It was the Yom Kippur war (1973). Nixon stripped weapons and ammo stocks from National Guard and Reserve units sent them to Isreal at the most critical time. Israel was running out of ammo and weapons just as they were stemming the tide of the Syrian and Egyptian advances. I remember seeing convoys of tnaks and mobile 155mm howitzers going down highway 101 to Vandenberg AFB where they were being flown to Isreal and driven off of transports and straight to battle.
Nixon saved Isreal, no doubt about it.
There’s another side to the Nixon airlift. Israel was preparing to go nuclear after it’s initial setbacks and the airlift was the only way to prevent nuclear war. Nixon didn’t ‘save’ Israel.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cpc-pubs/farr.htm
“Thus started the subtle, opaque use of the Israeli bomb to ensure that the United States kept its pledge to maintain Israel’s conventional weapons edge over its foes.65 There is significant anecdotal evidence that Henry Kissinger told President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, that the reason for the U.S. airlift was that the Israelis were close to “going nuclear.”66 “
“It was the Yom Kippur war (1973). Nixon stripped weapons and ammo stocks from National Guard and Reserve units sent them to Isreal at the most critical time. Israel was running out of ammo and weapons just as they were stemming the tide of the Syrian and Egyptian advances. I remember seeing convoys of tnaks and mobile 155mm howitzers going down highway 101 to Vandenberg AFB where they were being flown to Isreal and driven off of transports and straight to battle.”
And not only did the weapons come in perfect condition, there were things like notes that said “this plane veers right when XYZ happens” and very specific directions.
Lots of recitiations of Exodus and G-d’s promise to Abraham written in magic marker on shells or whatever.
Pictures are in every “junior high” (grade when you are 13) history book.
Israel WILL NEVER FORGET who helped.