George Schnabel Yom Kippur War recordings

George Hans Schnabel was born in Vienna, Austria on February 28, 1930, and emigrated in 1941 from occupied Czechoslovakia to the United States where he settled with his mother and elder brother in Brooklyn, NY. Schnabel graduated from Midwood High School and served in the US Army from 1953-1955, after which he worked in the retail textile field in Northern Ohio and Western New York State. George Hans Schnabel passed Tuesday, October 15, 2019.

The Yom Kippur War, October War, or Ramadan War, also variously called the 1973 Arab-Israeli War or the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6th to 25 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab countries including Egypt and Syria. The majority of combat between the two sides took place in the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights, with some in northern Africa and Egypt.

Fighting began when Egyptian and Syrian forces crossed their corresponding ceasefire lines with Israel and entered the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. Egypt's initial objective in the war was to seize a foothold on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal and subsequently leverage these gains to negotiate the return of the rest of the Israeli-occupied Sinai Peninsula. Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal in Operation Badr and advanced into the Sinai Peninsula; the Syrians launched a coordinated attack in the Golan Heights to coincide with the Egyptian offensive and initially made gains into Israeli-held territory. After three days of heavy fighting, Israel halted the Egyptian offensive, resulting in a military stalemate on that front, and pushed the Syrians back to the pre-war ceasefire lines. The Israeli military then launched a four-day-long counter-offensive deep into Syria, and within a week Israeli artillery began to shell the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus. Egyptian forces meanwhile pushed for two strategic mountain passes deeper within the Sinai Peninsula but were repulsed, and Israeli forces counter-attacked by crossing the Suez Canal into Egypt and advancing towards Suez City.

On October 22nd an initial ceasefire brokered by the United Nations unraveled, with each side blaming the other for the breach. By October 24th, the Israelis had improved their positions considerably and completed their encirclement of the Egyptian Third Army and Suez City, bringing them within 62 miles of the Egyptian capital of Cairo. This development led to dangerously heightened tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, givn their respective backing of Israel and the Arab coalition. A second ceasefire was imposed cooperatively on October 25, 1973, to officially end the war.

At the 1978 Camp David Accords that followed the war, Israel returned the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, which led to the subsequent 1979 Egyptian–Israeli peace treaty.