The Mystery of Air Battle of el-Mansourah, the Air Battle that Never Was but that Egyptians Think to Have Fought

Even the Egyptian Air Force is not teaching its own pilots about any kind of an Air Battle of el-Mansourah.

Seems, there can be no end of this tragicomedy about Air Battle of el-Mansourah in the Egyptian social media.

Latest rumour is that since Major-General Samir Faraj claimed this battle is ‘taught on foreign military academies’ – it must be truth.

Reality check: few months ago, I checked at Sandhurst, in the UK, if they have ever heard of an ‘Air Battle of el-Mansourah’. Answer was negative. Then I checked with US Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, USA. Answer was negative. US Navy‘s Academy at Annapolis: answer was negative. The USAF FWS at Nellis: never heard of such a battle; the US Navy’s FWS (‘Top Gun‘), even less so. Russian MOD‘s answer was: ‘…ga, ga, ga…’ and the PAF Academy at Risalpur’s, ‘what…?!?’

But wait, that’s just the start.

As told in the book 1973: The First Nuclear War, Crucial Air Battles Of The October 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Sadat didn’t find it worth mention – with a single worth – in his memoirs (just like he didn’t find the entire scam with ‘beiiiiig offensive on 14 October’ worth mentioning in his memoirs).

Moreover, a simple calculation is easily showing that over the last 39 years (since 1980), -at least- some 3,000 Egyptian Air Force officers underwent one or another sort of military education in the USA. Let me guess that at least several hundreds of them underwent higher military educational courses and thus have had to fill one kind of a thesis or the other. In all of that time, just 1 (one) of them ever came to the idea to fill a thesis about the ‘Egyptian point of view’ about the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War, and at least mention an ‘Air Battle of el-Mansourah’: not one (ZERO) came to the idea to go in depth and dedicate their entire thesis to that topic.

In other words: conclusion is on hand that even the Egyptian Air Force (EAF) is not teaching its own pilots about any kind of an ‘Air Battle of el-Mansourah’. It is not teaching its own history. Or if so, then so poorly, EAF’s officers do not know what to think about it.

…in worst case, one can imagine the culture shock they experience when arriving in the USA for any kind of military education…

But, claiming and faming this affair ever more, in the Egyptian social media, and in the Egyptian mass media – and that without any kind of evidence at all – is what…? .. making it reality…?

Indeed: that should be the ‘reality’ for a nation of 70+ million of people, the second oldest air force in the Arab World, and – quantitatively – still one of biggest armed forces in the Middle East.

Photo credit: EGY-ARMY-MID11 via Wikipedia