The 345th Session of Memory Night-2

Adjusted by Leyla Rostami
Translated by Ruhollah Golmoradi

2023-12-5

The 345^th session of memory night was held in Revagh-e Shahadat (portico of martyrdom) (campus of the Artistic Sect of Islamic Republic of Iran) on Thursday, April 27, 2023. In this session, Brigadier Dr. Nasrollah Ezzati, Nezam Ali Salehi, and Second Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Fuladi shared their memories. The narrators told the memories of the first group of Imam Ali Officer’s Academy students sent to the operational areas of Holy Defense in 1980 commanded by Martyr Major General Namjoo. Davood Salehi was presenter of the session. The body of an Assyrian newly-discovered martyr named “Johnny Bet Oshana”, one of the martyrs of Iranian religious minorities, was special guest of this memory night.

The first narrator of the session, Brigadier Dr. Nasrollah Ezzati continued his speech and said, “After graduation, I fell in love with the Armored Corps. I always say this to officer students that choose two combat corps and one administrative corps. I had chosen all the three corps as armored. Martyr Namjoo used to say to me, are you really in love with armored corpse?! I said I like the armored. In any case, I participated in a short training course and went to the unit of the 37th Armored Brigade of Shiraz, which was in Mahshahr region of Abadan at that time. We did various operations in that brigade. The 37th Armored Brigade of Shiraz played an important role in the liberation of Abadan. After the liberation of Abadan, we prepared for Operation Fath ol-Mobin.

Pointing to the role of Martyr Lieutenant General Sayyad Shirazi in the unity and integration of AJA (IRI’s the army) and IRGC, the narrator then said, “After liberation of Abadan, the aircraft which was carrying Martyrs Namjo, Fallahi, Jahanara, Kolahdooz and a number of others crashed and all of them died a martyr.[1] [1] After that, Martyr Sayyad Shirazi became the commander of the forces and united AJA and the IRGC, and in his own words, a combination called the Moghadam )forerunner) combination, which creates a high power to fight.

After the liberation of Abadan, we were engaged in reconstruction when they transferred us and brought us to the emergency runway of Dehloran Airport. One of our tactical mistakes was that when we wanted to move the tanks out of the area, we first loaded the command tanks; because usually every five to six tanks have a commander and the rest of the tanks are crews. The commanders had loaded and sent their tanks first. When we arrived at the emergency runway of Dehloran Airport, they said Martyr Sayyad ordered to take action the very night. Because we had identified Raqabiyah area, but Iraq had moved, preempted, and attacked, and disrupted our plans. They brought us there and no matter how much the brigade commander said that the tanks had not arrived yet, Martyr Sayyad did not agree. He said we should go.

The morning call to prayer had not yet come. Martyr Sayyad ordered two battalions with lights on, chieftains on the right, and M60s on the left to go and find Iraq. Up to the 13^th kilometer, the 21st Hamza Division was stationed. When we reached the 8^th kilometer, I saw an Iraqi Katyusha was shooting us. I was saying on the wireless that the Iraqis are here, they were saying go forward, go forward, go forward, and further. We went and the sun started shining and it was day. We were ordered to act on an area that we didn’t identify with. Later I found out what was the reason of Martyr Sayyad for this matter. We learned that Iraq's 10th Armored Brigade, which was Iraq's mobile precaution, had come into action there, and for this reason, Martyr Sayyad's opinion was to stop this brigade and prevent Iraq from bypassing the 77^th Division located in the Site[2] [2] area towards Fakkeh.

In the continuation to his memory of Operation Fath ol-Mobin, the narrator said, “It was spring and the area of Dasth-e Abbas was completely green. All the trenches were green. The Iraqis were inside the trench and could not be seen. We were going into the area with khaki tanks. We had overlooked the road on the left, which was known as Naft [oil] Road, when the conflict started and the Iraqis started shooting from that side. We had a platoon commander named Talu Samadi, may God have mercy on him, he died a martyr in operation Fath ol Mobin. Before this operation, Didehvar was commander of the platoon, but he was again assigned as the commander of tank division in the operation.

I saw that the tank was shooting aimlessly. I got off the tank and mounted on his [Mr. Samadi] tank and hit his tank turret. He opened the door and said what? I said, what are you doing, Samadi?! He said, “How so?” I said the tank is far away and your bullet will not reach them and finally it would move and advance. He said alright! I said, it will come forward now, you want to turn the turret to extract ammunition from the beneath, and it will hit you. I got off; as soon as I jumped down from the tank, the tank exploded, that is, they hit Martyr Samadi's tank with a rocket from the left side in the heights of Tineh. Because it was loaded with extra ammunition, it burned so much and the turret was torn down to such a weight that it probably weighed about ten tons. The tank was three meters away from me, maybe also one meter in the dirt. This tank was torn from the bottom and top so that we only found chest of Martyr Samadi.

Ostevar Rayatpisheh, who was the driver of the tank and had put his hand out to get out, was burned on the spot. The only thing that was left of him was the same hand which was buried. The Iraqis hit all four of our carrier forces of our RPG shooter platoon. Martyr Qobad Hematian and 16 others in the mortar platoon were martyred on the spot. In any case, there are many memories and I wanted to mention the heroic students who responded to their Imam and their commander that day, and fought powerfully. Now, when you enter the officer academy and stand in front of building number 3, the pictures of these student martyrs are all over the building’s walls.

To be continued…