82nd Armored Battalion
Our unit was stationed at Lydda Airport, with one complete company of Machal from various countries.
I had previously served in the British Army Pioneer Corps, and later in the Royal Armored Corps, trained as a gunner/wireless operator, but medically discharged in 1944.
In 1947 I was working in the clothing trade and in my spare time I was an enthusiastic member of young “Poale Zion.” I had turned down an opportunity to go to America because my heart was set on going to Eretz Israel, but I did not wish to go to a kibbutz.
In 1948 I heard that people were being recruited for the Haganah, soon to become the Israel Defense Forces. I volunteered and was told to meet a contact outside the Dominion Theatre. He turned out to be someone I knew from the Hebrew-language class I was attending.
It all moved quickly from then, and after being given a departure date I gave up my job. Then there was a hitch (probably the result of the temporary truce), and I had to wait another two weeks before making my way with other volunteers to Marseilles and Grand Arenas, and finally to the camp at St. Jerome. From there we were flown to Haifa in a small plane, with stops at Rome and Athens, and landing at Haifa was a great relief.
I had volunteered because I fervently believed that there should be a Jewish state, both as a matter of justice and a necessity, and I wished to defend it when attacked. It was very likely that I was influenced by my Zionist background as a child in Vienna. My father belonged to the Mizrachi Movement, and after his death in 1931 my mother and I had attended the meetings of another short-lived party, the Radikale Zionisten. As an 11-year-old I was a member of Betar-Brit Trumpeldor, albeit for only a few months, changing under pressure, and unwillingly, to Hashomer Hadati, the Mizrachi Youth. Of course, the major factor in my decision to volunteer was the events of 1947-1948. Incidentally, I had joined Poale Zion when I was in World War 11, serving in the British Army in 1942. I was in an ‘alien’ company of the Pioneer Corps, consisting of German and Austrian Jewish refugees. In our recreation-and-library Nissen hut, I had come across a booklet published by Poale Zion called Palestine and the Jewish Future by the late Berl Locker. After reading it I wrote to the head office and joined the movement, but could not take part in their activities until my return to civilian life.
After the capture of Auja-El-Hafir, a small place on the Israeli side of the border, the rains turned the ground to mud. This was early in January 1949 and I remember that all the vehicles in sight were bogged down. I was traveling in a jeep and together with my comrades, we were heaving and pushing trying to extricate it from the mud. Eventually with the help of wooden planks, we managed to free the jeep and continued on our way.
At about that time we heard the astonishing and alarming news that RAF fighter planes had flown over our positions on reconnaissance, and that the Israel Air Force had shot down five of them. We learned later that despite the Anglo-Egyptian Defense Treaty, the Egyptians had not asked for this help. It was Ernest Bevin’s doing. I thought it was one in the teeth for him, as he had tried so hard to thwart the just aspirations of the Jewish people for a homeland.
Sometime later, I read that as a result of all this ill-fated intervention, British public opinion turned against Bevin and his policy.