NAVY – UK
I was a Lieutenant in the RNVR (Royal Navy Volunteer Reserves), having been in the British Navy from October 1939 until 1946. I actually ended the war in command of exactly the same class of ship that I was later to command in the Israel Navy.
I didn’t really ever “join” Machal. Sometime in 1947 I was recruited into the Irgun Zvai Leumi. I did various jobs for the Irgun in the UK and France, and was sent on one mission to South Africa. On the way back from there, via what was then Palestine, I met Menachem Begin on a roof-top in Tel Aviv at a time when the British had a very high price on his head. At the time that the State of Israel was declared, I was in London docks trying to prepare an ex-German E-Boat (which some generous Jew had purchased) to sail to Israel for the IZL, but I didn’t like the waiting, and asked for permission to go to Israel as an ordinary volunteer. I went via Newhaven; I was given a 100% search – stripped naked – by the British Customs – or maybe they were Security. Anyway, when they finally passed me – I was supposed to be going for a week-end to Paris – the chap who had been doing the search said, “I’ll give you one piece of advice, son. Don’t let them take your passport away over there.” It was very good advice.
After a night in Paris with friends from IZL, I went to Marseilles, to a camp called Saint Jerome. After a few days in the camp, where the only amusing thing was the efforts of a sort of boy-scout-cum-Habonimnik to teach drill to this bunch of veterans, we were put on a plane for Haifa, and I was in the Israel Navy the next day.
My pay at that time was £5 per month, the normal pay of soldiers in the IDF, but after a few weeks I met some Americans who told me about Machal. After that my pay was increased to specialist rates but I didn’t go to Israel as “Machal”. I just happened to be a volunteer from outside Israel.
I served in the Navy, firstly as the commanding officer of one of the small flotilla
“M-17 Haportzim” (The Penetrators) because most of the crew had belonged to a unit of “Portzim” in the battle for Jerusalem. I joined the Israel Navy around October 1948. Later I was transferred to the operations office in the Navy HQ. On being demobilized I was asked to come back and sign on with the regular navy, which I did, and ended up as head of the operations office. (Not head of naval operations – he was my boss). My rank then was Sgun Aluf (Lieutenant Colonel).
Author: David de Lange