NON-JEWISH TRANSPORT AND FIGHTER PILOT
Gordon Levett came from a background so poor that his widowed mother had to place him in an orphanage for a time. He left school at the age of 14 with no ambition other than to fly.
In January 1939, when he was 18, he was accepted into the RAF as a trainee aircraft mechanic. At the outbreak of the war, and after a difficult period because of his background, he was eventually accepted for pilot training on November 30th, 1940, and in September 1941 he qualified as a fighter pilot, with above-average grades. He was commissioned as a pilot officer but was disappointed when he was posted to become a flying instructor, at which he excelled. He remained at that post until November 1944, mostly in Canada, where he was chosen for a conversion course on Dakotas before returning to the U.K. to join Transport Command, where he ended the war as a Squadron Leader.
Levett volunteered to help the Jews of Palestine fight the invasion of the Arab States, and all he asked in return was “board and lodging and pocket money.”
In 1994, Gordon Levett’s book about his experiences in World War II and in Israel’s War of Liberation was published in English, entitled Flying Under Two Flags, an Ex-RAF Pilot in Israel’s War of Independence (London. Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1994). The book was first published in Hebrew in 1989 by Ma’arachot, under the title Goy Shel Shabbat.
The second half of this immensely readable book, written with style and humor, describes how Levett became one of the small band of non-Jewish members of Machal (Volunteers from Abroad) who helped Israel, fought for Israel and developed an abiding love for Israel.
As a member of what later became the Israel Air Force’s Air Transport Command (ATC), he helped to break the United Nations arms embargo by clandestinely flying dismantled Messerschmitt fighters, arms, ammunition and equipment in greatly over-loaded cargo aircraft from Czechoslovakia to Israel. The ATC was subsequently given another airlift task, this time in the Negev, behind Egyptian lines. After that, its aircraft mounted bombing raids.
In November, 1948 Levett transferred to Israel’s only fighter squadron at the time, 101: a member of that squadron was Ezer Weizman, later president of Israel. A foreword by him appears in the book.
Levett was a trained Spitfire pilot but had never flown one operationally in the RAF. He did so in 101 Squadron, although his first dogfight was in a Messerschmitt 109 (with which 101 Squadron was also equipped, as well as with Mustangs), when he shot down a Spitfire and a Fiat of the Egyptian Air Force.
The irony of a non-Jewish ex-RAF pilot flying the Nazi’s notorious Messerschmitt 109 on behalf of the Jews against Egyptian Spitfires was not lost on Levett. After the war, he carried out several top-secret ferry operations for the Israeli Government. He later became a tramp pilot, ferrying aircraft all over the world.
Author: Joe Woolf (from episodes in Flying under Two Flags.