Harold Kates arrived in Israel from Canada once the State of Israel had been declared. It was still a country at war, and in dire need of expertise that could be used to gain an upper hand in the fighting. There were no tanks for Kates to work on, and he was soon back to his wartime occupation of working on planes. However, strangely enough there were hardly any planes around. Instead there were discarded and abandoned British Wellington bombers, or ‘Wimpeys,’ left behind by the British when they quit Palestine. This presented Harold Kates with his first task: to patch together bits of engines, wings and planes , to put together whole planes that could be used by the tiny air force.
This “do-it-yourself” approach was later fully developed after the arrival of the Messerschmitts from Czechoslovakia. He was posted to the air base at Sarona, where these newly acquired German planes, sent by the government of Czechoslovakia, were being off loaded. They were amongst the most important acquisitions during the War of Independence, enabling Israel to gain some advantage in the air. Not that the planes came cheaply or easily: an arms embargo was in place at the time, making the importation of weaponry problematical. Furthermore, each plane cost the Israeli forces $40,000, and was fitted with sub-standard Czech parts, not the German originals. Nevertheless, the significance of these “German” planes being used in this new theatre of war was not lost on Harold Kates, who had, after all, spent World War II fighting Messerschmitts.
“It was really odd, after what they’d been doing in Europe – shooting down allied aircraft – here I am, repairing those planes so that the Israel Air Force could use them.”
Kates was assigned to Squadron 101, made up of a mixture of South African, American, and British volunteers, with a few Canadians and Israelis. The significance of Machal volunteers like Harold Kates cannot be underestimated, since the Israel Air Force at that time was a ramshackle affair with little equipment and only a handful of trained pilots. In the critical period after the invasion of May 15th, the force was augmented by the early arrival of Machal volunteers who could be put to work immediately. Such was the impact of the new arrivals, that English became the effective language of the Israel Air Force at this time. It is estimated that 95% of the aircrews in the air force were Machal volunteers.
On May 29th the first four Messerschmitts were successfully assembled with the help of Kates, and they were put into action immediately. They could not have come at a more opportune moment, since the Egyptians had been sending Spitfires to bomb Tel Aviv since May 15th. Until then, the logbooks of the Israeli aircrews were filled only with support operations for ground troops, since there were no effective fighter planes. That is, until the Messerschmitts were ready and went into action. Slowly, the Herzlia airbase where Harold Kates was stationed was turned into a fully-fledged headquarters for an effective fighter squadron. The effects of an air presence were quickly felt. In the early evening of June 3rd, two Egyptian Spitfires escorting two C-47 planes were seen approaching Tel Aviv. The alarms were sounded and civilians headed straight for the air raid shelters. However, at the same time one of the newly-prepared Messerschmitts flown by Modi Alon appeared in the skies, and quickly began its attack. In an unprecedented turn of events, the two Egyptian C-47 bomber planes were destroyed and the Messerschmitts had chalked up their first victory. It is not an overstatement to say that Harold Kates had played an important role in the development of the Israel Air Force’s early successes.
Source: Machal Museum