{"id":6569406,"date":"2026-07-21T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=6569406"},"modified":"2026-07-21T11:58:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T09:58:18","slug":"operation-nickel-grass-1973-airlift-c-5-c-141","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/es\/operation-nickel-grass-1973-airlift-c-5-c-141\/","title":{"rendered":"The Airlift That Saved Israel in 1973"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style><\/p>\r\n<p>On the evening of 14 October 1973, a C-5A Galaxy touched down at Lod airport outside Tel Aviv carrying 97 tons of 105\u00a0mm howitzer shells. Roughly a hundred miles to the south-west, the largest tank battle since Kursk was being fought, and the Israeli army was running out of ammunition to fight it with.<\/p>\r\n<p>Over the following month the United States Air Force flew 567 missions and delivered something over 22,000 tons of materiel into a country at war, across an ocean, with almost every ally in Europe refusing to let the aircraft land.<\/p>\r\n<p>The operation was called Nickel Grass. It changed the outcome of a war, triggered an oil crisis, and settled a long-running argument about whether the C-5 Galaxy had been worth building.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f5f5f5; padding: 20px 24px; margin: 24px 0; border-radius: 8px;\">\r\n<p style=\"margin: 0 0 12px; font-weight: bold; font-size: 17px; color: #222;\">Datos r\u00e1pidos<\/p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6;\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Operaci\u00f3n<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">Nickel Grass \u2014 US strategic airlift to Israel during the October 1973 Arab\u2013Israeli War<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Fechas<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">14 October to 14 November 1973 \u2014 32 days<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Contener<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">Military Airlift Command, United States Air Force<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Aeronave<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">Lockheed C-141A Starlifter and Lockheed C-5A Galaxy. Both four-engined; neither could refuel in the air<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Misiones<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">567 in total \u2014 422 by C-141, 145 by C-5. Around 18,400 flying hours<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Tonnage<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">Roughly 22,300 tons. Published figures vary between 22,318 and 22,395<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>The C-5\u2019s share<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">About 48% of the tonnage on 26% of the missions, including 2,264 tons of outsize cargo nothing else could carry<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Staging base<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">Lajes Field in the Azores \u2014 the only place in Europe the aircraft were allowed to stop<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Safety record<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">No accidents. Abort rate under 2%<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">Everybody said no<\/h2>\r\n<p>The hardest problem was not distance. It was diplomacy.<\/p>\r\n<p>When President Nixon ordered the resupply, NATO allies across Western Europe declined to let American transports carrying weapons to Israel use their bases, their airspace, or in some cases even leave their territory with materiel already stockpiled there. Britain, West Germany, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Spain all refused in one form or another. Some American equipment sitting in Europe had to be flown back out via the Atlantic rather than east across the Mediterranean.<\/p>\r\n<p>Only Portugal relented, and not enthusiastically. Lajes Field in the Azores \u2014 a mid-Atlantic rock with a runway \u2014 became the single hinge on which the entire operation turned. The first aircraft launched before clearance had actually been granted and received word mid-ocean.<\/p>\r\n<p>From the US East Coast to Lajes averaged 3,297 miles. From Lajes to Lod, another 3,163. Without that one airfield, the C-141A \u2014 which had no aerial refuelling capability whatsoever \u2014 simply could not have reached Israel.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px; width: 100%;\"><img data-opt-id=985374398  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/operation-nickel-grass-airlift-route-map-1973.jpg\" alt=\"Map of the Operation Nickel Grass airlift route from the United States via the Azores to Israel\" width=\"1024\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">The route, from the official American after-action report. Everything funnelled through Lajes in the Azores because nowhere else in Europe would take the aircraft. US Air Force \/ public domain<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">The aeroplane nobody wanted<\/h2>\r\n<p>By 1973 the C-5A Galaxy had been in service three years and had a terrible reputation. It was late, wildly over budget, plagued by wing cracks, and had become a byword in Congress for defence procurement gone wrong.<\/p>\r\n<p>Nickel Grass is where it earned its keep. The C-5 was the only aircraft in the inventory that could swallow outsize cargo \u2014 M60 Patton tanks, 155\u00a0mm howitzers, CH-53 helicopters, mobile ground radar. A C-141A could carry pallets and ammunition, roughly 28 tons at a time. A C-5 carried around 73 tons, and it could carry things that did not fit in anything else at all.<\/p>\r\n<p>Over the operation the Galaxy managed an 81% reliability rate and the Starlifter 93%. Between them they flew 567 missions into a war zone without a single accident.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #d32f2f; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7; display: flex; gap: 20px; align-items: flex-start;\">\r\n<div><em>\u201cWe\u2019ll have to get them moving, or we\u2019ll lose our jobs\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>Admiral Thomas H. Moorer<\/strong> \u2014 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, US Navy<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<p>Moorer's remark, made by telephone to the commander of Military Airlift Command during the first frustrating hours, captures the political temperature. Nixon's own instruction had been blunter: send everything that can fly.<\/p>\r\n<p>The initial delay was not bureaucratic. It was weather \u2014 50-knot crosswinds at Lajes \u2014 which produced considerable fury in Washington that supplies had not somehow reached Israel already.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px; width: 100%;\"><img data-opt-id=76529484  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/lockheed-c-141a-starlifter-438-maw-1973.jpg\" alt=\"Lockheed C-141A Starlifter of the 438th Military Airlift Wing photographed in 1973\" width=\"1024\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">A C-141A Starlifter of the 438th Military Airlift Wing, photographed in 1973. Note the A-model: these aircraft could not refuel in flight, which is why the Azores mattered so much. US Air Force \/ public domain<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">Flying down the middle of the Mediterranean<\/h2>\r\n<p>The route into Israel ran along the Flight Information Region boundary down the centre of the Mediterranean \u2014 a thin legal corridor between hostile airspace on both sides. The US Sixth Fleet provided cover for most of the transit, handing over to Israeli fighters somewhere between 150 and 200 miles out.<\/p>\r\n<p>General Paul Carlton, who commanded Military Airlift Command, was acutely aware of how vulnerable a Galaxy is sitting on a ramp within artillery range of a shifting front line. Wherever possible, only one C-5 was on the ground at Lod at any moment.<\/p>\r\n<p>At Lajes, meanwhile, 1,300 extra personnel were crammed into hastily reactivated Second World War barracks, four men to a room built for two.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #1565c0; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7; display: flex; gap: 20px; align-items: flex-start;\">\r\n<div><em>\u201cFor generations to come, all will be told of the miracle of the immense planes from the United States bringing in the material that meant life for our people\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>Golda Meir<\/strong> \u2014 Prime Minister of Israel<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">What it cost, and what it changed<\/h2>\r\n<p>The bill arrived quickly. Arab oil producers, who had already agreed production cuts in principle, applied a full embargo against the United States. The 1973 oil crisis followed, and with it the end of the post-war era of cheap energy.<\/p>\r\n<p>Inside the Air Force, the consequences were structural. The inability of the C-141A to reach Israel without a friendly runway in the middle of the Atlantic was judged intolerable, and the entire fleet was subsequently rebuilt as the C-141B \u2014 stretched by three pallet positions and, crucially, fitted for aerial refuelling. Air-refuellable transports went from a luxury to a requirement, and have been ever since.<\/p>\r\n<p>Nickel Grass was not the largest airlift in history. Berlin was far bigger; Desert Shield bigger still. But it is the one that proved a strategic airlift could be improvised across an ocean, into a shooting war, over the objections of almost every ally \u2014 and it is the reason the C-5 Galaxy stopped being a scandal and started being indispensable.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/P46mfeAPl84\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size: 14px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: -8px; font-style: italic;\">Lt Col John Kolar, who flew the airlift, describing Nickel Grass from the cockpit.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TEIy99fQJcY\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size: 14px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: -8px; font-style: italic;\">The C-5 Galaxy\u2019s wider story \u2014 the aircraft whose reputation Nickel Grass rescued.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/i4Wonl9nbls\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size: 14px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: -8px; font-style: italic;\">A fuller account of how the airlift was organised and flown.<\/p>\r\n<p><em>Sources: Walter J. Boyne, \u201cNickel Grass\u201d, Air Force Magazine, December 1998; Air Mobility Command Museum; Wikipedia.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f0f4ff; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 16px 20px; margin: 32px 0 8px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0;\">\r\n<p style=\"margin: 0 0 8px; font-weight: 600; color: #333;\">Publicaciones relacionadas<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin: 4px 0;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/es\/operation-frequent-wind-saigon-evacuation-1975\/\">Diecinueve horas, siete mil almas<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin: 4px 0;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/es\/c-5m-super-galaxia-el-avion-de-transporte-mas-grande-de-america\/\">The C-5M Super Galaxy: America's Giant That's Still Flying<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin: 4px 0;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/es\/operacion-entebbe-1976-rescate-de-rehenes\/\">Cuatro H\u00e9rcules, 2500 millas, noventa minutos<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>567 missions, 22,000 tons, and almost every American ally in Europe refusing to let the aircraft land. Operation Nickel Grass changed a war and vindicated the C-5 Galaxy.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":6569020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6569406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Operation Nickel Grass: The 1973 Airlift to Israel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"567 missions and 22,000 tons flown to Israel in 1973 while almost every US ally in Europe refused to let the aircraft land.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/es\/operation-nickel-grass-1973-airlift-c-5-c-141\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_ES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Operation Nickel Grass: The 1973 Airlift to Israel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"567 missions and 22,000 tons flown to Israel in 1973 while almost every US ally in Europe refused to let the aircraft land.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/es\/operation-nickel-grass-1973-airlift-c-5-c-141\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Afterburner - 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