion - 52 killed, 72nd battallion - 22 killed. NOT 400, CERTAINLY NOT 1,000, BUT 74 killed. Most of those killed were not "fresh off the boat", but were in the country a relatively long while. Moreover, the battle was not a constant charge against entrenched positions with "boat cannon fodder" as has often been alleged, but was rather a retreat almost from the outset. Next time someone tells you, or writes about the "hundreds slaughtered at Latrun", remmeber that this is baloney. For those of you who are interested in finding out more, I recommend the following (in Hebrew): 1) A. Yitzhaki, Latrun, Part One, Jerusalem 1982, p. 210-236. 2) Y. Gelber, Nucleus for a Hebrew Regular Army, Jerusalem 1986, p. 248-253. 3) Y. Markovsy, Gahelet Lohemet, Tel Aviv 1995, chapter on the first battle of Latrun.