New Heavens (26 page)

The Greek Air Force officers had been scrupulously correct during their questioning. The men in dark suits who appeared at all hours of the night were members of the civilian counterintelligence and were of a different stamp. At that time in 1948, the Greek government was engaged in a bitter struggle with the Greek communist rebels led by General Markos. The rebel forces continually crossed over the border from Albania and Yugoslavia where they got their
support. The Greeks told me they had found a map in my aircraft with a penciled-in course line running from Yugoslavia across Albania and the Greek Peloponnese, and on toward Rhodes.

The men in the black suits became more and more forceful, and when I kept to my story, they became exasperated and threatened to shoot me for being a communist. My protestations that I was not a communist—unlikely for someone from a wealthy background in Johannesburg—were to no avail. Realizing that the situation had become hopeless, the solitude and lack of communication with anyone began to affect me. Here I was, incarcerated in a prison in a strange country, not knowing the language, cut off from any contact with my people, and in fear of being shot.

After three nights of being woken up at all hours of the night for interrogation, I had a brainstorm. I remembered the friendship I had struck up with the Greek Air Force officer in the train overnight between Salisbury in Rhodesia and Johannesburg some five years before. Relying on the hope that George Lagodimus had survived the war in Europe, I told the Greeks about my meeting with George, whom I had invited to my home. I was not at all sure if he was alive or could be found, but I hoped he would remember our meeting in South Africa years ago. The Greek officers seemed puzzled but said nothing.

To my great surprise, a few hours later the door to my room was opened by the armed guard and in walked George Lagodimus wearing the uniform of a squadron leader in the Greek Air Force. As luck would have it, George had indeed survived the war and was still in the Greek Air
Force. They had sent an aircraft to Athens to bring him to Rhodes.

When George walked in I said, “Hullo, George, do you remember me?” Then came his shocking answer. “I am sorry but I don't know who you are.” My scruffy appearance and the thick beard had misled him completely. I could not blame him, for our last meeting was on the other side of the world in South Africa years before I had even started flying and there had been no mention of Israel. After explanations on my part, reminders of our meeting and the visit to my home, George finally seemed to remember. He listened to my tale but, not believing our story of the patrol from Israel, told me to tell the truth and he left.

I did not see him again, and when I inquired about him a year or two later, I heard that he was among the officers who had supported King Constantine in his failed coup d'état, and he had been discharged from the air force. Captain Vutsinas was also involved, and I later heard he committed suicide after the failure of the coup.

During the interrogation, they kept on telling me that Moddie had broken down under questioning and had told the truth, and that we had indeed come from Yugoslavia. I became deeply upset when they told me he had been released and was back in Israel. I felt lost and angry with Moddie, whom I felt had betrayed me. Later, I found out that they had used the same trick on Moddie, but he knew they were not telling the truth. He had been placed in a cell between my cell and the kitchen, and, seeing that there was always another plate of food when his was brought to him, he had realized I was still there.

After five days of interrogation in Rhodes, I was flown in a Greek Air Force Dakota to Athens and was put in a cell in an air force police station in a suburb of the city. Again, Moddie was the lucky one. He again noted the two plates of food at mealtimes and guessed that I was still there, too.

During the questioning by the Greek Air Force, they asked me if I wished to see the South African consul in Athens. I refused their offer, for my activities were not on behalf of South Africa, and I did not wish to be an embarrassment to them.

Time weighed heavily on me in my solitary confinement. Besides the boredom, I knew that even without my Spitfire I was badly needed in Israel. I made chess figures from bits of paper and tried to play chess with myself. This lasted for a few hours, but I gave up after a short time. Except for washing, I was not allowed out of my cell and had no exercise. My mood deteriorated from day to day for I saw no possibility of my release.

The Greek army guards were stationed in the next room, and they played backgammon loudly all night long with little consideration for their prisoner next door. I shouted to them to keep quiet, but they paid no attention. Food consisted of Greek army rations, an unending flow of beans or some other vegetable covered in a meat sauce. The guards allowed me to go down occasionally into a freezing cellar where there were primitive cold-water washing facilities, and I rubbed myself down with my handkerchief.

After nearly two weeks, they told us we were both being released but would not be allowed to go to Israel because the United Nations had an embargo on the movement of
men of military age to Israel. Moddie and I had an emotional reunion, hugging one another. We brought each other up-to-date on what had happened during the weeks of our solitary confinement.

Awaiting us outside the police station was a representative of Israel, George Georgiou, a Christian Greek born in Jerusalem. After throwing in his lot with the Jews, he had been appointed by Israel as liaison officer to the Greek government. Georgiou was a great help, and he and I became close friends. Years later in Israel, he turned to me for help in trying to save a failing industrial concern he had set up in Macedonia, and I was able to show my gratitude by arranging a bank guarantee for him. He now lives in England, and we are in contact to this day.

Contact was established with the Jewish community of Athens who showered us with gifts of clothing from one of the shops owned by Jews. Probably to celebrate our return to freedom, we both chose bright red pajamas and proceeded directly from the prison to the best hotel in Athens, the Grande Bretagne.

As we walked the streets of Athens, people pointed at us and seemed to know the whole story, probably from the press and radio. I must have been easy to identify with my beard and casual clothing. The Greek government seemed unable to figure out exactly who we were and why we were flying those unarmed Spitfires into Greek airspace.

The Greek Air Force confiscated our two Spitfires and later used them in their civil war against the forces of General Markos. One was lost in combat, and the remaining one was eventually returned to Israel—too late to be used
in the war. Our release was on the condition that we abided by the UN regulation and did not depart for Israel. After some days a Pan African Air Charter aircraft arrived in Athens on its way to Israel. I went to the airport and persuaded the captain to take us. We boarded the aircraft and landed some three hours later in Haifa.

Unknown to me my mother had in the meantime arrived in Israel from Johannesburg, worried at not having heard from me for some time, and was overjoyed to see me. When she had first arrived in Tel Aviv and inquired as to my whereabouts, she was met by my friends and associates initially with a blank stare and then some cock-and-bull story of my being away in the Negev. Strangely enough, her flight, like all flights from South Africa to Israel at the time, passed through Athens and she had spent the night in the Grande Bretagne hotel a few days before I was released.

After getting back to Israel, I was posted to 101 Squadron. I originally had been offered the command of Base Number Three, which was to be at Kfar Sirkin and the airfield from which our new Czech Spitfire squadron was to operate. During my time at Kunevice, I spent hours planning this undertaking, but when forward units of the Iraqi army advanced to within shelling range of Sirkin, the plan was scrapped. The Israel Air Force would make do with one fighter squadron equipped with its original complement of Messerschmitts, plus the Spitfires ferried from Czechoslovakia
and three P-51 Mustangs now at our disposal. I was disappointed at losing my intended command of a second operational base but was quite happy to be a fighter pilot again and part of 101 Squadron.

Of the original six Spitfires that had departed Czechoslovakia on our first ferry flight, only three arrived safely. One crashed and two remained in Greece. When the three remaining fighters arrived in Israel, a crowd of bigwigs, including the prime minister, met the flight. As is known the Spitfire has no toilet facilities, and when one of them touched down after six hours' flying, the pilot pushed everyone aside and ran quickly to a corner to relieve himself before shaking hands with the dignitaries.

101 Fighter Squadron was based at Herzlia Airfield, a short rubble-covered strip at an angle to a longer one on the rich black loam of the agricultural land in the area. It was some fifteen kilometers north of Tel Aviv and next to Kfar Shmaryahu, a pleasant village of chicken farmers who hailed mostly from Germany. The pilots were billeted in the village in pastoral-like pensions, which usually catered for family holidays. The villagers were mostly former German professionals and not real farming yokels. One of the farmers turned his personal book collection into a lending library for us to use. Not surprisingly, our main fare consisted of chicken.

The peace and tranquility of the village and its European atmosphere made it highly attractive to us, and we spent many happy hours there. I was so taken with Kfar Shmaryahu that I vowed that if I ever settled in Israel I would make my home in the village. And I did. The occasional drunken
parties we held were taken in their stride with equanimity by the staid farmers of the village. We soon felt at home, and one of our pilots bought a horse he named Gibor. I heard him raging bitterly at the paymaster when, as usually happened, pay was delayed for weeks, saying, “I have to feed Gibor. How for God's sake do you expect me to wait for my pay?”

We soon started flying operational missions. The squadron flew the Israel Air Force's first ground attack mission on 29 May 1948. An Egyptian armored column headed for Tel Aviv had gotten as far as Isdud, present-day Ashdod. After overcoming Kfar Darom and Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, the column, according to the boastful Egyptian radio commentator, would be in Tel Aviv within forty-eight hours. Indeed, when the Messerschmitts attacked, the Egyptians were a scant forty kilometers from the city. Our Czech-built fighters stopped the enemy's advance, but not without cost.

During that operation, we lost my close friend from the early days in the Air Service, South African Eddie Cohen, flying one of the Messerschmitts. After Eddie's death one of his friends, an American Mahal pilot from Atlantic City named Coleman Goldstein, asked me to arrange a scholarship at the Haifa Technion in Eddie's name. Unfortunately, the sum Coleman had, the entire savings of his Mahal salary from the day he came to Israel, was too small to do anything worthwhile, and we had to shelve the scheme. This intended donation by Coleman is one example of the camaraderie among the Mahal flyers.

Eddie was the first of the original nine pilots of the Sherut Avir to be killed in action. I knew he had crashed not far
from Hatzor in the southern part of the Sharon plain, where we eventually moved with 101 Squadron from Herzlia. In November, during a lull in the fighting, I took off in a Piper Cub and found the crashed Messerschmitt not far from Hatzor.

I landed in a field near the crashed plane, but a deep wadi prevented me from getting near to it. I could not see any signs of a body, and as I had to keep the engine running, I took off immediately and reported my findings to Southern Command after landing. Hours later, the army telephoned to tell me that I was extremely fortunate for I had landed in the middle of a minefield. Eventually, the minefield was cleared and Eddie's body was found. He is buried next to the air force memorial in the Jerusalem hills. His mother came from Johannesburg to attend the funeral. I was deeply touched to hear her mumbling “Eddikins, Eddikins” while his body was lowered into the grave.

My only other contact with Southern Command was when two of us from the fighter squadron were invited to visit their headquarters in the village of Gederah a few kilometers from our field at Hatzor. The commander of the Southern Front at the time was General Yigael Alon, a well-known former Palmach commander. He had succeeded Yitzhak Sadeh. The atmosphere of the headquarters struck me as being very Palmach and kibbutzlike. In August 1948 Alon had become commander of the Southern Front. It was the most crucial front in the fighting at the time, because Egypt with its large standing army was the most dangerous of the enemies.

Alon's headquarters were located in a small house and
gave the impression of being businesslike and efficient with no trace of rank or special respect for the senior officers. While I was talking to Alon, the door to his room opened and in walked his deputy. I caught my breath, for here was the epitome of a Herrenfolk German officer. He was wearing a battledress without any insignia of rank like all of us, but the impression was unmistakable. He had a shock of blonde hair, steely blue eyes, and a ruddy, fair complexion with a turned-up nose. He was born a Sabra and his name was Yitzhak Rabin.

After the war Rabin was chief of operations at general headquarters while I had headed the air operations in the air force. We were in contact over a long period. Neither of us at that time could have foreseen that our families would in the space of a few years be linked and we should have a common grandson, Michael, after the marriage of his son to my daughter.

In time, Rabin became chief of staff of the Israel Army and commanded the forces that achieved the brilliant victory over the Arab armies in the Six-Day War of 1967. He eventually became prime minister of Israel. As the world knows, Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing, Israeli orthodox Jew in November 1995. Of course, Rabin's death was a great national loss as well as a personal loss for both me and my family.