THE MIRACLE OF ISRAEL - SAVIOURS IN THE SKY

                        All it takes to change the course of history is one man with a mission.

Ben-Gurion knew that, two weeks after the State of Israel was born - when the British withdrew - the armies of five surrounding Arab countries: Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Transjordan, would roll like a seismic wave across Israel. With a sixty-to-one numerical advantage, the Arab armies would invade - fully armed.

Geography was also on the side of the Arabs. The UN designated Jewish state was a long, thin strip of territory, squeezed in the middle - vulnerable on all sides. Jewish settlements were scattered in isolated pockets throughout the territory, each having to defend itself against the onslaught of entire armies.

Israel’s only defense force was the Haganah. They had weapons for less than a third of its soldiers. They had enough ammunition for three day’s fighting. Haganah had no heavy guns, no warplanes, no warships, no machine guns.

Nor could they import them from the United States or Britain. The two countries had ordered an embargo on the export of all arms to the Middle East. Smuggling anything – weapons, ammunition, or the thousands of desolate immigrants past the British naval blockade of Israel, was nearly impossible.

The Arab nations surrounding Israel were not affected by the embargo. While the British Navy maintained its blockade of immigrants and war materials to Jewish Palestine, the British government continued it's tight relationship with its Middle East clients: Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq Syria. All were being provisioned with modern British warplanes, tanks, heavy artillery.

Ben-Gurion realised that Israel’s only chance of survival must come from the sky. He knew that Israel had to have a real airforce - to combat the Egyptians’ squadrons of British-supplied Spitfire fighers, and two squadrons of bombers; the Iraqi and Syrian air-forces equipped with state-of-the-art warplanes.

While the streets were still throbbing with the celebration of the birth of the State of Israel, Ben-Gurion dispatched a team of undercover operatives to Europe, S.Africa, the US and Canada on an urgent assignment. Acquire weapons and warplanes. Recruit pilots to fly them. Find a way to bring them to Israel.

The man with a mission was one of the first recruits, a Jewish American veteran of WWII and a flight engineer of TWA - with the unfortunate first name: Adolph. 

The operation was called "Yakum Purkan". It meant: “Salvation will come from heaven”.