Egypt is celebrating today the Naval Force Day, marking the 52nd anniversary of sinking Israeli destroyer Eilat four months after the Six-Day War in 1967. This is clinching a historic victory as the Israeli warship was the world’s first destroyed by ship-to-ship missiles.
On October 21, 1967, Eilat intruded into Egyptian national waters as a show of force in the Mediterranean off the coasts of the Sinai Peninsula, then occupied by Israel, on June 5 of the same year.
As a consequence, the Egyptian Navy fired a number of P-15 Termit (SS-N-2 Styx) missiles using Soviet Project 183R class (Komar) boats at the Z-class destroyer built-in 1944 by Cammell Laird for the Royal Navy before it was sold to Israel in 1955.
This operation resulted in the deaths of 47 Israelis and wounding 91 people, who were rescued by the Israeli boats that rushed to the site of the destruction of "Eilat".
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