Operation Thunderbolt, the Israeli plan to rescue the hostages being held in Entebbe was given the green light to go on July 3, 1976, as the deadline set by the terrorists approached with no appreciable progress being made by negotiations. Four C-130 Hercules cargo planes and two Boeing 707 jets left Israel, crossed over the Sinai Peninsula, flew down the length of the Red Sea, and crossed over Djibouti and Ethiopia to land in Kenya. The planes never flew higher than 30 meters (100 feet) to avoid radar from the Arab countries surrounding the Red Sea. One of the 707s was a plane with a mobile hospital on board, the other was the command plane. The four C-130s had a black Mercedes limo, Land Rovers, armored personnel carriers (APC`s), and 100 IDF commandos on board. The planes landed at exactly 11:00PM local time with their cargo doors already opened. The limo and land rovers was Ugandan President Idi Amin`s preferred travel vehicles. The Israelis hoped to get past security and into the airport unchallenged. Unknown to Mossad, Amin had just bought a brand new white Mercedes, so the IDF was challenged. Someone shot the guards with a non silenced rifle. Fearing surprise was lost, the Israelis charged the terminal. Using megaphones, shouting out in both English and Hebrew, the IDF commandos ordered the hostages to get down. During the actual rescue operation 3 hostages were killed in the firefight between IDF and the terrorists. All seven terrorists were killed, as were 45 Ugandan soldiers. The only Israeli commando to die was Yonatan Netanyahu, the commander of the ground forces and older brother of current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The APC`s were used to suppress the Ugandan army troops and to destroy the entire Ugandan air force of 35 MIG17s and MIG21s to prevent the leaving Israelis from being shot down. The time the Israeli`s were actually on the ground was 53 minutes, and the total time, including landing, unloading, and reloading the planes was under 90 minutes. 102 of the 106 hostages were rescued unharmed, three were killed, and one, 75 year old Dora Bloch, who was in a hospital, was left behind.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 09:58:42 +0000
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