Non-Jewish Volunteer from France
Thadée Diffre joined the Haganah in France sometime in the winter of 1947/48, and was first based at a secret camp at Satonay near Lyon, commanded by Elie Oberlander, a former Palmach officer sent from Palestine, and would later become Diffre’s deputy in the French Commando unit. Oberlander was killed serving with the unit when it helped capture Beersheba.
Diffre completed a Haganah corporal’s course (he had been a captain in the French Army) at a camp outside Marseilles nicknamed “Beria” because of the cold and tough conditions. Later he was sent to the main Grand Arénas camp nearby, and was given the false identity of a Lithuanian DP (displaced person).
He arrived in Haifa aboard the ship “Kedmah” on April 29th 1948, and immediately raised the suspicion of the British authorities, since he could not reply to their questions in Lithuanian. Diffre wrote that the British, being only a few days away from going home, didn’t really care any longer and one of them finally said to the other immigration officers: “Let him go, he’s obviously a member of the Haganah.”
Sent to a military camp at Kiryat Meir in Tel Aviv, he was officially registered into the nascent IDF under the number 17797. A Major Tiomkin in charge of processing Machal volunteers officially assigned him the name Teddy Eitan at that time.
He was then sent to meet Yitzhak Sadeh at his office at 65 Rothschild Boulevard. After long talks, Sadeh sent him to the Palmach’s 5th Battalion at Tel Litwinsky with orders to train the unit in the use of 10 half-tracks which had just been received for the first time, and which were familiar to Diffre. He recalls that it was here that he first met such people as Yigal Alon and Yitzhak Rabin.
Clearly, the assignment was resented by the people already on the spot, since Moshe Dayan writes in his memoirs that while Teddy Eytan (Dayan’s spelling) was knowledgeable in weapons, signals and vehicle maintenance, most Israeli officers knew more than he did about elementary combat skills and use of terrain. Diffre writes in his memoirs that any non-commissioned officer in the French Army knew more at that time about modern warfare than any of the Israeli officers he was in contact with.
Diffre also wrote that, while there was ultimately goodwill to learn, the officers of the company assigned to the half-tracks were Hebrew-speaking sabras, their troops were Yiddish-speaking, recently-arrived new immigrants, and he (Diffre/Eitan) spoke neither of these languages. He finally gave his orders via a young English-speaking woman from the Palmach.
Diffre notes that after his assignment, he reported to Sadeh that he was pessimistic about the results of using the unit in action with their new equipment. When the half-track company was engaged soon after at Latrun, it lost a third of its personnel, including the company commander who was killed. Diffre identifies him as “Yaki,” a 23- or 24-year-old Palmach veteran of the Jerusalem road convoys.
Diffre was then assigned as advisor on the use of armored jeeps to a raiding unit based at Kibbutz Ruhama, and took part in small-scale operations in the Negev and against the Gaza airfield.
On June 3rd 1948 Diffre was assigned to IDF HQ situated in a building called “The Red House” in Tel Aviv, and was asked to write a manual on infantry training. This done, he was assigned as training officer to Moshe Dayan’s 89th Battalion. He says that it was then that he met (and respected) Machalnik Lionel Druker of the 82nd Battalion who, according to Diffre’s memoirs, was saddled with an incompetent Russian-speaking CO.
Thadée Diffre recalls that during the “Altalena” episode he was asked as a foreigner not to accompany the 89th Battalion to the beachfront, but to remain behind with its Second Company, made up mostly of ex-Lehi men who were ordered to stay at base and at one point were threatened with being disarmed. The unit, Diffre included, was then sent into action in the Faluja area.
Diffre was appointed major on August 1st 1948, and given command of the nascent 75th Battalion which included about 50 French and North African Machal volunteers (mostly World War II veterans) and half a dozen other non-Jews, and 300-400 North African Gachal volunteers. However, there were multiple difficulties with the Gahal personnel, who complained about being under the orders of a non-Jew who, they feared, had little regard for their lives.
Diffre ultimately voluntarily gave up command of the unit to create the “Commando Français” (French Commandos), taking with him the Machalniks and some Gachal men who volunteered to go along, and also picking up other French Machalniks who had been with the 7th Brigade and other units. In all, about 90 men (and two or three women nurses) were assigned to the Palmach’s 9th Battalion based at Beer Yaacov before heading for the Negev campaign.
The two main actions in which his unit was involved were the capture of Beersheba (Diffre says they were the first to enter the town), in which it lost five dead and 14 wounded, and the capture and defense of Hill 113 near Tse’elim, in which they lost nine dead and 24 wounded, including Diffre himself. He received a letter of congratulations for his unit from Chief of Staff Yaacov Dori on January 30th, 1948.
Thadée Diffre wrote that he served for 14 months (and was probably the highest ranking non-Jew in the IDF), but gives no date for his release or return to France.
Source: World Machal Archives