Reflecting on his time with Machal some 40 years later, Sol Zessin said: “If I were a woman, I would equate it to giving birth to a child. But instead of a child, I helped give birth to a nation.”
Having attended a Machal reunion in Israel, he stated that it made him feel a bit better to be finally recognized. “I did not go over there for recognition, I went over for idealist reasons to help win a war,” he added.
In 1948 Zessin was a 28-year-old car salesman from New Jersey, and while visiting Florida he enlisted to volunteer for the Israel military. Initially, he was put to work interviewing foreign volunteers and providing for their financial, housing and medical needs.
He had been a navigator/bombardier in America’s Air Force in World War II. He arrived in Israel by air from Rome on August 6th 1948 with a group of some 20 South African volunteers and joined the Israel Air Force.
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In addition to serving as a bombardier in the IAF, in March 1949 he was involved in a prisoner exchange of 2,500 Egyptian soldiers for five air crew volunteers: three Americans, one Dutch and one British. Their two Norseman light transport planes had to land near Gaza, instead of Tel Aviv, almost out of fuel at the end of a grueling ferry flight from Italy; their flight had been plagued by technical problems and stronger-than-forecast winds.
His return to Israel 40 years later left him deeply impressed on seeing the progress made.
Source: Material supplied by the UK Machal Association