Grandma's army

  Only twelve hours after the strike on the Egyptian brigades in the south, another threat was advancing in the north. A massive Trans-Jordanian – Iraqi armoured column was approaching Tel-Aviv. Opposing them was a single, depleted and exhausted Israeli unit. Only two Messerschmitts remained that were fit for combat. Together with Ezer Weizman, Milt Rubenfeld from the U.S. was chosen as the second pilot. Having volunteered   to fight with the R.A.F. in the Battle of   Britain, he was considered a classic fighter.   A few minutes after they took to the air, they were bombarded with thick swirls of flak. Weizman looked around for his wingman and was horrified to spot a long black smoke trail, headed by the unmistakable shape of a Messerschmitt. By a miracle Rubenfeld managed to bail out - smack into a group of farmers from a nearby kibbutz, who took the dark-skinned Rubenfeld for an Arab. Not knowing any Hebrew he yelled out the only Yiddish words he could think of: “gefillte fish!

  The war came to Israel at 05:25 in the morning after the State of Israel was declared. Arab spitfires almost destroyed Israel’s little fleet of utility airplanes at the Tel-Aviv airport. Israeli gunners managed to hit one plane and capture the Egyptian pilot who had bailed out. They learned from the talkative young pilot, that the Egyptian air-force had an entire squadron of Spitfires, as well as Dakota bombers, at El Arish air base beneath the Sinai border. Less than a hundred miles from Tel-Aviv. During a reconnaissance flight, the Israelis knew that, massed along the borders, were thousands of Arab troops, armoured vehicles, and troop carriers. Many of the Arab units were already inside the proposed new border, even though the British occupying force hadn’t pulled out yet. [On the 28 th May, 1948, the Haganah and the other splinter fighting groups were unified by Ben-Gurion into the Israeli Defense Forces. At the same time, the Haganah’s air service - consisting of one