B-17 BOMBER PILOT – 69th SQUADRON
Bill Katz (far left); Ben-Gurion (Derek Bowden behind Ben-Gurion ).
Far right – Haim Laskov (Head of Training Command of Army)
at Ramat David Air Base.
The time? It doesn’t matter. Time is how you measure it.
In Israel during those hot summer days of 1948, time was measured by the number of planes and weapons smuggled into the country from different parts of the world. One of these planes was the Flying Fortress, the B-17. To me the B-17 was 74 feet of lady, every inch of her: faithful if you were good to her. She looked like nothing on the ground but assumed a breathing, lithe beauty once she was airborne. She could be trusted to get you where you wanted to go and then get you back home again. She was stubborn too – only a direct hit could stop those four 1200 HP engines from turning.
That’s where we came in. Almost 200 Americans flew for the Israeli ‘Chel Avir’ (Air Force – IAF) and risked their lives in the country’s war-racked birth during Israel’s War of Independence 1948-49.
We American B-17 crews took delivery of the three old bombers at Miami Beach. We were all young, all combat veterans of World War II. The B-17s had 6000 miles of flight in front of them. Steel-girded in their war armor – and we were going to war again in the Middle East. The bomb-bay doors were still working: the bomb control power, racks, wiring controls and fittings were all in tiptop order.
Turn back the clock to that long flight as mile after mile of ocean passed beneath the wings of the three B-17s.
Each bomber had three or four pilots for the long trip. The four in our plane tossed a coin to see who would be captain. James B. Beane, non-Jewish and former Lieutenant Colonel of the USAAF won the toss, David Goldberg, Norman Novak, Ron Conway and I would serve as co-pilots. I was sitting next to Beane, watching his hands on the wheel. I stirred uneasily. What was that? I listened, but there was no break in the hum of the engines, nothing indicating trouble. Yet something was wrong. “Guess I’ll have a look around,” I said to him and gave him a playful nudge as I got up. I worked my way aft, opening the door leading into the bomb-bay. Nothing there, but still I could …I could hear it again.
A strange whistling
I moved ahead carefully, pausing every second to listen hard. The bomb-bay doors were tightly shut. Yet it sounded like air escaping, or, I thought, air rushing in. I checked the cockpit. Windows closed there too. Then I bent down and lifted the bulk-head door that led to the greenhouse – the navigator-bombardier’s compartment. Now I heard it more distinctly: a shrill, hissing, angry whistle. I grunted, getting down on all fours, and stuck my head through the small entrance to where the navigator/bombardier squats. Then I saw him.
Halfway out of the former Plexiglas window, now closed up with plywood, which the navigator used to watch the effect of his bombs, hung Eli Cohen, our navigator. Somehow when he stepped on the fragile floor, it had broken under his weight; now he was being whipped through space, his lower body dangling outside, the rest of him held only by the jagged yielding sheet of plastic. (The B-17s had been purchased from US Government War Surplus scrap heaps with the Plexiglas turrets removed and replaced by sheets of plywood.) Inch by inch he was slipping out as he traveled close to 200 miles per hour 3,000 feet above the Atlantic. His face was gray, eyes rolling and dilated above the screaming whistle of the wind coming through the broken plywood. His voice cracked with fear: “God! Don’t let me die! Please don’t let me die!”
I looked around, grabbing Eli at the same time, trying to hold him around the shoulders until help came. If I could only reach down to his belt and hold him up by that, or find something to tie around his shoulders to keep him in place. But if I let go he’s be sucked right through. I plunged my arm down further, trying to get a firmer grip on his jacket.
I felt something give, a rip and tear and almost foolishly looked at my arm. Bits of remaining Plexiglas had slashed it from elbow to shoulder, and blood squirted into my face. I wondered if I had severed an artery. There was no time to think, no time to do anything but hang on. I started screaming, but the inrushing wind tore the sound away as it left my lungs. I could see Eli’s mouth open too, but I could hear nothing.
My arm was getting numb, and cold blood was sticky between my fingers. I felt Eli’s body slide another half inch. Somebody had better show up soon, I thought, or both of us will be out in space, I could feel the edged teeth cutting deeper and deeper into my arm, biting hard now, Eli slipped further.
Just why flight engineer Norman Novak came forward at this moment and stuck his head down into the compartment, neither Eli nor I ever found out, but there he was, his little monkey face staring at us with disbelief, then, disappearing.
“It’s okay, Eli,” I was shouting, “Norman’s seen us, he’ll get help, easy, boy, easy, Don’t worry. I’ll hang onto you until the others get here. You’ll be okay…” Goldberg, resting in the rear, heard the shouts and ran to tell Beane to slow down.
I closed my eyes. Norman and Jerry Newman (the flight engineer) burst through the opening, each grabbing Eli around the shoulders, and assisted by Conway hanging on and starting the long pull backwards. Meanwhile, Beane at the controls cut back the power so there would be less drag on Eli, and within seconds we had him safe on the floor.
Our plane had dropped out of formation, well behind the others. And Eli was out of it, not to mention me. Later I heard Beane say, “Let’s get your arm fixed, Bill.”
When we finally made it to Santa Maria in the Azores, it was night and the damn place was socked in. We could have landed at Lagen, but it was a British base. They would have confiscated our plane and shipped us home.
I didn’t care. At that point I was praying, “Dear Lord, get me out of this, and I’ll go back to Chicago and never stick my nose in anyone else’s business again.”
Somehow on the third pass we got into Santa Maria. As we looked around, I heard some mechanic say that an Air France plane which had been above us had crashed into the hills. Funny, I thought, we made it, they didn’t. Was it supposed to be that way? Not much time to wonder about it, I thought – the next day we took off again.
The flight across Europe was relatively uneventful. Although our flight plan destination was Corsica, we all knew it would be Israel after a stop in Czechoslovakia. Over Germany a couple of US fighters looked us over, stayed with us a little while and then dipped away. The old US army Air Force markings on the planes probably saved us. The fighters thought we were from some bomber group in Europe.
As the three Forts flew on, my mind drifted back. After the World War, I tried to settle down and started as a journalism student at Loyola University. Late in the spring of 1948 I received a letter: its message, “Please help us in Palestine.” The next day I dropped into a well-known haberdashery shop on Michigan Avenue and soon I was talking to some of Chicago’s more prominent citizens. They told me they were assisting the Jewish underground army, the Haganah. Israel did not need foot soldiers, but rather military specialists like trained pilots. I signed up on the spot.
The Haganah recruiters gave me a plane ticket and money to start me on my way. I’d gone from Mexico City to Rome, to Havana, to Miami Beach to pick up my B-17. Now I was headed for a former German airbase at Zatec, Czechoslovakia, near Prague.
A deal in Mexico City that would have had us flying B-25s to the Promised Land fell through, when reporters found out about it. Not wanting to get involved in a scandal that would link them with American “mercenaries,” Mexico sent us packing.
Then I was told that we were heading for Italy for another deal that involved fighter planes. The Israelis had solved part of their fighter plane problems with the purchase of 14 Messerschmitt ME 109s from the Skoda Works in Prague, Czechoslovakia. The planes were loaded onto C-46s and flown direct to Israel in an airlift known as “Operation Balak.”
They were soon flying off the runway of the former British airbase at Ekron on the plains of Judea, less than ten miles from Latrun, and were ready for combat against the Arab Legion in the Jerusalem Corridor a week after the invasion. The Egyptians – first, last and always the main enemy – had three squadrons of fighter planes.
Before the fighters arrived in Israel, the Egyptian bombers (converted DC-3s) were having a field day bombing unarmed cities.
The first week of June was the turning point. Modi Alon, one of the few Israeli pilots in 101 Squadron and also its Commander, shot down two Egyptian DC-3s that were bombing Tel Aviv. He was later killed in a Messerschmitt landing mishap.
Before that, on May 29th, he led four of our Messerschmitts in the first fighter-sortie using the newly arrived aircraft, in an attack on an Egyptian column that had reached Ashdod and could threaten Tel Aviv. One of our planes was shot down by accurate ground fire, and South African pilot, Eddie Cohen, was killed. He was flying wing to Ezer Weizman. The Messerschmitt of American pilot Lou Lenart was also hit, but he managed to make an emergency landing at Ekron, coming through safely but with the plane badly damaged.
Previously I had also been involved in the ferry of C-46 Curtiss Commando cargo planes from Panama to Rome. The air crews who flew the regular ferries from Panama were all American. The planes they flew under Panamanian registry all had hair-raising tales to tell. They transported machine guns, ammunition, engines and vehicles.
We were in Rome when the accident occurred killing Canadian World War II Ace “Buzz” Beurling and British Leonard Cohen. They were practicing takeoffs and landings at Urbe Airfield near Rome, preparing to ferry their Norseman light transport plane to Israel. Their plane burst into fire in the air.
The next day newspaper headlines screamed the news that Beurling, a World War II ace, had crashed while smuggling planes out of Italy for Israel. One Swiss paper said that he was flying to Palestine for fun and money. That was nonsense. A lot of people had the wrong idea about Beurling. He couldn’t have cared less about money. He could have received a far greater salary from a number of other countries who wanted his services (Arab states included). The newspapers missed the whole point. Here were two men, a Jew and a Christian who perished together side by side. Both died for a people they wanted to free and for an alien land they never had a chance to see. For Beurling in particular, it was the Bible which brought him onto the side of the Jews.
We had landed in Czechoslovakia with the B-17s, and weeks later were sitting quietly in a large room at the Stalingrad Hotel in Zatec, looking at the Israeli liaison officer, who stood before us.
“Men,” the tall, thin officer told us, “As you know, up to now the Arabs have been sending their aircraft over our cities without meeting much in the way of anti-aircraft fire or fighter opposition because we had none, or very little. But now, thanks to you boys, we’ve built up a pretty potent force, and we will be able to carry the war into the laps of the Egyptians. Each ’17’ will hit a different city.” He paused, waiting for the excitement to die down. These were our first combat orders.
The briefing officer concluded by telling us that our alternative return base would be Ramat David and describing its facilities. Time over target would be 40 minutes after last light. We were instructed to fly echelon starboard formation to destroy the clarity of enemy radar readings. We left the briefing room and got into a dusty bus parked near the hotel. It would take us to the airport.
I was flying with Raymond Kurtz, the other two planes were flown by Norman Moonitz and Al Raisin. The three heavily-laden B-17s struggled into the air on July 15th at 10.00 am, stayed in loose formation as they flew south towards Austria, but separated on the long climb to clear the Alps, then the coastline of Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece.
The gunners had their parachute packs on. The armorer had already worked the bomb bay, getting the arming pins on the bombs, hooking the pins by wires to ring clasps and bulkheads. Thus when the bombs fell out of the bay, the pin would be pulled out by the wire, setting the fuse either to go off on contact or within a few seconds, depending on the time setting.
The two other ships had already flashed their Aldis Lights through the astrodome, signaling us that they were breaking out of tight formation to go on to their own targets.
Somehow the steady drone of the engines seemed to grow louder. It always happens this way before battle, I thought. You hear more, see better, every sense is working faster and overtime, every nerve becomes razor sharp and cuts into you, so hard that sweat breaks out all over your body. The enemy seems to be everywhere – that bright star might be the light of an enemy plane.
Our radio was set on Egyptian frequency VHF range. We could hear the Cairo tower asking us to identify ourselves. Kurtz answered at once, saying he was TWA; would they please turn on the runway lights.
“They sure feel safe down there, and confident,” I thought.
The bombardier had taken over, his voice was crackling on the intercom, and I could hear the hum of the motor opening the bomb-bay doors. We had opened the door behind us so we could check to see if any bombs were left or hung up.
Now the air was whistling shrilly through the open door of the bomb bay. Looking behind me, I could see the bombs: fat, sleek and deadly 500-pounders, a dozen of them.
The plane was now on a dead-level bomb run. As we came over the city, I heard the click of the bomb shackles as they opened up. The city lights twinkled as the bombardier aimed for King Farouk’s palace and I opened up the bomb-bay doors. The entire load was released at once. One by one, the bombs began to fall. Each bomb groaned in protest as it left its wired nest. As they began to hit their targets, I could feel the low but steady puff-puff-puff of concussion, and the ship lifting a little at each one. The bombs screamed relentlessly as they hurtled through the night sky, then splashed and spewed into flames, yellow and red, orange and blue. In a few seconds it was all over. We winged for the sea as the search-lights began to stab the sky close to us, and the guns began a hasty, accurate fire. We made our 180-degree turn out to sea. And I headed for Israel. I was suddenly very tired. I looked at my watch. It was 07.15. Then I realized it was 15th July, my 29th birthday.
The other two planes bombed Gaza and Rafah instead of El Arish, which could not be found in the dark. None of the bombers encountered any opposition and after eleven and a half hours in the air, we touched down at Ekron, where we stayed overnight before flying to the squadron’s new airbase at Ramat David.
The next morning I counted 110 holes in our B-17 from anti-aircraft fire. It was a miracle we still flew. But we had done the job and we were proud to have played a part in Israel’s birth.
Prepared by Joe Woolf from personal narratives of former 69th Squadron aircrews
Photo from Smoky Simon’s personal album