Straight as an arrow, I headed for the end T-54 Russian tank, the Israelis and I firing in all directions, all of us taking the same zigzagging course. Gradually it dawned on the Syrians that the tanks were our goal and they did their best to stop us. One man tried to close the hatch over the end tank's driving compartment, but I blew him away before he could succeed. Then I almost cut in two a Syrian who, on top of the turret, tried to drop down into the fighting compartment through the hatch of the Commander's Cupola. The Israelis raked the rest of the vehicles, chopping down screaming guerrillas frantically trying to get inside the second tank and four of the six Gronshiv armored cars.
With ricochets whining all around me, I reached the front of the end T-54 tank and crouched down by the slanting glacis plate. Lev Wymann and Joe Risenberg skidding down beside me several moments later.
"I've always wanted to drive a baby like this," panted Risenberg, patting the hard, hot steel of the tank.
As Ben Solomon and Cham Elovitz jumped down beside us, I asked Risenberg, "Are you sure that you can?"
"Any of us could," Risenberg said, fixing red-rimmed eyes on me. "We were all members of the Israeli 3rd Armored Brigade.
"Here come the others," Solomon said.
The last four Israelis darted for the second T-54 whose hatches were also open to circulate air. Benjamin Sahl and John Ivinmetz carelessly exposed themselves by climbing up on the rear glacis plate deck. Sahl caught a blast of slugs in the back, the impact knocking him flat to the transmission louvres on the right side. He lay still, his right arm dangling over the exhaust silencer.
Ivinmetz's hands were on the top rod of the external storage rack fastened to the rear of the turret when he was riddled with projectiles. He didn't cry out. He only sagged on the engine louvres and lay still.
The other men and I stared, grim-faced and hurting inside. Martin Lomsky and Karl Nierman, realizing that the two of them could not operate the enormous T-54, rushed to the first armored car next to the tank and crawled into the six-wheeled vehicle through the side hatchway of the driver's compartment.
"Let's move," I said bitterly. "Risenberg, you drive."
"I'll be the co-driver," Cham Elovitz said. "That way I'll be able to work the front hull machine gun."
"The first thing we must do is destroy the other tank," I said grimly. "Then we're going to shell everything in sight."
We piled into the tank through the hatches over the driver's compartment, me. Wymann and Solomon going in first. In a very short while, Risenberg and Elovitz crawled in and secured the hatches while, in the fighting compartment of the turret, Wymann and I familiarized ourselves with the cannon and checked the shells in the ammunition storage bin. Ben Solomon first checked the loader's hatch, making sure it was locked, then climbed the ladder on the cupola's platform and locked the commander's hatch.
In spite of the heat and stink of unwashed bodies, I grinned, thinking of the superb fighting machine we had at our disposal. The T-54 was not the best the Russians had, but it was one of the best. For one thing, the tank had a 140mm gun whose shell left the barrel at a velocity of 5,107 feet per second, the cannon itself stabilized both in elevation and azimuth by means of delicate gyroscopic equipment. This meant that the gun maintained the angle and the bearing set by the gunner, regardless of how the tank might be maneuvering.
The gun itself was not only extremely accurate, but was equipped with a first-class muzzle brake and double fume extractor. I recalled, too, what I had read about the T-54's power system. The tank had a regenerative steering system that enabled the driver to vary his turning circle in relation to the gear engaged. This meant that the lower the gear, the tighter the turning radius until, when in neutral, the tank could be pivoted on its axis. Of course, the gunner rotated the turret and turret platform by means of pedals in front of his seat.
Slipping into the gunner's chair, I felt the tank shudder and the powerful V5–600-hp diesel roar into life. A moment later, I heard Risenberg shift gears and move the tank out, its track links clanking, the rollers and sprockets creaking.
To my right, Lev Wymann pushed down the cam-lever, pulled open the breech and shoved a 140mm armor-piercing shell into the chamber of the big gun. He then closed the breech and locked the cam-Fever. The gun now was ready to be fired electrically. All I had to do was press the button.
I was about to peer through the gunner's periscope when a red light began flashing on the control panel. I flipped the switch that turned on the intercom and heard Risenberg's voice come through the tiny speaker, "Who's the gunner?"
"It's me, Carter," I said.
"I'm going to move us about ninety feet from the other tank. Then you can blast it. Do you know how?"
"I know how. I've fought in a tank before," I said, realizing that I was not only annoyed but afraid that I might never see Wilhelmina or Hugo again.
Far to the left we all heard a huge explosion with ten times the force of a dozen grenades. Solomon, turning the commander's periscope, gleefully explained the explosion. "It's Lomsky and Nierman. They've moved out in the armored car and have just lobbed a shell into the Tower." His voice was suddenly worried. "We'd better hurry. Syrians are getting into the other tank."
At this close range, I knew I wouldn't have to do much aiming. I looked through the gunner's periscope which was synchronized with the range finder. One hand on the wheel that elevated the gun in the manlet, my feet on the turret-turn pedals, I dropped the barrel and moved the turret until the reticle pattern in the scope was where I wanted it and the «V» of the sight was centered on the mark. The driver of the other tank was just starting the engine as I pushed the firing button and the gun roared.
My AP shell had hit low in the rear of the turret, had bored through the armor and had exploded. Enormous tongues of flame burst out on all sides of the enemy tank and the shells in the ammo bin exploded with a gigantic roar. The 140mm gun and parts of the turret were flung thirty feet into the air while the rest of the tank became a huge ball of red-yellow fire and dissolved into hundreds of pieces of burning metal. Jagged bits of junk rained down harmlessly on our own tank at the same time that the barrel and part of the manlet clanked loudly to the ground. I couldn't see a trace of the Syrians who had been inside the T-54.
I rotated the gunner's scope and saw Lomsky and Nierman in their L-59 Gronshiv doing their best to blow the base apart with the armored car's 50mm cannon. There were four large holes, made by explosions, in the Tower of Lions. Men and women terrorists were running back-and-forth in panic. To the west of the Tower, Lomsky and Nierman's shell had exploded the fuel dump and flames, wrapped in oily black smoke, were shooting a hundred feet into the early evening sky, spoiling what would have been a beautiful sunset.
But Lomsky and Nierman were far from safe. The SLA were using the other armored cars to stop them, even a few personnel carriers tried to run them down. There was suddenly a tremendous crashing sound against one side of the tank, one that momentarily made our senses reel and made me feel that I was inside a steel drum and that someone had pounded on it with a sledge hammer.
Lev Wymann, who had extracted the empty shell casing from the gun and had thrust in a fresh shell, slammed shut the breech and locked the cam-lever. "Some idiot in one of the armored cars hit us with a fifty millimeter shell. The fool should know that a fifty mil job can't even scratch us. A T-54's pannier plates are two hundred mils thick. The turret and glacis plates armor is two hundred thirty mils. Nothing less than a one hundred forty mil shell could stop us."
I felt the big tank turning to the northwest as Risenberg's voice came through the intercom, "Carter, I'm going to move forward. Try to get the armored cars and the carriers."