A las ocho menos cuarto de la mañana del 5 de junio de 1967, los oficiales de la defensa aérea egipcia estaban cambiando de turno, la patrulla del amanecer había aterrizado y cientos de cazas de fabricación soviética permanecían estacionados en filas ordenadas en dieciocho aeródromos. En aproximadamente tres horas, la mayoría de ellos estaban en llamas. La Guerra de los Seis Días se decidió antes de que muchos pilotos egipcios terminaran de desayunar, y se decidió en el aire.

The Israeli plan was called Moked — Focus — and it remains the textbook example of what happens when one air force catches another on the ground.

El ensayo de dieciséis años

Focus worked because almost nothing about it was left to chance. Israeli planners had studied Egyptian habits for years: when the dawn patrols landed, when senior officers commuted, when the morning fog over the Nile Delta lifted. They chose 07:45 precisely because it was the seam in the Egyptian day — late enough that the early patrols were down and refuelling, early enough that the airfields were not yet at full alert.

The strike packages flew out over the Mediterranean at wave-top height, below Egyptian radar, maintaining radio silence, then turned south to come in from the sea. When the IAF commander was later asked to explain the operation’s success, his answer was disarmingly short.

Imágenes de época de la Fuerza Aérea israelí durante los ataques de 1967.

Doscientos aviones antes de que los egipcios pudieran reaccionar.

La primera oleada impactó casi simultáneamente en diez bases egipcias. Bombas especializadas destrozaron las pistas de aterrizaje, atrapando a cualquier avión que hubiera podido despegar, y luego los cazas regresaron en pasadas de ametrallamiento para destruir las filas de aviones estacionados con fuego de cañón. Aproximadamente doscientos aviones egipcios fueron destruidos solo en esa primera oleada.

Lo que la hacía implacable era la rapidez con la que se realizaban los cambios. El personal de tierra israelí reabastecía de combustible y rearmaba los aviones que regresaban en tan solo siete minutos y medio, enviándolos de nuevo para un segundo y tercer ataque. Toda la fuerza se comportaba más como una máquina que como un ataque aéreo.

Luego Jordania, Siria e Irak

When Jordan, Syria and Iraq entered the war that afternoon, the Israeli Air Force simply widened the target list. By nightfall it had struck all four Arab air forces, destroying about 452 aircraft across the day for the loss of 19 of its own in the first wave. Egypt lost the majority; Jordan’s small air force was annihilated entirely.

The consequence was total air supremacy. For the rest of the war, Israeli ground columns in the Sinai, the West Bank and the Golan advanced under a sky they owned, while Arab armies moved — and were bombed — in the open.

Un análisis detallado del primer día de la guerra y del ataque Focus.

Por qué sigue siendo importante

Focus is studied everywhere because it distilled a hard truth: air power is most decisive not in dogfights but in the first ninety minutes, against an enemy that has not yet left the ground. It was also a colossal gamble — Hod committed almost every serviceable jet Israel owned, leaving barely a dozen to defend the country’s cities. Had the intelligence been wrong, the outcome could have been catastrophic.

It was not wrong. And in the decades since, every air force planning a first strike — and every air force fearing one — has measured itself against the morning the Israeli Air Force won a war before lunch.

A modern analysis of why Operation Focus remains one of history’s most successful air campaigns.

Fuentes: CBN News; Museos Imperiales de Guerra; Simon Dunstan, La Guerra de los Seis Días 1967: Sinaí; Archivos de la Fuerza Aérea Israelí.