Government policy paper (US foreign military aid to Israel)

Journal of the Middle East and Africa, 6:83–101, 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC © 2015 ISSN: 2152-0844 print/2152-0852 online DOI: 10.1080/21520844.2015.1051449

Israel’s International Squadron and the “Never Again” Mentality

ASHER ORKABY

Israel’s International Squadron 120, founded in 1964, embod- ied the “Never Again” post-Holocaust imperative of Israel’s iden- tity ahead of its adoption on a national level. Beginning with an airlift mission to Yemen’s northern highlands in 1964, the squadron emerged as the long arm of Israel’s foreign policy dur- ing the nation’s “golden era” of the 1960s and subsequent decades. Through the continued influence of its early members, many of whom were survivors of the Holocaust, the squadron assumed the forefront of international humanitarian aid and rescue efforts. This article tells the story of this squadron through the oral histories of five of its original members.

KEYWORDS East Africa, Holocaust, Israel, Yemen

INTRODUCTION

In Rethinking the Holocaust, Yehuda Bauer depicts the Nazis and the Holocaust as an example of a historical phenomenon occurring as a result of conscious human action rather than an inhuman event outside of his- tory. Holocaust studies function to warn future generations of mankind’s genocidal potential, contributing to the “Never Again” imperative in Israeli society.1 Historian Idith Zertal describes Auschwitz as an element of “Israeli

ASHER ORKABY earned a doctorate from Harvard University in Middle East studies and history for his work on the international history of the Yemen Civil War, 1962–1968. He is currently a research fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University.

1Yehudah Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001).

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historical and all-purpose memory to be used in any and every instance.”2

In a recent article, psychologist Yechiel Klar highlights four specific voices within this Holocaust Israeli mentality: “(1) Never be a passive victim; (2) never forsake your brothers (3) never be a passive bystander; (4) never be a perpetrator.”3 Israel’s International Squadron, many of whose original members were Holocaust survivors, embodied these principles in both the squadron’s missions and its overall mentality.

On May 15, 1963, Ezer Weizmann, commander of the Israel Air Force (IAF) from 1958–1966, announced the formation of a new flight division in transport Squadron 103. On July 1, 1964, this division formed the inde- pendent Squadron 120, which would become known as the International Squadron. Squadron 120 was intended by Weizmann for heavy cargo trans- port of weaponry from France and other European countries to Israel. Under the leadership of Captain Arieh Oz, however, the Squadron became more far-reaching and significant by carrying out military aid, diplomatic, and humanitarian missions in an ever-increasing geographical range. Squadron 120 assumed an active international role in undermining Egyptian military power in Yemen, shuttling Israeli diplomats to Africa and Iran, freeing Jewish hostages at Entebbe, and transporting Ethiopian Jews to Israel. The extent to which Oz and his crew were willing to place their own safety at risk for the good of the nation was further testament to their brotherhood and their stance against the passivity of Jewish victimhood during the Holocaust, all elements of Klar’s Holocaust mentality.

There is a general consensus among historians of Israel regarding the country’s public silence on the Holocaust during the first two to three decades of its existence. Adolf Eichmann’s 1961 trial, the 1967 War, the 1973 War, and the election to power of the rightist Likud Party in 1977 have all been cited as turning points in national dialogue and memory of the Holocaust. Historian Anita Shapira explains this transition as a collective realization that “the sense of helplessness, of there being no way out, that had hitherto been identified only with the Holocaust and life in exile was seen now as being possible in the free Jewish state as well.”4 Klar terms this the “erosion of the dichotomy between ‘there’ and ‘here.’”5

While not declared explicitly, this Holocaust mentality was embodied by the International Squadron either at the forefront of, or well before, its adoption on a national level.

2Idith Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 126.

3Yechiel Klar, Noa Schori-Eyal, and Yonat Klar, “The ‘Never Again’ State of Israel: The Emergence of the Holocaust as a Core Feature of Israeli Identity and Its Four Incongruent Voices,” Journal of Social Issues 69 (2013): 125–43.

4Anita Shapira, “The Holocaust: Private Memories, Public Memory,” Jewish Social Studies 4 (1998): 40–58.

5Klar, “Never Again,” 133.

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The specifics of many of this squadron’s missions have remained clas- sified state secrets until recently. Several books on the Yemen Civil War (1962–1968) have since mentioned Squadron 120’s role in Yemen. Squadron 120 founder Arieh Oz and IAF Head of Intelligence Ze’ev Liron have dedi- cated several chapters of their memoirs to the mission to Yemen and to the International Squadron more broadly.

A documentary entitled There and Here, directed by Avida Livni and released in July 2014, tells the story of four Holocaust survivors, including Oz, and their rise from European refugees to influential members of the IAF. The documentary was part of a larger project, MeTkuma LaSchakim (From Rebirth to the Skies), an oral history that has focused on Holocaust survivors in the IAF. As the documentary explains, of the 350 aircrew in the 1950s, 138 of them were Holocaust survivors. Many of the high brass in the IAF were Holocaust survivors, including Colonel Chaim Navon, the famed helicopter squadron commander; and Colonel Ezra Dotan and Major Zvi Umschwief, two of the most famous IAF combat pilots.

One of the documentary’s other interviewees, Simi Sa’ar, explains that these 138 Holocaust survivors made every effort to hide their Holocaust backgrounds. Formerly known as Moshe Simigram and born in Radivillow, Ukraine, Sa’ar escaped from the local ghetto and lived in hiding in the farm- house of a non-Jew. After Russians captured the town, his family returned, only to see his father die two weeks after liberation from disease. Once in Israel, Sa’ar suffered from speaking with a heavy European accent and hav- ing a very different childhood from that of native Israelis, or Sabras. Like the members of Squadron 120, he too felt compelled to work harder in order to succeed like Sabras. Sa’ar would later serve in the Six-Day War, during which he led a combat formation, and commanded two combat missions as a war base commander in 1973.6

This article relies primarily on oral histories that the author conducted with five original members of the International Squadron. In addition to contributing to the discourse of Holocaust survivors in Israeli society, this article shares the narrative of a demonstrative story yet untold.

FOUNDING THE INTERNATIONAL SQUADRON

Prior to 1963 Israel did not have the capability to reach many countries beyond the Eastern African coast without a refueling layover in between. The IAF transport Squadron 103 was limited to World War II–era Douglas DC- 3 Dakotas and French military transport Nord 2501 Nortatlases. The Dakotas

6 There and Here, dir. Avida Livni (Omer TV: 2014).

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and Nords were gas-guzzlers, had a minimal range, and could carry a rela- tively small payload. Nevertheless, Israel’s foreign policy ambitions stretched far beyond Ethiopia to the newly independent nations of sub-Saharan Africa.

In explaining the deficiencies of Squadron 103, senior navigator Moshe Bartov described his colleagues as more keen on transporting fuel than sol- diers and supplies. Not only did the Dakotas need additional fuel, but some of the pilots would insist on taking extra fuel well beyond the international norms. On Nords, for example, they would take an extra half-ton of fuel, further limiting the amount of supplies they could take back to Israel. Bartov would mock them, asking them why they were going to Paris: “Do you just want to do some light shopping and come back?!”7

Weizmann commissioned the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), which had been founded by Israel’s Ministry of Defense in 1953, to acquire long- range aircraft and retrofit them for use as military transport. Weizmann; Adolph “Al” Schwimmer, an American flight engineer and the founder and first chief executive officer of IAI; and Hugo Marom, IAI’s chief test pilot from 1959 to 1964, spearheaded Israel’s effort to secure long-range four- engine transport aircraft. There was great difficulty in securing these planes, as U.S. president John F. Kennedy had banned the sale of Lockheed C- 130 Hercules transport planes to Israel8 as part of a longstanding U.S. arms embargo against Israel beginning in 1947 and lasting officially until 1962. The IAI had first been introduced to the YC-97, the prototype of the C-97 aircraft, when one was brought to Israel for repairs by a Luxemburg cargo company. The IAI and the Israeli Defense Ministry initially concocted ambitious plans to convert this YC-97 prototype into a super-Hercules of sorts.9 Captain Oz was among a number of Squadron 103 pilots selected by Marom to test the capabilities of the YC-97 plane. During the test flight, Oz realized that the plane was terrible and did not have enough power in its 3350 engines for the purposes of the IAF. Although he was only a young captain then, he wrote a blunt report explaining that the YC-97 was not suitable for long- distance transport and was nothing more than “a junk airplane.”10 While brooding over the potential of the YC-97, Schwimmer discovered, through his colleague in Burbank, California, that Pan American had issued a tender for five B-377 Stratocruisers, a type of long-range aircraft based on Boeing’s C-97 military transport that used more powerful 4360 engines. In addition, a

7Moshe Bartov, interview with author, June 30, 2014. 8Lars Olausson, Lockheed Hercules Production List 1954–2012, 28th ed. (Sweden: Lars Olausson

2012). The first Hercules planes would not be delivered to Israel until Operation Nickel Grass in October 1973 during the Yom Kippur War.

9Shlomo Aloni, “Hugo, Oz and the Five Giants: Boeing Stratocruisers in Israeli Service,” Air Enthusiast 131 (September 2007): 72–80.

10Arieh Oz, interview with author, June 30, 2014. Oz claims that the letter made its way up the chain of command, shocking senior officers with the courage of this unknown captain to write such a definitive report.

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company in Tucson, Arizona, was selling parts from surplus C-97s that the IAI could use to overhaul the Stratocruisers.11

Marom assumed nearly sole responsibility for organizing the purchase and transport of the Stratocruisers and C-97 parts. Formerly known as Meisl, Marom was born in Czechoslovakia in 1930. In 1940, at the age of ten, he was sent by his parents on the Kindertransport to England. Following the end of World War II, he enrolled in British Royal Air Force (RAF) training and continued his studies in aviation. In December 1947, the Israeli Hagana recruited Marom to train as a pilot with the Czech Air Force before moving him to Israel to join the fledgling IAF. Following further degrees in aeronau- tics from academic institutions in Britain and France, Marom was hired as a test pilot for the IAI in 1959.12 He was the first Holocaust survivor to become involved in the formation of the International Squadron.

Marom bought five B-377 Stratocruisers that Pan American had taken out of service and sent to storage in Oakland, California, and Miami, Florida. In March 1962, the IAI began converting these planes for military transport by retrofitting them with C-97 tail sections with clamshell doors, flooring to replace the light Stratocruiser floor, and a cockpit. The fuselage and pressur- ized body of the Stratocruiser was otherwise nearly identical to that of the militarized C-97 transport.13 Despite the seemingly good stroke of luck in finding these planes, the IAF did not understand the depth of the issues fac- ing the Stratocruisers, a fact that would come back to haunt Israeli pilots and engineers later. Pan American, British Airways, Overseas National Airways, the British Airways Overseas Corporation, and United had all taken the plane out of service because of problems with the engines, which were prone to shut down.14 Marom joked that the Stratocruiser was the best two-engine air- plane out there, because two out of four engines often stalled during flight.15

Nonetheless, the plane had great potential in that the crew could easily load via the front loading doors, close them, fly to the destination, and then drop a shipment from the clamshell doors in the rear part of the plane. Up to this point, Israel had not had such large-scale capability.16

Captain Oz, who was then working with Squadron 103, was selected to test the new Stratocruisers and join a specialized training course for the new aircraft organized by IAI. According to Oz, there were lieutenant-colonels

11Hugo Marom, interview with author, February 2014. 12“Czech Mate,” Jerusalem Post, September 7, 2010. 13Aloni, “Hugo, Oz and the Five Giants.” The plans became somewhat more difficult when, upon

closer inspection on arrival to Israel, the IAF fully understood that the Stratocruisers were actually passenger airliners rather than military transports.

14Oz, interview, June 30, 2014. Marom, interview, February 2015. 15Marom, interview, February 2014. Others who were interviewed seem to have been more opti-

mistic, claiming that the Stratocruiser was the best three-engine airplane, meaning that only one out of four engines would fail.

16Yithak Biran, interview with author, June 26, 2014.

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and many other senior captains who really wanted this position, yet Weizmann chose Oz because he was impressed with the younger man’s initial reports on test flights and his stellar record flying missions to Ethiopia for the IAF and the Mossad. Oz was also the only IAF pilot to have completed a complex month-long Stratocruiser course for mechanics and electricians, taught by Marom and two American flight engineers.17 Captain Paul T. Adams, a Pan American retiree, served as Oz’s personal instructor on the Stratocruiser and granted him certification to fly B-377s on March 4, 1963.18

Oz, the main protagonist of the International Squadron, was born to a middle-class family in Germany in 1936. Named Harry Klausner at birth, he and his mother were left behind in November 1938 when his father decided to move to Palestine to prepare a home for his family there. In 1940, left behind closed borders, Oz and his mother became refugees to Holland, where they lived with his uncle for a short period of time. When the Germans overran Holland, a member of the Dutch underground approached his mother and offered to hide Oz with a Christian Dutch rural family until the war’s end. As Oz wrote in his memoirs, he spent the remaining years of the war hiding in this family’s attic, with only a small window as his connec- tion with the world outside the farmhouse. Through this window, Oz would watch the American planes flying overhead on their way to bomb Germany. On occasion, American pilots flying DC-37 Dakotas would drop supplies for Dutch civilians. One of the boxes fell near his Dutch farmhouse; in it, Oz found a small book containing pictures and descriptions of Allied aircraft, allowing him to identify those same Allied planes flying overhead. He knew from that moment that he wanted to be a pilot. Following the end of World War II, Oz boarded a Jewish Agency boat to Palestine, where he met his father for the first time since they had parted ways in 1938.

Oz highlights the subsequent years of acclimating to Israeli society as a key factor that pushed him to join the IAF. When he entered the sixth grade, Oz’s mother was told by the school director, who was apparently misled by Oz’s European upbringing, that her son was mentally retarded and should be transferred to a different school. In later years, Oz came to cite the school director’s comments as the first example of Holocaust-related racism that he had experienced as an adolescent. Survivors of the Holocaust, often recognized by their heavy European accents, were looked down upon by Sabras. Oz consciously chose to hide his Holocaust background, even from his wife, who did not know he was a Holocaust survivor until she pieced together bits of information during their marriage. Despite his reluctance to

17Oz, interview, June 30, 2014. According to Oz, two other Israeli pilots left in the middle of this course, because they said it was too complicated. Oz remained and purportedly learned more about the Stratocruiser than most squadron commanders knew of their own planes: “I even knew the numbers of the relays and a lot of other information that I never needed.”

18Arieh Oz, personal papers.

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openly discuss the Holocaust during his education and military service, his experiences in it greatly impacted his decisions and drive to excel and reach the uppermost echelons of the Israeli military and air force.

Sitting next to Oz on several Stratocruiser flights was his navigator and fellow Holocaust survivor Shaya Harsit. Harsit, formerly known as Parzelina, was born in Poland. When the Nazi army conquered Poland, Harsit’s father fled with his family to the USSR and then farther east to Central Asia to ride out the years of the war. In his memoirs, Harsit speaks at length about living those years in a small hut in Timor. After World War II his family boarded the famed Exodus ship, which the British turned away from the shores of Palestine, sending the ship back to Germany. When Harsit finally arrived in Israel in 1948, he recalls feeling particularly offended by the term “refugee,” which he considered a dirty word. Israeli natives were considered “free,” while he was not. This feeling of inferiority was one of the motivating factors for Harsit to join the IAF, as he explained: “One is only free up in the sky, not down on Earth.”19 Harsit would later serve as a senior navigator in the IAF, as commander of the IAF Operations Center, and as an air force attaché to the United Kingdom. In the IAF academy, Harsit shared a room with Oz, and the two became very close colleagues and confidants. Their collective experiences during World War II and when first acclimating to Israeli society directly impacted the first years of the International Squadron and its development as a manifestation of their Holocaust survivor mentality.

YEMEN, AFRICA, AND CAMARADERIE

One of the first acts of the Squadron was to design its symbol. The symbol chosen was a globe with airplane wings, similar to the symbol used by the German Lufthansa company, a point that Oz felt carried a significant mean- ing for Holocaust survivors in the IAF. The majority of those serving in the newly formed Squadron 120 had previously served in transport Squadron 103. There was a general degradation of the noncombat squadrons in the IAF, and Squadron 103 was no exception. According to Oz, who served in Squadron 103 for six years, although 103 had a safety record near 100 per- cent, the rest of the IAF ridiculed and did not take it seriously, making the squadron’s model a failure in his eyes. When he was appointed Squadron 120’s leader, Oz decided that it would not be just another transport squadron. He envisioned instilling in the squadron a new spirit of pride and adventur- ism that in many ways represented the hopes and pride of the Holocaust survivors serving with him. This new spirit began with external things like sewing squadron patches onto the flight suits, something that had not been standard procedure during the 1960s. Oz also insisted that his crew show up

19Shaya Harsit, interview with author, June 25, 2014.

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at base with marine-style haircuts and ranks listed on their overalls, which he felt gave the squadron an added level of respect and professionalism. The motto of the squadron was to never say something was impossible. The leader would first accept and affirm a mission request and then only after- wards check its feasibility. As Oz explained in biblical terms: “We will do, and only then will we listen” (“Na’aseh Venishma”).20

Joining Oz and Harsit was Yithak Biran, another Holocaust survivor and pilot who had served with Squadron 103 and had been chosen by Oz to join the International Squadron. Biran was born in Czeronowitz, the capital of Bukovina in Romania, to the Birnbaum family. His mother died of typhus when he was a child while the two of them were hiding from the Nazi advance in the Romanian forests. After her death Biran found a group of thirty Jews hiding in the nearby forest and took up residence with them as an orphan. As the Red Army advanced, he was found and adopted by a Soviet artillery unit, with whom he traveled for the duration of the war. The unit kept him on, as Biran spoke German and was able to translate between the soldiers and German pimps. After World War II Biran found himself aboard the Exodus ship along with Harsit and ended up in a Zionist refugee camp in northern Germany at the age of thirteen.

In the film There and Here, Biran recounts the difficulties he faced as a child in acclimating to Israeli society in a similar fashion to that described by Oz and Harsit. Israeli natives would call him “soap,” insinuating that the European Jews were marched to the concentration camps as sheep and then turned into soap. Heinous remarks such as this convinced Biran that he needed to work harder than everyone else to prove himself as one of the native Sabras. This was one of the major driving forces that brought him to the air force recruiting office, as this branch of the military was considered the most prestigious in the 1950s. Biran hid his Holocaust ori- gins, telling other cadets that he was from the Ein Harad Kibbutz and was actually an Israeli native. He would later serve as a pilot in the 1956 Sinai War, as a squadron commander after the Six-Day War, and as an El Al cap- tain for decades.21 Biran joined Oz and Harsit in senior positions in the International Squadron, further shaping 120’s identity as one that embodied a post-Holocaust mentality and whose performance would demonstrate the equality of Holocaust survivors within Israeli society. Given his background, Holocaust-related motivation to join the air force, and skill as a pilot, Biran found that he fit right in with Oz’s International Squadron and their “Never Again” mentality.

Moshe Bartov, who himself was a native Israeli, joined the International Squadron in 1964 and observed the unique nature of and environment among the crew. Squadron 120 was characterized by a healthy internal

20Oz, interview, June 30, 2014. 21 There and Here.

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dynamic, friendly relations, and a sense of purpose and camaraderie that was absent from Squadron 103 as well as the combat Squadron 201, in which Bartov had served as a navigator. In contrast to other squadrons, the crew of 120 would all get together with their families after work.22 Other squadrons did not exhibit similar interpersonal relations, familial inclusion, or a sense of shared origins and destiny.

THE MISSION TO YEMEN

The IAI prepared the Stratocruisers for flight and began flying round-trips to France by 1963. Only one or two Stratocruisers were designated for these flights, as the other four were undergoing overhauls using the C-97 parts. Oz explained that the majority of the several dozen French airports to which 120 flew were not near urban areas and were often difficult to locate. In one instance, Oz could not find the military site on a detailed terrain map of France and needed specific coordinates to find the military airport.23 The success of the weapons runs to France and the effectiveness of the newly acquired Stratocruisers led Weizmann to consider a new role for the newly formed flight division, and later squadron, as the strategic arm of the coun- try’s foreign diplomacy. Squadron 120’s new missions as part of Israel’s policy of providing aid to newly independent African and Asian countries expanded exponentially during the 1960s and clearly demonstrated the humanitarian values espoused by the “Never Again” mentality.24

On September 26, 1962, the Yemeni Imam Muhammad al-Badr was over- thrown by a military coup supported by Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. The deposed imam fled to the northern highlands of the country and gathered loyal tribal militias together to form a royalist opposition in what would be an eight-year civil war. Nasser pledged large sums of money, technical support, and upwards of 70,000 soldiers to the fledgling Yemeni republic. Saudi Arabia, bordering Yemen to the north, and the British colony of Aden, bordering it to the south, were the main sources of support for Imam al-Badr’s forces. Although open British support for the imam was lim- ited, a collection of former British Special Air Service (SAS) members known as the Aden (formerly Suez) Group ran a clandestine operation to supply and support the imam.

In 1963, a representative of the Suez Group, Neil “Billy” McLean, a for- mer British army intelligence officer and Member of Parliament, met with Meir Amit, head of the Mossad, and later consulted with Brigadier Dan Hiram, the Israeli Defence Attaché, to discuss the option of an Israeli aerial

22Bartov, interview, June 30, 2014. 23Oz, interview, June 30, 2014. 24Klar, “Never Again,” 136.

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supply of Imam al-Badr’s anti-Egyptian forces. On February 20, 1964, the commanders of the British mercenary mission in Yemen, Jim Johnson and David Smiley, went to Tel Aviv to organize what they referred to as Operation Leopard with Weizmann. Nahum Admoni, who would later become the head of the Mossad, served as the case officer for the operation, and RAF Flight Lieutenant Tony Boyle served as the British supply and liaison officer to his Israeli counterparts. Sayyid Ahmad Bin Muhammad Al-Shami, the head of Yemen’s delegation in London and Imam al-Badr’s foreign minister, was the direct contact for the Israeli representatives organizing the mission.25

Oz approached Bartov, with whom he had shared many flying hours during their joint time in Squadron 103, and said: “We need you to bring us to an island one square kilometer in size. This will be our initial point, and then we need to make a successful airdrop before making a return trip. I can’t tell you what area of the world this island is in, because it is forbidden.” Oz explained to Bartov only that the flight was to take place at night, that it was more than a five hours’ round-trip flight, and that electronic equipment could not be utilized for navigation because of the need to avoid detection. Bartov chose a small island off the coast of Turkey with a lighthouse to test the capability of the Stratocruiser and the staff to reach an “island” a five- hour round-trip away using only stars, sextants, and navigational charts to trace the plane’s position line. After five successful test flights, two months of planning, and approval from Weizmann, Oz received permission to appoint Bartov as one of the mission’s principle navigators.26

Ze’ev Liron, another Holocaust survivor in the IAF who was serving at the time as head of the IAF intelligence branch, was asked by Mossad head Meir Amit to travel to Yemen and conduct an on-the-ground analysis of both the drop zone in Yemen and the capabilities of the imam’s tribal forces to wage a counterrevolution against Nasser’s Egyptian forces. Liron was instructed to meet with the imam and substantiate his commitments, scout the drop zones, and, most important, ensure that Squadron 120 was not flying into some kind of ambush.27

Liron, formerly known as Londer, survived several years in Auschwitz and braved multiple attempts to escape from the camp and multiple death marches toward the end of the war. In 1950, he joined a squadron of Spitfires and quickly rose through the ranks to become an intelligence officer for the Mossad and the IAF. While the other members of Squadron 120 were forced

25Duff Hart-Davis, The War That Never Was: The True Story of the Men Who Fought Britain’s Most Secret Battle (London, UK: Century, 2011), 138, 185.

26Bartov, interview, June 30, 2014. Given the secrecy of the mission, Weizmann told Bartov that he would have to plan the flight path and navigation without the help of climatologists, meteorologists, or even the daily weather forecast for Yemen. Bartov recounted dressing in civilian clothes and going to the research library in Beit Dagon to read every book on regional climatology and weather patterns that he could find.

27Oz, interview, June 30, 2014.

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to deal with vitriolic comments from native Israelis about their European accents or their traumatic childhoods in war-torn Europe, Liron wore his sta- tus as a Holocaust survivor on his arm, having been branded with a prisoner number in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Given his work in the field of intelligence, Liron was compelled to have the numbers surgically removed, thus hiding his Holocaust and Jewish background.28

Prior to setting off on his trip to Yemen, Liron obtained a false Polish passport and flew through Europe to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and then on to the port city of Aden, where he was smuggled over the North Yemen border by British colleagues. Liron spent one month with the imam and his royalist forces in their headquarters instructing them on how to light flares near the drop zone as well as ascertaining their overall competency as an organized fighting force capable of challenging the Egyptian army.29 When Liron returned from his trip, Oz criticized the quality of his photographs of the drop zone, as they documented the exit from the zone rather than the approach to it. Oz was not concerned about the exit, as the Stratocruiser would weigh significantly less on its departure and could climb out of the mountains with greater ease. It was the approach that most concerned him. Regardless of his critique, Oz trusted Liron as a fellow Holocaust survivor, friend, and part of the International Squadron’s mission. Liron would con- tinue to be involved with the mission to Yemen during official meetings between Oz and Weizmann.30

While planning the mission, Oz contacted Nachum Balson, who was the chief flight engineer of El Al at the time, in addition to a reserve flight engineer for Squadron 120. Oz explained the concerns with the engine reli- ability, telling Balson that the squadron had twenty-four engines and five Stratocruisers. Balson came up with an idea to find the most reliable four engines from within the twenty-four, with the caveat that they would not be new engines. He constructed a detailed form and handed it to every flight, all of which were equipped with two flight engineers. One engineer worked to navigate the airplane, while the other recorded data about the engine. Every time an engine was changed, the new engine would be observed in the same manner. After going through all the engines over a period of one month, Balson came from El Al and checked 120’s data, made graphs and calculations, and set aside four engines for the flights to Yemen. Before every flight to Yemen, the squadron would select the designated airplane

28Moshe Ronen, Tehomot U-shehakim [From the Depths to the Skies] (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth, 2013), 152–54.

29Ibid., 183–84. 30Oz, interview, June 30, 2014. Copies of those photographs can be found in Tony Boyle’s personal

papers, Box 1, Imperial War Museum Archive.

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and attach the four chosen engines to it. On return, the engines would be removed and placed in storage until the next mission flight.31

In preparing for this mission Oz was inspired by RAF pilot Guy Gibson and his squadron of Dam-Busting Lancasters from 1943. These pilots had to fly at 250 feet so that their bombs would bounce on the water in order to reach the targeted dams. The barometric altimeters at that time were inaccu- rate, so the RAF commander mounted two spotlights, one under the aircraft’s nose and the other under the fuselage, so that at the correct altitude the two light beams would converge. While Oz claims he did not use this system of lights, he did need to be at an exact height and angle to drop the supplies into place. He came up with a method of scratching lines on the window. In 2013, Oz visited the International Squadron and noticed a Hercules plane with these same lines on the cockpit window. When he asked the young pilot what the lines were, the pilot claimed that someone had once come up with this trick. Oz reprimanded him and told him that they were his own invention!32

During one of the return flights, the Stratocruiser came under fire from a distance, and Oz was forced to reroute to a flight path just north of Sana’a. As the plane flew over the Egyptian airfield near Sana’a the crew had a clear vision of rows of MiG fighters parked unprotected along the side of the runway.33 Thus developed the idea, proposed by Tony Boyle, the British emissary to the IAF, to bomb the Egyptian aircraft during one of the Stratocruiser’s return flights, potentially changing the course of the war in Yemen and the course of Middle East history. As this idea began to take form, the IAI, representatives from the IDF armaments division, and the IAF built a model using barrels with explosives and detonators on rollers that were dropped in a similar fashion to the supply parachutes, by unlocking the bombs and lifting the plane’s nose. The crew did several dry runs and one actual test run over the Palmachim Air Base in Israel using this method, and it worked perfectly. Weizmann then shared the plan with then–Chief of General Staff Yitzhak Rabin, who also agreed to it, but when they took the proposal to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, Eshkol had a nervous breakdown. Eshkol said that Israel’s role was merely to support the imam and not to directly engage in the Yemeni civil war. Oz later admitted that although in the moment the idea might have seemed promising, after hearing Eshkol’s rejection, he realized that the bombing raid would have gone against the very principle of nonaggression, one of the four elements of the “Never Again” mentality.34

31Oz, interview, June 30, 2014. Today, this is done electronically across the world. For instance, on the El Al 747–400, every four seconds, 400 items are sent electronically to Tel Aviv, which knows of a mechanical problem even before the pilot does.

32Bartov, interview, June 30, 2014. 33Arieh Oz, Shema’ Yisrael . . . (Tel Aviv: Ofir Bikurim, 2011), 144–45. 34Oz, interview, June 30, 2014.

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The flights to Yemen from 1964 to 1966 would amount to fourteen missions carrying a wide range of arms, supplies, and equipment to Imam al-Badr and his British mercenary advisors in North Yemen. On May 5, 1966, the International Squadron carried out its last airlift to Yemen, marking the end of two years of a mission codenamed “Sauce” and “Porcupine.”35 The Israeli airlift to Yemen had an impact both on Imam al-Badr’s war with Egypt and on Israel’s decision to attack Egypt in June 1967 after seeing the Egyptian military capabilities firsthand during the course of the mission.36

The success of this mission after the first flight marked the beginning of a new era in Israeli diplomacy that closed the geographical distance between Tel Aviv and postcolonial Africa. The precedents set by the Yemen mission and the mission’s pilots and navigators continued to guide the International Squadron on later aerial missions that would push the limits of the IAF and expand Israel’s diplomatic reach.

Harsit recounted the following story that occurred on a mission to Ethiopia to explain the extent of the squadron’s camaraderie during its mis- sions, even in somewhat unusual and humorous circumstances. Prior to the return flight from Africa to Israel, the crew received instructions to delay their return because of Egyptian aerial maneuvers en route. The crew members from two Squadron 120 Stratocruisers rented a Land Cruiser to take a tour of the Lake Awassa area near Kenya while they waited for the return order from the IAF. They found themselves stuck one evening without a room at the local hotel, which was the only hotel for miles. The head of the estab- lishment, who was British, told the crew that it was too dangerous to sleep outside in the Land Rover as they had planned. They would likely be killed either by wild animals or by robbers during the night, he said. He told them that there was a whorehouse not far away and that they could request a room there for the night. The “mama” of the establishment was very happy for the “business” but did not speak a word of English. She brought out all the girls from the house, and the crew tried to explain through sign language that they only needed a room to sleep. Harsit recalled staying in the “mama’s” room for the evening and directing her to sleep on the mattress, which he placed on the floor, while he slept on the wooden board of the bed. The rest of the crew did the same, but it didn’t help. The next morning, after they had woken up and started driving, they noticed something jumping all over their skin. They ended up flying back to Israel with terrible body lice. For the next several weeks the crew had a difficult time explaining to their doctors and

35“Hamarkiv Hasodi Shel Harotev” [“The Secret Ingredient in the Sauce”], Israel Air Force Magazine 180, April 1, 2008.

36Asher Orkaby, “The International History of the Yemen Civil War, 1962–68” (PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 2014).

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wives that they had not actually slept with these Ethiopian women as they burned their travel clothes and tried to get rid of the body lice.37

Bartov explained that Oz was extremely professional, never allow- ing himself a break and only sometimes granting leeway to others. Oz, said Bartov, was a real leader and perfectionist and was intent on mak- ing Squadron 120 an example for the rest of the air force. Oz and Bartov flew many hours together and developed a real relationship of trust, as demonstrated by a 1966 flight they made to Chad, flying across the Saharan Desert. Several days before the scheduled departure, the mission’s contact in Mission Control called to verify one last time how much weight they could carry to Chad. Bartov told him that the Stratocruiser could carry a payload of eight tons. He later recounted being screamed at because his number contradicted the official payload that the Stratocruiser was intended to carry. Once Oz heard that Bartov had calculated the numbers himself, Oz repri- manded Mission Control, insisting that he trusted implicitly the expertise of his Squadron 120 crew. After the conversation was over, Bartov explained to Oz that he had deducted the water tank and other unnecessary equipment from the Stratocruiser, which yielded a calculation of eight tons, rather than the six tons that the Stratocruiser was intended to carry. On this particular flight, the Stratocruiser was carrying currency printed by the Bank of Israel for Chad, and it was very important that the accurate amount of weight be taken. Bartov explained that Oz had developed such a strong relation- ship of trust and friendship in Squadron 120 that he had defended Bartov’s calculations even before hearing how he had arrived at the numbers.38

THE EXPANDING ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL SQUADRON

The success of Squadron 120’s first Yemen mission in 1964 marked the first of many clandestine weapons shipments around the world. The original founders of the squadron continuously proved their worth as transport pilots and the dependability of the Stratocruiser aircraft to the top brass in the Israeli political leadership. Rather than rely on flights using the El Al passenger airliner, Israeli leaders suggested using at least one of the Stratocruisers for its original purpose: as a luxury passenger airliner nicknamed the “Queen of the Sky.”39 The Stratocruiser was equipped with spacious cabins, snack bars, and extravagant amenities, many of which had been removed by Bartov, who had deemed them unnecessary weight for a transport aircraft. By leaving

37Harsit, interview, June 25, 2014. 38Bartov, interview, June 30, 2014. 39Christine Rilley, “Stratocruiser,” Aircraft Illustrated 46 (November 1972): 120–124. The Stratocruiser

was also known as the Boeing 377.

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these luxurious trappings intact on at least one Stratocruiser, it could serve as a private plane for Israeli leaders traveling abroad.

In 1966, Squadron 120 was commissioned to carry Prime Minister Eshkol on a diplomatic trip across Africa.40 This was not a covert operation, and El Al officials thought that it was irresponsible to send the International Squadron to Africa on a diplomatic mission. Bartov recalled taking offense to arguments that his international missions did not have “sufficient professional experience abroad.” He declared definitively that if the squadron was good enough to fly to Yemen, then it was also good enough to fly Eshkol to Africa, and if it was not permitted to do so, he would quit. His comments aside, Bartov admitted that this month-long trip, with daily flights through Africa and no specific landmarks to guide navigation, was not easy. The flight with Eshkol to Africa did, however, open additional possibilities, both for the squadron as an official governmental transport and for the Israeli state’s African diplomacy. The International Squadron turned both long-haul supply and diplomatic world travel into accepted parts of Israeli foreign policy.41

Biran, who was on the Eshkol trip as well, explained that the IAI retrofitted one of the Stratocruisers to function as a type of “Air Force One,” with additional communications equipment and extra comforts and space for journalists and VIPs. Bartov, Biran, and Oz flew through several nations in Africa over a two-week period, beginning in Senegal; continuing to Uganda, Kenya, and Madagascar; and returning via Ethiopia and the Red Sea.42 Another similar flight was carried out a year later when the squadron took members of the Israel National Defense College for a tour through East Africa, from Tanzania down to Madagascar.43 The graduating class of the defense college also flew with Squadron 120 to Iran, Turkey, and France.44

Following the use of this Israeli “Air Force One” for Eshkol’s trans- Africa trip, Yitzhak Rabin enlisted the International Squadron for an official trip to Tehran to meet with the shah. Rabin traveled along with his wife Leah, Israeli military officials, and an entourage of news reporters. The International Squadron crew was taken to Isfahan and Abadan as tourists and stayed at the Sheraton Hotel in Tehran, while Rabin and his staff stayed in one of the shah’s palaces.45 Later, the squadron also took Moti Hod, then serving as chief of the IAF, to Tehran. On the way back to Israel, one of the

40Ojo, Africa and Israel, 16. Previous trips by Golda Meir in 1958 and Israeli president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi had been conducted by El Al civilian transport airplanes and received less fanfare.

41Bartov, interview, June 30, 2014. The conflict between El Al and Squadron 120 was partially resolved when three trained El Al stewardesses were asked to join the Eshkol trip to Africa; Oz, Shema’ Yisrael, 154–55.

42Bartov, interview, June 30, 2014. 43Ibid. 44Oz, Shema’ Yisrael, 140. 45Harsit, Shamayim Hadashim, 191–93.

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aircraft’s engines went out, and they had to land in Israel with only three. According to Biran, Weizmann got a good laugh out of seeing the plane fly in with only three engines, as Hod had been one of the biggest critics of Squadron 120 and the mission to Yemen.46

Aside from its role as the unofficial “Air Force One” for Israeli politi- cians, Squadron 120 and the Stratocruisers were called upon to fill additional roles in military communications and reconnaissance. As was the case in the aftermath of the first mission to Yemen, the demonstration of new aerial capabilities by the International Squadron dictated new goals and roles for it. The original members of Squadron 120 were again instrumental in modifying the use of the Stratocruiser to meet new circumstances.

Beginning with the 1968 IAF raid on Lebanon, the International Squadron began to provide aerial reconnaissance for Israeli missions abroad. The squadron flew with IDF special forces who blew up thirteen jointly owned Lebanese planes in Beirut International Airport in response to the attack on El Al Flight 253. Biran flew 20,000 feet above Beirut to ensure the reliability of communications between base and the ground in Beirut and to transmit a live update of the mission.47 Before leaving the International Squadron, Bartov helped IAF commander Hod further develop the squadron’s aerial intelligence capacity.48 The Stratocruiser’s use as a surveillance plane gained widespread media attention when one of the planes was shot down along the Suez Canal by an Egyptian SA-2 missile on September 17, 1971. In 1977, Biran was called back to the International Squadron and commissioned to fly a Stratocruiser over the Yemeni island of Perim and photograph strategic areas around the Bab al-Mandeb straits leading to the Red Sea.49

Under Biran’s command in 1970, Squadron 120 also carried out the first attempts at midair refueling, a role that would be expanded and per- fected over the subsequent decades. Biran noted that a recent visit to the International Squadron’s air base in Nevatim had revealed that midair refu- eling capabilities have advanced to such an extent that the International

46Biran, interview, June 26, 2014. In one of the African nations, individuals gave Eshkol a traditional African cloak. He told his aides in Yiddish, which I overheard: “They gave me a talit, are they going to give me tefillin [phylacteries] also?!”

47Biran, interview, June 26, 2014. Biran clarified that Squadron 120 also served vital military roles during wartime. During the 1967 War, the Stratocruisers were used to bring material and troops to Sharm el-Sheikh and to drop fuel to frontline tanks, and during the 1973 War, they transported troops to Fa’id on the Egyptian side of the Suez Canal.

48Bartov, interview, June 30, 2014. 49Biran, interview, June 26, 2014. This intelligence mission was also significant, as Israel had received

rights to establish a naval base on Dahlak Island off Eritrea on the Red Sea, which functioned as a component of securing the Straits of Bab el-Mandeb; Peters, Israel and Africa, 8.

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Squadron now uses C-130 Hercules planes to refuel F-15s over the Atlantic Ocean when flying missions to America and back.50

ENTEBBE, ETHIOPIA, AND GLOBAL DISASTERS

Biran, who became commander of the International Squadron after Oz’s departure in 1967, was asked by the Mossad to conduct eight airlifts to rebels in South Sudan in what was termed Operation Yosef.51 The Israeli military support for Yemeni royalists, Anya Nya rebels in South Sudan, and Kurdish rebels in Iraq was part of a broader Israeli policy of support for internal forces opposing hostile Arab regimes during the 1960s.52 Biran’s leadership continued Oz’s example of the “Never Again” mentality, setting an example of accepting even the most dangerous missions for the sake of the nation and with the intention of never again becoming a passive victim.

Liron continued his work in intelligence, reaching ever-greater heights in service to his country, regardless of the danger. He was instrumental in organizing the defection of Munir Redfa, the Iraqi pilot who flew a MiG- 21 from the Iraqi Air Force to Israel in 1966.53 In perhaps one of the most daring missions of his life, while serving as Israeli attaché to Chile, Liron participated in the 1985 Israeli hunt for Joseph Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor.54

Marom was particularly upset by the reports of starving Nigerian orphans, victims of the civil war between the secessionist Biafra region and the northern Nigerian government from 1967 to 1970. Working together with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Marom organized a secret mission to bring medical aid and supplies to Biafra and evacuate 30,000 Biafran orphans from the war zone. The ICRC borrowed C-97s from the U.S. Air Force but did not have the capabilities required to operate and maintain these aircraft. Marom and the IAI were one of the only teams with the technical experience to maintain these aircraft, having attended

50Biran, interview, June 26, 2014. Biran noted that while the Stratocruiser would collect intelligence from 20,000 feet, the C-130s and later Boeing 747s were able to collect intelligence from up to 40,000 feet. The squadron in general has advanced significantly from its modest beginnings in the 1960s, and, in Biran’s opinion, in the 2000s can now compete with the efficiency and capabilities of the U.S. Air Force.

51Biran, interview, June 26, 2014. In Nairobi, the Mossad agent, Reuven Merhav, who would later serve as an Israeli ambassador, organized the crew’s arrival with Kenyan authorities and would come greet them at the airport. During Operation Yosef, he had everyone’s information and pointed out to Biran that their personal IDF numbers were one apart, which meant that they had stood behind one another when registering for the army.

52Yigal Sheffy, “Confronting Cairo: Israeli Perceptions of Nasser’s Egypt, 1960–66,” in Israel’s Clandestine Diplomacies, ed. Clive Jones and Tore T. Petersen (London, UK: C. Hurst & Co., 2013), 103–20.

53Ronen, Tehomot U’Shekhakim, 195–213. 54Ibid., 238.

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to Squadron 120’s Stratocruisers since 1962.55 An Israeli medical team was also included in this mission, performing over 14,000 medical operations in 1968.56

As the International Squadron continued its role in the global trans- port of military equipment, the original members of the Yemen mission in subsequent decades continued to influence its evolution. In 1976, Oz was called in to fly one of a group of four C-130s from Squadron 131 to Entebbe, Uganda, to rescue the hostages of hijacked Air France Flight 139.57 In 1991, he was again called up to serve as a pilot in Operation Solomon to evacuate over 14,000 Jews from Ethiopia.58 Both the rescue of hostages in Entebbe and the transport of Ethiopian Jews followed the important principle of not forsaking brothers in danger. Just as the mission to Yemen under the direc- tion of Oz had once ushered in an era of regional military airlifts, Oz’s later missions to Entebbe and Ethiopia marked the beginning of a new era of international humanitarian aid. Since then, the joint squadrons have contin- ued flying international humanitarian missions, to Rwanda in 1994; to Turkey in 1999, following a massive earthquake; to Greece in 2000, to battle massive forest fires; and to provide aid in many other humanitarian crises over the decades. The International Squadron has gone further than nearly any other component of Israeli society or its military in espousing the principles of helping brothers in need, in the broadest understanding of that concept.

When commenting on the International Squadron’s transition from military to humanitarian transport, Oz made the following observation:

It’s extremely important for us to be present whenever and wherever there is a problem around the world. Although the amount of help we provide may at times be limited or modest, our flag will be present every- where, and our military will be known worldwide as both professional and quick in its ability to arrive at any disaster area in the world.59

CONCLUSION

The small group of Holocaust survivors who served as the core of the International Squadron also developed deep personal relationships. To this day, the remaining living members of the International Squadron still live

55Marom, interview, February 2015. 56Zach Levey, “Israel, Nigeria, and the Biafra Civil War, 1967–70,” Journal of Genocide Research 16

(2014): 271–72. 57Oz, Shema’ Yisrael, 216–18. 58Ibid., 260–62. 59“A Hero with Flying Colors: Meet the Founder of the IAF’s International Squadron,” http://

www.idfblog.com/blog/2013/05/27/a-hero-with-flying-colors-meet-the-founder-of-the-iafs-international- squadron/ (accessed June 17, 2014).

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within a few minutes’ walk of each other in a neighborhood of Tel Aviv. From interviews with the crew, it is clear that they also share a sense of pride in the principles espoused by their squadron both during the 1960s and as part of the current iteration of the International Squadron, principles that are synonymous with a mission of global humanitarianism.

Holocaust survivors suffered from physical and mental difficulties while acclimating to Israeli society and serving in the Israeli armed forces in particular.60 Given these difficulties and their attempts to hide their Holocaust backgrounds, the International Squadron’s open embodiment of the “Never Again” mentality set it apart from many others in the IAF and the broader Israeli society in general. The members of the squadron pushed themselves to their own personal limits to reach the greatest successes that they could achieve, propelling the IAF onto the international stage in recognition of its professionalism and the successes of its military operations and humanitarian aid.

FUNDING

The author was a recipient of a 2014 ASMEA Research Grant to support the work that resulted in this article.

60Hanna Torok Yablonka, “The Silent Partner: Holocaust Survivors in the IDF,” in Israel: The First Decade of Independence, ed. Ilan Troen and Noah Lucas (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995).

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