CATEGORY: HAGANAH
DROM AFRIKA 1 & 2 – Haganah. Adventure on the high seas
The Stories of “Drom Afrika 1” and “Drom Afrika 2”
“Drom Afrika 1” – A day in May 1947
A new name had just been painted on the whaler: “Drom Afrika 1.” She was a modest craft of 500-tons, rising over the gentle waves of Table Bay harbor. Used in World War II as a South African minesweeper, she had been converted into a fishing trawler, and would soon be bound for the Mediterranean.
“Drom Afrika 1” was the embodiment of several dreams. The first was the big dream of three Cape Town Jewish businessmen, Messrs Jaffe, Saltier and Albow, to establish a Jewish and Mediterranean fishing fleet based in Haifa. It would help to provide food for the Jews of the yishuv.
The seven young Jews of the all-South African crew had private ambitions of their own, unrelated to the businessmen’s hope of the group reclaiming a seafaring biblical past. Four of them, Jack Shirk from Muizenberg, Tuvia Ozen and Yehuda Hershon from Johannesburg and Issy Greenberg from Cape Town, were aiming somehow to slip past the British requirement for an immigration certificate, and to join a Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz, the movement to which they belonged. Sam Wolfson from Johannesburg and Chaim Chait from Pretoria were colorful young men from the Zionist Revisionist movement, nourishing hopes of joining the Irgun underground. Finally, there was Ernst Groenewald (Grunwald), who was Jewish despite his Afrikaans-sounding name, who was also ready to fight both the British and the Arabs.
“Drom Afrika 1” sailed in May 1947. The captain was a Dane, the engineers a Dutchman and a Norwegian, the mate a Scot, the bo’sun a South African, and the rest of the crew were the young Jews already mentioned, as well as a handful of non-Jews. The first night at sea was their worst. “Drom Afrika 1” ran into a heavy storm, her bearings ran hot, the bilge pumps failed and the trawler shipped water, requiring a sea-sick crew to bale out with buckets. During the voyage, engine trouble occurred constantly, with the ship requiring repairs in every harbor en route to Haifa.
It took the ship two months to reach Haifa. Untoward events included taking aboard water which was not potable at Mombassa, which meant drinking beer instead, though that was no hardship, and running aground on a sand bank in the Red Sea. The rest of the time, the voyage was an enhancing and pleasant experience for the young men: four-hour watches, taking the wheel, chipping at paint and repainting, and the open-air life. The crew abandoned their unventilated fo’c’sle to sleep on deck. There were also other rewards: fostering friendly relationships, sunrises, sunsets, flying fish, the mystery of the ocean, all disconnected to the future that would bring Sam Wolfson back to South Africa minus a leg, that would involve Issy Greenberg in two remarkable air dramas flying from Czechoslovakia to Israel, and would kill Chaim Chait in a monstrous parachuting accident, all events which would reshape the lives of the others.
The first hint of the politically troubled arena into which the ship sailed came when it entered Haifa harbor. The captain asked the Jews, with whom he had become very friendly, which flag should be flown. Issy Greenberg and his friends produced the Zionist flag, and up it went. Fuming British officials boarded the trawler. How dare the captain fly that flag? For what it is worth as an interesting marginal fact to history, “Drom Afrika 1” was the first ship to enter Haifa harbor flying the flag of the future Jewish state: the illegal immigrant ships had their flags torn down before they reached port.
“Drom Afrika 1” tied up to the breakwater, but the crewmen were not allowed to land. The men became eye witnesses to the drama of those days, the transfer of Jewish refugees from their illegal ships to ships which would take them, caged on the deck, to Cyprus. A line of these illegal ships, now confiscated, was a dally reminder to the crew of the bitter struggle being waged between Jewry and Britain. Two of the most famous of the DP ships were added to the line: the “Exodus,” whose refugees the British returned to Hamburg, either with great insensitivity or with great malice, bringing passions to boiling point; the second one was the Irgun’s yacht, the “Ben Hecht.” At night, police launches purred across the water, the whole bay lit up by powerful search-lights. The launches dropped mines to discourage frogmen. There were also constant patrols around the breakwater. Despite this surveillance, the crew of “Drom Afrika 1” were able to visit a friendly ship which they reached by means of an inflatable dingy that floated to the trawler from the “Exodus.”
Serious efforts were made by the captain of “Drom Afrika 1” to fulfill her purpose as a Jewish fishing vessel, but the impaired propeller frustrated the first attempt, and the vessel limped back to Haifa. Thereafter it went to dry dock in Alexandria. A cholera plague in Egypt kept her there for a month. Only years later did Greenberg learn that Morris Galp, of the “safari” truck from Johannesburg, was in hiding in Alexandria at the same time. While in Alexandria harbor several other vessels were raided by “pirates” and the “Drom Afrika 1” crew were constantly on guard, successfully beating off an attack.
Back in Haifa, “Drom Afrika 1” resumed her expeditions, picking up more information than fish, the value of the information being where fish were not to be found. One night, while out at sea, a fire broke out aboard. This was no Conrad-like sea drama, but it might have been. Issy Greenberg came up from below to see the men streaming onto the deck. He passed the galley, next to which was the fidley. Clutching hold of the iron framework, he looked down into the stokehold. Belching smoke and flames, It seemed an inferno. The men were now bent on trying to launch the life-boat, but the process of getting steam on the winch to lift the boat from its davits had snarled. The captain, tearing out of his cabin and tripping, hurled whatever came to hand into the sea in his humiliation and anger.
The gods were mocking, but they had not counted on the ship’s cook, a shell-shocked man who had experienced the terrible bombardment of Benghazi in World War II, but apparently now without fear of fire. That, at any rate, is how Issy Greenberg put it. He rushed into the seething inferno which he put out with a fire extinguisher. On this note of anti-climax “Drom Afrika 1” limped back to Haifa.
She never made it as a fishing vessel, though Mr. Meyer Jaffe, returning to Cape Town in November 1947 from a visit to Palestine, was not to foresee this. He was hopeful, reporting in a Cape Town newspaper interview that full-scale operations were about to begin. In Haifa he had appointed Louis Shapiro as his agent. Shapiro was a young fellow from the Strand, the first member of the Zionist youth movement to settle in Palestine, who had arrived in the country in 1934. The trials of “Drom Afrika 1” and its later companion, “Drom Afrika 2” became his, and they carved out a little niche for themselves in the history of the War of Liberation: “Drom Afrika 1” made a night trip from Haifa to Nahariya to land urgently needed supplies and arms to the beleaguered town, which at the time was isolated by Arab guerrillas. She was also one of the ships of the rescue patrol should “Operation Velvetta 1” fail; this was an operation involving a number of South African pilots flying Spitfires from Czechoslovakia into Israel. She was then equipped with a 20-mm cannon. But that is another story.
The Jewish sailors of “Drom Afrika 1” were smuggled ashore by men of the Haganah shortly after the November 29 1947 partition decision. They had been on the ship for six months. In the subsequent unfolding of events, each one would become embroiled in a story of his own.
“Drom Afrika 2”
“Drom Afrika 2,” originally the Brakvlei, a whale chaser which had been used as a mine sweeper in World War II, left for Israel in January 1949 on her voyage round the West Coast of Africa. The ship, derelict and fit only for scrap, should never have been sent. It reached Haifa on 7th April 1949. The Jewish crew included Cecil Abrams from Johannesburg, Maximillian Abramowitz, Jack Kaplan, Solly Meltzer, Harold Levithan, Peter Silverstein, Solly Blecher (Israel Ben Ami), Harry Milner, Barney Smith, Mike Shakenovsky, Joe Witkin, Zami Reef, Sydney Goldman, and Arthur Rich.
The Israelis had no use for the ship and eventually sank it.
Source: Henry Katzew’s book “South Africa’s 800”
Machal/dromafrika1 and 2-10810finaljoe23810
“Drom Afrika 1” – A day in May 1947
A new name had just been painted on the whaler: “Drom Afrika 1.” She was a modest craft of 500-tons, rising over the gentle waves of Table Bay harbor. Used in World War II as a South African minesweeper, she had been converted into a fishing trawler, and would soon be bound for the Mediterranean.
“Drom Afrika 1” was the embodiment of several dreams. The first was the big dream of three Cape Town Jewish businessmen, Messrs Jaffe, Saltier and Albow, to establish a Jewish and Mediterranean fishing fleet based in Haifa. It would help to provide food for the Jews of the yishuv.
The seven young Jews of the all-South African crew had private ambitions of their own, unrelated to the businessmen’s hope of the group reclaiming a seafaring biblical past. Four of them, Jack Shirk from Muizenberg, Tuvia Ozen and Yehuda Hershon from Johannesburg and Issy Greenberg from Cape Town, were aiming somehow to slip past the British requirement for an immigration certificate, and to join a Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz, the movement to which they belonged. Sam Wolfson from Johannesburg and Chaim Chait from Pretoria were colorful young men from the Zionist Revisionist movement, nourishing hopes of joining the Irgun underground. Finally, there was Ernst Groenewald (Grunwald), who was Jewish despite his Afrikaans-sounding name, who was also ready to fight both the British and the Arabs.
“Drom Afrika 1” sailed in May 1947. The captain was a Dane, the engineers a Dutchman and a Norwegian, the mate a Scot, the bo’sun a South African, and the rest of the crew were the young Jews already mentioned, as well as a handful of non-Jews. The first night at sea was their worst. “Drom Afrika 1” ran into a heavy storm, her bearings ran hot, the bilge pumps failed and the trawler shipped water, requiring a sea-sick crew to bale out with buckets. During the voyage, engine trouble occurred constantly, with the ship requiring repairs in every harbor en route to Haifa.
It took the ship two months to reach Haifa. Untoward events included taking aboard water which was not potable at Mombassa, which meant drinking beer instead, though that was no hardship, and running aground on a sand bank in the Red Sea. The rest of the time, the voyage was an enhancing and pleasant experience for the young men: four-hour watches, taking the wheel, chipping at paint and repainting, and the open-air life. The crew abandoned their unventilated fo’c’sle to sleep on deck. There were also other rewards: fostering friendly relationships, sunrises, sunsets, flying fish, the mystery of the ocean, all disconnected to the future that would bring Sam Wolfson back to South Africa minus a leg, that would involve Issy Greenberg in two remarkable air dramas flying from Czechoslovakia to Israel, and would kill Chaim Chait in a monstrous parachuting accident, all events which would reshape the lives of the others.
The first hint of the politically troubled arena into which the ship sailed came when it entered Haifa harbor. The captain asked the Jews, with whom he had become very friendly, which flag should be flown. Issy Greenberg and his friends produced the Zionist flag, and up it went. Fuming British officials boarded the trawler. How dare the captain fly that flag? For what it is worth as an interesting marginal fact to history, “Drom Afrika 1” was the first ship to enter Haifa harbor flying the flag of the future Jewish state: the illegal immigrant ships had their flags torn down before they reached port.
“Drom Afrika 1” tied up to the breakwater, but the crewmen were not allowed to land. The men became eye witnesses to the drama of those days, the transfer of Jewish refugees from their illegal ships to ships which would take them, caged on the deck, to Cyprus. A line of these illegal ships, now confiscated, was a dally reminder to the crew of the bitter struggle being waged between Jewry and Britain. Two of the most famous of the DP ships were added to the line: the “Exodus,” whose refugees the British returned to Hamburg, either with great insensitivity or with great malice, bringing passions to boiling point; the second one was the Irgun’s yacht, the “Ben Hecht.” At night, police launches purred across the water, the whole bay lit up by powerful search-lights. The launches dropped mines to discourage frogmen. There were also constant patrols around the breakwater. Despite this surveillance, the crew of “Drom Afrika 1” were able to visit a friendly ship which they reached by means of an inflatable dingy that floated to the trawler from the “Exodus.”
Serious efforts were made by the captain of “Drom Afrika 1” to fulfill her purpose as a Jewish fishing vessel, but the impaired propeller frustrated the first attempt, and the vessel limped back to Haifa. Thereafter it went to dry dock in Alexandria. A cholera plague in Egypt kept her there for a month. Only years later did Greenberg learn that Morris Galp, of the “safari” truck from Johannesburg, was in hiding in Alexandria at the same time. While in Alexandria harbor several other vessels were raided by “pirates” and the “Drom Afrika 1” crew were constantly on guard, successfully beating off an attack.
Back in Haifa, “Drom Afrika 1” resumed her expeditions, picking up more information than fish, the value of the information being where fish were not to be found. One night, while out at sea, a fire broke out aboard. This was no Conrad-like sea drama, but it might have been. Issy Greenberg came up from below to see the men streaming onto the deck. He passed the galley, next to which was the fidley. Clutching hold of the iron framework, he looked down into the stokehold. Belching smoke and flames, It seemed an inferno. The men were now bent on trying to launch the life-boat, but the process of getting steam on the winch to lift the boat from its davits had snarled. The captain, tearing out of his cabin and tripping, hurled whatever came to hand into the sea in his humiliation and anger.
The gods were mocking, but they had not counted on the ship’s cook, a shell-shocked man who had experienced the terrible bombardment of Benghazi in World War II, but apparently now without fear of fire. That, at any rate, is how Issy Greenberg put it. He rushed into the seething inferno which he put out with a fire extinguisher. On this note of anti-climax “Drom Afrika 1” limped back to Haifa.
She never made it as a fishing vessel, though Mr. Meyer Jaffe, returning to Cape Town in November 1947 from a visit to Palestine, was not to foresee this. He was hopeful, reporting in a Cape Town newspaper interview that full-scale operations were about to begin. In Haifa he had appointed Louis Shapiro as his agent. Shapiro was a young fellow from the Strand, the first member of the Zionist youth movement to settle in Palestine, who had arrived in the country in 1934. The trials of “Drom Afrika 1” and its later companion, “Drom Afrika 2” became his, and they carved out a little niche for themselves in the history of the War of Liberation: “Drom Afrika 1” made a night trip from Haifa to Nahariya to land urgently needed supplies and arms to the beleaguered town, which at the time was isolated by Arab guerrillas. She was also one of the ships of the rescue patrol should “Operation Velvetta 1” fail; this was an operation involving a number of South African pilots flying Spitfires from Czechoslovakia into Israel. She was then equipped with a 20-mm cannon. But that is another story.
The Jewish sailors of “Drom Afrika 1” were smuggled ashore by men of the Haganah shortly after the November 29 1947 partition decision. They had been on the ship for six months. In the subsequent unfolding of events, each one would become embroiled in a story of his own.
“Drom Afrika 2”
“Drom Afrika 2,” originally the Brakvlei, a whale chaser which had been used as a mine sweeper in World War II, left for Israel in January 1949 on her voyage round the West Coast of Africa. The ship, derelict and fit only for scrap, should never have been sent. It reached Haifa on 7th April 1949. The Jewish crew included Cecil Abrams from Johannesburg, Maximillian Abramowitz, Jack Kaplan, Solly Meltzer, Harold Levithan, Peter Silverstein, Solly Blecher (Israel Ben Ami), Harry Milner, Barney Smith, Mike Shakenovsky, Joe Witkin, Zami Reef, Sydney Goldman, and Arthur Rich.
The Israelis had no use for the ship and eventually sank it.
Source: Henry Katzew’s book “South Africa’s 800”