In what would come to be called the Bekaa Valley Turkey Shoot, 96 Israeli fighters and a squadron of UAVs faced off against 100 Syrian fighters backed up by 19 surface-to-air missile launchers in 1982. It was one of the largest jet battles ever fought.

The Aviationist

Israel has a history of conflict with its neighbors, especially from the 1960s through the 1980s. A series of small battles with Egypt resulted in some hard lessons learned for the Israeli Air Force after it lost numerous fighters to surface-to-air missiles.

But the IAF learned its lessons, and on June 9, 1982, it attacked 19 Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries deployed near the border. In the first two hours of fighting, the IAF destroyed 17 of the missile batteries with no losses. Then things really went nuts.

Israeli Air Force F-15s flying in Red Flag 2004. TSGT KEVIN J. GRUENWALD, USAF via Commons

The Syrians sent up 100 MiGs to intercept the 96 F-15s, F-16s, and F-4s that were attacking the SAM sites. The Israelis were flying an E-2C Hawkeye airborne warning and control system aircraft that picked up the incoming fighters. It began feeding instructions to the IAF fighters.

The more advanced Israeli fighters, firing both Sidewinder heat-seeking and Sparrow radar-guided missiles, destroyed 29 of the Syrian fighters.

One of the Syrian Air Force’s main fighters in the conflict was the MiG-21, like this one. Wikimedia Commons

But the IAF wasn't done. There were still two missile sites it wanted gone. So it returned June 10. Again, the bulk of Syria's air force lifted off to greet the fighters, and the IAF proved overwhelming, downing another 35 Syrian aircraft with no Israeli losses.

The stunning victory was due to numerous factors. The Israeli pilots had benefited from great training and a lot of combat experience, but the Syrians had also screwed themselves.

The Syrians fed their pilots instructions from a ground control station that couldn't communicate because of Israeli jamming. In an Air Power Journal article, a Western military observer of the battle says, "I watched a group of Syrian fighter planes fly figure-eights. They just flew around and around and obviously had no idea what to do next."

Lt. Gen. Leonard Perroots, director of the US Defense Intelligence Agency at the time, trashed the lazy deployment of Syrian missile sites. "The Syrians used mobile missiles in a fixed configuration; they put the radars in the valley instead of the hills because they didn’t want to dig latrines–seriously."

The conflict between the two countries continued through July 1982. In over a month of fighting, Israel lost only two jets, while Syria lost at least 87.