SAVIOURS IN THE SKY - AIRMEN II

 


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! gefillte fish! Shabbes! After examining his identity folder they were excited to see, written in Hebrew, that he was a pilot in the Israeli Air Force – which they didn’t know they had.

                                                                        


After returning to base, Weizman heard, not only that Rubenfeld was alive but that the little two-plane attack on the Arab columns produced the same effect as the previous evening’s raid.The actual damage to the Arab columns was minimal,  but the appearance of Israeli fighters had intimidated the Arab commanders.

After Weizman broke his wrist on a motorcycle accident the evening he returned from the raid, the Squadron was down to two pilots! It was obvious that the two missions – supporting ground troops and patrolling the skies – was not feasible. The single fighter would be used only for air defense.

Modi Alon - the second Israeli WWII British trained fighter pilot - was flying the single operational fighter in a high orbit around the capital, when he spotted four shadows flying up the coast. Two transpired as large multi-engined Dakota bombers, accompanied by two Spitfires. He was obviously totally outmatched in numbers and firepower, but decided to gamble on the element of surprise.

                                                                        


With upturned faces, thousands of astonished Tel-Avivians watched the show. Two very big Egyptian bombers pursued by a tiny fighter, bursts of gunfire and -the bombers going down in flames! Finished with the bombers, Alon looked around for the Spitfires. With nothing left to escort, the Egyptian fighters had disappeared in the south.

After all the bombings, the killing of civilians by the Egyptian warplanes, the grim news from the battlefields, an unidentified Israeli pilot had just blown two Egyptian warplanes out of the sky. The handsome Modi Alon had just become Israel’s new national hero.

 

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