Avigdor Kahalani -"OZ 77" -7th Brigade- Yom Kippur War 1973 עוז 77 אביגדור קהלני-חטיבה 7 -"עמק הבכא"

7th Brigade
Yom Kippur War started on 6 October 1973. Egyptian forces stormed into Sinai, Syrian forces into the Golan Heights. Israel was taken by surprise. The 77th Battalion was, by chance, in the Golan. The war continued for 20 days. More than 2500 Israeli soldiers lost their lives, with thousands more injured in body and soul.

Kahalani was a career officer in the IDf
(1973), he served as commander of an armored battalion on the Golan Heights. Kahalani received the Medal of Distinguished Service

for service during the Six Day War, where he was badly wounded his tank
caught fire. He later received the Medal of Valor

During this war he commanded a hastily assembled group of tanks and crews from different armour units (The Israeli forces were in a disjointed state due to the surprise combined Arab attack which commenced the war). The group repelled a vastly superior Syrian force which had overrun the Israeli positions in the first days of the war, in the Golan Heights
The battle proved to be one of the turning points of the war. After the war, the valley where it took place was littered with dozens of burned Syrian tanks and was renamed "Emek Ha-Bacha" ("The Valley of Tears"


To read more on "valley of tears" go to:http://idf-armor.blogspot.com/2009/08/valley-of-tears-golan-1973-yom-kippur.html

Rare pictures of Avigdor Kahalni days after the end of Yom Kippur War from the Valley of Tears on the Golan

Avigdor Kahalani with his crew 1973

The crew meet years later

On a detroyed Syrian T 62

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