Chronicle Editor Emeritus Jerry Bellune shares with you his adventures in the Holy Land. The experience gave him a greater appreciation of shared U.S and Israeli values.

Jerusalem, Israel

In the still of a July night 42 years ago, 200 Israeli commandos flew in darkness into Entebbe Airport.

They were on a daring, high-risk mission to rescue 94 Jewish hostages.

The stakes were high.

If the mission failed, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his cabinet would resign. Israel would lose. Terrorism would triumph.

Years later, this is the story I learned from my Israeli Defense Forces guide Yuri and reading what others have written about the mission.

He was only Yuri to me.

His last name was not revealed for security reasons.

He picked me up at my Jerusalem hotel early one clear desert morning in an open IDF vehicle that looked much like the Jeeps we had used in Korea in the 1950s.

Over coffee in a sidewalk cafe, over hummus and salad at lunch and in the quiet of his mother’s apartment later he recounted his experience.

Rehearsing the show

Uri was tall and dark, a Sabra born in Israel. His muscular biceps and forearms extended from his short sleeved khaki shirt to large, sinewy hands.

His entire body looked as if it could uncoil with the lightening speed of a cobra.

Before leaving Israel, he recalled, Yoni Netanyahu, older brother of current Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, met with the unit to brainstorm what they would do in Entebbe and rehearse it as carefully as if it was a Broadway production.

There could be no slip-ups or all of them would be killed or imprisoned and Ugandan strongman Idi Amin would have a global propaganda victory.

By July 3, 1976 – 200 years after our revolution against the British – the team was nearly ready.

Gen. Dan Shomron’s 29 men would control Entebbe airport to block any attempt to stop the rescue.

Netanyahu’s commandoes would storm the terminal to rescue the hostages.

Others would secure the runway, destroy Uganda’s MiG fighter jets to prevent interception and block a Ugandan Army attack.

The flight begins

Time was running out.

The hijackers’ deadline to start killing hostages was just a few hours away.

While politicians debated, Yoni Netanyahu ordered his unit into four C-30 Hercules transport planes. Saudi Arabian air defenses.

A green light was finally radioed to them that the Israeli cabinet had agreed.

The lead plane was crowded with the assault force and three vehicles.

“I looked back and saw Yoni sleeping,” pilot Joshua Shani later recalled.

“I said to myself: ‘He’s taking a personal risk in this and he was sleeping like a baby, utterly at peace...

“Where does this calmness of his come from? Soon you’re going into battle, and here you are, sleeping as if nothing is happening.”

Touchdown in Entebbe

Flying in over Lake Victoria, the planes hit a storm.

With no time to bypass it, they had to fly through.

Shani, the pilot, held the controls steady. The commandoes and equipment had to be on the runway with strict timing.

In the cargo compartment, the soldiers piled into the three vehicles on board, a Mercedes and two Land Rovers. Their engines were already running.

Next: They had to make up the 30 seconds they were behind schedule.

The 2,500 mile flight to Entebbe – farther than from our airport here to Los Angeles – had begun.

If the politicians caved in to terrorist demands, the team would have to turn around and fly back.

The planes took off on different flight paths to lessen suspicion and flew at low altitudes to avoid detection by Egyptian, Sudanese, and