Early in 1948 while working in Randfontein, South Africa, in partnership with Drs. Bloomberg and Kahn,I heard that Yoel Palgi an Israeli, who had been parachuted behind enemy lines in Europe during World War 11, was in Johannesburg looking for volunteers for the Israeli Army. I contacted him and we met in a cafe, where, after hearing of my World War 11 experience in a Field Ambulance, asked me if I could leave for Israel the next day! I explained that I was due to be married in May, so he suggested that he would arrange, through the S.A. Zionist Federation, for us to be flown to Israel soon after the wedding.
June and I discussed this and despite some reservations, she agreed that we should go. We were married on May 27th 1948, spent a two day “honeymoon” on a farm near Rustenberg, then joined a group of 24 other South African volunteers for a flight to Israel. [The group consisted of 22 males and 2 females] The plane was a chartered 2-engined Dakota with Nobby Clark [ a British War Ace] as the pilot. The 24 included Leslie Bloch, [June’s first cousin–a fighter pilot,] Arnold Ruch, Geoff Stark, Syd Cohen, Ray Brunton, Clive Selby, Melville Malkin, Maurice Ostroff, et al. We flew via Entebbe. I spent the night there with 22 males, while June slept in another room with Ray Brunton and the air hostess. Then to Wadi Halfa, where we were almost poisoned by the contaminated food supplied to us for the journey; Rome and Athens, before making an emergency landing in Haifa. As we were the first all Haganah plane from S. A., [a few individuals had left a short time before us, including our friends Reuben and Bat-Ami Joffe and Stan Levin.] We were flown in a “devious” way, with many changes in the itinerary, to disguise the fact that we were flying to Israel and not to London. The pilot Nobbie Clark, knew where we were headed, but the rest of the crew thought we were flying to London. The journey took one week.
On approaching Israel from Athens, Clark notified the Haifa airport that there was something wrong with the plane and he had to make an emergency landing. We landed in Haifa, and the British soldier on guard, [the British were still in charge and would leave the country about two weeks later] told us that “the war is going well, and we will have the Jews in the sea in a few days.” Clark told the port authorities that it would take about 24 hours to fix the plane, and suggested that, in the meantime, the passengers might tour Haifa. They agreed ,and we were given three large taxis which, by arrangement with the Haganah, made us “disappear” in Haifa so that an “upset” Clark and crew left the following day with an empty plane and the British started a manhunt for us. June and Ray Brunton, our two females, were taken to Ray’s sister’s house [Hetta and Louis Shapiro] on the Carmel, while the 20 males, [the other 2– Leslie Bloch and Arnie Ruch, the pilots, had left us in Rome and were flown to Prague to refresh their pilot skills] were hidden in a high school on the Hadar.The following day we were put on a bus and, with baited breath, traversed two British road blocks before arriving at an army camp, Tel Litwinsky, afterwards renamed Tel Hashomer, where we were inducted into the army without signing any papers, because we were volunteers and did not want to endanger our S. A. citizenship. [We received a salary of 3 Palestine pounds per month. The S.A. Federation supplemented this with another 5 SA pounds, and, when I was at the front, I received another 10 Palestine pounds–danger pay–per month. At that time a steak meal cost 1 Israeli lira, so we certainly did not get wealthy from our Army pay!!}
I was interviewed by Dr. Sheba, the chief of the Army Medical Corps.
“Can you speak Hebrew?” ”No.” “Can you speak Yiddish?” “No.” “What are we going to do with you?” As it turned out they did a great deal with me. Following our induction, we were given 48 hour passes to get to know Tel-Aviv. We had hardly arrived at our “hotel” in Tel-Aviv, when the army arrived to take me back to the Reading Power Station, and June to the Djani Army Hospital in Haifa.
The power station was on the Tel-Aviv sea front with the Sde-Dov airport to the north and the sea port to the south. This trio of structures seemed a “sitting target” for the enemy, who bombed the area twice a day, but amazingly, did not do too much damage, as most of the bombs fell into the sea. We had only one 20 mm anti-aircraft gun, but the soldiers shot with everything they had–one machine gun, rifles, revolvers etc. at the planes when they flew over at low altitudes. To everyone’s amazement, one of the planes was shot down and the jubilation was immense, with everybody claiming that it was their weapon which had caused the damage, despite the fact that the 20 mm machine gun was probably the only weapon that was capable of doing any damage!! After having been on duty for 48 hours I was relieved and sent to join June at Djani Hospital in Jaffa. [Military Hospital Number 4.]
At Djani, I was interviewed by Dr. Moses, the Chief Surgeon of the Hospital, who, on learning of my experience with Dr. Lee McGregor at the Johannesburg General Hospital, assigned me to his acute surgical ward where my pre and post-operative experience was an asset. For the next few weeks I was busy in the wards, assisting Dr. Moses at operations, as well as doing some operations independently. Dr. Moses was an exceptionally good all round surgeon and an extremely nice person, who despite long hours on duty, always made time available to talk to the relatives of the wounded. On one of the first nights I was on duty I was called to a soldier who had been in severe pain for some time. I diagnosed the pain as due to too tight a plaster on his broken leg. I slit the plaster, relieving the pressure and pain. This simple procedure started a friendship between him [Max Mevorach] and June and me, that lasted through his marriage, adoption of a child and until his death many years later in Haifa.
The satisfying period of doing surgery at the hospital did not last long, as an army representative asked me to consider whether I wanted to join the Palmach, and gave me 48 hours for my reply. However, the next day they arrived and took me to the Palmach! I had very mixed feelings about this move, as the Palmach was a Commando unit bearing the brunt of the dangerous attacking operations. But even more, it meant leaving June after a few weeks of marriage in a strange environment, and not knowing when I would see her again. June didn’t complain, but I knew it was very hard on her.
I was taken to an army camp [Sarafand- Tzrifin] the headquarters of the Yiftach Brigade of the Palmach. On entering the camp, we passed a few soldiers accompanying another South African doctor [R.H.] out of the camp. My companion asked me if I knew him. I said, “Yes,” and he replied that they found him “unsuitable” and were dismissing him from the Palmach, but would not elaborate. This did not make me feel any better. In the camp I was taken to the second row of huts from the fence [alongside the T.A.-Jerusalem road] because the first row often came under enemy fire! I received a room with a bed and small cupboard with adjoining rooms serving as an examining room, operating quarters, and some beds for overnight stays. I was also introduced to three soldiers–called Chaverim in the Palmach–who were to be very important for me for the next six months. They were Zeev Liebrecht, the chief medical corpsman [chovesh], who spoke Hebrew, English and German and who became my trusted right hand man and a good friend. Moshe 7 was the ambulance driver attached to us–a very nice boy who carried out his duties well, but was unfortunately killed by enemy action some four months later. The third was a nurses-aid, Mickey Matzini, who spoke and wrote Hebrew and English fluently. She kept close to me during all my medical activities and would write in the charts or on tags tied to the wounded, the diagnoses and treatments that I dictated to her. She was invaluable during the fighting and I appreciated her coolness during some hectic and close fighting.
My position was Doctor to Gedud 3 [third battalion] of the Yiftach Brigade of the Palmach. The Gedud Commander at the time was Moshe Kelman, while the Brigade Commander was Yigal Alon. At the time Yigal did not speak English and as my Hebrew was almost non-existent we communicated through an interpreter. Later Yigal became commander of the entire Palmach and Moshe was promoted to Brigade Commander and was replaced in the gedud by Gideon [Giddy] 7, who looked about 16, but must have been in his twenties. The Palmach consisted essentially of groups of men and women taken from Hachsharot groups on various Kibbutzim. When they were recruited, everybody in the Hachsharah group was taken, whether they were fit to be soldiers or not, and that explained how some of the disabled people I found later among the fighters –including people with artificial limbs, and closed joints etc…were there. All these young people had an incredible spirit and literally defied the odds. At that time I was 26 years old and probably the oldest person in the battalion! Whatever anxieties I had about the fighting were, in great part, allayed by the spirit, optimism and bravery of these young people in the battalion. The officers did not wear any insigna to indicate their rank but everybody seemed to know who they were. Everybody called each other by their first name or chaver. I was called “Doctor.”
I settled into my new quarters quickly and Geoff Stark, who had been assigned to Gedud 1 of our brigade made it more pleasant by coming over for a “Gesels” [Afrikaans for a talk] and sometimes to iron his clothes!. It didn’t take long however, before we moved out to battle. We moved in the direction of Jerusalem, capturing the towns of Lod [Lydda] and Ramle on the way, after short and intense fighting. As our fighters captured one street, my medical team and I moved into a street near them, in order to be as close to the fighting as possible. Our Medical corpsmen [chovshim] were magnificent in getting to the wounded and rapidly bringing them to our team, where we cleaned and dressed the wounds, gave medications for pain, gave intravenous fluids when we had some, consoled them as much as possible and either sent the soldiers back to the fighting or transferred them, whenever possible, to the nearest military hospital. Most of the time we were in a barber shop where the tiled walls allowed us to keep things cleaner than in other places. At one stage a shell hit the building and we evacuated the wounded when a fire broke out .We returned as soon as the fire was extinguished and the smoke had cleared.
In Lod I had an interesting “administrative” experience. Among the buildings captured was a small well equipped medical clinic. At the suggestion of Zeev, I took medical supplies and instruments, including a Doctor’s black bag, to replenish our most inadequate supplies. Then we notified our brigade and Dr. Schwartzman came and took things that the brigade needed. He then notified Palmach headquarters, and Dr. Dror, chief doctor of the Palmach, came and took what they could use– “living off the land”–medically speaking.
Medically, we were very busy, but one incident stands out in my mind.
While treating some wounded I was called urgently to deal with a soldier who had walked in and collapsed on the floor. It transpired that he had been hit by a shell which had taken a part of his abdominal wall with the result that a portion of his intestine had herniated through the wall. He thereupon held the intestine against his abdomen and walked about half a mile to reach us with the help of a chovesh! I could not imagine how he did that. We gave him large doses of morphine, some IV fluids, closed a little perforation that I could see, covered the intestine with Saline soaked gauze, and bandaged his abdomen tightly. I notified our commanding officer that this soldier and two others needed to be hospitalized as soon as possible. Despite being partially surrounded by the Jordanian army, we received an armored halftrack and an armed jeep and that evening the soldier mentioned above and a few other seriously injured were taken to a military hospital. I later learned that the soldier had a very rough time in hospital, but lived to tell the tale!
Following the battles for Lod and Ramla, we moved towards Latrun, which commanded the road from the coast to Jerusalem. The attack on Latrun was supposed to be a pincer movement with other units coming from the north, we from the east and others from the south. Unfortunately, the communications between the forces was poor and led to a number of mistakes resulting in a large number of casualties and our failure to capture Latrun, which was defended by the Arab legion from Jordan–a well trained army. During this period we spent some time in the hills around Latrun. The password was changed every day and sometimes twice a day, with Hebrew phrases that I found difficult to say. Thereupon the commander assigned a soldier to be my shadow and not leave me alone. He took this precaution because a short time before, Col. Mickey Marcus, an American, was shot by a sentry when he did not answer the sentry’s challenge with the correct password.
Leaving the Latrun area we returned to our base at Sarafand when the second Truce [Hafuga] began. I was given leave and it was wonderful seeing June again. Together we visited some of my South African. relatives, who had immigrated to Israel some years before. These were: Lennie Rabinowitz [later became a Judge in Haifa] and his sabra wife, Sara, Hanna Ziv [nee Klaff], and some “new”!! relatives–Bluma Geffen and her three daughters, Chana, Dalia and Josepha, in Ramat Gan. There we met some more relatives: Batz, [an amazing man and an Engineer] and Mishka Rabinowitz. We also met up with old friends from S.A.–Reuben and Bat-Ami Joffe, who were in the Air Force, as was Les Bloch with whom we were reunited and Solly Ossin another friend from S.A. Habonim. We also met Alex and Etta Zipstein. He was the director of the Tel-Aviv port, spoke six languages fluently and played an important role in smuggling arms into the country, despite the presence of U.N. observers. We became very good friends with the Zipsteins and remained so until their deaths many years later. Before returning to my base, I met Les Bloch and asked him to look after June while I was away. He said he would, but reminded me that he was in a dangerous role too. Prophetic words, as it was not long before Les was reported missing after a “dog-fight” of planes in the north of the country.
Following Latrun and a short vacation, our Brigade [Chativa] which had fought in the North [captured Safad and Nebi Yusha] and Center [Lod, Ramla, Ben Shemen and Latrun] was now sent South to the “Faluja pocket”, whose Egyptian commander was Abdul Nasser, later to become President of Egypt. At Faluja we set up our aid post in the vicinity of our newly acquired ambulance, in a field in between the trees. Zeev and I made the chovshim dig their individual foxholes [as I did] each separated from the others by at least 2 meters. This proved very important, as we were bombed and strafed every sunrise and sunset by 4 spitfires. They had no opposition, as our small air force did not appear, and we had no anti-aircraft weapons. The bombing went on for a week and by a miracle we only had one serious casualty, as the bombs seem to fall between the foxholes and did little damage. We did however receive wounded from the fighting that went on in between the bombing. It was, however, a difficult period, lying in our foxholes, hearing the screaming sounds of the bombs coming down and hoping that they would not hit you. After a week of not achieving our objectives–capturing Faluja and part of Gaza–we retreated back to Sarafand to regroup.
During the fighting, Geoff Stark suddenly arrived carrying a soldier – he put him down and entreated me to save him as he was his Officer and friend., How Geoff had managed to walk from where he had been fighting, carrying his burden, without being hit, was another miracle. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do for his friend as he was already dead. Geoff rested a while then returned to his unit with my admonition to look after himself.
At Sarafand the brigade prepared itself for our next objective in the South.
One day my commander, Moshe Kelman asked me if I could examine the whole battalion that night because we going down to the Negev behind the Egyptian lines and he wanted only fit people there. I replied that it was impossible to examine about 1000 soldiers in one night, so we compromised. He called the Gedud to the parade ground [Misdar Gedudi] and said. “If we go out to fight tonight, those who do not feel well enough to participate, should fall out and see the doctor.” I then examined all those who reported to me and found about 20 as being too sick to participate in our “walk” down South.
The journey to the Negev was remarkable. Every night for 4 or 5 nights, about 200-300 soldiers [male and female] were led in single file through the Egyptian lines by two soldiers who were very familiar with that part of the country. While this was occurring the nearby Kibbutzim started all their equipment, [tractors, generators etc.] to make a lot of noise so that the Egyptians would not hear our soldiers or their few jeeps. It was an incredible feat especially as not one soldier was lost! On the third night, Kelman told me that a small plane would fly myself and two others to the Negev, as he did not want to chance my walking with the rest. A small plane then flew us with our kit-bags at night, over the Egyptians and dropped us, somewhere in the Negev! The Plane then took off, without leaving us any instructions and nobody was there to meet us. We decided to stay where we were until daybreak and not wander round in an unknown area. With the light of day, we were picked up by our “chaverim” and taken to our “base”–a wadi [dry river bed} near Kibbutz Dorot.
One of the first things that happened to me in the Negev, was the disappearance of my ENT set. [A gift from my sister Ethel and her husband Morrie, on my graduation from Medical School some four years earlier.] That brought me back to reality, that among the Chaverim in the Palmach was at least one thief. It was never recovered, and I had to make do with some very inadequate substitute.
The following five months were spent behind, or perhaps better said, between the enemy lines. We were cut-off from the rest of Israel by land and communicated physically only by Piper Cub planes coming and leaving by night from make shift landing strips between Kibbutzim Ruchama and Dorot. Our Chativot [Gedud 1 and 3] were spread out over most of north-eastern Negev. It was during this period that I came to understand and appreciate the men and women around me. I even recognized differences in the behavior of the chaverim from Haifa, Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, but they were all very impressive!!
It was only in September1948 that every soldier in our Chativa [brigade] received his/her own weapon, 5 months after the War officially began. Until then, we had one weapon to three soldiers, who often passed on their weapon and coat when the next soldier came on guard duty to relieve the first. During those months we were heavily out-gunned and out-equipped by our enemies as judged by the weapons, planes and tanks they used against us. One example–one day Giddy, our battalion commander, [who replaced Kelman when he took over the brigade] received a message and took me with him to the top of a hill, where, with binoculars we saw clouds of dust on the horizon. He told me that there were two “Churchill” tanks coming slowly towards us. I replied that I had not noticed any anti-tank guns in our possession. He said that we did not have any, and theoretically, there was nothing to stop those tanks from reaching Tel-Aviv. Then, noticing my worried look, he said with a great deal of assurance–“but they won’t get past us.” He was right–some soldiers laid on or in, the ground until the tanks came alongside. Then they rose and threw hand-grenades through some of the apertures of the tank, causing havoc within. After a few of these skirmishes, in which some of our boys lost their lives, the tanks decided they had had enough and turned around and retreated in the direction of Egypt!! The bravery of our boys was something to be marveled at.
It was not easy living in the arid Negev, going out to fight, losing some soldiers in every battle and living with depleted rations, amenities and weapons. The food consisted mainly of bread and jam, some canned herring, rarely, canned meat [spam] and tea. The cacti growing in the vicinity supplied us with Sabras [prickly pears] and I soon learned how to peel them with a knife in order to get to the soft and tasty core. After a few months, however, everybody, including myself, had lost weight and we would wake in the mornings with stomach cramps and nausea. I believed this was due to Atrophic Gastritis from a multi-nutritional deficiency. The nausea and cramp-like pain were relieved by eating or smoking. It was surprising to me how my own symptoms were relieved by an early morning cigarette. Smoking was almost universal, and besides relieving hunger pains, it seemed to relieve a great deal of the stress, before going out on patrol or to fight.
I became very “attached” to my fellow officers and to our medical staff, some of whom after the war went to medical school and graduated as Physicians. One of them–Bracha Ramot, became a Professor of Hematology at Tel Hashomer/Tel Aviv University with a very good reputation. Our dedicated Chovshim kept close to the fighting and because they did everything to bring the wounded as rapidly as possible to me, put themselves in great danger and many of them, including our ambulance driver, Moshe, unfortunately lost their lives. Each one was a tragedy but we had little time to grieve–we continued with our jobs.
My first visit to Kibbutz Ruchama was an eye-opener. Most of the women and the children had been evacuated to the north. This was expected, but the big surprise was the Underground Hospital with double layer bunks along the walls and a complete Operating Room. My surprise turned to delight when I met the Chief Surgeon–Ivan Barnett, a South African volunteer, an excellent surgeon whom I knew as a student, a few years ahead of me, and later as one of my senior residents in Surgery. His assistant was Ozzie Treisman a very nice person and a classmate of mine at medical school. He was the anesthetist and also helped with the surgery. Rounding out a trio of South Africans was Harry Miller, a chovesh who seemed to be the only one who could maneuver the wounded in their stretchers into the bunks along the walls. The stretchers were a little longer than the bunks! Occasionally when I could, I went there to assist Dr. Barnett, who did a magnificent job. On one occasion I did a D and C [dilatation and curettage] on a woman from the Kibbutz, while Ozzie gave the anesthetic. Until it was over her Kibbutz husband wasn’t sure whether he trusted these young doctors!
All the time we were in the Negev behind enemy lines, one or two Piper Cubs [a small one-engine plane} would land every night at an “airfield” near Kibbutz Ruchama, bringing ammunition and a little food. The pilots were superb to be able to land there at night. One of the pilots, a Canadian volunteer, Ralph Moster and I became good friends and he volunteered to be our personal mail carrier delivering letters between June and me. [Ralph was tragically killed about six months later while testing a new plane for the Air Force.] Another visitor was Navigator Sammy Tucker, a friend from South African Habonim, who, on one visit, sprained his ankle, and stayed over with me, returning the next night. During the day he was amazed to see the rough state of the airfield and told me they must be crazy to land there at night!! However, he and the others kept coming and Sammy occasionally would carry a small bomb on his lap and throw it out when he was crossing the Egyptian lines! After we had been in the Negev for about three months, Ralph suggested that if I obtained a few days leave, he would fly me back to Tel-Aviv in his one-seater plane. I received the leave and flew back with Ralph, jammed between him and the door. We made it, and it was wonderful being reunited with June, who had not had an easy time, with her first cousin Les Bloch missing in action and she, picking up an intestinal infection which necessitated her receiving intravenous fluids. A few days later, June asked for and received leave from the Hospital and with Ralph’s and Reuben’s help, organized a “ride” for us in a small cargo plane flying to the Negev. There were no seats so we stood alongside the cargo–barrels of fuel! Flying over the Egyptian lines, we noticed many colored lights on each side of the plane. The pilot explained that they were “Berry lights” (flares) which lit up the target for the anti-aircraft guns. For every light, there were at least 4 or 5 shells from the anti-aircraft guns!! We tried not to think what would happen if one of the barrels was hit. During the flight the door flew open and we tried to close it, by pulling on a rope attached to the handle, until the pilot told us to stop and stay away from the opening! To our relief, we landed safely at our base.
The Gedud decided that, while June was with me, we would stay in one of the rooms on Kibbutz Dorot and not in my usual place in the Wadi. It was wonderful having June there and it was good for her to see what the Palmach was. After she had been with us for three days, I was called to a commander’s meeting to make the medical plans for a battle that was due to start. When we started receiving casualties, I convinced June to accompany some casualties who were flown back to the center of Israel, as their nurse, which she did very efficiently. I went with her to the airfield to say goodbye and then returned to Dorot. There I saw a group of soldiers digging and clearing rubble from the room where June and I had stayed for the previous three days. When the soldiers saw me they shouted with joy, because they thought that we were buried under the rubble that resulted from an enemy shell. I had forgotten to notify our commander that I was going to the airfield!!
A few days later, some enemy planes bombed our Wadi base, and this turned tragic when one of the bombs scored a direct hit on three girls carrying a large pot, who had not had time to disperse. I was only about 30 yards from them, but could not do anything because they had been killed immediately. It was interesting that Zeev, who reached them before I did, did not want me to see their remains!! One of the girls killed was Delila Joseph, the leader of the female soldiers and the daughter of Dov Yosef [Joseph] who, at that time, was the Civil Commander of Jerusalem. He arrived the next day to take her body home but there was not much left for him to take. Her loss was a tragedy for all of us but particularly for Mickey, my essential assistant, who had been her close personal friend. It made Mickey more sensitive and sympathetic towards the soldiers, but she remained as efficient as before.
When we had been in the Negev for a few months, I was called to a “misdar” [parade} of about 50 soldiers and was presented with the insignia of the Palmach. This was a compliment and an honor, as it indicated that I had been totally accepted into the’ amazing group of commando soldiers known as the Palmach. The discipline in the Palmach was very different to that of the South African or other armies. Between the officers and a special information officer attached to every battalion, the soldiers were kept informed of the plans as well as political implications of their actions. There was a spirit of “cameradie” that I found very pleasant and their fighting ability was certainly not affected by a more “laid back” attitude, which hid a determination to defend their country.
One day we were all taken to a place in the Negev where the soldiers sat on hills surrounding a depression, where to my amazement, were members of an orchestra and leading them was an American, Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein conducted the musicians through a number of Beethoven pieces, with a gusto of physical movement the like of which I had never seen. This was an amazing spectacle – an orchestra playing Beethoven to an appreciative brigade of soldiers behind enemy lines! Recovering from my surprise, it struck me that a few enemy bombs could destroy most of the Palmach in the Negev. Then, with Zeev’s help, we found our chovshim and “persuaded” them to disperse round the perimeter of the gathering in case of any shelling. I was so anxious about everybody’s safety and our position, that I did not pay much attention to the historical musical event led by Leonard Bernstein. No enemy action occurred and the soldiers felt uplifted by the event and I felt relieved.
Before leaving for the Negev I had asked if there were any special diseases there that I should know about. I was assured that there were no special ones. Every morning while we were there, the sick soldiers were brought to me from all the different outpost [Sick Parades] of our battalion. Occasionally, I would go out to one of the outposts to see a very sick person. [On one journey, the jeep hit a mine!] Once over a period of a few days, I saw two soldiers with very high shivering fever. This together with other symptoms and signs made me suspect malaria, which I had seen in Africa. I was assured that there was no malaria in the Negev, but to make sure I took some blood smears and sent it North with the Piper Cubs. The smears were positive for malaria and the soldiers received the appropriate treatment. At the same time a few people arrived from medical headquarters of the army to investigate the origin of the outbreak. They found that the stagnant overflow from the wells that were usually drunk by sheep from Beduin tribes, had remained on the surface because the Beduin and their sheep had moved away from the area because of the fighting leaving the stagnant water as a breeding place for mosquitoes. This finding was soon followed by soldiers arriving with mechanical instruments to spray these areas. They did a good job, because I did not see any more malaria patients.
Sometime late in October, Dr. Brachott, Deputy Chief of the Army Medical Corps, and a very nice man, visited me. To my surprise he told me that I would soon be transferred from the Palmach to a hospital, because “you are too close, too emotionally attached to your soldiers.” This was upsetting to me, and I asked if my performance had not been what they had expected or whether the soldiers had been “hurt” by my “closeness.” He assured me that my performance had been excellent, but they did not want my “closeness” to go any further. Then he won me over, by saying that I would be transferred to the hospital where June was working. About a week later, the relieving doctor arrived. He was an American volunteer, Joe Weintraub, who later changed his name to Gafni and became a Professor of Medicine at Tel Hashomer Hospital. He arrived just as we were receiving wounded and stood alongside me while I tried unsuccessfully, to revive one of our Palmach officers, who I knew and liked, known as “Totach”. Soon afterwards I left, saying goodbye to my friends. I shall never forget Zeev, Mickey and many others.
The road to the rest of Israel had been opened, Beersheba captured, so my journey north was by jeep. A short time later the Palmach was disbanded and integrated into the rest of the army, by order of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Yigal Alon, the Mefaked [Commander] of the Palmach did not hide his disgust and disappointment at this decision. I too, as surprised by it, but did not have time to dwell on it as I was soon immersed in my duties at Djani Military Hospital.
One day, Giddy, my Mefaked, arrived and took me ‘with him to visit the wounded from the gedud who were in hospitals in the Tel-Aviv area. He drove a jeep with an attached machine-gun. Arriving at a hospital he took the gun with him, parking the jeep in the street. After visiting the wounded we returned to find the jeep missing!! The Police had taken it. We went to the Police station and for 30 minutes Giddy tried to convince them that he really was a Palmach commander and not some high school delinquent. [He looked about 17 years old]. Eventually it was cleared up and we left with the apologies from the police ringing in our ears. We then had a good laugh about the incident.
Returning to Djani, I became involved in a great deal of surgery–helping Dr. Moses and doing some things independently. The latter included attending to the “amputees” every day. Examining and dressing their “stumps,” encouraging them to do their exercises [June was in charge of the Physical Therapy and doing a great job] and other rehabilitative procedures. Some of them were very angry, others depressed, but slowly they cooperated and did very well. Professionally, I enjoyed the work very much and learned a great deal from the patients and Dr. Moses. For my last day at Djani, Dr. Moses arranged for me to do all the surgery. I did a permanent colostomy; appendectomy; insertion of an intra-marrow pin through a complicated femoral fracture; secondary repair of large wounds, etc… It was a great way to say goodbye.
During our “off” time, June and I spent time with our friends including Solly Ossin and Reuben and Bat-Ami Joffe, with whom we started discussing our plans for after the war. It was during this period that our thoughts and plans for staying in Israel in a co-operative way, began to crystallize. We [the 5 of us] called a meeting of Machal volunteers in Tel-Aviv and began planning for the future. Solly obtained permission from the army to work on this full-time. Later our group went for Hachsharah training to Kibbutz Kfar Blum in the Upper Gallilee [due to the cooperation and enthusiasm of Saadia Gelb, an ex-American chaver of Kfar Blum.] Details of the formation of Moshav Habonim, our co-operative settlement south of Haifa, have been written up elsewhere ..
In May 1949, we participated in a remarkable event, Independence Day. The nation danced and celebrated for 24 hours non-stop. After thousands of years as a people without a country; the Holocaust; a hard fought War of Independence against heavy odds; at last Freedom and Independence in our own country. What a feeling, what a celebration, we believed that from that day on we would live in Peace with ourselves and our neighbors. What an illusion!!! But that day everybody was happy and danced and danced.
Our happy stay at Djani soon came to an end when the army decided to close Djani and transfer the personnel to other hospitals. Most, including Dr. Moses went to Tel Hashomer Hospital, but we asked for and received, a transfer to Haifa Rambam Hospital [Military Hospital Number 10.] where a number of South African surgeons were on the staff. While June worked in Physical Therapy, I worked with Dr. Jack Wilton, a senior general surgeon and Dr, Cyril Kaplan, an orthopedic surgeon. Both were very good and it was a pleasure working with them, and getting to know Haifa, which we had not seen since arriving with Nobby Clark about a year earlier. A few months later we were discharged from the army and soon joined our friends at Kfar Blum for Hachsharah, before proceeding to Hityashvut on Kfar Lam, where Moshav Habonim was established. It had been a difficult 16 months, but we were happy to have participated in an event that changed the history of the Jewish people and changed our lives completely.