Left for dead in 1948: The battle that shaped Arik Sharon

[Peter1469]

Left for dead in 1948: The battle that shaped Arik Sharon

This is an interesting article about then 20 year old Arik Sharon at the Battle of Lartun. Sharon had to make a horrible decision. His order was "retreat, retreat and leave the wounded." Which included him.

The formative moment of Ariel Sharon’s life came in May 1948; not with the Declaration of Independence – which he heard on the radio wafting out of an open window on his way to kiss his girlfriend Gali before a mission – but with the battle for Latrun, 11 days later, in which he was left for dead.

At the time, Jews and Palestinians had been fighting for six months. Arab forces controlled the ridges along the road to Jerusalem, barring the delivery of anything beyond sporadic convoys of food and water. The corridor to the capital, dominated by the town of Latrun and the Crusader castle looming over the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, was held by Jordanian troops and Palestinian militia.


The Haganah’s 7th Brigade, a newly formed unit mostly manned by Holocaust survivors, some of whom had never before fired a weapon, was given the task. Sharon, then still known as Scheinerman, commanded the 1st Platoon of B Company of the 32nd Battalion, the only battle-hardened fighting force in the brigade.

Later when Sharon commanded Unit 101, the first elite Israeli unit, he gave a standing order to never leave wounded in the field.