By Zipporah Porath
“I may not be the best man for the job, but I’m the only one willing to go.”
Mickey Marcus
Introduction
Col. David (Mickey) Marcus, a graduate of West Point, was recruited at the end of 1947 as military adviser to David Ben-Gurion and the underground Haganah defense forces. In a tragic mishap he was killed on June 11, 1948.
To mark the first anniversary of Marcus’s death, Ben-Gurion, then Prime Minister and Minister of Defense of the nascent State of Israel, who held Mickey Marcus in the highest esteem, wished to honor his memory and the heroic role he had played in Israel’s War of Independence in a written tribute. He instructed the IDF Publications Department, Ma’arachot, to interview those who had served with Marcus and been close to him while their impressions were still fresh. I was the young American journalist chosen for the assignment. I had come to the Hebrew University in late 1947 for a year of study, volunteered as a Haganah medic in the siege of Jerusalem and stayed on to serve in the IDF and the fledgling Israel Air Force. I had never met Mickey Marcus in person as he had been a well-kept military secret until his death. I would have to re-create him for readers from what others would say about him.
What I learned about this fascinating and complex man is still pertinent today. Everyone I spoke with was in awe of his magnetic personality, quick grasp of situations, phenomenal memory and enormous capacity for work. They praised his courage and his humanity, his integrity and, above all, valued his unwavering optimism and ability to inspire confidence. He laid the basis for important changes in the army and was himself changed by the experience.
This booklet is based on interviews I conducted at that time, over 60 years ago, with those who had recruited him, staff officers at GHQ and ordinary soldiers who had served with him, as well as others whose lives he touched during the almost 200 days that he was involved in Israel’s struggle for survival and independence. Those on-the-spot interviews gave a vivid, animated and authentic picture of the man, his motivation and his contribution to the Israel Defense Forces.’
Marcus’s background
Brooklyn-born Mickey Marcus was a scrawny kid, the youngest of six children, who grew up learning to defend himself against the neighborhood toughs in the tenements of New York’s Lower East Side. His father, a Rumanian immigrant, died when he was nine. Yiddish was spoken at home. Mickey had a rudimentary Hebrew education, and a fierce pride in his ancestry. Accepted at West Point on the strength of a spectacular high school athletic record, he gained fame there as a boxer when he won the Intercollegiate Welterweight title.
Marcus went on to study law, became a crusading government lawyer and New York City’s Commissioner of Corrections. During World War II he was a highly regarded Pentagon planner, who trained jungle fighters for MacArthur’s forces in Japan and parachuted into Normandy on D-Day. A legal wizard, he helped draw up German and Italian terms of surrender, served as adviser to President Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference and to President Truman at Potsdam. By V-E Day he was a full Colonel and Chief of Planning for the War Department’s Civil Affairs Division. Later, he headed the War Crimes Branch involved in the Nuremberg Trials.
In early 1947, at age 46, after serving 13 years in the army, Marcus returned home to a promising law practice in New York and assured his wife, Emma, a school teacher, he would settle down. They did not have any children.
Recruiting Marcus
One of the first people I interviewed was veteran Haganah commander Shlomo Shamir, who took part in recruiting Marcus. Shamir said that shortly after November 29, 1947, the day the United Nations voted to partition Palestine, the Haganah heads and the provisional government chiefs instructed him to put out discreet feelers in America for high-ranking military officers and technical experts. He was directed to Col. David (Mickey) Marcus because Mickey was known to have a wide circle of friends and acquaintances in the American army.
Mickey immediately swung into action and culled through lists of top brass looking for retired generals. Mickey was distraught to find that, fearing to lose their army status and citizenship, the generals refused to come without US government sanction. Marcus had no such qualms. He had seen firsthand what had happened to Jews at Dachau and understood how urgently a homeland was needed for Holocaust survivors.
Shamir said that Marcus’s failure to find any top military men made him decide to go himself. “I may not be the best man for the job,” he said to Shamir, “but I’m the only one willing to go.” Later, Mickey’s wife Emma would say: “He just never knew how to say ‘no’ when he thought he was needed.” Shamir had a gut feeling that, “This is the man.” Among other things that impressed him about Marcus was his reputation for getting on well with people and his willingness to tackle anything. He was a daredevil with a genius for organization.
Marcus sat alert and fascinated as Shamir filled him in about the desperate situation in Palestine. The 600,000 Jews in Palestine were outnumbered 60 to 1 by the Arabs. Under British rule, arms were illegal. The clandestine Jewish army had only handmade artillery, insufficient rifles, no tanks, no airplanes. They faced the terrifying prospect of defending themselves against an all-out onslaught from six invading Arab armies equipped with modern firepower. Could Marcus help them find a team of professionals? What they needed in addition to military advice was a monumental miracle.
Heading for British Mandate Palestine
Barely a month after their initial contact, Mickey dropped everything and left with Shamir for Palestine on January 30th, 1948. In order not to arouse the suspicion of the British and to protect his real identity, he assumed an under cover name, Michael (Mickey) Stone, and traveled under the guise of a wine dealer with a special interest in the local varieties. Later, Marcus’s cover was changed to foundry worker because he looked so much the part – a solidly built athlete, with a cherubic oval face, a pointed nose like a chopped- off carrot, small ears and huge boxer’s hands.
On the afternoon that Col. Marcus arrived, he was taken to see his “boss,” Ben-Gurion (BG), with whom he found immediate rapport. The following day he met the Haganah commanders with whom he would be working most closely. The key person was Yigael Yadin, de facto head of the Haganah and the IDF’s future chief of staff. Yadin remembered that he took Marcus down to the operations room in the basement of the Red House, an imposing building overlooking the Tel Aviv seashore, which was then Haganah headquarters, and explained the HQ setup. “We’ve divided the country into eight areas,” he began. After looking at the map, Mickey pointed out that in his opinion it was impossible to efficiently command so many secondary fronts. The following day arrangements were made for Marcus to spend a month inspecting Haganah and Palmach troops in the field, to observe and learn the problems firsthand.
Inspecting the troops
The Haganah’s assault force, the Palmach, was headed by Yigal Alon, who later became a brigade commander under Marcus. Mickey coined a special nickname for almost everyone. He immediately called Alon “Eagle” – a charming mispronunciation of his first name.
Alon admitted that initially the leaders of the Haganah and the Palmach had serious reservations about Marcus. “He was an outsider from the richest and most powerful army in the world. How could he understand our inadequacies, the untrained, ill-clad boys, the lack of arms? How could a foreigner fathom the nature of the enemy, the special conditions of the country and its politics, which were an inseparable part of the fight?” It was feared that Marcus would have the greatest clash with the Palmach. Alon said: “Actually it proved otherwise. It was with the Palmach that he became most closely identified in spirit.”
Alon accompanied Marcus personally on the first tour of inspection to Palmach headquarters in a secret mountain hideout in the Galilee. One of the boys in the unit, Gabby, recalled that Alon and a few others arrived for a visit about three weeks after the Palmach’s successful raid on Sasa. The unit had been isolated for a long time without equipment. The weather was bad and the boys were battle-weary, wearing rags, coughing, cold and disheartened.
The men gathered in the mess hall, and word got around that an American colonel was among them. “We couldn’t pick out which of them was the American,” Gabby said. “Yigal spoke to us first, and Mickey listened quietly, sitting among us. There was a sign on the wall that attracted his attention and he asked one of the boys to translate it for him.” Yigal reported about the situation in the rest of the country and then he called on Mickey to speak.
“Soldiers of the Palmach,” Mickey began,” I see what you’re up against, I see how you’re dressed. I hear you coughing, I heard of your raid on Sasa. I’ve just been told what the motto on the wall says. I’ve listened to your questions, and the answers you received. And from all this, I have come to the conclusion that this is one of the best ‘armies’ I have ever seen in the world. I haven’t seen infantry better than this anywhere. And I am sure that with such men victory is in the bag.”
The motto on the wall that he had referred to was a quote attributed to the revered Italian military hero, Giuseppe Garibaldi: “I have neither pay, nor beds, nor food. I promise you starvation, thirst, exhausting marches and death. But he who loves his country with more than lip service, will rise up and follow me.”
Gabby confirmed that the impact of Mickey’s remarks on this battle-weary, ill-clad, ill-shod band of partisans was tremendous. “He spoke of plans, and told us we needed only time to organize, and then we’d go on the offensive. That was the kind of talk we liked to hear, it went straight to the hearts of the men.”
“Either it’s a war, or it isn’t!”
On the way back to town, Mickey told Alon it was shameful that stores in Tel Aviv had shoes in stock while these boys went barefoot. “I would break in and raid them, confiscate them,” he said. “Either it’s a war, or it isn’t.” At that stage Mickey had difficulty accepting that it was not yet an official war: the underground ‘soldiers’ were partisans, not vandals.
“First of all,” Mickey urged the leadership, “make up your minds that there is a war on, that we are at war, then you’ll be in a position to mobilize the country. If you continue to look at this war as a series of episodes, then you’ll never have the power to enforce your requirements.”
Two weeks after he arrived in the country, Mickey already knew every significant spot on the map. In that short time he had learned about the enemy, the type of war, and the best way to tackle it. He had personally been part of the American army’s expansion and growth to meet the problems of World War II and understood the problems Israel would have to face in establishing an army overnight.
“Get organized!”
An aide recalled the continuing discussion in GHQ about the American versus the British military systems. Mickey was trying to persuade them to consider the logic of the American system, where an officer in a branch of a service has direct contact with only three or four superiors. He was the first to initiate military thinking on a general staff level and urge them to get organized. He was strongly in favor of separating combat headquarters from the GHQ, so that it could operate independently.
“An army is like a business,” he would say. “It has to be run efficiently. You have to know who your boss is and who you are the boss of. In business you lose money, in war you lose lives.” He would go up to a fighter in the field and ask: “Who is your boss?” The man would either hesitate or answer that he had two. “If there is more than one boss, then there is intrigue. Teamwork, that’s what we need in GHQ,” he told them.
At every opportunity Marcus hammered home several messages to the Haganah leadership: the need for more mobile army units; the need to use the highly motivated and intelligent team of soldiers as the army’s primary resource; and the necessity to attack the enemy rather than adopt defensive strategy.
In a private meeting with his boss, BG, Mickey spoke of the need to unify the army’s command by incorporating the Palmach strike forces more thoroughly into the Haganah. He urged that the chain of command be streamlined. BG was amazed at his ability to have instantly ‘hit the target,’ singling this out as a core problem that needed to be dealt with.
In the opinion of Yehoshua Perlman, of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Marcus was the first outsider to pose intelligent military questions: He remembers Mickey asking, “If the
Arabs attack at a certain outpost, or objective and don’t succeed, do they recede in full order? How soon afterwards would they stage a second attack? And to what extent is the Arab soldier devoted to the war in Palestine? Does he have personal objectives, or does he fight because he’s given orders? Is he an adventurer? Does he intend to rob?” Mickey always listened attentively to the answers. He would ask officers: “What would you do if this or that were the case? Capture the town and defend it, or smash the enemy so it wouldn’t be necessary to defend it?”
Tactics and sacrifices
Marcus’s theories on tactics were based on wrestling and boxing. “A war is like a wrestling match,” he would stress, “in that your whole body is put to a test of endurance, with strain on every minute facet. In boxing you attack suddenly and powerfully, hitting your opponent from all sides, punching with a steel fist, withdrawing and confusing him. And in war, you must do very much the same thing.”
Natan Shaham, an aide, recalls that Mickey would graphically illustrate every operation he was discussing to make it comprehensible. He would point to the windows and designate them as the artillery. The typewriter became a tank. The lamp was the Air Force. Everything in the room came alive as if it were a unit in the operation he was discussing. He always made an effort to simplify the complex. After a lengthy debate in a room full of people he would go to the map and in three terse sentences accurately summarize all that had been said: “This is the objective. These are the possibilities. This is what we should do.”
Alon admitted: “We could not always go along with Mickey’s ideas. Basic to our strategy had to be a program of tactics aimed at achieving boundaries for the newly emerging state. Sometimes we had to sacrifice good military strategy for a more immediate goal.”
Alon reckoned Mickey was naive about underground activities. He understood the need for the underground, but found it difficult to accept its rules and regulations. “It was impossible to carry out some of the activities he had in mind. When he would suggest a drill, or to organize a large unit and move it from one part of the country to another, we would have to tell him if he moves more than two vehicles at a time it would alert the British and that would result in searches, confiscation of arms and curfews.”
The Palmach’s Zeide
The Grand Old Man of the Palmach, Yitzhak Sadeh, was captivated by Marcus, with whom he found an identity of military thought. Marcus affectionately called him Zeide, the Yiddish word for grandfather. Sadeh recalled that the first time they met they had just emerged from a meeting at Haganah headquarters at the Red House. “We were standing on the sidewalk in a group, discussing the importance of physical training for an army, a subject close to both our hearts, when Mickey suddenly flopped to the ground and began doing an exercise to demonstrate exactly what he had in mind.”
In Motza, near Jerusalem, while observing the training of new recruits, Mickey saw one of the boys was pressing the trigger incorrectly. Marcus got down into the mud and showed him how to do it. “Hold that trigger like you would grasp an apple, with your entire palm and wrist muscle, or make believe you are milking a cow.”
At Kibbutz Kiryat Anavim, a group was trying out a new homemade weapon, the Davidka, and with their usual suspicion of outsiders they tried to cover it up as Mickey approached. But within a few minutes he had them not only practicing in front of him, but showing it off with pride.
Remarkable human material
In the report Marcus submitted to his “boss” BG a month later, 2nd March 1948, Marcus said: “I found less than I expected and more than I hoped for.” He criticized things that were lacking, such as administration and transportation, but praised what the partisan army had in abundance – remarkable human material. “The Haganah has educated a type of commander who could easily be converted into a first-rate officer.” Marcus was enamored by the youth, “a new breed of Jew.” He considered that their innate intelligence, ability to improvise, outstanding devotion and self-sacrificing spirit were powerful weapons in themselves, the makings of a first-rate army. One of his favorite expressions when addressing a soldier was, “Come here young hero,” spoken without mockery in his voice.
The day after receiving Marcus’ report, BG contacted his look-outs in America and told them, “…..It would be a good thing to find 10 more Marcuses, and immediately.”
A multi-faceted personality
Mickey’s tremendous vitality and multi-faceted personality had a remarkable impact on everyone he met. There was something compelling about his penetrating eyes, his high-pitched voice and his mischievous sense of humor. He got to the core of everyone and permitted everyone to get to the core of him. Mickey was a man of the people who could walk with kings and peddlers. He was a hard drinker and a physical fitness freak: he didn’t smoke.
Dynamic when he moved but when he sat, he was very still. Everything interested him. He knew how to listen and no opinion was ever lost on him. Language was no barrier. His Hebrew vocabulary consisted of Shalom, Be’Seder (OK), Tov Me’od (very good) and Zu’yan (Metzuyan, meaning excellent). His favorite expression for buddies was Habub, a term of endearment for a mate.
At the drop of a hat, he would talk knowledgeably on any subject – music, poetry, history – quote from the Bible, Keats and Shakespeare, do a tap dance, sing operatic arias and daven (pray) out loud, or comment on religion, science and philosophy. But in military matters he was strictly business.
BG’s secretary thought that the serious-minded hierarchy of the Haganah initially did not know what to make of this charming, easygoing, jovial, gregarious man who fraternized with everyone. Some feared that under the influence of Jamaica rum – he drank freely and talked freely – in an unguarded moment he might unwittingly commit security indiscretions.
On-the-spot trainings courses
At every opportunity Marcus hammered home several messages to the Haganah leadership: the need for more mobile army units; the need to use the highly motivated and intelligent team of soldiers as the army’s primary resource; and the necessity to attack the enemy rather than adopt defensive strategy.
“Yigael,” Mickey said to Yigael Yadin, “we have no army, no officers who can handle any unit larger than 500 men. To win this war you have to have large mobile units capable of mass attack. Push a button and they move where you need them.” At that time the defense forces operated only in companies, concerned mainly with defensive operations. They were dispersed all over the country, some of them isolated with few or bad communications.
Marcus urged Yadin at least to make a start by training battalion commanders. “Give me five huts on the seashore. We’ll set up a course and you won’t see me till it’s finished.” Yadin pointed out that every good officer was already at the front in an important command. It was impossible to take them from their posts for a course. “The course can be shortened,” Marcus insisted,” but the important thing is to have it take place, then follow up by working with the commanders in the field.”
Yadin’s aide told me that to get Marcus off his back, and keep him busy, Yadin asked Mickey to prepare the training material for the course. “The morning after we gave him the assignment he had it all ready for presentation,” Yadin recalled, astounded at Marcus’ phenomenal memory and capacity to work furiously fast. Unable to bring army manuals from the US with him, Mickey had memorized the important sections of American training manuals. Using what was pertinent, he had written the pages by hand all through the night. They only needed to be typed and translated. (When the IDF finally established the School for Battalion Commanders that Marcus had recommended, the training manuals Marcus had written were used, unedited, and are still in use today.)
Unable to keep up with Marcus
The secretaries who transcribed them reported they were unable to keep up with him: “Marcus does the work of five people. He can accomplish in five minutes what it takes others a week to do.” They were also impressed by the fact that while everyone at HQ was on a first name basis, Marcus always addressed the chief of staff as “Sir,” which no other soldier did.
Marcus never forgot that he was an American patriot. He believed what he was doing was in the American tradition and felt that America could have and should have done a great deal more to support Israel. Mickey wrote to his wife, “I doubt if I have ever done anything – anywhere – any time, that is more worthwhile…”
But, more often than not during that crucial pre-state period, he admitted to her that, knowing how desperate the situation was and how little help was coming from outside, he was disappointed and frustrated at not being given more responsibility. Yadin said he had thought it was too soon to give Marcus a command assignment in the field. Marcus was pressing for offensive programs which they felt could not yet be put into practice at that time. Later, Yadin said he regretted that Marcus had not been exploited to the fullest.
Will he come back?
In April 1948, Mickey returned to the States for several reasons: to visit his sick wife, as well as to help secure specialists, arms, equipment and to create a more favorable attitude in American military quarters, to help persuade the Americans to have faith in us. He promised to return before the British were scheduled to pull out on May 15th. No one, not even Ben-Gurion, believed he would return. “Why don’t they trust me?” he asked a close friend.
Benny Edelman, who worked in the Israel Supply Mission at the Haganah office in New York, recalls: “The day after he arrived, Mickey came to see what was going on. He told us about the situation he had just left. How brave our boys were and what stamina they had under very bad conditions. He said BG had given him a shopping list of important supplies to buy. I told him we didn’t have enough funds for new supplies.
“Mickey asked, “have you got money for any new items? When the answer was no, he replied: “Then buy what you can, “but where shoes are concerned, only buy new shoes!”
Mickey showed up at the office every day for two weeks. He met with the advisors and dealers and helped choose items that would be most suitable to our conditions and pocketbooks. He even modeled some of the clothing. A pair of fatigues he was checking out had pockets all over the place. Delighted, he grabbed anything in sight – the secretary’s purse, the desk stamp, the paper weight – stuffed them into the various pockets and did a fast tap dance around the room. When it came to military equipment, Benny said he encouraged us to pick army surplus vintage 1918 because our war was closer to the First World War.
While in America, Mickey talked to an old army buddy, and described his relationship with the “Olympus,” his nickname for the top Jewish army brass: “They treat me like a stray dog who landed in their lot. They can’t make up their minds whether to befriend me or to defend themselves.” Ultimately, he won over their suspicions by finding his way into their hearts and by proving his military professionalism.
Mickey reported to close friends that while in America he also met with Gen. Omar Bradley. Bradley had put three questions to him. One question was, “How long can the Israeli army hold out in defeat?” Mickey told him, “Since we’re not an army, but a nation at arms, we’ll only be defeated when we are destroyed.”
A labor of love
As he had promised to do, Mickey returned to Palestine in early May, before the end of the Mandate. An aide said he walked into HQ as if he had only stepped out for lunch. By that time, the Galilee was free and an all-out effort had been launched to open the ambushed road to Jerusalem.
Shlomo Shamir was not alone in observing that, “…by the time Marcus returned he had become one of us. Slowly but surely, what initially for him was a military job to be done, became a labor of love. He liked the dynamics of the country. He merged with it: it was in harmony with his own dynamic spirit. He felt a sense of fulfillment here.” Everyone sensed the shift in his commitment: it was now a commitment of the heart. People who had known Mickey closely over the years said, “He seemed to have fallen in love with the whole Israeli experience. He found himself here.”
Marcus was sure that many more overseas volunteers would eventually come to fight but feared they would come too late. Many did come in time. Over 4,500 men and women, Jews as well as non-Jews, rallied to Israel’s defense from 59 different countries during Israel’s War of Independence. These volunteers were known as MACHAL (the Hebrew acronym for Overseas Volunteers). Most were recently discharged World War II veterans whose technical skills and expertise were of decisive importance to the newly formed Israel Defense Forces, the Army, the Navy and the especially the Air Force. Machalniks (as they were called) served in fourteen different branches of ZAHAL (the IDF), some in key positions of command.
In 1993, Yitzhak Rabin who was then Prime Minister, and had been a young brigade commander under Marcus forty-five years earlier, paid tribute to Mickey Marcus and the 119 overseas volunteers who lost their lives in the struggle for Israel’s survival and independence. (The number of fallen has since been updated to123.) At the dedication ceremony of the World MACHAL Memorial Monument at Sha’ar Hagai, he said: “They came to us when we needed them most during those hard and uncertain days of our War of Independence.”
A State is born
On the 14th of May 1948, the day Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel, he wrote in his diary, “…the whole world was sure that within ten days, two weeks at the most, not a soul would be alive in Israel.”
With the end of the British Mandate, the underground Haganah surfaced to face a new set of problems as the war went into high gear. The Negev, the vast southern desert, with a fragile network of some 20 isolated settlements, was a nightmare battlefield. Knowing how bleak the situation was, Mickey had promised the Palmach commanders: “When the showdown comes to free the Negev, I’ll be there with you.”
He arrived to find them paralyzed by Egyptian Spitfire-fighter bombers and mechanized columns of tanks, artillery and armored cars advancing toward them. Marcus urged the commanders to think aggressively, with initiative: “Act with what you’ve got. Shoot the planes down with rifles, attack the columns with small mobile units, hit-and-run attacks in surprise night time raids. Jeeps will do the job,” he assured them, “till we can get tanks.” Don’t forget, he told them, “David did it with a slingshot, didn’t he?” Mickey’s widow, Emma, reported he wrote to her about a girl shooting down an Egyptian plane with a sten gun and said if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes he wouldn’t have believed it.
As luck would have it, a shipment of 30 jeeps equipped with radios and machine guns arrived on the eve of Independence Day. Mobility, firepower, communications, guts and a great deal of encouragement and guidance from Marcus during the week he was there, all these elements paved the way for the miracle victory in the Negev.
Mickey returned from the Negev glowing. He burst into Ben-Gurion’s office and asked him: “Hey, Boss, what do you think?” Then he showed BG his bullet-ridden hat and trousers, torn by mortar fragments. Astonished, BG looked at them, but Mickey reassured him that both the hat and the pants had been hanging on the laundry line in the yard when the attack occurred.
Spotlight on Jerusalem
In the last week of May, Marcus was back at GHQ where the spotlight had shifted to Jerusalem. The outcome of the war hinged on the survival or the fall of Jerusalem and its 100,000 Jews who were under total siege. Completely isolated from the newborn State of Israel, they were threatened with annihilation. Exposed to incessant shelling, and despite critically low provisions of water, food and ammunition, Jerusalemites held out valiantly.
The only supply route connecting Jerusalem to the new state was under constant attack and therefore impassable. Even as the battles raged for the control of Arab enclaves straddling the road in the surrounding hills, an alternative by-pass road was being created. The ingenious plan called for building a road from an unmarked mountain trail, a passage used by shepherds since biblical times.
Mickey Marcus was at the forefront of this heroic project named, “Operation Nachshon,” after the biblical hero who was the first to enter the parting waters of the Red Sea. Skeptics, who didn’t think the plan could succeed, were silenced when Mickey retorted: “We got across the Red Sea, didn’t we?”
The mountain trail was a three-mile strip. of rugged terrain that linked Jerusalem to a road leading from Tel Aviv. It had to be made passable for trucks and convoys bearing blessed food and weapons to the beleaguered city. Construction was carried out secretly, mostly at night, by teams of dedicated do-or-die daredevil soldiers and civilians, recruits of all ages and from all walks of life. It was grueling and dangerous work, performed under the most arduous conditions. This life-line to Jerusalem was called the Burma Road, or the Road of Valor. The project was completed in a 4-week period, an amazing feat that paved the way for the siege of Jerusalem to be broken and raised morale sky high.
Jeep convoy breaks the siege
One of the Palmach fighters, Ra’anana, had been in the first jeep to get through and come out of besieged Jerusalem. He described how he arrived at Kibbutz Hulda to ask for reinforcements in order to try the jeep operation on a larger scale. “Mickey supported us, and with his help we rounded up ten jeeps. These we filled with 220 mm mortars, four new ‘Besa’ machine guns, and 100 shells for each of the mortars.” Where the hills were too steep for any jeep to pass, supplies were loaded onto shoulders and carried to vehicles waiting on the other side for transport to Jerusalem.” The following night,” Ra’anana recalled, “100 men, each with one shell pinned to him, scrambled over the hills by foot, about eight miles, to make it to the beleaguered Jerusalem area.”
Rivka, a fearless young Palmach fighter was assigned to be the driver of Mickey Marcus’s jeep. On a trip to Hulda, she recalled saying to Mickey: “You know you could get killed in a war like this. What made you come here?” His eyes flashed, he thrust out his wrist and said dramatically: “See these veins? The blood of Abraham flows through them. That’s what brought me here.” Actually, that was Mickey’s standard reply to the question about why he came. At least four other people told me he said the same thing to them. Another of his favorite replies was: “You gotta help your brother out in a fight.” For the first time in his life, Mickey found Jews fighting as Jews to determine their own fate and he felt it was a privilege to join them.
Aluf Mickey Stone
On the 28th of May, 1948, BG appointed Mickey Stone (nom de guerre of Col. Mickey Marcus) Supreme Commander of the Jerusalem Front with the rank of Aluf (equivalent to major general), a title created especially for him. He was the first General in Jewish history to lead four brigades in an all-out operation.
The crucial battles to save Jerusalem made it essential to create a centralized command to which both the Haganah and the Palmach were answerable. Marcus had striven continuously for a synthesis of these dissident groups. From each, he chose the best leadership to serve on his staff. Finally, the American Colonel, now an Aluf, was given complete trust and full command and the authority to plan the strategy which eventually freed the capital.
A tragic mishap
Tragically, two weeks later Mickey Marcus was fatally shot in error by a sentry, a new immigrant who had trouble recognizing the password. It happened only hours before an imminent negotiated cease-fire went into effect, on June 11th, at 3:50 a.m.
Fearing an attack that night from the powerful Transjordanian Arab Legion, Marcus had personally issued orders to increase alertness and to open fire if the password was not properly acknowledged. Ironically, by a fluke of circumstances, he was a victim of his own orders.
When Brigade Commander Yigal Alon was awakened and told that a tragedy had occurred, he said his first panicky thought was that Jerusalem had been taken. When he found out that Mickey Marcus was dead he was stunned. He immediately dispatched a telegram to Ben-Gurion, describing the circumstances, and asked for instructions. The loss of Marcus was a terrible blow to BG. The telegram he dispatched to the Israel Legation in New York read as follows:
PLEASE INFORM MRS DAVID MARCUS THAT HER HUSBAND FELL LAST NIGHT AT HIS POST IN THE HILLS OF JERUSALEM STOP THE GOVERNMENT OF ISRAEL THE JEWISH ARMY AND THE ENTIRE JEWISH PEOPLE OF PALESTINE SEND HER EXPRESSION OF DEEPEST SYMPATHY IN HER GRIEF STOP DURING SHORT TIME OF HIS BEING WITH US ‒ TOO SHORT ALAS ‒ HE SUCCEEDED IN MAKING OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO THE BUILDING AND PERFECTING OF OUR WAR MACHINE WHICH HAS SECURED FOR HIM A PLACE OF HONOR IN THE MOMENTOUS PHASE OF OUR HISTORY DURING WHICH STATE OF ISRAEL CAME INTO BEING STOP AS A MAN AND A COMMANDER HE ENDEARED HIMSELF TO ALL THOSE WHO CAME INTO PERSONAL CONTACT WITH HIM AND HIS FAME SPREAD THROUGH ALL THE RANKS OF OUR ARMED FORCES STOP THEY ALL ADMIRED HIS SUPERB COURAGE HIS REMARKABLE MILITARY INTUITION HIS QUICK GRASP OF NEW SITUATIONS HIS UNLIMITED DEVOTION AND HIS NATURAL SPONTANEOUS HUMAN FELLOWSHIP STOP HE WAS RECENTLY APPOINTED AS SUPREME COMMANDER OF OUR FORCES AT THE JERUSALEM FRONT AND BECAME IMMEDIATELY THE MOVING SPIRIT OF THAT CAMPAIGN THE MOST DIFFICULT AND FARREACHINGLY IMPORTANT OF ALL THOSE WHICH WE HAVE HAD TO FIGHT SO FAR STOP HIS NAME WILL LIVE FOREVER IN THE ANNALS OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE AND WE FEEL CONFIDENT THAT AMERICAN JEWRY WILL BE PROUD OF ITS GREAT AND GALLANT SON WHO HAS GIVEN HIS LIFE FOR THE LIBERATION OF ISRAEL DAVID BENGURION
The news of Mickey Marcus’s death left Americans, and especially the Jewish community, stunned. Marvin Marcus, Mickey’s nephew, recalled that the family was further shocked to hear Walter Winchell announce over national TV that Mickey Marcus had a Jewish father and an Irish Mother. “He couldn’t have been more wrong,” said Marvin, “Mickey’s mother spoke only Yiddish.” The family delegated him to call the studio and demand a retraction. Marvin understood they had assumed Mickey was Irish because of his stereotype Irish characteristics – a fighter, a boxer, a boisterous person and a man who liked his drink – an unlikely Jewish West Pointer.
A soldier for all humanity
Col. David (Mickey) Marcus (alias Aluf Mickey Stone), accompanied by an honor guard of two Israeli officers was buried with full military honors on July 1st, 1948 at the U.S. Military Academy cemetery at West Point. Ironically, it was exactly 28 years from the day he had entered the Academy as a plebe. He is the only American soldier buried there who died fighting for a foreign country. Mickey Marcus committed himself completely to Israel’s fight for freedom and fully earned the epitaph on his gravestone, “A soldier for all humanity.” Every year on the anniversary of his death, American & Canadian Veterans of Israel’s War of Independence (AVI) and their families join members of the Marcus family and West Point cadets in paying tribute to his memory in an impressive ceremony at his grave.
A most unconventional regular soldier
Yaakov Dori, the then IDF chief of staff, in assessing the man and his contribution to the Israeli Army, said of Marcus, inter alia: “He was like a shot in the arm for the army, injecting confidence and optimism. He strengthened in each man he met faith in our special abilities and his stamp of approval meant a great deal to us. He taught us to learn the weaknesses of the enemy and to use this knowledge to our advantage. He pressed us to consider the practical side of military organization. We were in awe of his quick grasp of situations, his courage and humanity. He was a most unconventional regular soldier.”
MACHAL’s contribution to the IDF – A well-kept secret
Mickey Marcus was a trailblazer. He personified the volunteering spirit that motivated about 1,300 other Americans and Canadians to put their lives on hold and rally to the defense of the nascent state. His heroism and theirs were selfless acts of volunteering when they were needed most. 41 North Americans, including seven non-Jews, lost their lives in the struggle for Israeli Independence.
The inspiring story of overseas volunteers is largely unknown and has never been completely told, not in Israel, and not in the countries from which the volunteers came. Many people in positions of leadership in Israel, especially in the army, thought it was important for Israeli “nation-building” to emphasize exclusively the role played by the Yishuv in the struggle for independence. Since most of the volunteers eventually left the country, the leaders saw no reason to emphasize Machal’s contribution to the war effort. The “courageous few” from North America, as they are called by the AVI, did not wish to publicize their roles because they had blatantly defied the official government policy of their countries of origin and risked both their lives and their citizenship to come to the aid of Israel.
Today, in retrospect, with the passing of the years since the War of Independence, the full extent of Machal’s contribution has become clear. The expertise of these volunteers with their wide range of fighting skills, their familiarity with the military framework, combined with their combat experience, were key factors which contributed significantly to enable the IDF to establish a regular army, in a relatively short time, one which went on to win the war. All this was accomplished during the emergency period, with fighting still in progress.
Mickey Marcus firmly believed in the nation’s special abilities and its potential for
developing into a first-class modern army. Today, when the Israeli army is indeed one of the best in the world, his convictions proved to be prophetic.
The story of Mickey Marcus and the other forgotten heroes who fought in Israel’s War of Independence and helped give life to the nascent state represents one of the proudest chapters in Jewish history.
A monument at Telshe Stone, near Jerusalem, commemorating Col. David (Mickey) Marcus
Zipporah Porath is a member of the World Machal Committee, a freelance writer and publications editor who has been living in Israel since the establishment of the state.
The author of “Letters from Jerusalem 1947-1948,” letters she wrote to her family as history was happening. (e-mail: zip@netvision.net.il ) Amazon Kindle link:
http://bit.ly/LettersFromJerusalem
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Zipporah Porath, is a member of the World Machal Committee, a freelance writer and publications editor who has been living in Israel since the establishment of the state, the author of “Letters from Jerusalem 1947-1948,” letters she wrote to her family as history was happening.