New Heavens (25 page)

I climbed into the only real Spitfire, switched on the ignition, and was surprised to see the ignition light shining. I
tried a number of times to get it started, but couldn't. I had to leave it with the ground troops evacuating the area hurriedly because of returning Egyptian forces. In fact, while I was trying to start the Spitfire, I heard shelling nearby, proving the situation was still fluid. There was little that could be done, but I refused to leave the precious Spit there. The army had a spare command car available, and we hooked the tail wheel of the airplane over the back of the vehicle and began to tow it to our lines. After an hour or two of towing, there was nothing more I could do to help and I hitched a ride back to Tel Aviv. Near Beersheba, a vehicle coming the other way knocked off the wing. Fortunately, it was not a total loss, for it was repaired and entered service eventually with 101 Squadron.

After capturing the main airfield of El Arish, we found the Egyptians had already evacuated most of their aircraft before our ground troops reached it and had torched all the unserviceable aircraft that could not be evacuated. In the canal zone, RAF bases refueled Egyptian Air Force planes, which were landing at their fields on their way back to Egypt during the period when they were in full retreat. So much for British neutrality during our war of survival with the Arab states in 1948.

British Spitfire fighters were inherited by the Czech squadrons that served with the RAF in World War II and were taken to Czechoslovakia after the war. After the communist
takeover in 1948, the Czechs had to alter the anomalous situation of having an air force equipped with British fighters. Israel was still desperately short of fighter aircraft, having less than a dozen Messerschmitts left of the original twenty-six. We decided to buy forty Spitfires, which the Czechs undertook to prepare for the long flight to Israel.

I went to Czechoslovakia to initiate the ferrying to Israel of the Spitfires. The ferry operation was code-named “Velveta,” and the Israel Navy was brought into the planning. Rescue vessels were stationed in the Mediterranean to patrol the route the aircraft would use, flying from Kunevice near Uherske Radice in the eastern half of Czechoslovakia. There were no runways, and the landing area was a large grass field. This airfield's overhaul facilities carried out repairs and final adjustments to the Spitfires after stripping them of all armament and anything not essential for flight.

As the Spitfire's normal maximum range was 700 kilometers, and Israel is 2,500 kilometers from Czechoslovakia, a major problem arose. Sam Pomerantz, a former engineer in the U.S. Army Air Forces, and a dedicated Mahal volunteer, undertook to equip them with long-range fuel tanks under the wings. The only fuel tanks available were drop tanks from Messerschmitts, so Sam headed a team in Prague, which set to work modifying the Spits to take the Messerschmitt's tanks. He designed and equipped the tanks with a feed system to enable the pilot to pump fuel from the extra tanks into the standard tank under the belly of the aircraft. He then installed small pumps for operation by the pilot during the flight. Gauges screwed into the right wall of the cockpit indicated the fuel quantity left in the slipper tank
underneath the aircraft. As the level dropped, the pilot operated the pump, transferring the fuel. The British designers of the legendary Spitfire with its glorious history in World War II would have turned over in their graves if they had seen us in their beloved Spits cruising blithely over the Mediterranean with a Messerschmitt tank under each wing. Even with this extended range, however, we couldn't reach Israel nonstop from Kunevice, so an intermediate refueling stop was essential.

As there was no other country along the direct route that would permit us to fly over it, let alone to refuel, we negotiated an agreement with Yugoslavia to refuel in their country. At that time Marshal Tito had severed ties with the Soviets, and as there was as yet no contact with the Western powers, the Yugoslav Air Force couldn't get aviation-grade fuel from either the Russians or the West. Israel undertook to provide the Yugoslavs with aviation fuel, and in return, they granted the Israel Air Force a refueling base on the long flight to Israel.

A base codenamed “Yoram” was set up on a dried lake at NikÅ¡i
near Titograd in Montenegro. We were briefed that, in case of a forced-landing, we were to contact the UDBA (Yugoslav Gestapo) and ask for Gedda (an Israeli pilot formerly in the RAF). Gedda Shochat, a powerfully built, hearty member of Kibbutz Kfar Gileadi in northern Israel, was the man responsible for our contacts with the Yugoslavs. He was the one who saw to the equipping of the airfield for us. After arrival, the Spits were to refuel and continue over the Greek Peloponnese to the Mediterranean and on to Israel.

As such a long-range flight had never been attempted before in a Spitfire, an Israel Air Force four-engine DC-4 Sky-master crew would navigate and lead the fighters. An experienced South African volunteer navigator was chosen for the Skymaster. He was to calculate the fuel remaining in each Spitfire, instruct the pilots by radio as to their exact position, and tell them if they were going to make it or should turn back.

Six of us were to fly this first batch of Spitfires. Overhaul of the aircraft and checking the Messerschmitt-tank additions took weeks. One evening, after returning from dinner in one of the few restaurants in the area, we found the female manager of our hotel standing at the front entrance awaiting us and sobbing. Two men were standing next to her wearing long, black leather overcoats. They were from the secret police.

They wanted to know who we were and what we were doing there. They insisted on coming upstairs with us to examine our rooms and belongings. They gestured to us to open our suitcases and poked among our belongings. We were incensed and demanded identification. They seemed to be surprised at our demand, obviously not having been questioned in the past. They turned up the collars of their black leather coats to reveal Czech secret police badges. Matters looked dire for us when they found our revolvers, issued by the Israeli embassy in Prague.

Obviously, they had not been informed we were persona grata as far as their government was concerned. The end of the incident came quickly when, at our insistence, they telephoned their bosses, who told them what we were doing
in Kunevice. The panic and tears of our host gave us an idea of what life was like under a communist regime.

One of our six pilots was Tuksie Blau, a young South African I had recruited with the first batch of volunteers. He had little experience on advanced fighters, so I arranged for him to undergo a conversion course on Spitfires at Kunevice, and he managed it well. After the work on the Spitfires ended, we took off one early morning on a cloudless day in August departing in the six aircraft in fine style. We flew in loose formation from Czechoslovakia over Hungary to the Adriatic coast. I found it odd to be flying behind the Iron Curtain over one communist country after the other in Israel Air Force Spitfires.

The weather had been fair when we took off, but shortly after passing over Hungary, we ran into clouds. None of us had instrument ratings, there were no navigational aids, and after some time we had to break formation, with each pilot making for the field on his own. We reached Yoram in three hours and found the unmarked field in spite of the bad weather. I was the first to land, and I taxied my Spit toward a group of tents near a river on the west side of the stony dry field. Tuksie was following me, but forgot to lower his undercarriage and landed on the Spitfire's belly. He was uninjured but the Spit was a write-off. That meant one down and five to go.

I was particularly upset by the crash, for the Operations Department in Tel Aviv had sent Arnie Ruch, an experienced South African Spitfire pilot to fly the sixth Spit. I had insisted that Tuksie fly it for he had passed the conversion course on to Spitfires successfully. Moreover, he had been
waiting around for weeks, bored stiff by the inactivity. I had no doubt that he would manage the flight to Israel in company with the rest of us, but I am still bothered about my poor judgment.

The airfield at Yoram was in an exposed location surrounded by mountains and bounded on one side by a fast-flowing river. Apart from tents and a shack with a radio transceiver, there was nothing. We slept in tents on the desolate airfield, washed in the icy river nearby, and our food was mostly in tins from Israel. We were constantly under the watchful eyes of Yugoslavian soldiers, who did not allow any of us to leave the field. Every day, the soldiers sat on the ground in a circle under a Yugoslavian flag listening to an officer, who stood in the middle with a book in his hand. As we had no contact with these soldiers, it was anyone's guess as to whether these lectures were for general education or communist dogma.

After spending a week sitting around in the tents without a radio or news of the war in Israel, the C-54 appeared, made a few circuits to check the field, and then made a bumpy landing. Shortly after the landing, we received a radio message from Israel forecasting good weather en route. Soon we took off in the five Spitfires led by the Sky-master. We climbed to 8,000 feet in loose formation, three aircraft on one side of the Skymaster and two on the other. We flew in fine weather past Albania, over the Greek Peloponnese, to the Mediterranean. Soon the Greek islands appeared in the blue sea with the mountains of Turkey to port.

The beauty of the Mediterranean and the Greek islands
belied the tension we felt in our cramped cockpits while keeping the fuel gauges under constant scrutiny. Navigation was the responsibility of the Skymaster's navigator, who worked in the ideal conditions of a large aircraft with his navigation computer and radio link with Israel. We left it to him to worry about how much fuel we had left and whether it was enough for us to reach Israel.

Communication with the Skymaster was by VHF radio. The navigator in the lead aircraft constantly monitored our fuel consumption, getting radio reports from each of us as our slipper tanks ran dry. When the slipper tank ran completely dry and caused the engine to cut, we were to tell him so he could calculate our fuel consumption and decide whether our fuel reserve was sufficient for the remainder of the flight.

Using the last drop of fuel in our slipper tank before switching over to the main tanks in the wings meant a short period of fuel starvation. This method was a bit risky for there was a possibility that we would be unable to restart the engine after it cut, but we had no choice. Still acutely aware of what had happened to me in Venice, I made sure of my buoyancy in case I had to ditch or bale out over the sea by wearing two Mae West life jackets.

Between the islands of Rhodes and Cyprus, I saw the Spitfire of my mate Moddie Alon, who was on the left of the Skymaster, turn sharply and lose height. A few seconds later, Moddie announced his slipper tank was empty and his engine had cut. He got it started again, but, almost immediately, I heard the navigator telling Moddie that he did not have enough fuel to complete the flight to Israel. Moddie
made a 180-degree turn and headed back toward Rhodes in the direction from which we had come. I continued to keep my eye anxiously on the makeshift fuel gauge on the right cockpit wall and worried about what was in store for Moddie.

Not two minutes later my engine cut too. I turned sharply over to the left into a dive and headed back while restarting my engine. The Skymaster navigator confirmed that I did not have enough fuel either. I told Moddie to form on me and we headed back toward Rhodes.

After thirty minutes, worrying about the fate awaiting us, we reached the island. I searched for an airfield and made out two fields, Lindos in the south and a larger one near the city of Rhodes. Not having been briefed on details of either field, I chose the larger one and landed with Moddie behind me. We taxied to the control tower.

A Greek Air Force officer approached me from the tower and asked what we wanted. I said in my most innocent manner, “We are short of fuel. Please ask the Shell agent to come and refuel our aircraft. I have cash with me.” Within a few minutes he reappeared, not with the Shell agent but with a squad of airmen armed with rifles. Thus ended the second leg of our flight to Israel.

We were taken under guard to the Greek military headquarters in Rhodes and put in separate rooms with an armed guard outside each door. The isolation soon began
to weigh heavily on me for I had nothing to read and there was no one to talk to. My requests to see Moddie were refused. The interrogation was headed by the base commander, Captain Vutsinas.

“Where did you come from? Why were you flying fighter aircraft with Israel Air Force markings and no cannons in the wings, and what do you want in Rhodes?”

I kept steadfastly to our story that we had set out from Israel on a long-range sea patrol and had run short of fuel. It is not difficult to understand the suspicions of the Greek commander and his intelligence officer, who was also present at the interrogations. Moddie was casually dressed in jeans, I was wearing a pair of brown corduroys with a sizeable tear in the seat, and I had a macho beard. I had a revolver in a holster around my waist and not one, but two bright, yellow life jackets. Worst of all was my South African passport with my real name and an Israeli identity card. It was in the name of Daniel Anan (
Anan
is a cloud in Hebrew) stamped with a communist Czechoslovakian visa. Profession: travel agent, which I chose at the time in a humorous vein. All this did not amuse the Greeks who began waking me at odd hours of the night for questioning.