Harvey Sirlin (Sirulnikoff)

Beersheva: Left – Albert Monteaux (France); Second left Harvey Sirlin

First let me set the record straight. My most memorable year was, and will always be, our first year of marriage. Ruthie and I fell in love at first sight. Our love for each other was instantaneous and magical, and I was deliriously happy. Add to that the birth of our first child, and I was floating on air.

1. THE BEGINNING – JOINING THE FIGHT

My second most memorable year began on a cold Winnipeg winter night in early 1948 with a phone call from my cousin Hershie Stein “You still want to go fight in Palestine?” “Sure I do”. He told me to go to a small cafe on Main near Atlantic Avenue and in a rear booth I would find Toby L., who would be my first contact. Later on, Toby directed me to go to a rifle club at the police station on Rupert Avenue. My next contact sent me to an address on Salter Street, Sully Spector’s home. I went upstairs, where I found another ten fellows all waiting to be interviewed.

That was a very interesting experience. While Sully asked the questions, a burly fellow with a moustache sat silently besides him; while one eye looked you up and down, the other eye stayed fixed on you. You never found out who he was. Then we went for a physical and dental check-up, all done gratis by doctors from the community. I got a passport with a visa to France, bought myself a good pair of paratrooper army boots, packed as little as possible, was given rail tickets to New York, and departed Winnipeg on May 2nd 1948. I was excited, going out into the world into a meaningful adventure.

My parents, of course, were not too thrilled about my going off to a war. My dad tried talking me into postponing my departure until the fall, but in the end told me that if he were my age he’d probably do the same thing. I came from a strong Zionist home, and I believed that I was finally doing something that they could be proud of.

The train trip took 36 hours to Toronto, where I was met by Joe Talsky who took me to his home. Mrs. Talsky greeted me warmly, like family. The Talskys and my Uncle Sam and Auntie Riva had been very close friends in previous years in Hamilton. Joe was finishing packing when the radio blared, “It’s 12 noon and this is CK-Toronto!” I thought to myself, “I don’t believe it, Toronto, Maple Leaf Gardens, wow!” Joe took me to a doctor who pumped five shots into my arm, and that evening we left by train for New York with Mrs. Talsky. I think the train was called the “5th Avenue Special.”

We sat up all night. I didn’t want to miss a thing. As dawn broke, we were traveling parallel to the Hudson River through beautiful countryside, and we were becoming a commuter train picking up passengers along the way. At last New York! What a sight for a Winnipeg boy. Row upon row of multi-storey apartment buildings. The BIG city. I stayed with Joe at his aunt’s place in the Bronx, 626 E141st Street. We got there by subway, another thrill.

That evening we met the rest of the fellows, fifteen in total. We met in a room in the Paramount Hotel. They checked to see who had visas for France. The “they” were Moshe Shifrin, an Israeli studying in the USA, and in charge of us on the ocean crossing, and one or two others. Those without visas were asked to hand over their passports and told they would be returned the next day. That night we set out to do the town. We started out by going to Billy Rose’s Diamond Horseshoe, a high-class night club. One of us let on that we were going to Palestine to fight. They shone the spotlight on us and we got a big round of applause, but we still had to pay the bill. And what a bill. They measured how much was left from the full bottles brought to the table. We had soon realized that we’d need partners to afford the prices for food. It was funny to hear: “I need a partner for a bowl of soup,” and so on. We made a pact that on our return we’d come to the club with corned beef sandwiches in our pockets.

The next day we met again, and lo and behold, the passports without visas now had French visas. The organization impressed us. We were told that the next day we were to go to a certain government office and to give the name of our ship, the “Sobieski.” We would then be directed to a desk where we’d be given a document showing that we didn’t owe income tax; when we entered the USA we all declared that we were visiting and then returning to Canada. That night we went to the Village to a steak house and then a night club, and sometime during the wee hours we walked back to Times Square for breakfast at the automat. Those were different times, we thought nothing about wandering through the city in the middle of the night.

2. CROSSING THE ATLANTIC

The next day, May 8th, we boarded the S.S. Sobieski and that evening we sailed from New York. The Sobieski was a 15,000 ton liner which sailed from New York to France and Italy. It was a Polish ship with an Italian catering crew, and indeed most of the 750 passengers were Italian. Eight of us got our own inside cabin. To say that my first few days were a joy would be telling a lie. I was sick and pale, which I blamed on the “shots” in Toronto. But afterwards, I felt fine. I had a lower bunk in the cabin and the upper bunk was occupied by a fellow Winnipeger and one of the finest human beings I’ve ever met: he was my future brother-in-law, Leib Shanas.
Our cabin steward was called DiBiasi. He earned $US 30 a month. We made a deal with him – for $1 and a carton of cigarettes a day he’d bring breakfast to our cabin. He was delighted and so were we. We had been instructed not to have anything to do with one another during the voyage, but on May 15th when the state was declared, we all gathered in our cabin and celebrated the founding of the State of Israel. It was a poignant and proud moment. An American boarded the ship at Gibraltar and began asking us questions. We had a meeting to decide what to do with this very inquisitive person, and even decided to throw him overboard, which naturally we didn’t do.
On May 18th we landed in Cannes. We were to take the train to Marseilles, but first we had to get our luggage out of customs. A few of us jumped the line, putting our luggage on the counter while shouting at the customs officer that we didn’t parlez French. We put an American cigarette in his mouth and asked him if he’d like a whole carton. When he nodded Yes, we told him to chalk all the bags “cleared,” which he did. Different times!

3. FRANCE

My first impression of France was “just like in the postcards.” I was thrilled: The shuttered houses, the (then) quiet streets, the soft air, everything that I had imagined. We boarded the train and arrived in Marseilles late that evening. A truck waited for us at the station, and we climbed aboard not really knowing where we were heading. The strong smell of cow manure followed us for miles. We arrived at a DP (displaced persons) camp on the outskirts of Marseilles called “Grande Arénas.” Early next morning we were introduced to a taste of what lay ahead. We were lined up and asked who’d like to go for a swim. It was a beautiful sunny day, so everyone said “I.” We went to get towels and reported back. We were lined up into two columns and trotted along a dirt road. All we could see was a large hill ahead. When we asked our “leader” where the sea was, he replied “on the other side of the hill.” What an introduction to Israeli army training! We pushed and shoved one another over not one hill, but a couple, until we finally reached the sea. One of the guys, a fellow Winnipeger, a little heavier than most of us, said, “Lie me down at the water’s edge and just leave me here.” Most of us were exhausted, but we all made it back to camp. It helps to be 20-years-old. That night we were put on guard duty. We were given the wooden staves from the ends of our cots, and were told to guard the perimeter fence against a possible break-in by North African Arabs.

I don’t remember much about my wretched brethren who survived the horrors of the concentration camps. Maybe they kept us apart deliberately, but I do remember hearing a blood-curdling scream coming from somewhere in the camp, and it seemed to epitomize the suffering of the Holocaust.

After no more than two days at Grande Arénas we were moved to a chateau just outside of the village of Trets, our home and training camp for the next three weeks. I don’t recall how many we were; my guess would be about 60 trainees, including some girls. They came from Canada, England, USA, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, and perhaps elsewhere. Israelis ran the camp.
The chateau was a very large house set in the hills, with a narrow dirt road in front of the chateau and a fountain set in the hill on the other side of the road. I presumed the water came from the mountain, because it was always cold and clear and drinkable. Little did we realize that these hills were to become our Nemesis.

Our days started off with a morning run led by a lithe Romanian, Dov. We began downhill, and after a short while Dov would send the girls back and then, grinning, he would turn to us and say, “Everybody piss.” Dov was learning English. But every day he’d take us farther, and every day fewer of us would come back with Dov. I remember Leib Shanas running beside me and wheezing like an old steam engine, and that I wanted to push him to the side for fear that he would hurt himself. Where we really did hurt ourselves was in what was called “sportsamachine” (or similar). This meant running in the hills for hours on end. Every day brought new casualties, with sprains, and the occasional broken leg. We also took weapons training, mainly dismantling and assembling Sten guns. We always had a lookout on the roof in case there was a surprise inspection by the French authorities. The French were aware that this was a camp for “displaced persons,” and visited occasionally. We had removed the labels from our clothing, and were instructed to speak in Yiddish only, or to keep quiet. I don’t think that anyone was fooled; a blind eye was turned, or money changed hands.

My highlight was the morning I was chosen to raise the Israeli flag, my heart bursting with pride and joy. We followed the news from Israel as best as we could, and were anxious to leave as soon as possible. I was asked to stay on as an instructor, but naturally I refused. Finally on the morning of June 10th we were put onto covered trucks and left our chateau and the village of Trets; people in the streets shouted “Palestina, Palestina.” Nobody was fooled. We returned to Grande Arénas; there was a newly arrived group of Canadians, and in this group was my dear friend Al Chapnick. We were overjoyed to see one another.

That evening we were put on buses and driven to the tiny port of La Ciotat. We were told that should we hear a whistle blown, we were to immediately grab a bag and get back on the buses. We slowly made our way down a narrow wooden pier in the dark. At the far end of the pier sat a French official at a small wooden table, busily stamping anything put in front of him, all by the light of one kerosene lamp. Then we were led to a small boat and told to go below. Our bags were all tossed onto a heap of other bags and we were told to make ourselves comfortable on the long wooden tiers lining the hold. That the boat’s last cargo was fish was self-evident. Oh well, I thought, this is probably the boat taking us to the ship. Hah! Maybe the others were smarter than me, but I sure got a shock when I woke up the next morning.

4. CROSSING THE MEDITERRANEAN

Soon after the boat left the pier, I fell asleep, a deep sleep. When I woke up in the morning, and felt the boat moving, it dawned on me that this was “the ship.” There was lots of excitement as everyone seemed to stir at the same time. We also did one more thing at the same time, and that was to go up on deck to check things out, get a breath of fresh air and find out about eating breakfast. What we didn’t realize was that when 150 people gather on one side of the deck (the galley side) of an 80-ton 120-foot-long fishing vessel, it slowly starts to capsize. Immediately there were shouts of “everyone down below.” It was then decided that we would be organized in sections, and go up on deck by sections. I was in Joe Warner’s section, a stroke of luck. How they chose section leaders I don’t know, but Joe was easygoing with an infectious laugh. I think that we were 14 in a section. Maybe that’s how much each wooden tier held. I didn’t relish the thought of spending most of 24-hours down in the smelly hold, but a near catastrophe changed all of that.

Al Wank, a hulking “take charge” but lovable guy from Brooklyn, took charge of the galley. What there was to cook, I can’t remember. It seems that we ate the same thing day after day. Maybe it was the second day out when it happened. Al was cooking something in the galley shed on deck when he hollered “FIRE!” The bottom of the stove broke loose and burnt a hole through the deck and into the luggage. What a mad scramble it was to find the burning piece, put it out, and make sure that nothing else was burning. If the boat had caught fire we would have been done for. There was one lifeboat on board with a hole in the bottom. As for life-jackets, forget it. After this near catastrophe it was decided that there would be a 24-hour fire watch. As luck would have it, our section was chosen to do a 12-hour stint on deck every day.

The name of this magnificent vessel was the” Marie Annique,” a French fishing vessel hired to transport us to Israel. The British had left the country on May 15th, so we were not running their blockade. The first truce of the war (June 11th) came into effect as we left France, unknown to us then, and men of military age were not supposed to enter the country. We were on the high seas with a drunken French crew of three, and with an Israeli crew plus a revolver.

When the fire broke out, the engine started to act up, so it was decided to put into the harbor of Bonifaccio in Corsica for repairs. The crew was in its usual state of inebriation, and ran us up on a rock in the harbor, leaving us high and partially dry with a hole in the boat’s hull. We managed to remove ourselves by tying a rope around a rock behind the boat, and we pulled on the rope with all our might. A miracle, but it worked. The authorities did not allow us to enter the harbor and dock, probably fearing for the safety of their property. We put out to sea pumping the bilges by hand to keep the vessel dry, and limped towards our next destination, the Straits of Messina.
Despite our pleas to dock in Messina for repairs, we remained outside the port for the better part of the day. We had no choice but to keep going. A day or so later the engine quit altogether. There was only one recourse, to “raise the sail.” I was on fire watch up on deck when the sail was raised. I was watching a passing freighter, and was told to duck my head as the boom would swing around when the sail was raised. I ducked and then raised my head and was astounded to see that the freighter was headed now in the opposite direction. I hollered out, “You guys see that? That freighter swung around on a dime.” The guys burst out laughing: it was we that had swung around, a sailing vessel left to the vagaries of the wind.

Day after monotonous day passed. The same routine and the same food day after day. I felt sorry for those in the hold, only up on deck for meals, or to go to the head. We periodically hosed each other down with sea water, which maybe left you feeling cleaner but definitely stickier. The only noise besides the gentle lapping of the waves was Johnny Low’s typewriter going “clickety-clack” for hours on end. I thought to myself, “What the hell can he be writing about? There’s nothing happening.” There was always banter coming from the characters on board. There was Walter “Heavy” Greaves, an Irish-American merchant sailor who served in World War II and Aliyah Bet, and had his own personal vendetta with the British. Then there was Kaplan, also an American merchant sailor from World War II, with a girth that could match Heavy Greaves. Add to this Harry and Hannah, a rotund cheerful married couple who could keep you in stitches, and what more could a young fellow, out in the world for the first time, want?

I did think to myself from time to time, “Isn’t it ironic that we spent weeks getting ourselves into top physical condition, and here we are losing all that through inactivity?” Actually more was not being lost through inactivity. Constipation was rife. I had four or five bowel movements in the 12 days, and I was one of the lucky ones. One of the fellows had to be carried of the boat at the end, he hadn’t gone once in 12 days.

We were lucky when another incident could have ended in tragedy. One day we were becalmed, and a few of the guys decided that as the boat wasn’t moving, they’d go for a swim. Most swam tight to the boat, but one (I believe that it was Alex Epstein from Toronto) decided to swim a bit further out. He was a strong swimmer but he soon realized that although we were becalmed we were still drifting, and drifting faster than he could swim! We saw this and were horrified. There was nothing that we could do with no power, no wind, and no lifeboat. Fortunately the boat trailed a long rope (the rope that pulled us off the rock in Corsica). He managed to grab the rope and was hauled in.

It seemed to take forever to pass the island of Crete, and on the morning of June 23rd 1948 we sighted the coast of Israel. It was just a sandy stretch of land, but we raised the Israeli flag on the Marie Annique, stood to attention and sang Hatikvah and wept like babies! We followed the coastline to Tel Aviv, and then came the shock: a huge column of smoke coming from what seemed the centre of town. We thought that the Egyptians had bombed the city. Then we saw a twin-engined plane heading in our direction, and I thought, if we’re to be bombed, we’re finished. There was no panic or fear. The plane circled us as if to identify us, and then flew off. The smoke was coming from Menachem Begin’s supply ship, the “Altalena,” which was still burning on the beach near the old Kaete Dan hotel. Sometime later when I found out the full story behind the Altalena, plus other assorted incidents.

As small as the Marie Annique was, she couldn’t pull into the port at Tel Aviv. We were taken off in groups of 30 or 40 in a glassed-in passenger lighter.

ISRAEL!

What excitement, what a mix of emotions when we stepped on Israeli soil for the first time! “Look, a Jewish policeman! A Jewish dog (the policeman’s German shepherd)!” We were given one of the best meals that I ever ate, cream cheese sandwiches and oranges, after which we were processed through immigration. Because the truce was still in effect, except for a certain number of “returning residents,” everyone had to go to a UN camp. The “returning residents” could go directly into the army. The Americans all got “returning residents” cards. Imagine my delight when I was also picked out to get one of those pink cards. I believe that Max Robinson and I were the only Canadians to go directly into the army.

My next recollection is being on a bus headed for an army camp outside Netanya. What sticks in my mind after all these years is a short stretch of road near a place called Kfar Malal, where eucalyptus trees bordering both sides of the two-lane road formed a green arched canopy over the road. I don’t know why, but this short stretch of road seemed to say to me, “This is the Israel of my dreams.” Even years later, when I drove a truck for the kibbutz, whenever I passed through this bit of road it took me back to that first day.
Upon arriving in the camp we formed into three ranks, like a proper platoon, and a short, mustached, grizzled but lovable man of about 40 announced, “My name is Shlomo Weinstein and I’m your sergeant.” I wanted to hug the man. Shlomo guided us through the army induction process. We were issued khaki pants and shirts, were photographed and issued our army book, plus crude “dog tags” with our army number. My number was 74019. For some unknown reason I felt that this was a lucky number, who can explain? All this took place after we had a physical exam on the 24th. There was one worrisome moment for me when the doctor wasn’t happy with my heart beat. He requested that I climb up and down a short flight of stairs, while he went on to examine someone else. The minute his back was turned I only put one foot up on the first step and then backed down again. I thought, “No way is anyone going to turn me down at this stage of the process.” Needless to say when he checked me the second time, I passed. On June 25th we were officially inducted into the Israeli army. Because many of the fellows thought that they would be compromising their citizenship, we were not required to sign an oath of allegiance to the country, but instead signed a watered-down innocuous oath of allegiance to the army.

6. THE ARTILLERY

The next day I was sent to a camp at Pardess Katz, literally Katz’s Orchard. I soon found out that this was an artillery base camp. I was, to say the least, upset. After all, I did spend five years in the Canadian Reserve Army (starting with the official rank of Boy until my 16th birthday), and did end up as a sergeant-instructor with the Winnipeg Light Infantry, so I felt like an infantryman. I arranged to speak with the camp commander and told him that I didn’t travel 5,000 miles to serve in the artillery, and that if I couldn’t go to the infantry then I wanted to serve in the armored corps. He heard me out very patiently, and in good English said that he would like to help me, but unfortunately was not allowed to transfer personnel. But he told me that in the next camp I could definitely apply for a transfer. He was a hell of a lot smarter than me.

Standing in front of my tent wondering what to do next, when in came a truck with familiar faces. I stopped them and asked them what unit they were with. “Secret weapons” was the reply. They said that they couldn’t talk about it. “Great,” I said, “I’m going with you.” They told me that as soon as they picked up their supplies they’d smuggle me out of there and take me to their unit. I was as happy as could be, but I should have realized that if you come to an artillery base camp to pick up supplies, you probably belong to the artillery.
I waited anxiously for the truck to return, and when it did I was hidden under the tarpaulin that covered the supplies, and so began my first desertion from the Israeli army, at least that’s what I thought. When we were safely out of sight of the camp I crawled out from under the tarp and again questioned the guys on the type of unit they were in. But no one was talking. All they could say was, “You’ll see”.
It didn’t take too long before we arrived at the unit’s location. It was an abandoned winery on the outskirts of Herzliya, set in a grove of eucalyptus trees, and right at the edge of the beach. The minute we got off the truck one of the fellows took me to see the “secret weapons.” Imagine my surprise when there in front of me were two large World War I French 75mm artillery guns. They were very large, moved on four wheels, and had four seats on the gun itself. They were probably originally intended for coastal-battery work or anti-aircraft work, but certainly not the counter-battery work that we were going to do. I thought to myself, “The joke is on me, they were probably going to send me here anyway.” I was told that these were the first heavy artillery pieces in the army. Up to now the heaviest guns were ancient 65mm’s called “Napoleonchiks.” I was told that there were six of these “new” 75s, and that two were for training with Hebrew-speaking crews, two for Yiddish-speaking crews, and of course these two were for English-speaking crews. I never did see the other four guns, but I was told that the two Hebrew-speaking crews were heading for Jerusalem, the Yiddish-speaking crews to another part of the country, and our two guns were heading for the Galilee, as soon as the truce finished on July 9th.

I was taken to meet the commanding officer, Mike Landshutt, a gentile from Australia who had been an artillery officer in World War II. Mike was well over six-feet tall and about two inches wide, with that handsome Anglo-Saxon look. He greeted me very warmly and was obviously happy to add to his crew. My first remark to him was, “Mike, you’ve got two guns sitting side-by-side. One bomb wipes out both of them.” He said “Harvey, you’re absolutely right, round up a couple of fellows and move them apart.”

Living in tents at the edge of the beach meant that the first order of the day was for 20 or so fellows to run naked into the sea. After that came the serious business of training on the gun, everything except firing the weapon. A couple of fellows, me included, were giving Mike a hard time about not wanting to be in the artillery. We wanted a transfer, and he and his second-in-command Leon Karpel, a Jew from South Africa who had also been an artillery officer in World War II, kept trying to convince us that we were needed right here. In retrospect they were right, for they only had about two weeks to train all of us non-artillery types. Maybe that’s why Mike made me the “elevation man” on one of the guns. The “elevation man” sat on the front seat on the left side of the gun, and it made you feel like you were an important cog in the war machine.

Anyhow, one night Mike and Leon took us dissidents into Tel Aviv directly to the Piltz Cafe on Hayarkon Street. There they plied us with drink while the band played on, and whispered sweet promises of glory to come, until we all gave in. They then stopped the music, took us up on stage, and put a thin blue ribbon on the right shoulder epaulette of our shirts. This ribbon was our unit’s official badge. There were handshakes all around, and we went out into the blacked-out night of Tel Aviv. We rode back to camp in the back of the pick-up truck in style, on very comfy wicker chairs that we pilfered from the exterior of the Piltz Cafe, probably the first robbery they’d ever experienced, for which I beg their forgiveness.

A word about the guys in the unit: the crews were made up of fellows from South Africa, England, USA, Canada, and one Iraqi Jew, and of course our commanding officer from Australia. By and large they were great guys, and except for one, could be relied on in a crisis. But the nicest part was that everyone was judged on his merits, and you never felt that you were “different.” It was a nice comfortable feeling to know that you were amongst your own. I would say that the South Africans as a group were the most mature, and I think that this held true wherever there were English-speaking volunteers. At least, that was my own personal feeling at that time, and ever since then.

I threw myself into the training wholeheartedly, even taking it upon myself to make sure that the guns were properly greased at all times. We were issued new “uniforms,” coveralls. I also got a helmet. A large blue US Navy helmet meant for someone who also wore a headset. I never wore it, I only used it as a miniature sink for washing. Instead I had a nice light black beret on most of the time.
The first truce ended at midnight on Friday 9th July. No units were supposed to move until that time, but the instant it became dark we pulled out of our idyllic training camp, and with 3 US Army 5-ton trucks began hauling our two guns with their ammunition and our 20 guys with all their personal gear, towards the Upper Galilee. It was a long, slow, and arduous process, with continuous changing of tasks for the trucks and the continuous shifting of the fellows from one truck to another. Finally at first light we arrived in the town of Afula. Because we had taken no provisions, we all started looking for a store, a bakery, or a cafe where we could purchase food. Being from the Galut (Diaspora), we didn’t realize that everything was shut down on the Sabbath. As we came back to the guns wondering what our next move would be, the most heart-warming event (for me) of that year happened.

Coming towards us was a group of locals carrying food. I remember one elderly lady, who could have been my bobba (grandmother), standing in front of me with what I swear was her breakfast and insisting in Yiddish that I must eat the meal because I was a soldier and needed my strength. This moment only reinforced my belief that I was doing the right thing, and I’ve carried the image of that moment with me these 51 years.

My first introduction to the sounds and sights of battle came later that morning when we parked our guns in a grove of trees outside the town of Rosh Pina. In the distance I could hear the sounds of explosions, and all around us were vehicles moving to and fro. Shortly afterwards we moved out and onto the road going north. At one point we drove as fast as we could, and then turned off into a wheat field at the west side of the road. A short way into the field we were ordered to set up the guns. This was a 45-minute task. The guns had to be lowered by jack off the wheels, then the four support legs had to be splayed, and the guns had to be leveled. We dug a shallow trench for the ammunition, and were finally ready for action.

We were under the direct command of the 2nd Brigade (Carmeli), but we had the right to pursue targets independently. We were now located in a line almost due west of Kibbutz Ayelet Hashachar at the foot of a range of hills, and about eight miles from the Syrian border, but only about five miles from the Syrian positions at Mishmar Ha Yarden which had been captured before the first truce.
Mike, with one of the South African fellows as his aide, was our forward observation officer who relayed co-ordinates back to Leon, who in turn set the traverse and elevation degrees for the crews and controlled the firing. Without these two officers we would have been useless.

Our first shot was fired from Gun #1, not mine. Because the guns had not been fired since arriving in the country, and the shells were as old as the guns, it was decided to fire the first shell using a lanyard, a long rope attached to the firing lever. We all took cover, including the guy pulling the lanyard, and to our great joy the gun fired perfectly. Both crews took up their positions, and we started our duel with four or six Syrian 25-pounder artillery guns. For the next five days we fired both by day and by night from this position. When we weren’t firing we would carefully cover the guns with camouflage nets, as the Syrians kept sending over a Harvard airplane, a World War II trainer, to look for us. Another unit finally shot it down, to our great relief.

I think it was on the second day that our gun nearly got me and the guy next to me. When the gun fired I used to turn my back to the muzzle and bend slightly. This time, as the gun fired I felt something go ‘swoosh’ past my forehead, and the guy next to me yelped. The rim of the casing of the shell, outside of the breech of the gun, could not contain the blast of the shell due to its poor condition and blew off a steel shield called a blast plate. It was this shield which flew past my head and took off small pieces of flesh from the other fellow’s chest. Fortunately, this was the only mishap.

It was about this time that we did our best work. We got word that the Syrians were attacking with five light tanks and infantry. We started firing high explosive shells at them, but they kept on advancing. Units of our army in front of us apparently scattered, and we were told to keep firing even over open sights, as we were all that stood between them and the road running north and to Rosh Pina. Once we could see that there was nothing more that we could do, we were to take our personal weapons and head for the hills behind us. I watched the gun barrel go lower and lower, and then we started using shrapnel shells. Just when the gun barrel was at the horizon and I was sure that the next thing that I would see would be a Syrian tank, I was given new elevations which started raising the gun barrel. Evidently the shrapnel was playing havoc with the Syrian infantry and they decided to retreat. When their tanks saw the infantry retreating, they also turned around. Another small but important miracle in the war!

Two other incidents during these five days, aside from being bitten in the face by what I presume was a non-poisonous scorpion while sleeping on the ground, were the following: The Dud – it was my job to dislodge any shells that didn’t fire. I had a long pole with a cup-shaped device at the end which I inserted into the barrel of the gun from the muzzle end and with which I was to gently push the shell out of the breech into the arms of the firer. As luck would have it, one of the shells didn’t fire, and it was time for me to do my thing. I remember keeping my head as far below the muzzle of the gun as possible while wondering what would happen to my hands, which were pushing on the pole. Needless to say, everything went off without a hitch.

The Shower – one afternoon we were told that one of the trucks was going into Rosh Pina to fill a water tank, and asked if anyone wanted to go with to shower. I jumped at the opportunity to shower and wash clothes. We drove to the outskirts of the village where there was a fair-size pipe, with a curved-down piece at the top, sticking out of the ground about 10-feet into the air. Water tankers were driven underneath and filled. We stood underneath and showered and washed our clothes. Everything dried in ten minutes under the hot sun. One of the vehicles that came in was driven by a fellow that I had become friendly with in France. His name was Moe Pierce, a World War II veteran with a great disposition. Moe got all excited when he saw me and told me that he belonged to a great outfit led by Leo Heaps, a decorated World War II Canadian officer, and begged me to come join them. I said that I couldn’t leave my unit, but he persuaded me to go with him to his outfit which was only a ten-minute ride away. His outfit was camped near a Crusader-built castle, and consisted of armored jeeps. To be quite honest, I don’t remember much about the unit or the equipment, but I didn’t have a good feeling about it. But that’s how units seemed to have built their strength in those days. Moe drove me back to Rosh Pina where the truck waited for me, and we headed back to the field. We knew that one section of the road was exposed to Syrian artillery, and sure enough they began shooting at us. Instead of just gunning the truck down the road, the driver swerved onto the field and headed cross-country to the guns. We arrived back all covered in dust and dirtier than when we had left!

The fifth day at this position brought a nasty surprise when a shell burst very close to our guns. The concussion blew me right off my seat and onto the ground. This was followed by another near miss, and we were ordered to take cover. I remember taking cover with a couple of other guys between a stone well and a low stone wall. At this point I noticed that my beloved black beret was missing and I got up to run back to the gun to look for it, when one of the guys said, “Don’t be crazy.” I lay down again and never found my beloved beret. All of this came as a surprise to us, as the Syrians hadn’t even come close.

After some time we were ordered back onto the guns, and we fired long enough to make them take cover, and then spent an agonizingly long 45-minutes getting the guns back onto their wheels and the ammo back on to the trucks, and took off from there.
We were at our next location only for a day, or possibly for one night. I vaguely remember that we were further north in an olive grove or at the edge of an olive grove, but what remains vivid in my mind is the following: The two guns were side by side, maybe 50-yards apart, and we both fired well into the night when our gun was told to stop firing and that we were to go to sleep. For whatever reason, we decided to sleep in front of our gun. The ground was very stony and it was impossible to dig any kind of a slit trench to sleep in, so we lay ourselves down with our heads on our packs and I was soon in dreamland, despite the noise of the other gun firing. I woke up at first light and looked around me, and to my surprise saw none of my crew beside me, where they had been the night before. I quickly got up and saw that they were all sleeping behind the gun and not where I was. They then explained to me what happened: one of the shells from the other gun exploded prematurely just as it left the gun, and rained shrapnel on their packs which were also in front of their gun. They quickly ran over to check on us, and fortunately none of the shrapnel reached us. They woke everyone up and told us to move behind the gun, and so they all did, everyone except me. Apparently I refused to get up and told them that I’d take my chances and was staying put. I don’t remember that conversation at all.

There is one other story I have to relate: apparently we were short of nose cones for the shells. These were rounded metal points which were screwed onto the noses of the shells and which I presume hit the fuse that exploded the shell on impact. We had the carpentry shop at Kibbutz Ayelet Hashachar make us wooden ones. Naturally, they were not perfectly shaped, and to our great delight they made a horrible screeching sound the minute they left the gun. We figured that even if they didn’t hit anything they would scare the living daylights out of the Syrians!

Our next move was into the deserted Arab village of Zook Tachtani (Lower Zook), as best as I remember the name. It would be about where Kiryat Shemona is located today. The two guns were in two adjacent yards behind one-storey long adobe houses, with just a low stone wall dividing the two. This was our last position as the second truce came into effect on July 19th.
A few incidents occurred here that stick in my mind after all these years. The first concerned Peter from Huddersfield (near Liverpool). Don’t ask me the when, or how Peter and Kiwi first showed up. Somehow these two 16- or 17-year-old merchant seamen jumped ship in Haifa and ended up in our unit. That’s how loose things were in those days. They were anxious to see some action and I guess they had more faith in our side than the Arab side. I took a liking to both of them, for after all we were all kids with the optimism and the “live one day at a time” attitude typical of the very young. It was also a very different kind of war that you would find today. Not that it would make any difference if you were killed or wounded, you would still be dead or maimed, and your parents would grieve or your life would be dramatically altered. It was different because all the sophisticated weapons of World War II and later, still hadn’t made their appearance. There was a foretaste of what was possible when our three B17 bombers flew over our location and dropped their load on the Syrian positions. The magnitude of the explosions was such that you said, “Thank goodness it was them and not us.” But back to Peter…

The Syrians managed to get our range in the village. Once more we were ordered to take cover. There weren’t many places that you could take cover and still hear the order to get back on the guns, so I lay down some distance behind the gun and next to the low wall. Peter was with the other gun and so he lay down in the other yard and some distance behind me. After a while I heard him call to me, “Harvey, give us a fag.” He was always bumming cigarettes and I was an easy touch. I told him, “If you want a smoke then come and get it.” I wasn’t going to risk my neck to give him a cigarette. He sprinted over to me, hopped the low fence and lay down next to me while lighting up. Just then a shell landed in the next yard, and when we looked up to see where it landed, it looked awful close to where he had been. I think that we both looked at each other, wide-eyed. I presume that he eventually ended up back in his beloved ‘uddersfield. The second incident was a joke played on me by Mike, who thought that I took this whole war business too seriously. One afternoon there was a lull in the firing and Mike and a few of the guys were playing cards in the one-room house in front of the gun. I had borrowed Mike’s field glasses and was standing on the front grapevine-covered porch straining to see what, if anything, I could make out of the enemy’s position. All of a sudden there was a whine through the leaves of the arbor above my head and a shower of grapes from above. In a fraction of a second I flew into the room and hollered, “Did you guys hear that?” “Hear what?” “A shot.” “What shot?” But the smirks on their faces gave them away. I slowly walked around the table and there was Mike’s right arm down by his side still holding his pistol. At least his aim was good.

The third incident concerned another scorpion bite. I was sitting on a rock with my hand placed on the rock, when – wham – I felt a terrific and painful sting in my finger. I instinctively knew it was a scorpion. I started to look for it to see if it was poisonous, when there was another holler from one of the other fellows: “Scorpion bite.” Our first aid man rushed over to him and decided that he should travel to nearby Kibbutz Dafna for an antidote shot. I informed them that I also had been bitten, and it was decided that I should also go. The ride to Kibbutz Dafna didn’t take long, and we were led into an underground bunker. This was the medical bunker of the kibbutz, and I was informed that the whole kibbutz was underground in various bunkers. The doctor proceeded to produce a gigantic needle which frightened the hell out of the other guy, and which caused me to suddenly remember that, “Maybe it wasn’t a scorpion after all?”
I can’t recall my reaction to the second truce. Maybe it was one of relief, or just plain acceptance as another fact of this war. After all, we were lucky and suffered no casualties except for our second-in-command Leon who got a piece of shrapnel in his rear end when he fortuitously turned himself around at the right time. From what I remember he was only away for a day. I think we only stayed in this location another day or two, but 51 years can fool the memory.

What I do remember very vividly is that part of one of those days was one of the most enjoyable few hours that I spent in that whole year. Two or three of us found a beautiful clear, cool, running stream not far away. The stream ran under a small bridge that spanned the road to Kibbutz Dafna and Kibbutz Dan. It was a hot July day so we all stripped down to the buff, not far from the bridge, threw our clothes into the stream and washed them, and then laid them out on the bank to dry, and then slowly stretched ourselves out in the shallow stream, letting the cool water gloriously caress our bodies and minds. We were completely at peace with ourselves, I think in part from the satisfaction that we had just done a man’s job in a righteous cause. Even the fact that a small passenger bus stopped on the bridge with all the passengers craning to get a good look at us didn’t disturb us one bit. Maybe it was voyeurism, but more probably it was to make sure that we were alright.

The guns were then ordered back to the outskirts of Rosh Pina. They were set up, under guard, in the fields within walking distance of the village, and we were bivouacked in the “post office” in Rosh Pina. No one seemed to know what our next move would be, but I imagine that the entire army was taking stock and reorganizing for the next phase. But we, at least a few of us, knew what our next move would be. The townspeople had quickly moved back into town and all the businesses were opened including the cafés.

That evening a couple of us got permission to leave our barrack and visit one of the cafés. Because the wine was reasonably priced, we decided it would be nice to have an evening of mirth and laughter. We all ended up slightly inebriated, and I presume ended up returning to our barrack making quite a row. The next morning we were told that we were now confined to barracks when the other fellows went out that evening. Well, that evening the good people of Rosh Pina, much to their disbelief, got the show of their lives. The fellows got to drinking and singing louder and louder, and the townsfolk thought the British had come back. They couldn’t believe that Jewish boys could or would carry on like this. Unfortunately, they hadn’t seen anything yet. It seems that one of the fellows decided that he was going to lead the singing, using an empty wine bottle for a baton. In one of his upbeats, or maybe it was a downbeat, his baton came into contact with a skull. The owner of this skull took umbrage at this attack on his person, and proceeded to punch the “conductor.” A whole donnybrook took place after this. A message was immediately sent out to our barracks, and we “bad boys” were sent out to break it up and drag them back home. We had a great time.

Unfortunately we never did get to know or meet the people of Rosh Pina, we weren’t there long enough. But there was one thing we all remarked upon, and that was that the children were all stunning, all seemed to be little blondies, but the parents were quite the opposite, not nice-looking at all. Go figure.

I don’t think that we stayed in Rosh Pina more than a week. One thing I do remember about our short stay in Rosh Pina was Mike’s “secret mission.” One evening Mike came to us and said that he required three good shots for a special mission. I immediately volunteered, as did Danny Tate from Toronto and a third fellow. I felt good about having Danny along, as not only was he a WW ll commando vet, but also a very quiet unassuming type. We met Mike before dawn and headed towards the border on the back of a truck. I thought to myself, “a real mission at last. Maybe cross-border reconnaissance.” A short while later we arrived at the edge of a deserted Arab village, and followed Mike silently into the village. He motioned for us to be quiet and then said, “You guys stay here, but spread out a bit, I’m going to the other side of the village and when you hear a shot you’ll see a flock of pigeons coming your way and each of you had better get one.” We couldn’t believe our ears! We were so mad that we set up all kinds of targets and just blasted away, scaring off most of the pigeons. It took us a couple of hours to each get a pigeon which the cook in Rosh Pina wouldn’t let near the kosher kitchen. I had a hard time forgiving Mike for this “secret mission.”

We were informed that our guns would be moved to Haifa to do anti-aircraft duty at the oil refineries. We decided to throw a party for the 2nd Brigade. We visited all the kibbutzim in the area and scrounged all the food we could, and did our best to make it a real “do,” but I only vaguely recollect it. I also have a vague recollection of discussing the unit’s next move, which I was very unhappy about, with some of the fellows. I found soul-mates in two of the fellows, Georgie (Gershon) Jameson from Johannesburg, and Davie Boxer from Los Angeles. The three of us decided that as soon as the unit got to Haifa, we were going to leave for Tel Aviv to join the Palmach. There was no way that we were going to stay on anti-aircraft duty in Haifa.

My only recollection of the journey to Haifa is being parked on a main street in a small town with hordes of people surrounding us and admiring the guns. Everything felt right, the warmth of the air, the rural feel of the town, even the smell in the air. The fact that this was Israel, these were my people, and that I was helping to make a difference in our future. I’m not so sure that the first seeds of Aliyah weren’t planted there.

I was up on the Carmel some time in the late afternoon, waiting for further orders. I remember looking around and admiring the view from the mountain. After all I was a prairie boy used to flat terrain. My only other recollection, and this one is quite vivid, is of the whole crew traveling into town from the Refineries the next morning in order to eat breakfast at a café. No mess facilities had yet been set up for the unit. Davie, Georgie and I had thrown all our gear onto the truck while Mike and Leon turned a blind eye to what was going on. On arriving at the café, the two of them went in first while we shook hands with all the fellows as they went into the café one by one. We threw our duffel bags over our shoulders and hiked to the edge of town where we hitched a ride to Tel Aviv and a new chapter in our army “career.”

7. THE PALMACH

To be absolutely honest, I don’t remember the trip to Tel Aviv at all. Maybe we even took the bus. As a matter of fact, I don’t remember too much about the next few days, except for the following: that afternoon we went to the Palmach recruiting office on Rothschild Boulevard, about a block or so east of Allenby. It seems to me that the office was a converted apartment on the ground floor of a typical 4- or 5-storey apartment building. There must have been a couple of dozen fellows milling about outside. I remember receiving a new army identity book, and we were probably told to report back in a couple of days. They must have issued us passes so that we could go to the “Town Major’s” office, where chits for hotel accommodation were issued. This was my first good look at Tel Aviv, and it charmed me. It still had that small town feel about it. Traffic was very light, as most of the vehicles on the road were public transportation, old-fashioned buses with all their windows wide open. There seemed to be loads of orange juice kiosks where the same glass got a quick “shpritz” (spray) of cold water before being filled for the next customer, who never seemed to mind. And the railway from the south crossed Allenby next to the Post Office, while traffic was halted.

Both Davie and Georgie had relatives in Tel Aviv. Davie went to visit his, while Georgie was nice enough to invite me to go and visit his aunt and uncle. His uncle, Dr. Sucharow, had his office in their apartment. We went there for lunch the next day. His uncle and aunt were charming and both spoke a very passable English. But what was an eye-opener for me, and made me feel a bit inadequate, was the fact that their 13-year-old son Boris spoke German to his parents, Russian to his grandmother (who lived with them), English to us and Hebrew in the street. I remember that after lunch Dr. Sucharow insisted that we must all lie down until three o’clock. He explained that in the heat of the day everyone goes home for lunch from 1 p.m. till 4 p.m. and then businesses re-open till 7 p.m. His examining table was my bed for a very restless two hours. I visited with the Sucharows from time to time during the early 50s and then lost touch.

The next afternoon Davie got us involved with an arrangement that was foisted on him. This involved taking two very nice, but very plain, girls rowing on the Yarkon River. I guess he figured there was safety in numbers. We managed to get the boat out into the middle of the river, which was not very wide, but we were having a devil of a time getting back to shore. I’m not so sure that it wasn’t the girls who got us back to shore. We had a real laugh about it afterwards.

I think that it was the next day that we reported back to the Palmach office. We were then transported, with others, to an army base at Be’er Yaacov, about a half-hour ride south of Tel Aviv. I remember that it was evening when our names were called out, and we were loaded on a truck. We knew that we were headed for the Negev, because we were told back in Tel Aviv that we were joining the Negev Brigade. I can’t remember my feelings as we left the camp. I was probably excited and pleased that something definite was happening.
We traveled to Kibbutz Negba, about as far south as you could go before hitting the Egyptian positions. We got off the truck and were told to sit down as we would have a long night’s walk ahead of us. Kibbutz Negba was all blacked-out and everyone lived in bunkers. The kibbutz had already repulsed Egyptian attacks. I understood that the unit we were going to join was in the Israeli-controlled portion of the Negev, and that the area was cut off from the rest of Israel by the Egyptians. I also understood that we would be walking through the Egyptian lines and very close to one of their strong-points, the Teggart fortress at Iraq el Suweidan. These fortresses were built at regular intervals throughout the country and were previously used by the Palestine Police and the British army.

We left Kibbutz Negba at around midnight on a moonless night. It was about August 10th. We were about 30 altogether, half with weapons and half without. I was without a weapon and not too thrilled about it. We were told that we would be walking in single file with someone without a weapon behind someone with a weapon. The logic was that if the person without a weapon got hit, well, that’s too bad, but if a person with a weapon gets hit, then the fellow behind him takes his weapon. What other orders were given I can’t remember, but one order that was not given was to muffle everything that could make a noise, such as a digging tool banging against a water bottle. Having trained in the Canadian Army I knew that at night you make no noise while listening for the enemy’s noise; it seemed like walking with the Israel Philharmonic while they played the 1812 Overture. Sure enough, at one point the Egyptians started to fire mortars in our general direction, and they also sent up flares to illuminate the area. We were fortunate that they were nowhere near us with the mortar fire, and also that it was known that they didn’t like to venture out from their positions at night. Suffice to say that we covered the six or seven miles (10 km.) safely, and arrived before first light at Kibbutz Gvar’am.

Shortly after dawn the trucks arrived and we were off to our new home, the Depot at Kibbutz Ruhama. Why it was called the Depot I don’t know, but it was a collection of wooden prefabs a little way from the kibbutz itself. Davie, Georgie and I were soon introduced to our new army duties here, waiters in the mess hall! We accepted the job in good humor realizing that (a) we were “the new boys on the block,” (b) our knowledge of Hebrew was non-existent, (c) with the second truce in effect, the only actions now were patrols. The gang we were serving were known as “Chayot Hanegev” literally “the Negev Beasts.” Most of them were down there from the early days, late 1947 or early 1948. There were other English-speaking Machalniks there at the same time, but I don’t remember having any contact with them.

After about a week of “slinging hash,” during which time our Hebrew vocabulary was enlarged by the words for “vegetarian” and “alternative choice,” we decided that enough was enough. We marched over to the adjutant’s office to voice our displeasure at what seemed like a permanent job. Solomon the adjutant was a character. To me he looked in his 40s, had what you could call a grizzled look, and sported a large moustache. But what fascinated me was how he took care of flies that annoyed him, and there was no shortage of flies. If a fly landed on his arm he would slowly move his other hand over until he would, again slowly, squash the fly with his thumb. While this minor drama was taking place he would be looking and talking directly to you, and acting as if this was a natural function. I think that I missed most of the conversation because I was so transfixed by this unusual feat. But Solomon was also smart enough to know when he had pushed a good thing to its limit, and we were promised that in the next day or so we would see “action.”

True to his word, in the next day or so I was stuffed into one of the home-made armored cars. These were 5-ton White trucks stripped to motor and chassis, with a home-made steel body and turret added. They had two Spandau machine guns as their armament. Needless to say I was like a “5th wheel,” with no particular function. I was of two minds about the whole thing because I resented the fact that I had no particular function, but on the other hand pleased that I was doing something other than slinging hash. I think that I went on two or three patrols, and on one of them we were actually shot at. We were driving with the door open because it was hot as hell in the vehicle. When the shots rang out, the fellows quickly shut the door, and tried to determine where the shots were coming from. None of them hit the vehicle, and we stopped as the others were deciding what to do. I couldn’t see what was happening outside, and I didn’t understand what was being said. I felt a bit letdown when I saw that we were turning around, but I couldn’t blame the others. They knew that our outfit, the 9th Battalion of the Palmach, was due to be rotated north for reorganization very shortly.

A couple of miles west of Kibbutz Ruhama lay Kibbutz Dorot where a small airfield had been established; that is, a piece of ground had been leveled, and I guess compacted, to take a DC-3 airplane. One night, helping to load a truck, I watched a DC-3 come in so heavily laden that one wing dipped so low that I thought it would crash. They had flown in directly from Czechoslovakia, where most of our arms were coming from. After that, flights started coming in from up north with units of the Givati Brigade including, to my great surprise, a fellow from Winnipeg by the name of Joe Abramson, whom I knew.

It was about then that I had my second, and last, bout of homesickness. I don’t know what triggered it, except that someone’s radio was playing some of the old songs, and suddenly a wave of sadness and melancholy swept over me. It only lasted a short while, maybe ten minutes or so, and then it was gone forever. The first time was while we were in France at the chateau, but that time there were tears in my eyes.

I hadn’t been with the unit more than about three weeks when we were told that we were going back north. I was about to experience my first airplane ride courtesy of the Israel Air Force. We were trucked over to the “airfield” at Kibbutz Dorot, where we lined up alongside this dust-covered DC-3, or C-46 as the case may be, when the pilot, a cocky American, told us that if any of us felt like being sick then we should be sick here on the airfield and not in his plane. Although I had no trepidation about flying, this kind of threw me. I should mention that some of the other fellows had flying experience in WW ll and of course went through all the exaggerated motions of airsickness for the benefit of us “greenhorns.” We boarded the plane and sat on two long metal benches on each side of the plane. We took off without a door on the plane, and landed at the Tel Nof (Ekron) air base 20 minutes later. The flight was smooth and a great introduction for all us first-timers. It was mostly take-off and landing anyhow. From there we were transported to the army base at Be’er Yaacov for re-organization of the unit. I’m sure that the whole Israeli army was going through total restructuring into a unified, totally cohesive organization. No more rogue units. New equipment and armaments were being acquired and absorbed. I was still not aware of the bigger picture, but this was the end of the Haganah and the beginning of the IDF. It was also the beginning of the end of the Palmach. The Palmach would be slowly integrated into the army, even though the officers refused to wear ranks and ate with everyone in the same mess hall.

8. THE JEEPS

 

The Jeep Company of the 9th Battalion of the Palmach totaled no more than about 50 men. There were three platoons of four jeeps each, with three men in each of three jeeps, and four men in one of the jeeps in each platoon. Each jeep had two machine guns: irony of ironies, German Spandaus obtained from Czechoslovakia, one mounted up front for the jeep “commander” and the other mounted on a high swivel for the rear gunner. The 4th man in each platoon was a first aid man who came complete with stretcher. The jeep that I drove carried the first aid man. The 9th Battalion also had an armored car company, the number of which I never did know, and infantry mounted on half-tracks, also of an unknown quantity to me. I did know a few fellows in the armored cars, one, Ben Rostoker, being the only other Canadian in the 9th. Otherwise we “jeepniks” seemed to be a world of our own.

The fellows in the jeeps were roughly half English-speaking volunteers from overseas, and half Hebrew-speaking sabras or those who had been in the country for some time. As far as I knew they were Palmachniks for some time. The fellow that I shared a room with here in Be’er Yaacov, who was later killed in the Sinai, had been in the Palmach for six years and had a photo album with photos of those six years which he shared with me. He was a soft-spoken, modest individual, the wireless operator for the captain of our company. We all got along well, although naturally each group tended to socialize with their own. The platoon commanders were all Hebrew-speaking but with an adequate grasp of English, as were the various jeep commanders with English-speaking crew. Many of the orders were given in Hebrew, which we all learned to recognize by their sound.

Our overseas volunteers were mainly South Africans, which pleased me greatly, as I always considered them to be the most mature as a group, a few from England, five from the USA, and me, the lone Canadian. And then there was the famous Belgian known to everyone as Eskimo. There was also one French Jew by the name of Albert Monteaux who became my jeep commander and friend. Two of the fellows from England were real characters. One served in a special commando group in World War II known as the SAS, and was awarded the Military Medal for bravery, but you had to watch out for him. He would suddenly grab you by your shirt and butt your head with his, which left you with a headache for some time. The other was about 5- feet tall with a sweet disposition and a beard which seemed to go down to his waist. He had a motto which he espoused to anyone who would listen: “You need to have two fires going. One for the chai (Indian for tea), the other for the dhobi (Indian for laundry).” He served in North Africa in World War II in a unit called the Long Range Desert Group. They would spend lengthy periods behind enemy lines doing reconnaissance and spying on enemy troop movements. There was a great bond formed amongst us overseas volunteers (Machal), and again it was a good feeling to know that you were being judged on the type of person that you were, rather than who you were. I can’t help but repeat how comfortable it was to be amongst your own.

Before beginning actual training, our jeeps arrived. The keys were left in the jeeps and anyone could “borrow” one, all you needed was gasoline. I solved this problem by obtaining a short piece of hose and siphoning gas from any available half-track because they stood higher than a jeep. Then I would give anyone willing a wild ride around the camp roads. The officers must have been watching and were obviously impressed with my driving skills, and for our first exercise appointed me the captain’s driver. Well, wouldn’t you know that the first thing I managed to do in this cross-country exercise was to get us stuck in the sand. I was quickly demoted to driving a corporal. Actually he was just a jeep commander with no official rank, the aforementioned Albert whose English was quite good but when excited would holler at me in French “lentement, au gauche, au droit;” luckily I retained some of my high school French. But I always referred to him as my corporal, mainly in deference because he was much older than us. He was I believe 33- or 34-years-old, and rumor had it that he had served in the French underground in World War II as an officer.

I only remember one night-training exercise in which we were to find our way back to a predetermined spot using landmarks only. It’s amazing how confused you can get over a very short distance in a featureless area. I can remember Albert and I debating over which way to turn.

One episode that remains clear in my mind is the night that we turned into armed bandits. There was a behind-the-scene struggle between the Palmach and the newly organized IDF (Israel Defense Forces). The jeep that I drove, No. 4545, was not in good condition. It didn’t have the power that it should’ve had. Whether it was the quality of the equipment, or the quantity, or both, I don’t know. But the Battalion Commander called us together one evening, and we non-Hebrew speakers were informed by our buddies who spoke English that our Commander, Haim Kidoni (literally Haim “of the bayonet”) who one day would be chief of staff Haim Bar-Lev, commanded us to arm ourselves and go into Tel Aviv and literally steal jeeps and bring them back to camp! And we did! I remember going in a half-track with others into Tel Aviv and holding up a garage on Salame Street and removing a couple of jeeps. The mechanic couldn’t believe what was going on, nor could the officer in the Police Force who soon appeared on the scene. He was apparently pleading with us not to do this, but to no avail. Of course nobody was going to use force. Maybe it was explained to him that it was only that a point was being made. At any rate, our unit arrived back at camp with a number of stolen jeeps and one Studebaker with a flat tire. I’m sure that the vehicles were returned, and a point was made. But it was bizarre. Funny how I remember that so vividly and can’t remember the training at all, except that we never got any anti-aircraft training.

We all got leave for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, and I decided that I would spend it in Jerusalem. I guess that Georgie and Davie went to their relatives, and since I still hadn’t bonded with some of the other guys, I went by myself. I hitched a ride on some vehicle that went as part of a convoy to Jerusalem. At that time the “Burma Road” was still in existence – a stretch of dirt road over which most vehicles were assisted by tractors. Otherwise there was no problem reaching Jerusalem. I wish that I could tell you how I felt upon first seeing the city, but to be honest I don’t remember.

I was given a room in a hotel called the “Blue and White.” It was located on the second floor of a building. I also remember that the proprietor or manager was very nice and explained to me that he would bring me water every day for washing, and please don’t try to flush the toilets as there was no running water. He would “flush” them a few times a day with a bucket full of water.
I had a very interesting experience on one of the days that I was there. I was standing on one of the streets that seemed to have a very good view of the surrounding area, when an officer in the police force started talking to me. He soon discovered that my Hebrew was non-existent, but his English was quite good. He was fascinated by my unit badge above the left pocket of my shirt. The badge was a red cloth triangle with the Hebrew words “mobile strike force” and the metal Palmach pin in the centre. I think that he was taken with the idea that a Jewish boy from Canada would come to join the fight.

When he found out that this was my first time in Jerusalem, he invited me to join him on his rounds. Towards the end he told me that he would take me to the “front,” which was a long 3-storey building evacuated of its tenants, and which he called the Bukharian Quarters. He turned me over to a soldier with instructions to show me the Jordanian positions, and also to feed me lunch. I thanked him profusely and felt lucky that I had met him. The soldier showed me how they had knocked holes in the apartment walls so that they could go from one end of the building to the other. We eventually made our way to the top floor where he led me to a partially sand-bagged window. He told me that from here you could see the Jordanian positions, but I shouldn’t look for more than a few seconds as there were snipers watching. When I looked out I found that the Jordanians were in a building that looked to be about ten feet away. I didn’t linger at the window.

I clearly remember the awareness of sniper fire. Streets that ran directly into Arab-held areas were the most vulnerable. You could see people pausing at certain intersections, and then dashing across. I naturally followed suit. Across the dangerous streets large bed sheets were hung from building to building, thus obscuring the view for potential snipers.

I don’t remember how long I stayed in Jerusalem, and I also can’t recall the mood of the people, but to a naive youth everything seemed to be as normal as possible.

It wasn’t long before we were ordered back to the Negev, about the middle of October. Under the truce agreement the Egyptians were to allow supply convoys down to the Negev, but during daylight hours only. At any rate our convoy was made up in the evening; I remember us forming up on the main street of Rishon Le Zion. The shops were dimly lit but there were no street lights. We traveled in convoy down a paved road, and after a few hours were safely in Israeli territory after an uneventful trip. Just how many vehicles and what types were in the convoy was unknown to me. Our jeeps drove to our staging area, the orchard at Kibbutz Gevulot. It was still dark when some fellows approached us and asked us how many were killed or wounded in the convoy. Apparently Israeli radio announced that, contrary to the truce agreement, an Israeli convoy was attacked by the Egyptians. The army produced some shot-up trucks in order to break the Egyptian blockade of the Negev, and to capture Beersheba. We didn’t realize it, but Beersheba was about to become our new home for the next few months.

9. BEERSHEBA

Ron Chiskelson (South Africa), David Boxer (USA), Albert Montreaux (France), “Rusty” Centner (South Africa), Harvey Sirulnikoff (Canada), Migdal Teperson (South Africa), Alan Lipmas (South Africa), Jerry Levine (UK)

The task of the Jeep Company in the attack on Beersheba was to cut the road to Hebron to prevent reinforcements from Hebron. With the jeeps was a 3/4 ton truck (command car) carrying dynamite to blow up a bridge. It was a night with a very heavy mist, a fog really, and we had lost our way. We wandered for hours, and only with the first light of day did our officers think that they finally knew where we were. They spotted a fortified position on top of a slight hill, and shouted “shelanu” which means “ours.” They were wrong. In the next instant “ours” opened fire on us. The Egyptians didn’t realize that we were going to drive up to say hello, but obviously thought that we were going to attack them. Fortunately there was a nearby gully in which we all took cover, because we had another problem to deal with: just at the moment that we were fired upon, the Command Car with the dynamite broke down, and was sitting there like a big fat target.

Whether I was ordered to do it or I volunteered I don’t recall. But I went out with my jeep and backed up to the Command Car, hooked a chain on to its bumper and tried to pull it, but I couldn’t move it. Maybe with all the firing going on I forgot to release something on the vehicle. At any rate I sat down by the right front wheel of my jeep and shouted back to them that I couldn’t move it. They started yelling back, “For God’s sake, don’t sit there, that’s what they’re shooting at and that’s where the dynamite is!” I took their advice and ran some distance away, although there was no place really to take cover. No sooner did I lie down when a shot glanced off a rock not ten feet from my head. I immediately ran back to the wheel of the jeep shouting, “It’s safer to be where they’re aiming at.” True story, so help me.

They finally told me to come back with the jeep to the gully.
They got someone else to go out and try to retrieve the dynamite, but decided that this time he would get covering fire. So I was sent out again as No.2 on Albert’s machine gun. We ran to a slight rise and gave covering fire while the Command Car was successfully pulled into the gully. Now it was our turn to run back. I swear that I saw spurts in the dirt, and when we got to the gully I felt as if I had run 10 miles, my heart pounding wildly.

Somehow we extricated ourselves because the next thing I remember is going into Beersheba from the southern end of the town. We spread out and. approached carefully as there were shots being fired over our heads, and I’m not sure that the situation was clear to anybody. We then moved up the main street very slowly towards the main police station, the last holdout, when we were informed that they had just surrendered. We then started to go through the houses for two reasons. One was to make sure that there were no stragglers, and two was to look for useful items such as chickens (which we did find), corn flakes, and other tasty items.

The units started marshalling themselves in the open spaces, and I thought to myself, “I hope there are some units at the edges of town in case the Egyptians counterattack.” But just then I was given another task. A fellow from one of the other units had one leg almost blown off, and needed to be transported to a medical facility of some sort. The stretcher was set up on my jeep, and we set out to find a doctor or an ambulance. The situation was absolutely chaotic, and in utter frustration whoever was traveling with me and the wounded fellow said, “Head for Mishmar Hanegev.” A hospital had been set up there, and I didn’t hesitate or tell anyone our plan, and under this fellow’s guidance headed as fast as possible for the kibbutz. I was furious that we couldn’t get immediate help in Beersheba, and was cursing the chaos that seemed to exist. When I returned sometime later, my unit had gone. They had left towards the next objective which was Bir Asluj. I hope that the fellow on the stretcher made it.

In Beersheba I was advised to return to our staging area at Kibbutz Gevulot, which I did. The first figure I saw was Arnold Brown with his massive beard. I must have looked pretty tired because he sat me down and made me a nice cup of tea. That’s when he repeated his mantra to me, “Two fires going, one for the chai (tea) and one for the dhobi (laundry).” The next one to get hold of me was Solomon the Adjutant. He scolded me, saying that I’d deserted my unit. I lashed out at him, in part because I was tired, and told him that I wasn’t about to leave a badly wounded man to just lie there and possibly die. That evening the rest of the unit joined us, having merely reconnoitered towards Bir Asluj to make sure that the Egyptians were not preparing to counterattack. The next day our unit moved to Beersheba.

We quickly picked out a lovely two-storey house on the main street for ourselves, and set about preparing the chickens that we had “liberated.” I was a chicken plucker because I was otherwise useless in the kitchen. I thought, “What would Mama say if she could see me now,” because we never lifted a finger in the kitchen at home. One of the South Africans whom we nicknamed Migdal (which means tower in Hebrew), because of his height, appointed himself as chef and we enjoyed a real treat sitting on the floor. By the way, Migdal, whose real name is David Teperson, became one of the most prominent builders in Israel and at the age of 74 (and with the rank of colonel in the reserves) became the longest-serving reservist in the IDF. Our dreams of residing in splendor didn’t last long, as headquarters soon decided that they were more suited to our house.

We were moved to a one-storey house with all its rooms facing a high stone-fenced courtyard. I think that we were two platoons in this house of six or seven rooms. The kitchen and mess hall were set up in the house next door, with its own cooks, kitchen staff and servers. But the nicest surprise came almost immediately. My platoon got a new platoon commander, a 19-year-old by the name of Motta Gorban who became Chief of Staff Motta Gur years later. He had taken part in the attack on Beersheba as part of a platoon of newly graduated officers. I welcomed this change as our previous platoon commander was a very distant, cold fish who had as little contact with us as possible. Motta was born to lead by stature and by nature. He was tall and heavyset, never hesitated and knew what he wanted. He also took an interest in everyone’s welfare; needless to say I liked him.

We soon settled into a steady routine of patrols, reconnaissance forays including long-distance ones behind enemy lines; Motta was always busy making maps, and testing enemy strongholds. If Motta felt that they hadn’t shown us everything they had, we would wait until everything was quiet and pop up again and do it all over again. We never did meet an Egyptian patrol, although I used to worry sometimes as we traveled a lot through wadis. Some of them were great and you could drive fast, although our speedometers weren’t working. What worried me was that they were also great for ambushes. Anyhow, most of the time I had the greatest confidence in Motta’s ability to keep us out of trouble.

It always felt good to get back to the relative safety of Beersheba after a long day out. We had rigged up a shower at our house to wash away the dust from our travels, and then it was nice to sit down and have a hot meal served to you. I don’t remember what meals were served, but I do remember the kosher corned beef that we ate, for two reasons. Reason #1– it was made in Winnipeg by Chicago Kosher, a fact that I endlessly pointed out to anyone interested (which was no one). Reason #2 – it was good, cold or hot. The fellows who had served in World War II all agreed that it was far superior to bully beef.

I don’t recall much in the way of entertainment, such as movies, but maybe there were. We spent the evenings talking, really getting to know one another. I started to bond quite strongly with the fellow who drove the third jeep in our platoon, right behind me. He was my age and from South Africa and had served in the South African army in World War II, including time in Italy. South Africa had lost a Division (14,000 men, more or less) in North Africa, and apparently was signing up under-age youth with parental consent. My buddy, Irwin Cohen, came from a broken home and got one of his parents to consent. His experiences had left him a very nervous individual, and when we returned from some trying foray I knew that Irwin would hold his coffee cup with two shaking hands. He settled in Israel on a moshav and we saw him and his family from time to time.

A highlight of all the entertainment was when Leonard Bernstein conducted the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Beersheba; the ovation was wild. I think that the highlight for me was a reading in Yiddish of a Shalom Aleichem story. It was the most beautiful Yiddish I had ever heard, and I enjoyed it with a large crowd of young guys just like me. The most thrilling moment came when Ben-Gurion visited Beersheba. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, as it was unannounced. I happened to be standing within 10 feet of a living legend. I wanted to reach out and take his hand, but didn’t have the nerve.

A break in routine came when we were sent north to the army camp at Sarafand to pick up new jeeps, sometime between October 21st (the fall of Beersheba) and December 22nd (start of the fighting in Sinai). It was a beautiful fall day and I was sitting under a tree when I noticed the offices emptying of the young guys and girls who were stationed there. Sarafand was a major camp with a large headquarters staff. But what also caught my eye was the fact that many seemed to be going to the bus stop, probably heading home. I thought to myself, “Am I crazy? I came 5,000 miles to risk my life, and they live right here and go home every night.” Then I answered my own question: “You have to do what you think is right, and not look at others,” and I felt better. From Sarafand we took our new jeeps to a private machine shop in Petah Tikva, and in the early evening drove back to Tel Aviv where I ate my very first falafel.

Another very touching incident occurred as we drove through Tel Aviv. The first aid fellow on my jeep, very young Israeli of Sephardi descent, suddenly hollered out, “Abba, Abba” (Dad, Dad). We all stopped and waited while father and son embraced, and this was the first time that I had any insight into how a parent must feel when a child is in danger, or had even given any thought to it. Our next stop was somewhere on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. We stopped in front of a wooden kiosk with a kerosene lantern providing the only light, in a poor neighborhood. It was nighttime by now, and this area was very quiet. Anyhow we were now going to have “supper” from this kiosk, a wartime falafel. Because pitas were always provided by the Arabs of Jaffa, there were none available. The owner cut a loaf of bread in half, scooped out the inside and filled the hollow with falafel balls and vegetables. I loved it, but I always enjoyed bread. We drove back to Beersheba that night, and I can still smell the distinct aroma of the burnt-out Arab villages on the way back. But I was now the proud driver of my new jeep No. 10601 (the same number backwards and forwards).

We were a motley crew: we were all dressed in various shades of khaki depending on which part of your “uniform” came from which country. Mostly we had British or American battle dress; my tunic was a British battle dress tunic, while my friend Irwin’s tunic was American, complete with sergeant’s stripes. We had no helmets, and wore everything from peaked caps to wool stocking caps (a favorite) to mine, which was an Israeli army issue soft peaked cap which replaced my beloved black beret lost in the Galilee. Israeli army sweaters were standard issue, given out with the onset of cooler, even cold, winter nights. We were issued a motley collection of overcoats. Mine was a familiar British army “greatcoat.” I had one for five years in the Winnipeg Light Infantry, but my Israeli one had no buttons. I took the two little belts, minus their buttons, adorning the back of the coat and pulled them around the front and tied them in a knot to keep the coat wrapped around me. RSM Sewell of the WLI would have had apoplexy.

Some made an effort to look jaunty, or romantic. Lee from the USA, with whom I formed a closer friendship later on, always wore his wool cap at a jaunty angle, and for good measure would throw an Arab kaffiya around his shoulders for the added “desert” touch. I always admired the dignified look and bearing of my jeep commander, Albert Monteaux. Like Motta, Albert had physical presence. He was about 6-feet tall, well-built, with a handsome rugged face, and slightly balding. With his ever-present pipe and calm demeanor, you believed the rumors that he was a major in the French Resistance. His only outbursts of nervousness took place when we were out in the field at night, driving cross-country, and you had to be careful not to end up in a ditch or a hole. Let me explain why. I do, and did, have spectacles to correct some short-sightedness, but I didn’t wear them by day because I never felt the need for them. It was only at night that I felt more secure if I wore my glasses, but unfortunately I managed to break half of my right lens and the idea of having a one-and-a-half-lensed driver maneuvering over tricky terrain in the dark with no lights, flapped the unflappable Albert. So he’d lean out and stare into the dark and holler, “Au gauche,” or “au droit,” or his favorite: “lentement.”

Another anecdote about Albert: while we were in Beersheba another unit was stationed there, the French Commandos; they were instrumental in the capture of the town. They were not a very large unit and were made up of Jews from France and North Africa. They were led by a larger-than-life character, a gentile with the nom-de-guerre of Teddy Eytan. His second-in-command was a ruggedly handsome Jew who was a friend of Albert’s. I wondered why Albert was not in that unit, but I’m sure that he had very sound reasons. One evening Albert’s friend came to visit Albert, and they sat in a room off the courtyard with the windows open, and we could hear an animated discussion going on for hours. One of the fellows who had a slight understanding of French told us that they were debating what kind of a society the Jews of Israel should become. Albert’s friend was of the opinion that Israel should be a nation like all others, with their faults and blemishes, while Albert took the view that Israel should truly be a “light unto other nations” with a moral society. I was impressed that these two rugged individuals would engage in a philosophical debate about what the long-term result of risking their lives should be. I mulled it over for a while, and agreed with Albert; oh well, so much for good thoughts and wishes.

A comment on the weather. If an almost ideal climate can be conjured up for a war, then the Negev in the fall and winter would fit that bill. We had very little rain in Beersheba, and no rain further south. The days were very pleasant with only a sweater or light jacket required, and in winter you would need an overcoat on most nights. The wind was not a factor, but then after all these years I don’t remember everything.

10. SINAI

On December 22nd 1948 fighting broke out again. Israel was determined to push the Egyptians back to the international borders, and thereby lay claim to at least all of the northern Negev. My mates and I were unaware of the larger picture. There was some excitement as we prepared our vehicles and got all our gear together for what we knew would be more than a one- or two-day patrol.

The task of the Jeep Company was to set up an ambush halfway between two important Egyptian bases: Bur Asluj, about 30km. (20miles) south of Beersheba, and Auja-al-Hafir at the Sinai border about 50km (30miles) south of Bur Asluj. We took a circuitous route in order to avoid detection, probably a route that we had mapped on one of our previous patrols.

I admit that I only have partial recollections of the actions we were involved in, but what the heck, this is no military historical document, just the imperfectly remembered happenings and impressions of a 20-year-old youth from Winnipeg who never had any intention of putting anything down on paper, let alone after a 50-year gap.

I clearly remember setting up the ambush. We set up our 23 machine guns on the crest of a small crescent-shaped rise on the east side of the road after parking our jeeps where they couldn’t be seen by anyone. We were expecting enemy reinforcements to be heading north from Auja once an attack was launched on Bur Asluj. We laid mines across and alongside the road, and the plan was to hold fire until the lead vehicle hit a mine. Some of the other vehicles would hopefully end up on one of the mines beside the road. To add to this I was sent close to the road as No.2 man on the PIAT (an anti-tank weapon), with the fellow who was to fire. Maybe I was chosen because I was familiar with the weapon from my WLI days, I don’t know.

I was pleased with what looked like a perfectly planned ambush. My confidence in our officers went up a notch. After a while the word came down that an enemy convoy was headed our way, and everyone was told to hold their fire until they hit a mine. I couldn’t see down the road, but I could hear vehicles when a shot was fired. I couldn’t believe it! Someone got nervous and spoiled the whole thing. We must have rushed back to our jeeps, because the next thing I remember is racing across a flat area, firing and chasing Egyptian vehicles and fleeing Egyptian soldiers. It took us quite a while to round them up, and I had a good look at this segment of the Egyptian army. They were bewildered and frightened, more interested in holding onto woven baskets with their food than holding onto their rifles, let alone firing them. When they could see that no harm would come to them, they popped up all over the place, some just happy to get a ride back to our holding pen. We even put one in the back of our jeep and let him “man” our rear gun, with the cartridge belt removed, of course. We were all grinning from ear to ear.

Many were dark-skinned Sudanese, including a large fellow with a white arm band who kept pointing to it and repeating, “Doctor, doctor.” He was probably a first aid man. We captured lots of trucks, an intact armored car, and the first vehicle fired upon, with blood on the front seat. One of the trucks contained cartons of Egyptian Gold Flake cigarettes. This excited us, free cigarettes, all you could store in your jeep. I also acquired a souvenir, an Egyptian officer’s cap. I found it on the ground, and for a moment toyed with the idea of wearing it, but I soon discarded the idea. I did remove the badge, and have it to this day.

We then headed to Auja-al-Hafir, today Nitzana. When we arrived the Egyptians had been cleared; only pillboxes remained. We got the bizarre order to charge this line of pillboxes and clear them. I thought that the “brass” had gone mad, we weren’t tanks or armored cars, and a few machine guns would devastate us. We charged, and much to our relief found the pillboxes empty. I have a feeling that this was a “We’re pretty sure, but let’s check anyhow” thing.

Shortly after that we crossed the border into Sinai. The Israelis were all excited, as one of them said, “We’re crossing the border without passports.” The next bit of action took place within the next night or two. Our jeeps pulled up in the dark to a small group of vehicles, the command post for this operation. In the distance we could see flashes and hear gunfire, while just ahead of us was what looked like a mortar barrage. The operations officer was pointing us in the direction of this mortar barrage while our captain was questioning him. The next thing, the operations officer jumped up and seated himself on the hood of the lead jeep, and with one hand holding onto the vertical metal bar welded to the front of every jeep, with his other hand made a sweeping motion of “follow me.” It reminded me of the cavalry charges of bygone days. I was greatly impressed by the leaders who truly did lead.

He led us through the mortar barrage and to our positions on the flank of the infantry. We parked our jeeps and dug ourselves shallow slit trenches. I was given Albert’s machine gun while he went back with the operations officer. Our job was to protect the infantry’s flank, and probably to cover them in case of a counterattack. We lay there for quite a while when suddenly artillery shells started coming our way. First they fell short and I braced myself for the next round which I was sure would be close, but they were short again. Some of the fellows had gone to great lengths to make their slit trench as comfortable as possible, even gathering whatever shrub there was for bedding. But I thought how ironic it would be if you spent all that time and effort, only to have a shell land on you! I said to myself, “There is no way that God is going to have a laugh at my expense,” so I dug a very shallow and uncomfortable trench and made the best of it.
Suddenly the battlefield became very quiet, and you could hear individual voices, and then the movement of vehicles with their lights on. I picked up the other two fellows from my jeep, and we went looking for Albert. As I drove around with my headlights full on, suddenly in the sweep of my headlights I picked up the back of a small truck with the bodies of our dead stacked on the back. I had seen Egyptian dead in Beersheba, and then in the ambush at Mishrefe earlier in this campaign, but this was the first time that I had seen our dead, and it sent a shudder through me. I realized how lucky we were to only be involved peripherally in this attack.

At first light we headed for the road junction called Abu-Agella, about 25-miles south of the border. This was an important junction, as it controlled the road south through the Sinai, and the road west to the coastal town of El Arish. At our approach the Egyptians fled. An Egyptian half-ton with a 20mm cannon mounted on the back hightailed down the road, going south. I always joked that it was the sight of big Al Wank, with his wild beard and ferocious look, that scared the daylights out of them. Al’s jeep was first in, with me right behind him. At any rate, Abu-Agella became our base for the 15 days we spent in Sinai. Aside from a few incidents, most of that time is a blank.
Others soon joined us at Abu-Agella, coming down in an assortment of vehicles including a big silver Dan bus taken right off the Tel Aviv route. Trying to turn the bus around, the driver stuck in the sand. We tried to push him out. As we were pushing, someone shouted, “Spitfire.” Sure enough, an Egyptian Spitfire was coming straight for this wonderful target, and us. We ran like hell for the nearby wadi which had a mound in the middle. The Spitfire left the bus and came after us. When it came from the right we ran to the left of the mound, and when it came from the left, we ran to the right. I remember we kind of joked as we ran, because we knew that we could get to the other side of the mound before it could. This happened two or three times, when I looked up and saw another plane heading our way, and thought, “We’re in for it now.” Then I heard short bursts of machine gun fire and realized that the newcomer was Israeli. His aim was good, the Egyptian plane was soon trailing smoke, and then I watched it nose dive beyond the horizon and heard the explosion as it hit the ground. By coincidence, I confirmed the kill to the Israeli pilot who shot it down a couple of nights later, the same night that an American, Al Twersky, lost a leg when his jeep hit a mine.

On our way to the Egyptian airfield at El Arish one night, we were traveling on the paved road towards the airfield; just as we reached a bend in the road with a low rise in the terrain to our right, there was an explosion behind my jeep. I thought that we had driven into an ambush and was bracing myself for small arms fire, when we realized that the jeep behind me had hit a mine. There were three mines laid in the road, two on one side and one on the other, with just enough room for a jeep to go through. By sheer good luck the first jeep, driven by Al Wank, went right between them. I made it a habit to follow in his tracks and so I went between them, but Al Twersky, who was taking the injured Irwin Cohen’s place, hit the mine on his side of the road. Some other jeep with a stretcher might have taken him away, or there was an ambulance in our group of vehicles. At any rate, he lost his left leg. I saw him last October at our little reunion, and he gets around so well with his artificial leg that you wouldn’t know that it wasn’t real.

We pressed on towards the airfield, and maybe some other group got there before us, because the next thing I remember is a pick-up truck arriving with a couple of air force fellows in it. They had come to haul back an Egyptian Spitfire that had been captured at the airfield. After putting the tail wheel of the plane in the truck behind the tailgate, and I presume tying it down, one of the air force fellows asked if anyone had witnessed the incident with the Egyptian Spitfire. I said that I had, and I confirmed the “kill” for him. He was a South African by the name of Boris Senior.

Then there was our ill-fated effort to knock out an Egyptian airfield about 30- or 40-miles south of Abu-Agella. Our intelligence had informed us that the airfield was lightly defended with no heavy weapons. Our jeep company traveled towards the airfield in the late afternoon, and a couple of miles short of the airfield we pulled over to the side of the road and were told to relax while we waited for all units to organize themselves. We were to give covering fire while the infantry would surprise-attack in half-tracks.

I remember stretching out and reading the same letter over and over again, when suddenly there was a commotion as an Egyptian army truck roared past us. He shouldn’t have been coming from that direction, but there he was. We were caught completely off guard. We quickly mounted our jeeps and sped towards the airfield, realizing that it would now be an alerted garrison. We dismounted and rushed towards the barbed wire fence with our machine guns. We started giving covering fire with me as Albert’s No.2, keeping the ammo belt out of the dirt, when I looked up to see an Egyptian Spitfire bearing down on our line of machine guns. I said to myself, “Machine gun fire,” but no machine gun fire – “Bombs,” but no bombs. The pilot must have taken off in a hurry to save his plane from destruction or capture. Lucky us.

We were told that the mission was being aborted, as the infantry was meeting stiff opposition from 20mm cannons that weren’t supposed to be there. Such are the chances of war – if not for that one Egyptian truck it might have been a completely different story. Anyhow, no one got hurt, and it didn’t change the final outcome of the campaign. It also gave us bragging rights to the title of “being closest to the Suez Canal.”

The next incident concerns our attack on an Egyptian stronghold. An opening had been cut in the perimeter barbed wire fence, and Al Wank’s jeep was first through, with me close behind. There was a large explosion from the direction of Al’s jeep, and dirt and debris filled the air. My first aid man, who sat directly behind me, moaned. I immediately thought, “If he’s hit, I must be hit.” I felt my body to see if I was wet anywhere, the “wet” being blood. To my surprise and relief, I couldn’t find any wound and I surmised that the moan from behind me was one of fear. There in front of me was Al Wank’s jeep, badly damaged from hitting a mine, and the crew standing beside the jeep, stunned. Al was standing facing me, and after a few seconds said, “My cigarettes!” He had filled the back of his jeep with cartons of Egyptian cigarettes, and they were his chief concern. I lied and reassured him that I would look after his cigarettes, trying my best to calm him in his moment of shock. Luckily, no one was hurt, for there were two “saving graces” if you were unlucky enough to be blown up in a jeep. One, the blast shield under the jeep saved you from a lot of shrapnel. Two, your chances of being blown clear of the jeep were excellent, unlike being inside an enclosed vehicle.

The rest of the jeeps continued our advance when the next incident happened. Once more there were explosions accompanied by dirt and debris filling the air, and when I looked up I couldn’t believe my eyes, we had just been bombed by a biplane. It was a picture out of World War I. I later confirmed that the Egyptians had bought a number of Fiat biplanes from Italy.

Our platoon returned one day to our base in Abu-Agella. Sitting on his jeep with a big bandage wrapped around his head was Davie Boxer. I liked Davie for two reasons: what you saw was what you got, and he had a great sense of humor, even if the joke was on him. I looked at the bandage and asked what had happened. With a straight face he replied, “I got hit by an anti-tank rifle,” and while I was still digesting this news, a big grin spread over his face and he said, “Our anti-tank rifle.” His jeep had a Boyce anti-tank rifle mounted on the front swivel instead of a machine gun. This weapon was probably outmoded from the first day of World War II. Somebody forgot to lock the swivel mounting and Davie had the misfortune to have his head in the way when the gun swung around.

When we were in the artillery together, one day Davie came back from “going to the toilet” in the field somewhere, with a big grin on his face. It turned out that he had crapped unknowingly in the collar of his coveralls and then pulled up his coveralls. Apparently just as he was about to do his ‘business,’ a Syrian Harvard airplane came over our area. Davie was so intent on keeping an eye on him that he forgot to pull his coveralls forward when he squatted, and ended up soiling them. He had a good laugh while relating the story, even though the joke was on him. May he rest in peace.

Four more incidents have remained in my mind all these years. One was the sandstorm, or maybe more correctly, the dust storm. It blew up one afternoon. We all put on goggles, but you also had to find something to wrap around your face, as the dust got into your mouth and nostrils. You couldn’t see more than a few feet around you. I thought, “Good, there will be no Egyptian planes this afternoon.” That worried me the most – airplanes. Maybe because I had to concentrate on driving and didn’t trust the others to keep a sharp eye out for the planes which usually came around about four o’clock every afternoon. Most of the time they were ineffective, dropping bombs from high altitude and scuttling off home. Anyhow I don’t think that the storm lasted more than a few hours, just one more experience in an already eventful year.

The second incident was seeing a fancy looking car on the road driven by an older looking civilian, obviously heading for our area. When I inquired about it, I was told that the man was a medical specialist who drove down from Tel Aviv every day to assess the seriously wounded. I had to admire this man, and thought to myself, “There are special people in this world.” The next memory was more ominous. I was standing near the jeep waiting for the command, “Sit on the jeeps,” from Motta, when there was a swooshing sound through the air above us, going towards the Egyptian lines. I must have said, “What the hell is that?” One of the World War II veterans said, “We’ve now got 105mms.” This upgrading of destructive power made a chilling impression on me.

Our last night and day in the Sinai were very interesting (for lack of a better word). We came back to our base at Abu-Agella in the evening, and after our evening meal, our 26-year old battalion commander gathered everyone together and announced that it was our job to hold on to this spot no matter what, and that we should prepare ourselves for a long stay. Then sometime towards morning we were woken and told to pack our things, we would be moving out shortly. Talk about being confused. But apparently politics had reared its ugly head, and Britain invoked its defense treaty with Egypt in order to save the Egyptian army from an embarrassing defeat. We were informed that we had until 5PM to pull out of the Sinai. Our jeep unit was detailed to stay with the engineers who were to blow up a bridge and other installations, and then to escort them out.

It must have been late in the afternoon and I was standing around waiting for the engineers to finish their work, when I looked up and there heading straight for me was my worst nightmare – 4 or 5 Spitfires at about 50-feet above the ground. I probably broke the world record for the broad jump. There was a slit trench about 30-or 40-feet away, but I made it in one giant leap. The planes were British, and they had come to check if we were actually pulling out. Shortly afterwards the engineers blew up the installations and the bridge, and we headed back over the border. This was January 8th 1949. In late January our unit was transferred north to the Army/Air Force Base at Tel Nof.

11. TEL NOF

The first thing the army did was to give us leave, and a wonderful thing happened to me – I met Aliza and Max Keren. It happened like this: Albert Manteaux asked me where I was going on my leave, and I told him that I didn’t have any place in particular to go. He invited me to join him and visit a wonderful couple. I accompanied him on the first of what would turn out to be many visits to Apt. #8, 54 Hovevei Zion. When we arrived nobody answered the door, but Albert soon produced a key that the Kerens had given him, and let us in. He also was familiar with the liquor cabinet, and we were soon sipping sherry.

When Aliza arrived she was genuinely pleased to see us, and greeted me very warmly even though I was a complete stranger. Max soon came home from his job as the assistant manager of the Gestetner Co., and was equally kind and welcoming. The Kerens were both about 44-years-old at the time, and I’d just turned 21, so I regarded them as an aunt and uncle. They both spoke excellent English, and there was no problem with communication. Albert’s connection to the Kerens was through Aliza who was the liaison person between the French volunteers and a local group called the “Soldiers Welfare Council.”

The Kerens invited me not only for dinner that evening, but also to sleep over on their living room sofa. I was truly touched by their generosity, and accepted gladly. When recalling our first meeting, Aliza always claimed that I slept for two whole days. My version is that I slept until noon the next day. The Kerens were truly a wonderful, generous couple who became my family in Israel, and in time I also had a key to the apartment. If there is a special place in Heaven for people of this nature, then I’m sure they are both there.

The alternative to sleeping on the Kerens’ sofa was to go to the Town Major’s office and get a chit for a hotel, where four or five or six guys were stuffed into a room. I even slept on the roof of one hotel, and the ultimate in discomfort was on a pool table in one enterprising establishment. The last resort was to go to a tent camp called Machaneh Yona (Camp Yona), located on the beach past Rehov Frischman, which was then the end of the world. But from the stories that I heard about the guys who frequented the place, the only way that I would go to Macheneh Yona would be if Al Wank went with me as a bodyguard.

I’m sure I went to the Soldiers’ Club on Rehov Hayarkon and to the office for the American and Canadian volunteers on Rehov Ahuzat Bayit. That was where we picked up our mail and left letters for mailing. That was also where we got a supplement to our army pay of three Pounds a month. The Israeli Pound was then worth about three American dollars. If I remember correctly, you could get a pretty decent meal for about a third of a Pound. Anyhow the Association of American and Canadian volunteers added, if I remember correctly, three-and-a-half Pounds which brought our monthly total to six-and-a-half Pounds. You couldn’t live lavishly on this amount, but because most of my leaves were for only a few days, I could get by. My dad also sent me money, so on one leave I enjoyed the luxury of having a room all to myself.

When this leave was over I returned to our new base at Tel Nof. It was a complete mess. I don’t think that there were cots to sleep on, meals were meager fare with an egg for breakfast and an egg and tomato for lunch, and worst of all, not an officer in sight. This bothered me the most, because they were responsible for our welfare. Anyhow, somebody had stolen passes from the battalion orderly room, so Al Wank, Lee and I decided that we would go to Jerusalem. We found someone who wrote Hebrew to fill out the passes, and away we went.

We spent the better part of a week in Jerusalem where we were introduced to Fink’s Bar and I discovered Carmel Hock wine. We spent most of our days seeing the sights. When we returned to camp the officers were all there, but nobody mentioned our absence, so I thought maybe nobody missed us. Fat chance. When three guys go AWOL for the better part of a week, they’re missed. But it wasn’t until Friday, days after we got back, that two military police showed up at my barrack and told me that I was going to be tried.
The officer listened patiently while I gave him all my reasons for going AWOL, including that there weren’t any officers to share our poor conditions at the time. All this was conducted in English, of course. I expected to get a sentence that would see me confined to barracks for approximately two weeks, so imagine my shock when he said, “One week in jail.” At this point our new regimental sergeant major Naftali took over. Naftali had just graduated from sergeant major school and conducted himself and the proceedings in the finest British tradition. He even had a nice shiny sergeant major’s badge on a leather strap around his wrist. He informed me that I would be going directly to jail, took whatever I had in my pockets, and then asked for my belt and shoe laces. Then, holding up my falling pants and with my boots flopping as I walked, two military police escorted me to the jail.

The jail was a one-room building undergoing renovations. It had just been designated as a jail, and I was inmate #2 – there was some fellow in there before me. Al and Lee soon joined me, and we surveyed the scene: there were loose wires everywhere, plus pieces of steel piping lying around, which made a mockery of taking away our belts and shoe laces. But worst of all was that they were covering all the windows with tin sheets. Al and I got two pieces of pipe and poked them through the last, barred window, preventing the workmen from boarding it up. This brought Naftali on the run. We told him that we were not murderers or criminals, and that we required light and air. He understood, and agreed that the window remain uncovered.

We were also informed that we would not be allowed cigarettes, canteen privileges or writing material. And that’s where the open window became our friend. That evening some of the boys came to visit us at the open window, and when we explained the restrictions, they supplied us with cigarettes, chocolate bars, and more. We had to find a hiding place for all our “illegal” booty. We managed this by lifting a ceiling tile and concealing everything in the ceiling. We next enlisted whoever was on guard duty outside our door to knock on the door whenever there was an inspection coming. The guards were great guys who played along with our game. We needed them because there were no washroom facilities in the building, and so we would bang on the door and holler the Hebrew word for whatever bodily function we had to carry out. They would then escort us to the privy where we would do our smoking, and then we’d leisurely stroll back to get some fresh air and stretch our legs. The guard would also escort one of us to the kitchen to bring back our meals. When it was my turn to fetch the meals, I would lead the fellow through my barrack in order to say hello to the guys and he never minded. It was tricky carrying the meals and trying to keep your pants up, while walking with flopping boots. But it was all done in good humor.

The next day we were told that we were to be assigned to a work detail. We put up a big stink about this, and said that if we were to be denied cigarettes, canteen privileges and so on, we absolutely refused to go to work. This presented a problem for them, but after a while it was decided that we wouldn’t have to work. This was a small victory for us in what we looked on as a game of some sort. We also started marking the days on the wall with strokes, just like in the cartoons. The only sobering note came when a visitor from Winnipeg came to see me at the window. I reassured him that I was not in for a serious offense, and begged him not to tell my folks where he saw me. Just as we had settled in to prison life quite nicely, on day-five we were told that a general amnesty had been declared, and we were released from jail.

12. EILAT and the NEGEV again

Early in March we were part of the task force assigned to take the rest of the Negev all the way down to Eilat. This was to be a two-pronged attack with the Golani Brigade following the Jordanian border down the Arava, and the Negev Brigade attacking Eilat, which did not then exist, from the border with Egypt. The function of the Jeep Company was to travel down following the border with Egypt, and to act as escort to a jeep load of Air Force fellows with wireless equipment. The route we followed was over hilly terrain. I remember standing in the jeep as it moved very slowly, and placing first one wheel and then another from boulder to boulder. That evening I had my first breakthrough in the Hebrew language. We had stopped just after dark while a few fellows went ahead on foot to check out an Egyptian police post not far away. After a while they came back and announced, “Ain ma leassot sham” (there is nothing to do there). I was thrilled that I finally understood a complete Hebrew sentence, however short.

The next day we arrived at a pre-determined point, a long flat area soon to become an airfield. We cleared the rocks while the Air Force fellows set up their wireless equipment, and soon the base, code named “Sde Avraham,” was operational. It wasn’t long before the first planes came in with more units and equipment. I couldn’t help but admire the army’s planning. The next morning when I woke up I couldn’t believe my ears. What sounded like the Red Army choir seemed to be approaching from the distance. It sounded like the songs we were used to hearing in the World War II propaganda films from Russia. But there, large as life, was a platoon of Russian Jews with their Sten guns slung across their chests Russian-style, led by a bald-headed Sasha, or Misha. This time it was hard to believe my eyes, but I was thrilled by the fact that here we were, Jews from different points of the compass, with one common objective, to defend ourselves and to show that we wouldn’t be pushed around anymore. They had been sent to scout the area closer to the Gulf, and came back reporting that there were no Egyptian troops in the area.

The whole attack on the Eilat area was a bloodless, one-shot effort. The Jordanians kept backing up as the Golani Brigade advanced, and at one point when they appeared to hesitate, a shot from an armored car was enough to move them. We went into Eilat sometime in the morning. All that existed there was a sad-looking small building used by the Palestine Police, and the place was called Um-Rash-Rash. About a mile further south was a lovely stone house which had been built and occupied by an Englishman named Richardson. Apparently Mr. Richardson was evacuated by the British forces in Akaba shortly before we arrived. To the credit of the Israeli army, they immediately put a guard around the house so that it wouldn’t be looted or vandalized.

That evening we left Eilat and whether we went back to Tel Nof or spent the rest of March escorting convoys down through part of the Negev I don’t remember. What I do remember is the area called Ma’leh Akrabim (Scorpion’s Ascent), a series of very tight and narrow switchbacks: I saw at least one truck slide off the edge and tumble to the next level. We were the first to claim the areas known as Kurnub and Ein Husub. A good deal of this part of the Negev looked like what we thought the back side of the moon would look like, with depressed levels full of their own hills, a very strange but fascinating area. One night we were sent to Sdom, and I remember the huge change in climate. In the Negev the night was cold, and I had my coat wrapped around me. At Sdom I could’ve worn a pair of shorts, it was that warm. I marveled at the radical change in topography and climate in a relatively short distance. I also consulted the record on this trip, and found that this also took place in December as part of the gradual widening of our grasp of the Negev.

At some point we must have returned to our base at Tel Nof, from which we journeyed out one more time, around the middle of April. This time we went to the Beit Jubrin area, for one more patrol. We had one terrible incident when we were called out one night to escort a group bringing back the bodies of four Israelis who were ambushed in our territory. Not only were they shot, but they were also mutilated. I didn’t look. By this time armistices had been signed, and this incident was in violation of that agreement.

Early in May, a lot of fellows were discharged and heading home. A kind of final parade of the battalion was held at Tel Nof. I guess that we must have been between 400 and 500 fellows and I distinctly remember that the Battalion Commander was asked by the Brigade Commander, “How many are ready?” When the battalion commander replied, a loud murmur went up from the fellows on parade. When we asked for a translation from the others, we were told that instead of the standard reply of “so many (the actual number) are ready”-“muchanim” in Hebrew, he replied “so many (the actual number) of fighters” -“lochamim” in Hebrew – were ready. I couldn’t have been more proud. It was as if this was the final credit for the past 11 months, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more than that. But I was ready to go home, and I certainly was ready to leave the army, which now was becoming more and more like a regular army with its necessary rules and regulations.

Mustering out didn’t go smoothly, although miracles of miracles, I did find my lovely Gladstone suitcase which my dad had bought for me before I left home. The army had kept it safe and sound in a warehouse.

The problem with my discharge was in the number 7. I made my 7s the American way, without a horizontal stroke across the vertical leg of the 7, the way it is done in other parts of the world. This led to confusion, as the army kept trying to match my name with the number 14019, instead of 74019. But there was an upside to all of this: I was given extended leave and stayed in a lovely soldier’s hostel on Rehov Mapu. The next bed to mine was occupied by a fellow about my age from Argentina. This was a revelation to me, as I didn’t even suspect that any Jews lived in South America. He also informed me that there was a sizable community there. We spent quite some time talking, curious about our respective communities. He spoke no English, and I spoke no Spanish, so we conversed in Yiddish. I was thrilled by the different ties that bind us Jews together.

I thoroughly enjoyed those last few weeks in Tel Aviv. I would be out on Rehov Ben Yehuda, then relatively quiet, before seven in the morning, pick up a Jerusalem Post (maybe it was still the Palestine Post), go to my favorite cafe near the Mediterranean, and reread my latest letter from home. Before lunch I would go to the bar at the Gat Rimon Hotel, drink a kummel (which I learned to enjoy there), jump out the open window which was about four-feet above the ground, run across Hayarkon Street and into the apartment where two enterprising Yiddishe mammas served a real home-made lunch. Afternoons were usually spent at the soldier’s club with the fellows who were still there.

Those were probably the most tranquil weeks of my life, full of unspoken satisfaction in what I had done with the past year of my life, and not too much thought to the future. I accompanied Leib Shanas and others to a meeting with a wealthy Canadian-Israeli woman to discuss possible financial backing for a proposed kibbutz in the Negev. Nothing came of this meeting, but the kibbutz did become a reality as Kibbutz Kissufim in the western Negev.

I kept in touch with Georgie Jameson, who married one of the nurses, and settled in her home town, the then charming village of Tel Mond. I also kept in touch with Lee with whom I had discussed the possibility of taking a place in Beersheba and opening up a kiosk, because it was rumored that those who were in on the capture of the town could get a free house. Needless to say, nothing came of that.
When I finally got my army discharge, I had to arrange my ticket home. This was done through a private agency on behalf of the government. I had a isunderstanding with the girl who was making the arrangements. This turned out to my benefit. When I asked her how I was to be traveling home, she said, “By ship.” I thought she meant by ship across the Mediterranean, but what she meant was by ship across the Atlantic. I protested and said, “But all the people I know are going by air.” I meant across the Mediterranean, but she thought I meant across the Atlantic and she said, “OK, by air all the way.” All this time she was making eyes at me, probably figuring that if she made eyes at enough fellows, one of them would take her to America.

The majority of fellows had gone home by the time I left on June 15th 1949, but a number did stay on. They came not only to fight for a Jewish homeland, but for their own new home. More honor to them.

13. HOMEWARD BOUND

Compared to my journey to Israel, the trip home was uneventful. I wouldn’t even mention it except to relate a couple of amusing incidents, and to give a peek into air travel 50 years ago. I was going to say a half-century ago, but that sounded too far back in time.
There was no EL AL Airlines at the time, so we left on a non-scheduled, DC-4 bound for Zurich. We must have left very early in the morning because our first stop was in Rome, for breakfast. Meals were not served on planes in those days, so you made meal stops. We were about a dozen young ex-army fellows, and when they brought us rolls, juice and coffee, we sat around very patiently waiting for breakfast. You know, cereal, eggs, pancakes and so on, when we were informed that this was ‘continental breakfast.’ We immediately called for more rolls. We arrived in Zurich about lunch time, and split up into small groups. I went with two other fellows, and we started to look for a restaurant. We spotted one with a big sign, KATZ. “Good, a Jewish restaurant,” so we thought. When we went in, there were all the other guys, and they immediately started laughing. We asked them what was so funny, and they pointed to the menus which read ‘Die Shwartze Katz.’ The place was called The Black Cat, and they had also been fooled.

After five days in Zurich I flew to Paris on a twin-engined Air France plane called a Languedoc. Each row of seats had its own table, and judging by the dozen or so people on the plane, this evening flight was for the wealthy returning from shopping in Switzerland. When we arrived in Paris the customs official marked all the bags without checking any. I spent eight great days in Paris with the Israeli government paying me 2,500 francs ($8.00 US) a day, which was more than enough. My hotel room, in a student hotel, cost 215 francs a night, and a good meal would be about 350 francs. From there I flew to London for lunch, Prestwick in Scotland for dinner, Keflevik in Iceland for breakfast, Gander in Newfoundland for lunch, and finally Montreal and the Ostrow family’s hospitality. But I was one tired guy.

I finally arrived back in Winnipeg about Ju1y 2nd or 3rd 1949, landing at Stevenson Field and walking out of the little red brick ‘terminal’ building, to be greeted by a warm and wonderful family. My second most memorable year had come to a close.

14. EPILOGUE

In looking back over this year in my life, I realize how fortunate I and the other overseas volunteers were. The vast majority of us reached Israel after the first truce started on June 9th 1948. Only a small group had reached the country months earlier. The rest of us arrived as soon as we could, after the state was declared on May 14th. We had no way of foretelling what the future would hold. There was no way that we could foresee a war that would be waged in fits and starts. There was no way that we could foresee a highly-motivated Jewish army with its genius for organization and equipping, defeating the Arab armies with their superior numbers and equipment. There was no way we could know that the most difficult part of the war was fought before we arrived. There was no way we could be aware of the tremendous number of casualties suffered in the initial stages, until the first truce, in what could only be described as a life-and-death struggle.

But we were prepared to sacrifice ourselves, and many of us did put ourselves in harm’s way, to our credit. Of course, there were those who did pay with their lives or suffered harm to their bodies, and for them it was as big as a war can get. I also feel fortunate that through happenstance, like many others, I ended up in a relatively small group of wonderful fellows whose strong bonds of friendship were formed by mutual experience, and whose strength has not diminished all these years.

A postscript: on October 20th 1998, almost 50 years to the day that Beersheba fell, five of us “jeepniks” had a three-day reunion in a rented country house near Asheville N.C. Except for Eskimo, whose real name is Robert Klapper and is now from Kansas City, I had not seen any of the others for 49 years. What a warm reunion that was. All those years seemed to melt away with every story brought to light. We remembered more of the good times than the bad, and we were all proud of what we had done. There was Al Twersky from Pittsburgh, who went up on a mine behind me and lost his leg as a result. There was Al Wank from Sunrise Florida, who went up on a mine in front of me. There was Jack Benatan (Lipshitz), originally from Cape Town in South Africa, there was Eskimo, and then of course there was me.

Well, maybe this is a catharsis for my private memory, lovingly stored and nurtured in the back of my mind all these years. Who knows?

Beersheva 1948
Top row: Tzvi Zipper (South Africa), Albert Monteaux (France), Unknown Israeli, Harvey Sirulnikoff (Canada), Sam Rosen (USA), Lee Rappaport (USA), Unknown
Middle row: Al Wank (USA), unknown, unknown, Irwin Cohen (South Africa)
Front row: “Rusty” Centner (USA), Motta Gur (Israel)

Author: Harvey Sirlin, April 1999