No Margin for Error, The Making of the Israeli Air Force

Yonay, Ehud

Published by Pantheon Books, New York, 1993

About this Item

The story begins with a ragtag band of daredevil World War II pilots - idealists, adventurers, and mercenaries - who came from America and other countries to fly a handful of old surplus planes in a war against the enemies of the newly created State of Israel. Barely twenty years later, an armada of Mirages, Mysteres, and Meteors streaked out of the Mediterranean sky to destroy the entire Egyptian Air Force on the ground, winning the 1967 War in three hours. How a group of extraordinary men forged one of the worlds most sophisticated air forces, which more than once saved the day for its beleaguered country, is the story Ehud Yonay tells in No Margin for Error. It is a story dominated by the legendary Ezer Weizman, the lanky, six-foot-tall scion of one of Israels first families, a brawling, hard-drinking womanizer whose dash and flamboyance made him into a mythological figure who inspired total devotion in his pilots. It is also the story of men like Palestine-born Aharon Remez, who talked David Ben-Gurion into set-ting up an Underground air force even before Israel came into existence; of Menahem Bar, the wiry son of Israeli farmers, who brought the swashbuckling pilots from gunslinging anarchy to battle readiness; of the dapper Don Tolkowsky, who with his clipped Oxford accent set forth a new military doctrine that Yak Nevo - the "poet of the dogfight" - translated into a brilliant attack plan that was to bring a victory that astonished the world. No Margin for Error is an important and comprehensive military history with all the excitement of a high-tech adventure, in which a heroic group of youngsters are molded into highly skilled flyers able to coax their sleek fighting machines into outturning, outclimbing, and out-shooting the far more numerous enemy. Yonay tells a breathtaking tale of suspense that shifts from battlefield to forward command post. He takes the reader into the cockpit of a high-flying Mystere as the pilot rams forward his throttles and throws his plane into a steep climb to elude a pursuing MiG, and he is also present at chief-of-staff meetings at which Israels political and military leaders conduct their own personal battles under the stress of an impending war. This is a book of high adventure and page-turning drama, a saga to match the battle of Britain - one of the most exciting chapters in modern military history. 427 p. photos ex-library copy, good condition.

Seller Inventory # 25822

Bibliographic Details

• Title: No Margin for Error, The Making of the Israeli Air Force
• Publisher: Pantheon Books, New York
• Publication Date: 1993
• Binding: Hardcover with dust jacket