by Boris Senior
In the north, the Lebanese were to advance along the coast north of Haifa to Nahariya. In the east, the Syrians would head for Galilee in a two-pronged attack on the northern end of the Sea of Galilee and on the southern end. The Iraqis planned to attack from the east to Natanya on the coast in an attempt to cut Israel into two at its narrow waistline. In the east, a brigade of the Arab Legion would advance on Tel Aviv. On 19 May, Azzam Pasha of the Arab League said each invading force would establish its own administration in the area it would shortly be conquering.
A few days before the final evacuation of the British, Golda Meir, a minister in the Israeli government, disguised herself as an Arab and secretly met King Abdullah of Transjordan to try to dissuade him from taking part in the invasion of Palestine. Her mission failed. The British-officered Arab Legion invaded Palestine together with the other Arab armies.
In the south, the Egyptians planned to advance in two columns with the main attack coming from El Arish and advancing along the coast via Gaza to Tel Aviv. A second force would head for the southern flank of Jerusalem through Beersheba and Hebron to link up with the Arab Legion forces of Transjordan. Arab irregular forces of the Moslem Brotherhood inside Palestine were to support the invading armies.
Facing these assaults were the irregular troops of the former Israeli underground fighters who had for years had difficulties in illegally stockpiling their light weapons in bunkers. They had to conceal them from the British forces of the mandatory regime. In the air, Israel had only the few light aircraft acquired in circumstances already described.
After the invasion began, the flight of a major part of the Arab population from Palestine in 1948 gave birth to a human tragedy that remains with us to this day. The reasons for the wholesale exodus are complex but must in no small measure be attributed to the propaganda beamed to them from the neighboring Arab countries. They urged the refugees to leave for what was to be a temporary absence until the “Jews had been driven into the sea by the invading Arab armies,” to quote the Mufti of Jerusalem. They were told to vacate the battle zones so as not to impede the free movement of the invading troops. The deceptive horror stories about what the Jews would do to them was also a major factor. The wealthier families led the exodus to neighboring countries.
There were many cases of Jewish institutions in Israel appealing on the radio and in the press to the Arab residents not to leave. The advice was ignored and a mass exodus ensued. It is on record, for example, that the British superintendent of police in Haifa reported, “The Jews were making every effort to persuade the Arab populace to stay.”
Though I was unaware of the details of the Arab preparations for war, I knew 15 May was to be a fateful day for us. I flew out to make a reconnaissance on the afternoon of 14 May. I flew along the proposed borders of the new State of Israel as defined by the United Nations partition plan of December 1947. It was a time of much disorder; the flight was initiated by neither the air force headquarters nor general headquarters. That is not surprising because there were no established chains of command at that time.
I took off for the reconnaissance in the Bonanza with a crew of two to take photographs and note what we saw on the ground. We made for the Bnot Ya’acov Bridge over the river Jordan, the main approach from Syria to Palestine. Reaching the bridge, I was shocked to see a line of military vehicles stretching as far as the eye could see from deep in Syria over the Jordan River and into eastern Palestine.
We counted large numbers of army vehicles, all painted in dark green camouflage and heading in convoy into Palestine. There were more than 2,000 trucks, armored cars with ambulances, tanks, and artillery transporters. A similar picture repeated itself when we flew to the Allenby Bridge, the main approach over the Jordan River from Transjordan to Jerusalem.
Knowing the rag-tail units of our citizen army using lorries, vans, and buses collected from commercial businesses often with the advertisements still on their sides, we were distraught to see below us large, organized army formations advancing in military order into Palestine. For the first and perhaps only time since arriving in the country, I began to fear for the coming day. Many of these foreign army units were well inside the Palestine borders before the British pulled out.
During the flight we passed near the RAF base of Mafrak in Transjordan. It was not far from the border, and as we flew near on our reconnaissance, I saw a fighter taking off. Fearing that it was an RAF Spitfire I turned west toward home. Fortunately, we were not of enough interest to warrant examination by the British fighter.
Immediately after landing at Sde Dov, I reported to deputy chief of staff Yigael Yadin at GHQ. When I blurted out what I thought was my bombshell, he laconically replied, “Yes, we know all about it,” showing no emotion.
Yadin’s opinions carried much weight for he was a fine soldier, had held highly responsible positions in the unofficial military hierarchy, and I had complete confidence in him. In civilian life he was a highly respected archaeologist. He was actively involved in the defense sector from early 1947 after being appointed chief of operations of the Haganah. In the War of Independence, he acted as deputy chief of staff under General Dori and later after the end of the war in 1949 was appointed chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force. In May 1977 he became deputy prime minister to Menachem Begin.
Despite my confidence in him and expecting a land and air attack any moment, I was not reassured by his reaction to my news. I insisted that we disperse our aircraft from Sde Dov to the three satellite strips we had prepared in Herzlia, Even Yehuda, and Kibbutz Shfayim. All three strips were a short distance from Tel Aviv and could have been operational in a matter of days. Reluctantly, I accepted Yadin’s order that the aircraft stay at Sde Dov.
My relations with Yadin were cordial, and I had been able to advise him regarding air operations for a considerable time. Most regretfully on this occasion, he did not accept my advice and the damage caused to our small fleet by the Egyptian air raids the following morning seriously affected our strength in the air. Yadin’s attitude reflected the prevailing ignorance of air force matters on the part of the Palmach and the Haganah. This view lasted for many months until the air force got its rightful priorities from the government in late 1948.
The Iraqi Air Force had a number of modern British fighter aircraft, but the Egyptian Air Force was equipped with large numbers of modern fighters and bombers and was the major threat to Israel. Admittedly, its aircrews didn’t have anything like the battle experience of our volunteer fighter pilots who were to arrive before long, but they were an infinitely superior force compared to the few weekend pilots and toy planes of the Israel Air Force at that time. The British army general staff headed by Field Marshal Montgomery reported to the British government, “When Britain evacuates Palestine, the Jews will immediately be overcome.”
The inevitability of war cast a pall on the elation of the Jews waiting eagerly for the founding of the infant state at midnight on 14 May 1948. In the early evening of 14 May, Ben Gurion as prime minister designate speaking in the name of the National Council of the Yishuv, extended a hand of peace to the Arabs of Palestine and to the neighboring countries, and invited them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the good of all. These overtures were ignored, and the fully equipped regular armed forces of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, with units of the Saudi Arabian army in support, invaded Palestine the next day. Ben Gurion announced that the name of the new nation state would be Israel and that it would immediately be open for unrestricted Jewish immigration, for the “ingathering of the exiles.”
The rejoicing of the Jews at their new statehood, which they regained after 2,000 years, was tempered by the difficulties resulting mainly from the plight of the kibbutz settlements. The British controlled all transport arteries, ports, and airports. The borders with Transjordan and Egypt were policed largely by Arab troops and served as convenient channels for the passage into Palestine of Arab forces and arms. Apart from the fe
w large population centers of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa, the kibbutzim were spread mainly in the Plain of Jezreel and on the coastal plain bordering the Mediterranean. Some settlements, particularly those in the Negev in the south of the country, were particularly vulnerable.
Communication between the kibbutzim and the rest of Israel was a major problem. Well aware of this the Arabs concentrated their attacks initially on these soft targets. The Air Service was to play a vital role in providing supplies to the settlements surrounded and cut off from the main body of the Yishuv.
For months before the UN resolution on partition in November 1947, the Palestinian Jews had begun to organize themselves into military formations. They had the Haganah with its Palmach shock troops approximately 3,000 strong and the very much smaller urban forces of the Irgun based mainly in the cities and opposing the British military forces in Palestine and abroad. There was little military equipment, and what they did possess had been collected from the world’s scrap heaps usually lacking spare parts and manuals of operation. Language was also a problem, for there must have been a dozen languages spoken in the Yishuv (Jewish-settled areas of the country), including Hebrew and English. In the air force, most of the flying personnel knew only English, whereas the support people, such as tower operators, spoke Hebrew exclusively.
The Jews, however, had a powerful weapon—what is known in Hebrew as Ain brera, meaning “no alternative.” In other words, the Jews were fighting for their survival with their backs to the wall, or rather the sea. Losing the war would have meant in the best case losing their homeland, and in the worst case their lives. For many it meant a return to persecution. Each and every battle was fought on a background of desperation knowing the fate that faced them if a single battle was lost. The memory of the Holocaust just three years before cast an ever-present shadow on the Jewish fighters and accounts, in part, for the desperate heroism shown by the fighting men and women of Israel.
On 14 May the British flag was lowered for the last time in Palestine. That was the signal for the mass invasion by the Arabs. The Egyptian forces split into two formations, one of which began its advance on Tel Aviv via the coastal road while the other captured Auja on the Egyptian-Palestine border near Kibbutz Revivim. They then headed toward Beersheba and Hebron with the intention of linking up with the Transjordanian forces to the south of Jerusalem. In the meantime, the Transjordanians had crossed the Jordan River at the Allenby Bridge and made for Latrun in the coastal plain, some thirty kilometers from Tel Aviv. They reached Latrun two days after the State of Israel was declared.
While I was in the air on the reconnaissance flight around the northern and eastern borders of Palestine, a crucial drama was being enacted below us. Even before the formal ending of the mandate, Arab troops were advancing into the country. On the final day of the British mandate, units of the Arab Legion tried capturing the strategic police post at Gesher. After failing to overcome the resistance of the settlers, they diverted their forces and occupied the hydroelectric power station at Naharayim on the Jordan River.
The Iraqi army tried to cross the Jordan River at Gesher, but when they encountered ferocious resistance from the settlers of the Golani Brigade, they abandoned the crossing. In the meantime, the Syrian army began heavy artillery bombardments on the kibbutzim south of the Sea of Galilee and, in particular, on Kibbutz Ein Gev on the eastern shore of the lake. Again, a single battalion of the Golani Brigade was left on its own to defend the entire area against invasion by the armies of two sovereign states.
Israeli soldiers, who were holding positions in the Arab town of Zemach, couldn’t withstand the attacks of the armored cars and tanks of the Syrians. On 18 May the kibbutz fell to the invaders after trying to defend themselves with two 20mm anti-aircraft guns. By 20 May, the defenders had been wiped out almost to a man, and the way was open for the Syrian armor to advance to the settlement of Degania. More fierce battles ensued with the outnumbered and poorly armed settlers fighting for their lives and families. Eventually it ended in defeat for the Syrian forces, which withdrew from the area and diverted their attacks to the north near Mishmar Hayarden. The successful defense against the superior forces at Degania, known in Israel as “the Mother of the Settlements,” gave a huge boost to morale in Israel at a time when it was battling for its very existence.
The Lebanese army invaded Galilee from the north and overcame the settlements of Kadesh and Naftali. Within a day, however, the Israeli settlers recaptured them from the Lebanese together with a large number of weapons. On the central front, the Iraqi army transferred the brunt of its attack to the south of the Sea of Galilee, and by 25 May had reached the Arab town of Nablus not far from the Mediterranean coast. The advance of their forward units was stopped only ten kilometers from the city of Natanya thereby preventing the threat to cut Israel into two.
In the Jordan Valley, the Arab Legion entered the kibbutz of Beit Ha’arava at the northern end of the Dead Sea after the kibbutzniks evacuated the settlement and escaped to Sdom in the south in boats. After capturing the settlements to the north of Jerusalem, the legion advanced to the outskirts of the capital city. Heavy artillery shelling preceded the attacks on the Old City and the new Jewish city, but the defenders put up a fierce resistance. After the legion had suffered heavy losses, their British commander, Glubb Pasha, called off the attack. This was fortunate for the legion was by then only a few hundred meters from the center of the Jewish-held part of the city. The legion attacks were not limited to the northern sector of the city, and in the south battles led to the fall and subsequent recapture of Kibbutz Ramat Rachel where the Transjordanians were supported by the armed forces of their Egyptian allies. The battle was then concentrated on the Old City, and despite furious fighting by the Palmach units, the Old City fell to the legion.
FIRST EGYPTIAN AIR RAID
The war in the air had begun inauspiciously for us in the air force. On the morning of 15 May 1948, the day the British mandate ended and the State of Israel was born, I was asleep in the Yarden Hotel in Tel Aviv after the long reconnaissance along the borders the day before. At 0525 that morning, I awoke to sounds I knew well, the unmistakable roar of Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, the sound of bomb blasts, and the rat-tat-tat of machine guns. I rushed downstairs and saw pilots bursting into the foyer, some of them with their wives in nightdresses, distraught and bewildered.
There was a jeep outside the hotel, and I jumped into it and drove furiously to Sde Dov. The scene shook me. Two waves of Egyptian Spitfires had already plastered the field, badly damaging our fleet of aircraft. Against my advice, headquarters had arranged the entire fleet in neatly parked rows on either side of the runway.
The Bonanza, which had cost me so much effort to fly from Africa only ten days before, was parked on the north side of the runway severely damaged by a bomb. I was livid at GHQ’s stupidity in leaving the aircraft on the field despite my pleas. A number of other aircraft were badly damaged by the attacking Spitfires.
There was a large gaping hole in the wall of our only hangar, and an angry fire raged in the green hut that housed the armory. Near it stood one of the ground crew wailing uncontrollably that his friend, one of the corpsmen, was trapped inside the hut.
Because of the embargo imposed by the United States and Britain on weapons and planes, Israel’s purchasing efforts had been badly hindered. We were virtually without aircraft to face the Arab fighters and bombers, who had been buying freely whatever they wanted for years before the war. After the bombing we were left with virtually no serviceable aircraft.
At the start of the War of Independence on 15 May 1948, the small group of exhausted pilots with their battered airplanes was on the verge of collapse. A statement made on 12 May by Yigael Yadin to the Provisional Council of the Government testified to the gravity of the situation at that time. “We have no air force. Our planes operate contrary to all the rules of aerial tactics. We have already had grievous losses. No other pilots would dare to take off in plan
es like ours. … The Arab air forces are a hundred and fifty times the size of ours. It would be best not to take into account the planes we have as a military factor.”
While I was observing the sorry scene at Sde Dov, we heard the whine of the Merlins again and ran to take cover in a nearby field. We had made no preparations in case of a bombing, neither shelters nor foxholes. The field was the site of a small cement factory and the piles of blocks drying in the sun gave us cover from the strafing fighters. I glanced around me and saw someone lying nearby dressed in a tweed jacket, khaki shorts, and long socks like a British soldier or policeman. It was Chief of Staff Yigael Yadin.
As the whine of the Spitfires faded away, a large black car drove gingerly over the wooden bridge at the edge of the airfield and out stepped Prime Minister Ben Gurion. He carried a pair of large black binoculars, which he promptly trained on the scene. I was enraged at the equanimity with which my warning had been received and with the outcome plainly to be seen in front of us. Without realizing what I was doing, I started shouting at Ben Gurion, cursing the GHQ and roaring, “I warned them and now look at this. What idiocy!” Ben Gurion looked at me in surprise and without saying a word got into his car and disappeared over the bridge just in time to miss the third wave of Spitfires. In a mindless rage, I pulled out my revolver and though the attacking Spitfires could see me clearly in front and below their noses during the dive, futilely shot at the fighters as they roared past at the bottom of their dives.
In charge of the few anti-aircraft guns was a man slightly older than us, whom I had not seen before at the field. When the raid started, he began to scream orders to his men in a hysterical tone of voice. I went up to him and silenced him, because I could see that his behavior was affecting everyone around him. He drew himself up in a show of exaggerated importance and said to me, “Do you know who I am?”