SAVIOURS IN THE SKY - AFTERMATH

 


I am indebted to Robert Gandt for his fascinating book called “Angels in the Sky”, from which I selected most of the facts in this incredible story.

Reviewing Roert Gandt’s book, Walter Boyne, the former director of the U.S. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, wrote:

“It is always rewarding to read a book about combat flying written by an author who obviously knows the subject firsthand! Robert Gandt’s book on the infant Israel Air Force fills a real need, and shines new light on one of the most heroic battles in history. The prowess of the IAF in recent years has  caused us to forget just how precarious was its beginning, and how joyfully the battle was joined by a wide variety of pilots flying airplanes better suited for a museum than combat.”

A YEAR LATER

At the auspicious date of May 15th, 1949, Israel’s first victory parade was taking place before  a deliriously happy crowd in Tel-Aviv. Perhaps as many as a quarter of Israel’s tiny population, were packed into every available space. It was only a year before that the first Egyptian bombs had crashed into their territory.

After Brigades of IDF soldiers, tanks and armoured vehicles rolled past the cheering crowds, came the low rumbling of the beat-up warplanes of the world’s unlikeliest airforce.

In one of the great untold stories of history,  Robert Gandt  ends the story on an emotional note:

“Israelis in the streets were weeping openly. The massed thunder of the warplanes’ engines was vivid proof that they had truly won their independence. After two thousand years, the promised rebirth of Israel was a fact.

The day was just as emotional for the men in the cockpits. They were as diverse a bunch as the conglomeration of warplanes they were flying. They came from the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Belgium, South Africa, Austria, Holland, Russia, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Israel.

                                                                    


They were the angels who had come to save a new nation. They’d done what was expected of them. Today was their farewell performance.

It was time to go home.”

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