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Great Daring Moments From History

Khalid Elhassan September 28, 2020 31 min

Josip Broz Tito - World War II — Yugoslav partisans wading across a river. Wikimedia

21. A Perilous Route

At some point, along the way, the Israeli airplanes were picked up by a Jordanian radar. They were challenged by ground control, but an Israeli pilot, speaking in Arabic, convinced them that they were Jordanian planes on a training mission. After 80 minutes in the air, the raiders approached their target and prepared to strike.

The Israeli airmen who carried out Operation Opera. Wix

The F-15s peeled off to provide fighter cover if needed, while the F-16s climbed before diving into the attack. The first F-16 bombs found their mark, as did those of all the following raiders. In less than two minutes, the Osirak reactor was completely destroyed. Israel insists that the pilots dropped simple iron bombs. However, the accuracy with which the reactor was hit has led to speculation that the Israeli airplanes had deployed an early generation of smart bombs. Their daring mission successfully completed, the Israeli airplanes took a direct high-speed route back home.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.