At Grand Arenas camp near Marseilles the volunteers were obliged to hand over their passports and take on the identity of a Holocaust survivor. Louis Laurie of Toronto, Canada, and other volunteers from English speaking countries were given a white armband and assigned to supervisory roles amongst the 5,000 and some passengers on board. There, in the cargo hold of the “Pan York”, Louis Laurie began to understand how traumatized these people really were. The bunk beds reminded them of the camps, and the food was dreadful.
Eventually, the “Pan York” arrived in Haifa, on August 13th and they disembarked. The first experiences in Israel had left a deep impression.
After a few days at Tel-Litwinsky absorption camp near Tel Aviv, Louis and others were put on a bus and send to an army base called Samaria near Nahariya. That is when he suddenly discovered that he was in the army. To be precise, he was in the English-speaking company “B” of the 72nd Infantry Battalion, 7th Brigade. The company sergeant major was an experienced fellow Canadian, Julius Lewis, an impressive and well respected soldier.
Louis was a Canadian army veteran, and many other volunteers in the company were from the U.K., South Africa, and the U.S.A. There were also many who had not served in any army at all. The training all members of “B” company received was quite intensive.
After some 15 days of training, Louis saw action on a mountain peak overlooking the village of Tamra, from where their two platoons started the assault. The of reality of war began at that moment.
The mission was to remove a group of snipers and observers of the Arab Liberation Army, who were able to view the entire Haifa Bay area all the way up to the Mediterranean Sea. In Louis’s 14-man squad, one was killed and a number wounded.
Louis Laurie had had taken part in his first action in Israel’s War of Liberation. This was defining moment for him: his fellow Canadian Sidney Leisure, 18 years old, died. From that moment on the pure adventure experience ended, and confrontation with real war began.
Laurie’s 7th Brigade commander was also a fellow Canadian, Ben Dunkelman. His leadership inspired special confidence in the volunteers, who comprised over 300 members of this Brigade. In fact, close to 10% of the IDF. in 1948 were overseas volunteers, among whom the sense of comradeship remains to this day.
Laurie recalls walking down Hayarkon Street with fellow English speakers, singing South African folk songs and performing African war dances.
“My feeling was that great things were happening. You could feel and visualize it. It was very intense and I wanted to be part of it. It seemed to me at the time I was more of a Jew than when I first got to the country. I was beginning to learn of the contribution of the Jews to the world, and was proud of it, and being in Israel was the place to express that.”