Operation Moked: The Premiere of the Anti-Runway Bomb

In the run up to the 1967 Six-Day War in the Middle East, the Israeli Air Force was significantly outnumbered by the Arab air forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan and Iraq as well. Egypt's air force alone had 50 percent more comparable combat aircraft than the Israelis. As early as 1953 it was clear that neutralization of the Arab air bases would be vital in any future conflict. By 1960 operational planning centered around executing a simultaneous strike on all the Arab bases in range of Israel. The operations branch commander of the IAF, Rafi Har-Lev, and the top navigator in the air force, Rafi Sivron, began work on Operation Moked- the simultaneous neutralization of the Arab air bases.

The MATRA BLU-107 Durandal on a USAF F-111
(Wikipedia)

The basis of the planning was intelligence- not only were the dispositions and activity cycles of the Arab squadrons determined, but they also were able to secure information on the runway thickness and design of the bases. Planning began in earnest in 1963 and was continually updated by the flow on intelligence from reconnaissance and human sources.

Since trapping the Arab combat aircraft on the ground was key, the Israelis and the French (before their abrupt change in foreign policy under Charles De Gaulle shifted away from Israel in 1967 after the Six-Day War) co-developed a new type of bomb specifically designed for destroying runways. After its release, a first rocket acted as a braking rocket to slow the munition to get it to the optimum penetration angle. A second rocket then fired that drove the bomb through the runway and within six seconds the explosives detonated, creating a larger crater than would have been possible with a conventional bomb. Israeli Military Industries (IMI or "Taas", it's Hebrew name) was the lead contractor for the new weapon.

Aircraft carrying the new bombs would target eighteen air bases in Egypt, six bases in Syria, and two bases in Jordan. Once the runways were knocked out, the rest of the strike force could pick off the grounded Arab aircraft with guns and rockets. On 5 June 1967 at 0700 hours, the command went out from the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv "Execute Moked". One-hundred sixty aircraft took off in the first wave. Jordanian radar detected the strike force but assumed that they were US Navy aircraft of the Sixth Fleet which were known to be in the region. At 0745 hours, Egyptian fighter aircraft were finishing up landing after their dawn patrols of the airspace adjoining Israel. Maintenance crews and pilots were in the process of heading to breakfast before the next patrol cycle began and that was when the Israelis struck. As each aircraft delivered the new runway bombs, they swung around and commenced strafing runs against the flight lines of trapped aircraft. While ten percent of the strike force was lost, within six hours the air forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan were neutralized. As Mordechai Hod, the commander of the Israeli Air Force said before the attacks "A jet aircraft is the deadliest weapon in existence- in the sky. On the ground, it is useless."

Operation Moked was a hugely successful gamble. The Israelis committed nearly all of its aircraft to the strikes, leaving only 12 fighters to protect Tel Aviv, something that the IDF commanders didn't fully reveal to the Israeli government.

Durandal test round dropped by a Mirage III
(Sistemsadearmas.br)

The runway cratering bomb was further developed starting in 1971 by the French weapons firm MATRA as the Durandal, named for a mythical French sword. The Durandal differed from the 1967 anti-runway munition in that after release, a braking parachute was used to stabilize the bomb instead of a braking rocket. There is a oft-repeated misconception that Durandal was used in Operation Moked, but that would have been nearly ten years before Durandal was available. Rather, the 1967 weapon was a distinct program that led to the current Durandal weapon. The Durandal was put into production for the French in 1977 and in 1982, it was evaluated by the United States Air Force for use by the General Dynamics F-111. It would subsequently be cleared as well for the McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle and received the designation BLU-107 and was used to great effect during Operation Desert Storm. The Durandal was designed for a shelf life of 11 years and if was carried on three sorties and not used, it was withdrawn from use. As such, the BLU-107 Durandal is no longer in use by the USAF.

Further reading:

Operation Drugstore: The 1982 Air Battles Over the Bekaa Valley
Foxbats Over the Sinai
Selling the Skyhawk to Israel and a Watershed Change in American Foreign Policy
Birth of the Lion: The Development of the IAI Kfir

Source: Air Combat Reader: Historic Feats and Aviation Legends, edited by Walter Boyne and Philip Handleman. Brassey's, 1999, p235-245.

The Complexities of Aiding the Free French Air Force in World War II

Free French Air Force pilot wings with the Cross of Lorraine

With war clouds in Europe looming on the horizon, the British were first to send a mission to the United States in 1938 to determine if their aircraft needs could be met by the Americans since British industry was still barely getting spooled up on a war footing. Encouraged by the British, the French also sent a mission in the same year that resulted in the order of 100 Curtiss Hawk 75 fighters (P-36 being the US Army Air Corps equivalent). In the following year further contracts were finalized for more aircraft which also included the first orders by any nation, including the United States, for the Douglas DB-7 light bomber which would later enter US service as the A-20 Havoc. With the outbreak of war on 1 September 1939, deliveries temporarily ceased according to the terms of the US Neutrality Acts, but an amendment was quickly put in place that allowed British as well as the French to "carry" their own war materiel on their own ships. Following the fall of France and the signing of the French-German armistice in June 1940, the outstanding contracts with the United States were transferred to the British. The unoccupied portion of France became Vichy France with Marshall Petain as its leader. As part of the armistice agreement with the Axis, a German-Italian commission was put in charge of the activities of the Vichy Air Force that were full of restrictions and disbandment of French units as the Axis powers feared continued defections of French pilots to the Allies. French units in North Africa, however, were not under the jurisdiction of the German-Italian commission and continued to operate their US-built aircraft and it was these forces loyal to the Vichy regime that briefly resisted the Allied landings during Operation Torch. 

British Blenheims were some of the first aircraft given to the Free French.

A nucleus of French forces under General Charles De Gaulle (made up mostly of those evacuated from Dunkirk and other defections from the Vichy regime) tried to get Allied support as the "Free French", but this proved to be complex given that the legal French government at the time was Marshall Petain's Vichy regime which signed the armistice following the fall of France. And if that wasn't hard enough determining how to support a group fighting what was recognized as the legal government of France, the Roosevelt Administration even had recognized the Vichy regime as the legitimate French government! De Gaulle's efforts weren't helped any when despite a promise to Roosevelt to not seize the Vichy-controlled islands of St-Pierre and Miquelon off the Canadian coast, he did anyway. But on a perhaps moral level, aid would have to be provided to the Free French forces. Initially aircraft for the new Free French Air Force were diverted from British deliveries with the approval of the Roosevelt administration. In 1941 the Free French formed the French National Committee with General De Gaulle as its head to represent French interests independent of the Vichy regime. 

The Cross of Lorraine was used in addition to the French roundel.

With the coming of the landings in North Africa during Operation Torch, the Roosevelt Administration tried to develop an alternative to De Gaulle as he was seen as too difficult to work with for the war in Europe. Secret contacts had been made with dissidents within the Vichy government and General Henri Giraud was seen as an altnerative to De Gaulle- General Giraud had been captured by the Germans during the fall of France and sent to a prison camp, from which he had escaped back to Vichy France. This dissident element in the Vichy regime were promised large infusions of American aid if they could get the Vichy forces in North Africa to not contest the Torch landings, the idea that this group would then be put under Giraud's command as an alternative to De Gaulle. It would have worked as there were many French personnel who were loyal to Giraud and considered De Gaulle a traitor for having escaped to Britain before the fall of France. On the day of the landings on 7/8 November 1942 the Allies found themselves juggling three French factions- De Gaulle's Free French forces, Giraud and the dissidents in Vichy France, and Marshall Petain's defense minister, Admiral Francois Darlan, who was in North Africa at the time of the invasion and lobbied to halt Vichy resistance to the Allied landings. In exchange, Darlan would be made head of the new French government. This ended up enraging De Gaulle. Vichy resistance did end and Darlan ordered the French fleet at Toulon scuttled to prevent their takeover by the Germans. Darlan would later by assassinated in December 1942 and replaced by General Giraud, but by this point De Gaulle managed to emerge as the uncontested leader of the Free French following a 1943 agreement between Giraud and De Gaulle to unify their forces with Giraud as commander in chief and De Gaulle as the political head of the Free French. 

French B-26 units had their Cross of Lorraine on the nose in blue.

On 3 July 1943 De Gaulle's Free French Air Force was formally merged with Giraud's forces in North Africa with the set up of a joint commission with both US and British representatives in addition to the Free French to determine the aircraft needs of the Free French Air Force. By this point most aircraft used by the Free French could be identified with the use of the Cross of Lorraine in addition to the French roundels. Perhaps symbolically, the Escadrille Lafayette would be the first Free French unit to be re-equipped with American aircraft, Curtiss P-40 Warhawks diverted from USAAF stocks that were North Africa already. Over the next several months more aircraft arrived direct from US factories, from Bell P-39 Airacobras, Lockheed F-4/F-5 Lightnings for reconnaissance duties, to Douglas A-24 Dauntless dive bombers and C-47 transports. French trainees were sent to to the United States for flight training and completed their operational training with French units in North Africa prior to the liberation of France. The French Navy also received American aircraft to include Consolidated PBY Catalinas, Lockheed PV-1 Venturas and Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers, but rather than operated under De Gaulle's command like the Free French Air Force, the French naval air arm units were placed under US Navy command. 

French Lend-Lease deliveries would continue for most of the war but were cut off prematurely in April 1945 by order of President Harry Truman before war's end due to a diplomatic dispute started when French units chose to obey orders from General De Gaulle instead of the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight Eisenhower. De Gaulle had agreed earlier to Eisenhower's overall command and those deliveries outstanding were never released due to the German surrender on 7 May 1945. These issues would continue to simmer between De Gaulle and the United States in the post-war period that would complicate matters in French Indochina and ultimately result in France's withdrawal from NATO in 1967. 

Source: Air Arsenal North America- Aircraft for the Allies 1938-1945 Purchases and Lend-Lease by Phil Butler and Dan Hagedorn. Midland Publishing, 2004, p17, 105-114.

In the 1950s the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force) held a competition for a new jet trainer. The manufacturing firm Morane-Saulnier offered a T-tailed twin jet design that had the student and instructor sitting side-by-side and Fouga offered what became the winning design, a tandem-seat twin jet with a butterfly V-tail which went into production as the Magister. To make the best of the loss, Morane-Saulnier redesigned their aircraft into a four-seat light jet designated the MS.760 Paris which was used by French military as a liason and VIP transport. The Paris was also used by the militaries of Argentina and Brazil.

In 1958 Beechcraft began to market the MS.760 in the United States after the aircraft received its FAA certification. Touring the country and demonstrating it to businessmen as a faster alternative to the piston twins then coming into use in the general aviation, the MS.760 was noted for its ease of maintenance and simplicity of construction. At airshows where the MS.760 was demonstrated, the aircraft would quite literally be disassembled before the crowd, reassembled and flown off again.

For several years Beechcraft tried to gauge customer acceptance of what could be considered the first VLJ design (very light jet). Showing its military origins, a small boarding ladder was stored in the glove box of the cabin that was needed to get into and out of the aircraft. Upon seeing this feature, Walter Beech's widow Olive Ann (who took over the company after her husband's death) is reported to have said that no self-respecting woman would climb into an airplane that way.

Though it's debatable if Olive Ann Beech had anything to do with the eventual demise of the Beechcraft project to market the MS.760, it's quite certain that the arrival of the faster Learjet 23 which made its first flight in 1963 swung the business jet market in Lear's favor. However, in 2009 a long time Paris owner and fan, Edward Furtak, and his company JetSet, acquired the type certificate for the Paris from SOCATA, the successor company to Morane-Saulnier when it changed its name in 1966. Thirty remaining MS.760s were purchased from SOCATA along with the engineering, blueprints, tooling, and even rebuilt Turbomeca turbojet engines. An additional 10 aircraft were purchased from Argentina with the intent of overhauling the airframes and offering them for sale as a VLJ. The intent of the company is to also re-engine the MS.760 with either Pratt & Whitney JT15D or Williams FJ44 engines.

Source: Air & Space Smithsonian, March 2010, Vol. 24, No. 7. "The Last Time We Saw Paris..." from the Soundings column, p12-13.

The Politics Behind the French Stratotanker Purchase

On 13 February 1960 France exploded its first thermonuclear weapon, a 60-kiloton device in the Algerian desert, making France the fourth member of nuclear-capable powers. In December of that year, President Charles De Gaulle formally announced his intentions to establish an autonomous nuclear strike force independent of US control based on the Dassault Mirage IV supersonic strike bomber which had made its first flight the year prior.

But the Mirage IV lacked the range to reach targets in the Western Soviet Union and defense planners in the Armee de l'Air (AdA- French Air Force) wanted to acquire an aerial tanker that could launch at a moment's notice with the Mirage IV force, refuel the bombers at high speed and high altitude, and offload fuel quickly to the Mirages. Only the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker met these stringent requirements and negotiations began to purchase 10 KC-135As- 9 tankers for every four Mirage IV in the Force de Frappe (Strike Force) plus one spare. However, with the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy came a change in US nuclear strategic doctrine from massive retaliation to one of flexible response- to the new US president, his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and his Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, an autonomous French nuclear deterrent would undermine the new strategic doctrine and increase the chance of premature use of nuclear weapons without American oversight.

The sale of the KC-135 to France was seen as equal to nuclear proliferation as the tankers were necessary for the Force de Frappe to reach Soviet targets. By 1962 France increased its Mirage IV force to 50 aircraft and wanted more than just 10 tankers which were agreed on principle by military officials in the US Defense Department. President Kennedy, however, vetoed the sale and even announced at a press conference that the tanker sale was a dead issue. On that very same day, however, the Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatrick approved the sale of 12 KC-135s to be designated C-135FR (ostensibly to hide their purpose as tankers for the Force de Frappe).

Two weeks later at a commencement address at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Defense Secretary McNamara reiterated official US policy of opposing any aid that allowed an independent French nuclear deterrent. Despite this, a month later, both McNamara himself and Secretary of State Dean Rusk signed off on the tanker sale worth $50 million. At the time the sale was rationalized as an offset for American gold losses to France and concern by the US Treasury Department about foreign accumulation of gold. However, with the end of the Cold War, declassified documents show the sale was undertaken quietly in an effort to improve strained relations between France and the United States.

The first AdA C-135FRs arrived in France at Istres in 1964 following completion of KC-135 crew training by the French at Castle AFB in California. The last C-135FR arrived in October of that year which coincided with the Force de Frappe's first operational Mirage IV nuclear alert. Initial Mirage IV operations included a 24-hour airborne alert of Mirage IV bombers supported by the C-135FRs, but these were ended in 1967 as they could not be afforded by France unlike the US Strategic Air Command's "Chrome Dome" airborne alert.

In 1966, President De Gaulle went ahead and pulled France out of NATO's military command, an action that was only reversed in March of 2009 when President Nicholas Sarkozy signed a decree supported by the French legislature re-integrating France into NATO.

Source: Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker- More Than Just A Tanker by Robert S. Hopkins III. Aerofax, 1997, p73-75.

As often as eight times in a year, a French Navy (Marine Nationale Aeronavale) Dassault Falcon 50M SURMAR (SURveillance MARitime) of the unit Flottille 24F deploys to Cayenne in French Guyana via Dakar, Senegal from its home base at Lann-Bihoue in France. While there, the Falcon 50M conducts patrols of the French exclusive economic zone offshore before Ariane rocket launches from the Kourou Space Centre to be sure the areas were the rocket's boosters fall back to earth are clear of shipping.

Source: Air International, August 2009. "SAR Dream Machine" by Henri-Pierre Grolleau, p50.

On 25 September 1909 the Exposition Internationale de Locomotion Aerienne opened its doors at the Grand Palais near the Champs-Elysees in Paris. Present at the exposition were 380 exhibitors who displayed their latest aviation products to over 100,000 visitors. Many of these exhibitors formed the first aviation industry organization, the Chambre Syndicale des Industries Aeronautiques. Taking place less than six years after the Wright Brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk, the exposition was the forerunner of today's premier aviation industry show, the Paris Air Show. Many historians point to this exposition as the birth of the modern aerospace industry as well. This year's Paris Air Show marks its 100th Anniversary dating back to that first exposition.

Source: Aviation Week and Space Technology, June 15, 2009. "1909-2009- Le Bourget Then and Now" by Anthony L. Velocci, Jr, p80.