The June challenge

"I have taken a decision with which I need your help. I have decided to withdraw totally and for good from any official post or political role, and to return to the ranks of the masses, performing my duty in their midst, like any other citizen.--read on--

'The golden general'
By Galal Nassar

The June War lasted minutes for some, years for others. Today, 30 years later, commanders and soldiers tell Galal Nassar their stories, and try to piece together the fragments of the tragedy: men lost in the desert, messages no one ever heard, and a bitter sense of defeat that was to last for six long years

'Nothing more could be said'
Lieutenant-General Safiyeddin Abu Shneif, commander-in-chief of the Egyptian armed forces and former director of the Intelligence Service, recalls one incident which illustrates the confusion and chaos rampant in the Egyptian forces, and remembers his encounter with Moshe Dayan, Israel's late minister of defence.

Picking up the pieces
In the immediate aftermath of the June war, Amin Hewedy was appointed both minister of defence and head of General Intelligence. Commissioned by Nasser to rebuild the armed forces, his may be the most informed account of events during and following the war. Hewedy was also responsible for investigating the causes of the defeat, and was directly involved in the events leading to Amer's forced resignation.

The end of Amer
One morning some time after 5 June, Nasser called Amin Hewedy, then a minister of state at the Cabinet, to ask him to take the necessary measures to re-integrate the Ministry of War..--read on--

The war in between
In the wake of the June War, the Egyptian military command immediately took measures to improve the ability of servicemen to deal with technologically sophisticated modern weapons. One of the soldiers, during the October War, destroyed 20 enemy tanks single-handedly and captured another tank with its crew -- feats which won him the Star of Sinai. Others, while less visible, were no less heroic.

The three-year war
General Mohamed Fawzi, former minister of defence, was the chief of general staff of the Egyptian forces in June 1967, during what is known as the five-day war. But Fawzi's first words are a correction of dates. The war, he considers, lasted not five days but three years.

The Yemen trap
Retired Major-General Abdel-Moneim Khalil took part in the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948, 1956, 1967, was commander of the Egyptian Second Army during the War of Attrition (1968-70) and played an important part in the planning and preparations for the 1973 October War..--read on--

'A lesson we should have learned'
Air Vice Marshal El-Dighidi was twice tried and acquitted by a military court. He withdrew from public life in shame, and died without leaving a written record of what had really happened in detail..--read on--

A watery grave
The Egyptian naval forces suffered no losses in the June war, because the Israeli Zion plan involved air and ground forces only..--read on--

Children of the setback
Thirty years after the 1967 defeat, many Egyptians -- even those who were not born at the time -- are still living the aftermath. Khaled Dawoud investigates

Moshe's unfortunate obsession
The June war was not only about politics, writes Omayma Abdel-Latif. It was also an opportunity for the Israeli defence minister to add to his personal collection of Egyptian antiquities, looted from Sinai on a massive scale

A defeat stronger than victory?
By Gamil Matar