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lawyer 28 ever since the day of its
opening way back in 1869 the Suez Canal
has proved to be one of the most vital
passageways in the world for
international trade prior to the canals
construction a ship traveling from
London to India would have to sail down
all the way across the Atlantic Ocean
before looping around Africa and then
come all the way back up the Indian
Ocean before finally arriving afterwards
a ship would only have to enter the
Mediterranean cut through the canal and
enter the Red Sea before venturing
across the Arabian Sea over to India
which saved a distance of 80 900
kilometers over the old route around
Africa it completely and forever changed
the rules of the planet and unlocked the
ability for Europe and Asia to trade
with one another at speeds never before
thought possible
but what if for whatever reason the
canal was destroyed or stopped working
and trade ships were forced to go back
to the old way of doing business around
Africa the consequences for
international trade would definitely be
pretty catastrophic but this exact
situation has actually already happened
once before back in the 1960s
you see back then Egypt didn't exactly
get along very well with her next-door
neighbor
Israel tensions between the two
countries have been rising for some time
and both sides were preparing themselves
for war in this atmosphere of
uncertainty on the morning of June the
5th 1967 fifteen cargo ships entered the
Suez Canal on a Mediterranean side to
begin their 12 hour journey across to
the other side in the Red Sea unknown to
any of them at the time though was that
their journey through would it take 12
hours it would take almost eight years
this was the worst traffic jam ever
caused in human history and this is the
story of the men who suffered through
heads
roughly halfway through their journey
across the canal war suddenly exploded
the Israelis launched a surprise air
attack against the Egyptians in the area
around the canal was suddenly full of
planes bombs fire and death within hours
of the attack the Egyptian government
ordered the Suez Canal to be closed and
forced the 15 ships inside to halt until
further notice
but after only six days of fighting the
Israelis had already won a decisive
victory and conquered the entire Sinai
Peninsula the new border between Egypt
and Israel was literally the Suez Canal
itself and unwilling to allow the
Israelis to use it
the Egyptians decided instead to
sabotage it to the point where nobody
could use it they sank ships on the
north and south ends to block both
entrances and exits destroyed bridges
and choke what was left with nearly a
million mines to guarantee that any
attempt to use the canal would be a
suicide mission and so the 15 neutral
cargo ships that had entered on the 5th
of June found themselves in their
terrible predicament trapped between the
Egyptian army on the western side the
Israeli army on the eastern side and no
hope of exit either the North or the
South 14 of the ships anchored down in
great bitter lake near the South exit
and the crews had no other choice than
to be patient and wait it out for the
next eight years all ships were once
again forced to take the old routes
between Europe and Asia by going around
Africa which was both longer and much
more expensive and as a consequence the
cost of goods around the world was
driven up and certain countries trading
arrangements were thrown into absolute
chaos particularly nations located in
Southeast Asia or East Africa take sedan
and Italy for example with the canal
open ships could just travel a
relatively short direct distance between
Port Sudan and Naples right across Egypt
but with a canal being closed trade
ships would then have to travel the
excessively long distance all the way
down the Red Sea Indian Ocean the
southern tip of Africa up all the way
across the Atlantic through the Strait
of Gibraltar and then across the
Mediterranean before finally making its
way into ports and
repeat the entire process going back
home again while the outside world was
struggling with new logistical
challenges like that one the 15 ships
and their crews left behind in the canal
were struggling with their own as well
of the 14 trapped in great bitter lake
there were four British to West German
to Swedish to Polish one French one
Bulgarian one Czechoslovak and one
American when it became clear after
months and months of being stranded in
the no-man's land between two hostile
armies that they may be there for a
while the crews and companies of all 14
decided to group all the ships together
into three groups
they sent most of the sailors home and
left behind a small skeleton crew of 10
men behind for each of the three groups
to provide maintenance duties on the
ships in the hopes that one day they'd
be able to successfully leave obviously
nobody wanted to waste away their lives
forever on the ships so the companies
began rotating these ten man skeleton
crews out with a new fresh ten man team
every six months and despite coming from
opposite sides of the Cold War the crews
of all 14 ships grew to become friends
with one another over their six-month
long deployments bonded together by the
sheer ridiculousness of their situation
church services were hosted every Sunday
on the German ship movie nights were
regularly hosted by the Bulgarians the
Swedes hosted pool parties the French
crew a community garden and the British
hosted football games on their larger
deck and lifeboat races across the canal
they even celebrated their own bitter
lake Olympics in 1968 to compete with
the real world Olympics with the poles
winning the most events raiding parties
from both Egypt and Israel would
occasionally sneak through them to
gather intelligence on the other side
and over the years the sand from the
desert covered all of the ships in a
deep thick layer giving the whole fleet
its nickname the yellow fleets six years
unto their isolation in 1973 and all-out
war exploded around them again this time
it was Egypt who launched a surprise
attack against Israel combined with
Syria in the north the Egyptian armies
stormed across the canal and pushed deep
into the Sinai before they were halted
by the Israelis who then counter
attacked and pushed the Egyptians all
the way back to the canal again in all
of the chaos a stray Israeli rocket hit
and
the stranded American ship a week of
heavy fighting across the canal with
heavy casualties on both sides was
finally concluded with a ceasefire
agreement that paved the way for a final
peace between the two sides Egypt and
Israel both began withdrawing their
troops from the canal border afterwards
but after six long years of conflict and
standstill the Suez Canal was a stagnant
puddle full of sunken ships equipment
artillery and mines
it took Egypt two years to clean the
canal out of all of the debris leftover
from the conflict but then finally on
June the 5th 1975 eight years to the day
after they first entered the canal the
day finally came for the yellow fleet to
say goodbye to the canal once and for
all and to the friends they made along
the way the Suez Canal was finally
reopened but the only ships that were
capable of leaving after such a long
time doing nothing
were the two West German ships which
both made it back home to their port in
Hamburg greeted by over 30,000 cheering
spectators after their journey of eight
years three months and five days after
first leaving Egypt and Israel meanwhile
began to normalize the relationship
afterwards with Israel returning the
entire Sinai back to Egypt in Egypt
becoming the first Arab state to
officially recognize the State of Israel
peace was finally restored and after
sitting in the same place going nowhere
for eight years the deadlock was broken
in the longest traffic jam in human
history finally came to a close now in a
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