Soviet artillery pieces captured from the Egyptians in the Six-Day War last June were used for the first time by the Israel Army in actual combat conditions in last Wednesday’s fighting in the Suez Canal area, it was disclosed today.
The Soviet-built weapons were used by the Israeli Army to silence artillery directed from within the town of Ismaeliya against Israel positions on the east bank of the canal. Israel not only captured large numbers of these weapons in good operating condition in its cleanup of the Sinai Peninsula but also huge stores of ammunition.
(The London Daily Telegraph said that the useable arms and equipment recovered by Israel in the Sinai Desert were valued at 60 million pounds sterling ($168,000,000). In addition, it said, other booty to an equal value would be sold as scrap or put to other uses. The paper noted that British-built tanks captured from Jordan had already been put into service.)
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