Story 1 | Story 2 | Story 3 | Story 4 | Story 5 At the night of the first day of the 1973 war, a single Israeli tank commanded by Captain (now Col. Ret.) Zvika Gringold, met an entire Syrian armored division advancing several km inside Israeli territory, after it broke and passed the first Israeli line. Zvika's radio callsign was "Force Zvika", and since he knew the enemy is listening to the radio, he didn't dare to tell HQ that his force is actually a single tank. By destroying tens of targets from the Syrian force, Zvika 'persuaded’ the Syrians to believe they're fighting a significant force and to stop advancing. Only at dawn Zvika called HQ and said "I’m ALONE, I need reinforcement". For this Zvika was awarded Israel’s highest medal for heroism. (Only 6 men were awarded this medal in this fiercely intense war, which was only second to the 1948 war in which 12 men were awarded) The next day, Captain Shmuel Askarov, which was lightly injured in the first Fighting day and escaped from hospital almost unable to speak, did something Similar, in daytime. He was also alone and trying to slow down an advancing Syrian armored force, he raced his tank back and forth along the 'front' Making lots of dust and smoke, and occasionally exposing himself to the enemy, In another position every time, to show himself, and also to destroy an Enemy’s targets. The trick worked for some time until he was finally hit by the Enemy and was badly injured, but survived. He was awarded 2nd level medal. Both these tanks belonged to the heavily beaten 188-tank brigade, which held The southern half of the Syrian front when the war started, and was then Overwhelmed and broken by the enemy. In the northern half of the front, there was the 7th brigade, and at the place of the main syrian effort, along the main road from Damascus to the Jordan valley, a huge Syrian force was stopped by the 77 tank battalion of Lt. Col. Avigdor Kahalani (Now Brig. Gen. Ret. and Israel's minister of police and internal security) Kahalani's tanks, dug in high placed firing positions, destroyed hundreds of Syrian targets in about 48 hours of fierce fighting, massively outnumbered. the huge Syrian force kept advancing towards the smaller Israeli force, and at some point, at the peak of battle, Kahalani noticed that some of his tanks, afraid of being overrun by the approaching enemy, started retreating. Knowing that if the enemy force would capture the high hills line which his force held, they would quickly destroy all the retreating force. Since radio chat failed to persuade the tanks (some of them already with no more ammo. After many hours of firing) to stop retreating, Kahalani made an act brave self-example, he called his tanks by radio again, and said "we are better than they are, let's storm them" and then moved his tank to the highest position, and there, fully exposed to the enemy force started firing directly at the approaching enemy tanks. This act of tremendous bravery and leadership, worked both ways. The Syrian force, which so far suffered heavy losses but knew that they're fighting an un-backed Israeli front line force, thought that an Israeli re-inforcement force has arrived and begins to take positions on top of the ridge, and the retreating tanks, returned and re-took their firing positions. Seeing "new" tanks firing from the ridge top. the Syrian force decided that it's time to retreat due to the heavy losses suffered so far. It was the "straw that broke the camel's back" and the Syrian force, the main invading force, started retreating, leaving about 300 (if i remember correctly) burned tanks and armored vehicles behind. For these acts of bravery, leadership, and the tremendous fighting performance of his battalion, Lt. Col. Kahalani was also awarded the highest medal. By the way, Kahalani's gunner himself destroyed 17 Syrian tanks in this battle, one of them from range of 3 meters. (I'm sure no one would claim that in this case there was a range problem :) however there was a problem with aiming. It was in the middle of the night, and the gunner just didn't see anything, Because the sights were filled with darkness, which was the Syrian tank. The gunner asked twice for range and directions, and was answered by kahalani "CLOSE!!!", seeing that the gunner is not firing, kahalani, who remembered being hit and suffering 60% skin burns when his tank was hit in the 1967 six days war, finally kicked the gunner's back and shouted "JUST FIRE!!!" (and was temporarily blinded by the flash of the close hit at the enemy's turret.) The 3rd of the 6 awarded highest medals were given to Captain Yuval Neria (now Lt. Col. Ret. a psychologist) for repeated acts of heroism. Time after time he was in a tank which was hit in battle and he went to another tank and continued fighting, and at one time he walked (at night) alone directly through an enemy infantry force in order to join another Israeli force, he didn't use his UZI at the enemy infantry and so they didn't , or couldn't believe its an Israeli soldier walking among them. The 4th medal was awarded to paratrooper, captain Asa Kadmoni for heroism both in the beginning of the war, and also for fighting alone against dozens of Egyptian commandos in a small deserted village, when he was part of the first small force which crossed the Suez Canal to prepare a foothold for Gen. Sharon's armored division which later crossed the Suez Canal, capturing the entire "rear area" of the Egyptian 3rd army, a move which led to the Israeli victory in that front.

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