Loud and Clear: The Memoir of an Israeli Fighter Pilot - Tapa dura

Brigadier General Iftach Spector is an IAF legend; no matter how much he had to leave out of his book for national security reasons, his 432 pages memoir is most definitely worth a look at regardless of his involvement in the infamous 2003 'Pilot s letter'. --G2 Global news review, August 2009...The best thing about his book is that even though it is more than 400 pages long, you get only the best of the stories, told with just enough self-depreciation to make it believable. His description of an evil dogfight with a superb Syrian pilot was one of the best accounts of air-to-air battle I have ever read and had a surprising ending. In another story I found myself holding my breath as he describes shooting down one Egyptian MiG and then fleeing two others until finally running out of fuel and landing dead stick on an abandoned airstrip on the edge of the Sinai Peninsula. It is stories like these that make me wish Hollywood would turn it into a movie. I know pilots. I'm an amateur paraglider pilot myself. (See, I told you pilots have to blurt it out.) Pilots love to retell their exploits, using their hands as jets and flailing them about in relived dogfights and bomb runs. And half of their stories are about mishaps, and tales of survival against faulty aircraft, the weather or wounds. Books like Spector's have made pilots a figure of glamour. They've been pumped with the slogans that they are the best of the best. Spector has a great knack for vivid description that brings to life those characters in the history of the IAF. And he interweaves the stories with ponderings of fate and morality much the way Graham Greene would in his novels. His writing is loud and clear and compelling. The flaw of this book, if there is one, is when he strays from a good story to interject his politics. He has the right to explain his reasoning for joining 26 other pilots in signing a letter at the height of the intifada to the head of the air force refusing to carry out targeted assassinations and advocating the end of the occupation. Summoned to explain himself to then OC Air Force Maj.-Gen. Dan Halutz, Spector put his wings on the table and said: 'Take them; this should be the last lesson I give the air force.' But the final chapter unfortunately turns into a political rant. Like all books on military history in Israel, this one too came under the censor's knife and it tells. Finishing the book one has the feeling that Spector only scratched the surface of his remarkable career and there are many, many stories left untold. He's a great storyteller and a man of incredible history. --Jerusalem Post...Brigadier General Iftach Spector is an Israel Air Force (IAF) ace with 12 kills to his credit, and an award-winning author of novels and memoirs. Until recently, though he had effectively retired from active duty, he continued to instruct flight students for the IAF. His latest book, Loud and Clear, is both a memoir and a discussion of his views of how the Israel Defense Force, especially the Israel Air Force, fights wars. --Air and Space magazine, August, 2009

Brigadier-General Iftach Spector is a highly-regarded Israeli pilot whose story is interwoven in the history of the IAF. Ofteh thought of as a 'Maverick' and a hard leader, no one can deny his personal successes, with twelve confirmed enemt aircraft shot down and shares in three other kills. However it was also his successfull leadership od his squadron in wartime that prompted the Israeli Air Force to hold him in such high esteem. Whetehr they do so now is a subject discussed in the book...Iftach Spector joined the IAF in 1958. Seventeen candidates made it throguh to join course 31 and two years later fifteen gaduated to receive their 'Wings'. Young Spector was considered above average and posted to 105 Scorpion squadron at Hatzor Air Force Base. At the time the Squadron operated the newly acquired Dassault Super Mystere, the fastest and most capable aircraft in the Air Force. It was with this squadron that spector learned his carft and honed his skills. The book covers his own familt history from his parents ariving in pre-war Palestine and their contributions to the establishment of Isreal, tragically something his father would not see. In May 1941 his father was killed on a British Army Operation against the Vichy French in Lebanon. During the Six day War in 1967, Spector was a Mirage III Pilot with 101 Squadron. he describes the Mirage as a 'wonderful triangle' and talks about it with much affection. After a short spell with the training school, in 1970 he was back with 101 Squadron as its commander. After the war of Attrition, Spector was appointed commander of the new 107 'Orange tails' F-4 Phantom Squadron. He describes his inital dislike for this big, cumbersome aircarft, but later sucumbed to its charms as a capable fighter as he led his squadron through the dark days of the Yom Kippur war in 1973. Post-war he was to introduce the F-16 into the IAF and in 1981 was to participate in the attack on the Iraqui Nuclear plant at Tammuz, which is described well in this book. In 2003 Brigadier General Iftach Spector signed the 'Pilot's Letter' opposing 'illegal and immoral' actions by the Isreali Defence Forces in the occupied territories. The book gives the reasons why...Higgly recommended, particularly if you are interested in the history of the IAF and modern air warfare. --Military Aircraft Monthly, December, 2009

Brigadier General Iftach Spector is an Israel Air Force (IAF) ace with 12 kills to his credit, and an award-winning author of novels and memoirs. Until recently, though he had effectively retired from active duty, he continued to instruct flight students for the IAF. His latest book, Loud and Clear, is both a memoir and a discussion of his views of how the Israel Defense Force, especially the Israel Air Force, fights wars. --Air and Space magazine, August, 2009

A recently retired Israeli Air Force general and its second-highest-scoring fighter ace, Iftach Spector is one of Israel’s living legends. He was the leader of the flight that attacked the USS Liberty in 1967. After the 1967 and 1973 wars, in which he commanded a squadron of fighter-bombers, he rose to head the IAF’s Training and War Lessons Section and later became its the Chief of Operations. He was one of the eight Israeli pilots who attacked Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor at Osirik in 1981.

In 2003, his career took an even more dramatic turn: he was the senior signatory of the famous “Pilots’ Letter,” in which Spector and 27 other Israeli pilots stated their refusal to bomb targets in Palestine where collateral damage would likely be severe. His maverick conscience is well on display in this artfully written memoir, which is currently a 10-week-and-counting bestseller in Israel and has been licensed in Brazil as well.

The son of a family that immigrated to Palestine at the turn of the 20th century, whose father and mother served in the Palmach, Israel’s early clandestine commando force, Spector has written a rich and reflective meditation on loyalty, on what is right and wrong in war, and on his dedication to the idea and reality of the state of Israel.

The Pilots’ Letter ended Spector’s military career, but also made him one of the most compelling and celebrated defenders of the conscience of the Jewish state. In that battle, as in his previous battles against Nasser’s MiGs, his mother’s constant lesson to him sustained him: “All from within.”

General Spector’s first book, A DREAM IN BLACK AND AZURE (1992; never translated into English), won the Sade Literary Award, given to him personally by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He has a B.A. in history and Middle East Studies from Tel Aviv University and a masters in political science from UCLA, both with honors.