Entebbe; the BBC and a Jew in space
FROM THE JC ARCHIVE: JULY 9, 1976
Entebbe - the full story
Brilliant intelligence work and planning laid the groundwork for Saturday night’s breathtaking operation to rescue the 166 passengers and twelve French aircrew still being held hostage at Entebbe airport, in Uganda, following the hijacking of an Air France airbus over Greece the previous Sunday. The hijackers had earlier released about 169 passengers…As the aircraft landed, the commandos leapt out, followed seconds later by jeeps and other vehicles driving down the aircraft’s opened ramps. Firing machineguns, the commandos stormed the two-storeyed building where the hostages were being held. It immediately became apparent that some 75 Ugandan soldiers were helping the hijackers to guard the hostages, and the commandos had to confront them.
BBC refuses reprieve for Hebrew Unit
The British Broadcasting Corporation this week dashed any hopes of saving its Hebrew unit after consulting the Foreign Office about a possible reprieve… In a letter to the Board of Deputies Mr G EH Man sell managing director of the BBC’s external broadcasting, pointed out that a number of other services had been reduced and that two — the Caribbean and Sinhala services — had been abolished. In view of this, Mr Mansell wrote, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office “have said that while they regret the termination of the Hebrew unit, they would not think it justifiable to reduce the prescription for any of our other services, heavily circumscribed as they are, in order to allow the Hebrew operation to be resuscitated along its previous lines. “
Jew commands Soyuz-21
The Soviet Union’s only Jewish cosmonaut, Colonel Boris Volynov, 41 is in command of the two-man Soyuz-21 spacecraft launched on Tuesday. The JC was the first Western newspaper to point out that Colonel Volynov is a Jew in January, 1969, when he made his first space flight in command of Soyuz-5.The Soviet press provided the clue by the publication of his mother’s name, Mrs Yevgema Izrailevna, a physician. Confirmation that Colonel Volynov is a Jew was then provided by Western correspondents in Moscow, who reported that Soviet Jews took pride in the achievements of “the first Jew in space.”