All was set for us to leave South Africa on April 19th, 1948. I remember asking the Federation what we should do when we arrived, and was told not to worry, Louis Pincus, who had settled in Palestine at the end of 1947, would meet us at Lydda Airport. Fine words. We arrived at about mid-morning of the 21st.
The seven of us, Elliot Rosenberg, Max Barlin, Jack Segall, Eddie and Masha Rosenberg, Norman Skolnik and I, all carrying kitbags and not particularly looking like a group of students which we nominally were, walked across the tarmac past a line of British soldiers with fixed bayonets, glaring at us as we went by. We were the last group to be allowed to disembark in the pre-state period. The volunteers on the second plane, Ronnie Chaskelson, Victor Katz, Harold Osrin, “Titch” Isaacson, Bennie Miller and Philip Navon, landed but were not allowed to disembark, and took off again for Rome.
We went to customs and waited, and waited and waited. When no one had appeared after a considerable time, we finally took our things and walked through into the main concourse. There it seemed that all chaos had broken loose. People were milling around all over the place. I remember going up to a British sergeant and very politely asking him how to get to Tel Aviv. He looked me up and down, and then said, “You don’t, chum.”
Unknown to us, the road between Tel Aviv and Lydda was impassable as it was under constant Arab attack. Shades of Louis Pincus. What we also didn’t know was that as the British fell back on Haifa for the final evacuation by May 15th, they regularly tipped off the Arabs before they left strategic places, such as the airport and the Taggart police stations all over the country, and the Arabs moved in as soon as they moved out. They were due to leave the airport within a few hours, and but for a lucky chance, we would have begun our Machal service by being made prisoners of war, if we had escaped with our lives
Our parents in South Africa had the worst of this. They were met with huge headlines in the papers the next day, announcing that Lydda had fallen to the Arabs. Incidentally, we had tried to prepare our families for such news: the Suidair Dakota we had come on was going on to London, and when we came across the pilot in the concourse, we asked him if he would send cables to our families. The pilot graciously agreed. We gave him our addresses and £1 each, a not insubstantial sum in those days. The bastard pocketed the money, but never sent the cables. With the collapse of the postal services, I think it was at least six weeks or so before I could get word through to my parents, who were pretty sure I was lost.
By a lucky chance there were a couple of Jewish employees at the airport, and the Haganah, having got word of the British pull-out, sent an armored vehicle to evacuate them. One of us made contact with the Haganah, and they agreed to take all of us to Tel Aviv. The driver, a taxi owner named Koppel, advised us that this would be the last transport from Lydda.
The journey was a special experience. We were all big fellows and the vehicle was small, with the result that we had to squeeze in. One of the airport employees was a pretty Australian girl and because of the tight fit she had to sit on my lap. No sooner was she seated than I was asked if I knew how to use a grenade. I said “Yes,” and we drove to Tel Aviv with one of my arms around the girl and the other holding a grenade. We did not come under attack by the Arabs, but had to get through a number of British check-points. All the arms, mainly Sten guns, were dismantled and hidden together with the grenades at each point. In their place a bottle of whisky was hauled out for the guards. When we finally got to Tel Aviv, we were unceremoniously dumped on a street corner.
What a day that was. There were sounds of explosions and gunfire all around. It emerged that this was the day Etzel had launched an attack on Jaffa. The British had also left Tel Aviv, and that was the first day that Jews could walk around openly carrying arms, and there we stood on that street corner, not knowing where to go or whom to turn to. After a while a man carrying a revolver approached us and asked who we were. When we told him, he was overjoyed and insisted on taking us to a nearby café where he began to ply us with arak to toast our arrival and the Jewish state on-the-way. We had not eaten anything since the early hours of the morning at our last stop on the way to Lydda, and we were getting happy quickly. But we were no nearer to solving our problem. Fortunately, Elliot Rosenberg, a pilot, had brought regards for Ezer Weizman, and he phoned him from the café explaining our situation. With characteristic flair, Ezer came to the café with a large van, piled us all in, and installed us in a hotel on Hayarkon Street. The hotel later became the Air Force Headquarters. Ezer assured us that he would arrange for the army to cover the cost of our stay, and to arrange for our induction. One-by-one we were soon interviewed. I remember that when some officers came to interview me, they were quite crushed to discover I was no more than a simple gunner, when they had assumed that no less than a general of artillery had arrived.
That day in April 1948 is perhaps my most vivid memory of those days, hence the length of this account; the rest will include only one or two brief reminiscences.
I had quite a tough time at first, since I was put in a Hebrew-speaking unit and remembered only a few words of Hebrew from my days at cheder. Fortunately, I became friendly with a man who knew English.as he had served in the Jewish Brigade, part of the British forces in World War II. But he was not always very communicative: there would be a parade and an officer would go on at some length, presumably about serious stuff, but when I asked my friend what had been said, he invariably replied, “Bullshit.” So I did not have much of an idea of what was going on at first. My friend was put in charge of a gun, and I was in his crew. At the beginning we had only turn-of-the-century mountain guns, 65mm Napoleonchiks, and later these were replaced by not much more advanced and decidedly old-fashioned but bigger German 75mm guns. Quite soon my friend was made sergeant major of the battery, and I, willy-nilly, Hebrew or no Hebrew, took his place in command of the gun-crew. During the first truce things were eased for me a bit when Melville Malkin arrived from South Africa and joined my crew.
Two final short anecdotes, both connected with the way the British handed over strategic points to the Arabs. One such place was the Taggart fort Iraq-el-Suweidan, which looks down on Kibbutz Negba. The British handed this over to the Egyptians. It was so strategically placed that they were able to cut the road to the Negev, detaching all the Negev settlements from the rest of the country. Somehow the Haganah had got a few 65mm guns through to the Negev, and at one point my battery was sent to man them. To do so we had to walk through the Egyptian lines, setting out from Negba and heading for Kibbutz Ruhama, which was the central base in the Negev. We went at night, of course, crouching down when the Egyptian searchlights came towards us as they circled the area. We were led by a young Palmachnik wearing shorts and sandals who looked about 15- or 16-years-old. But he got us through beautifully, and some months later led us back again in the reverse direction.
The Big Push to open the Negev started on October 20th, with the capture of the Huleikat strongholds by the Givati Brigade, which climaxed with a fierce hilltop bayonet battle. The next day, October 21st, Beersheba was in our hands, and I remember running into South African Migdal Teperson. I heard later that many Machalniks were involved there as part of the 82nd Tank Battalion, and the first to go in was the French-speaking commando company led by non-Jewish Teddy Eytan (Thadee Difre) of the Palmach Hanagev’s 9th Battalion.
Researcher’s notes:
Eight Machal were killed at Huleikat and Beersheba: French volunteers Maurice Gulrich, Aharon Mizrachi, Edouard Flato, and Libyan David Yona, all of Givati, were killed at Huleikat. Emile Abarzel, Raphael Weiler, Marc Nathan Levy and a Paris-born American volunteer Maurice Shulman, all of the French-speaking commando company, were killed at Beersheba.
The Iraq-el-Suweidan police fortress was a thorn in our flesh for a long time. Our guns were useless against it. The shells of the 65mm and the 75mm seemed merely to bounce off its thick walls The police station had to be the first objective in a breakthrough, though it was not clear how it could be taken. Then someone – to this day I don’t know who – had a fantastic brainwave. Each 75mm gun had been issued with four anti-tank shells in case of a tank attack on a gun position. The man who had the brainwave gave orders for all the anti-tank ammunition in the country to be collected and made available for one gun, which would fire at the fortress. My gun was chosen for this operation. On the night before the Big Push we moved into Kibbutz Negba and worked all night making a sandbag emplacement for the gun just short of the kibbutz perimeter and directly facing the fort, at a distance of about 1000 yards. At daybreak we covered the gun with a large camouflage net and tried to get some sleep. As I remember, the offensive was due to start at 3 pm, a decoy having been sent a mile or so away to draw Egyptian fire and so make them the violators of the truce then in force.
At 3 pm it was my job to unveil the gun in full view of the fortress. I half- expected to get hit in the back, but the anticipated fire did not materialize. Then we started direct point-blank fire at the fortress. The anti-tank shells were incredible – they went right through the walls. At first we came under artillery fire, but then we must have had the good luck to knock out the Egyptian officer directing this fire from the fortress and the firing stopped. Our fire went up and down the wall facing us for about half-an-hour, I think. Then a few of our armored vehicles went right up to the fort and took it with no resistance.
Once again, the offensive on November 9th involved many overseas volunteers, the 82nd Tanks, 88th Mortars, 89th Commando Battalions, the 4th Troop Anti-Tanks, which were all Machal units.
The barrage had gone on from all sides. Melville Malkin and I remember seeing South Africans Syd Langbart and Elliot Katzenellenbogen of the 4th Troop with their 17-pounder anti-tank gun mounted on a half-track, ready for any possible Egyptian tank counterattack and South African Lou Kotzen of the 82nd on a half-track.
Author: Hillel (Bill) Daleski