El-Gamasy’s Memoirs Recount the October 1973 War From the Operations Room

Field Marshal Mohamed Abdel Ghani el-Gamasy’s memoirs offer a view of the October 1973 War through the eyes of Egypt’s chief of operations, placing military planning at the centre of the account.

From inside the operations room, battles take on a different form. Time, force, weapons and distance become critical calculations, while movements on maps represent the changing course of combat.

The perspective shifts attention from battlefield scenes to the work of tracking developments and weighing military decisions. It presents warfare as a demanding exercise in coordination as well as a confrontation between forces.

El-Gamasy’s account provides a lens on the responsibilities of the operations staff during the war. Its focus is the relationship between plans drawn on maps and the fighting those plans were intended to guide.