made the five-hour flight to uganda in three planes. >> the raid on entebbe is one of the perfect operations of the modern era defined by surprise, speed, success. but mostly surprise. >> the israelis are familiar with the airport at entebbe because they built sections of it and had an active advisory force in uganda until 1973 when yamin kicked the israelis out. >> no one thought anyone would fly from israeli to uganda to rescue the hostages. that was surprise number one. when they landed at the airport, all the israeli commandos were wearing ugandan military uniforms and were driving the same kind of vehicles that a ugandan general would drive. >> the hijackers didn't know what was going on, and, by the time they figured it out, it was too late for them. >> it took just 52 minutes from the time the first plane landed until it took off with the hostages. that was three minutes less than the rehearsal the night before. >> the rescue seemed pretty much like a modern miracle.