Grandma's army

  After Modi Alon’s downing of the two Dakota bombers, the Egyptians had given up attacking Tel-Aviv from the air. Now they were coming from the sea. After one of the new volunteer airmen had crashed the last Messerschmitt fighter, the tiny Israeli Navy had nothing that could engage the Egyptian ships. With no choice, an urgent call went out to the domestic airfield at Sdeh Dov. The Sdeh Dov airbase consisted of only a handful of utility planes, fewer than two dozen airmen and only one military trained pilot. A little band of three amateur “bombers” were sent to engage with the Egyptian navy. The desperate airmen had to toss bombs from the cockpits of wooden airplanes by hand. It was broad daylight in a clear blue sky. The Egyptian warships were armed with antiaircraft guns. Each plane made multiple round trips, re-arming at Sdeh Dov and returning to harrass the Egyptian ships. When Israeli Intelligence received reports that the top officials of the Arab League were meeting i...

  And to round up my trio on Latrun , Charles Smith, who joined the Senior Residence complex where I live, together with his wife Shirley, sent me the following   short story. One of many among his reminiscences from their 37 years on a moshav (agricultural settlement) overlooking Latrun . “In 1978, after 3 years in Rehovot, our family moved to Moshav Bin Nun, an agricultural village in the beautiful area overlooking the Valley of Ayalon (where Joshua Bin Nun fought and subdued the locals a few thousand years ago), and the Latrun Monastery. Attached is a picture of the view from our farm and another of our vineyard which is relevant to the story below. At that time, whenever any Israeli – from my barber to taxi drivers - heard that we were going to move to that spot, he/she immediately trotted out the quotation from the Bible in Hebrew: “ The Sun stood still at Givon and the Moon in the Valley of Ayalon” - Joshua   [10:12]. This was, o...

LATRUN - II One of the fiercest and most crucial battles of the War of Independence was the fight for the fortress of Latrun , which commands the main road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. This series of engagements is important in its own right, and also because some who fought there went on to become important figures. Two would even rise to the office of prime minister: Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon . The fortress at Latrun, and the nearby Trappist monastery overlook the scenic Ayalon Valley, about 16 kilometers west of Jerusalem Its commanding location along an ancient route gives it great strategic value, making it the site of many battles, going back to biblical times. Here, Joshua prayed for God to make the sun stand still so he could finish defeating the Amorites (Joshua 10:12-13). In 167 BCE the Ayalon Valley was where Judah the Maccabi won an important victory over the Seleucids. The Templars built a fortress there in 1187.   In the late 1930s in Mandatory Pale...

The induction of my grandson Amitai into the Armoured Corps, which took place at Latrun, was particularly moving - since only one week before we were privileged to witness the same ceremony, at the Western Wall , of his triplet brother, Ohad. The third of the triplets, Aviad, is   due to join the IDF later this year. The ceremony began at 3 p.m. when approximately 650 soldiers marched to a rousing tune; the flag was raised, torches were lit in memory of the fallen soldiers of the Corps.,   veteran officers gave inspiring speeches, together the soldiers swore loyalty to the IDF and their country, Bibles and guns were distributed by the commander of the Corps. The ceremony ended with the playing of the national anthem, accompanied by the   large crowd of visiting families and friends. After the national anthem and counting backwards all the soldiers threw their black berets in the air. The Battles of Latrun  were a series of military engagements between ...