(ARMAND RUTTENBERG) Elchanan Sela was contacted by Etzel when they learned of his visit to the British Consulate in France from one of its informers working there. He was offered a false passport and aid in entering Palestine on condition that he would give clandestine courses on anti-tank warfare and other military subjects to Etzel personnel on his arrival. Sela’s sister, who lived in Paris and who was opposed to Etzel, convinced him to offer his services to the Jewish Agency under the same conditions. He recalled how the offer was accepted, and he received long-term leave from the French Army. He reached Palestine in late 1947 and gave courses to Haganah personnel. When Israel declared its independence on 14th May 1948, Sela’s pupils went off to fight and he followed them, even though he was not then a Zionist. “I could not let them put into practice what I had taught them, while I remained comfortably behind,” he said. Sela was made a seren (captain) and given command of a makeshift armored squadron in the 79th Battalion, which he said was the first IDF unit to enter Shafar Am. He was later wounded while participating in an operation in the Negev.
At the end of the War of Independence, Sela resigned from the French Army, with the rank of captain. In the IDF, he commanded an AMX-13 Tank Battalion in the 27th Brigade during the Suez Campaign in 1956; he said it was the first tank to reach the Canal in that war. He commanded an armored brigade in Sinai in the June 1967 War before being appointed Military Attaché to South East Asia, and was based in Bangkok. Sela returned home to retire in August 1973, but was recalled to the army as a deputy divisional commander in Sinai in October 1973, when he was made tat aluf (brigadier general). Prepared by Joe Woolf