In early June 1967 the signs of an imminent Arab assault on Israel finally to eliminate the hated enemy were unmistakeable. But the Israelis did not sit around waiting. In a brilliantly-executed preemptive air strike the Egyptian air force was destroyed on the ground in minutes. Then Israeli defence minister Moshe Dayan co-ordinated a lightning armoured assault on the Egyptian forces in the Sinai Peninsula. Faced with the speed and aggression of the Israeli troops, there was little that the Egyptian commander Abdel Hakim Amer could do. It was all over in just six days.