Operation Thunderbolt

October 5, 2015
Military historian David (Military Blunders) tackles the weeklong drama of the July 1976 hijacking of an Air France flight from Israel and destined for Paris by two Palestinians and two Germans, considering it largely from the perspectives of the hijackers—who had diverted the plane to Entebbe, Uganda—and Israeli leaders in charge of the rescue operation. David conclusively demonstrates that Ugandan dictator Idi Amin cooperated with the hijackers and, in reprisal for the Israeli raid, had an elderly Israeli-British hostage abducted from a Ugandan hospital and murdered, while also ordering the deaths of the Entebbe air traffic controllers and hundreds of ethnic Kenyans in his country (Kenya had provided landing rights to the Israeli commandos’ transit planes). Of note is David’s account of the tug-of-war between Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres—Israel’s prime minister and defense minister, respectively—over whether to conduct the raid mission. David profiles other Israeli principals involved—including Yoni Netanyahu, brother of Benjamin Netanyahu and the only one of the 91 commandos involved who was killed—and captures the largely ineffectual and peripheral activities of a number of British, French, and American diplomats. David’s book lacks insight on the hijackers’ backgrounds and motivations, but is otherwise an excellent account of the planning and execution of a successful high-risk operation. Agent: Jason Bartholomew, Hodder & Stoughton (U.K.).

An event as exciting as the 1976 Israeli raid on the airport in Entebbe, Uganda, needs no added drama. But Peter Ganim's narration of this chronicle is not without emotion. Those expressed in Israeli Cabinet meetings--frustration, anger, fear, and, ultimately, triumph and relief--come through clearly in Ganim's narration. For most of the work, he adopts a straightforward tone in keeping with the author's text, which is chronological and episodic, each segment opening with the time. In other words, he doesn't let his reading get in the way of the story itself. Ganim also handles the wide variety of foreign names with ease, which keeps the narrative from faltering. As the world watched to find out what would happen to those on the Air France plane hijacked by the PLO, the Israeli commandos closed in. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

Starred review from October 1, 2015
A step-by-step history of the Israeli army's 1976 rescue of hostages at Entebbe airport in Uganda. David (Military History/Univ. of Buckingham; 100 Days to Victory: How the Great War Was Fought and Won, 2013, etc.) draws on a wide range of sources to give a detailed picture of the hijacking and the top-secret operation that returned almost all the hostages to safety. The drama began with Air France Flight 139 departing Tel Aviv for Paris. At a stopover in Athens, four terrorists boarded the plane, seized control, and diverted it to Uganda. They demanded the release of prisoners, mostly Palestinians, held by Israel and several other countries. David shows the hostages' ordeal, the meetings of the Israeli cabinet and military leaders, and the international response to the event, spread out over eight tense days. His sources include interviews with the hostages and their rescuers, official documents, memoirs by several of those involved, and declassified government communications. The narrative gains interest by the roles of several international figures, including Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, and the sinister Ugandan president Idi Amin, who is as much the villain of the story as the hijackers. The rescue wasn't perfect by any means; the plan broke down shortly after Israeli forces landed at the airport. Their commander, Yoni Netanyahu (the current prime minister's brother), was killed almost immediately. His troops killed the terrorists and a number of Ugandan soldiers. Three hostages died of friendly fire; a fourth, taken to a local hospital before the raid, was later murdered by Amin's thugs. David paces the narrative effectively, cutting back and forth among Entebbe, Tel Aviv, and Israeli military establishments with occasional looks at events in other world capitals. While the "good guys" and "bad guys" are obvious from the beginning, the author resists the temptation to paint too simple a picture. With high tension and as many plot twists as any fictional thriller, this book is hard to put down.

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Starred review from November 1, 2015

In June 1976, a splinter group of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked an Air France plane with more than 230 passengers, nearly half of them from Israel. They directed the plane first to Benghazi, Libya, and then to Uganda, where Ugandan President Idi Amin welcomed them and placed the hostages in a disused terminal at Entebbe Airport, guarded by local soldiers. Diplomatic pressure by France and other countries resulted in the release of the non-Israeli passengers, leaving about 100 hostages. Meanwhile, the terrorists demanded the release of 53 imprisoned terrorists in Israeli and European jails. A week later, a force of Israeli commandos disguised as Ugandan soldiers landed at Entebbe, assaulted the airport, killed the hijackers, and rescued all but three hostages who were killed in the assault. The lone fatality in the assault force was Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of the current prime minister of Israel. David, author of numerous military histories such as Churchill's Sacrifice of the Highland Division, provides a minute-by-minute account of the entire event, focusing on the political maneuvering and the purely military operation, in excruciating detail. VERDICT A definitive history of the Entebbe operation, likely to be popular among readers of military and terrorism works.--Edwin Burgess, U.S. Army Combined Arms Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, KS

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