My husband Smoky Simon and I arrived in Palestine on the 9th May, 1948. We landed, after taking 5 days to fly the length of the African continent, at Haifa airport in the middle of a farewell parade taken by the Commander-in-Chief of the British forces at that time.
The next day we reported at Sarona (now the Kiria) and the first “officer” we met was Kurt Levy who issued us with “tlushim” for our meals at cafe Kasit in Dizengoff Street. I was then sent to Sde Dov to report to Mines, who was head of the Meteorological Section. My first day of duty was the 15th May 1948. I was taken by jeep together with Lesley Shagam, and just as we crossed the bridge at Reading station we were strafed by an Egyptian Spit and forced to jump into the ditch. We took refuge in a shed by the side of the road which was occupied by a couple of camels (my first close encounter with that species)!
We arrived at the airfield to see the effects of that morning’s raids. The Met hut was untouched and work carried on. I was put on shift work as a Met Observer. During the first truce in June we were in close contact with Colonel Archibald, the chief UN Liaison Officer. He kept his Dakota at the airfield and he came in for his daily forecast and I became quite friendly with him.
In March 1949, Leo Crown, who had become the head of the Met Section, organized a course for me to train newcomers in English as Met Observers. My first course at Sde Dov consisted of a group of young pilots from Czechoslovakia who also knew no Hebrew. I enjoyed teaching them but they were quite a handful of exuberant young men, more or less my own age. Most of them carried on in the Air Force in very successful roles. Amongst the group were Hugo Marom, the late Joe Alon, Shmuel Jaffa, and Yehuda Manor. Afterwards I gave subsequent courses on the roof of the Ops building at Headquarters in Machane Ariel in Jaffa.
In May 1949, the Met Section was turned over to the Ministry of Transport and at the same time married women were discharged from the army. As I fitted into both categories, I went to work in the Climatological Department of the civilian Met section – at Sarona – bringing me back full circle to where I had started out.