Sinking "Eilat", The Destoryer
General Mohamed Abd Al-Ghany Al-Gamasy said in his memoirs ( On 21 of October, after a field break, I came to headquarter of the front to find General Ahmed Ismail and Brigadier Hassan Al-Gridly, chief of front operations ( I was not in that position yet), following up the movements of the Israeli destroyer "Eilat" nearing the Egyptian territorial waters by the north of Port Said city.
Regularly, we were receiving information from the naval leadership of Port Said about the movements of the destroyer. Forces of the base were on alert to get the orders from the leadership of the naval forces to attack the destroyer of the enemy which kept on entering the territorial waters and coming back repeatedly and provocatively to show the weakness of our naval forces.
As soon as the commander of the naval forces gave his orders to destroy the destroyer when entering the territorial waters, two missile boats came out of Port Said base to do the mission, the first one launched a missile which hit directly the destroyer that began to sink, after launching the second missile the Israeli destroyer sank completely with its crew in the northern-east of Port Said, After 5 p.m. of 21 of October 1967, Eilat sank a mile away inside the Egyptian territorial waters.
Then the two boats came back to the base. All forces of the canal front and the armed forces were very excited for the quickness and efficiency that gave such outstanding result.
Sinking the destroyer "Eilat" by two surface-to surface missiles, was a beginning of new stage of developing the naval weapons and struggle all over the world. This day become, efficiently, The day of Egyptian Naval Forces.
Israel asked the International Control Forces to let the Israeli planes rescue the destroyer crew from drowning. Egypt agreed not to interfere the rescue process which happened on the lights of planes, and did not take that advantage to kill the rest of the Israeli force."
Source: October War 1973, second edition 1998. General Mohamed Abd Al-Ghany Al-Gamasy chief of operations of Egyptian Army during the war. 