New Heavens
Authors: Boris Senior
NEW HEAVENS
Series Editors
Walter J. Boyne and Peter B. Mersky
Aviation Classics are inspired nonfiction and fictional accounts that reveal the human drama of flight. The series covers every era of military and civil aviation, is international in scope, and encompasses flying in all of its diversity. Some of the books are well known best-sellers and others are superb but unheralded titles that deserve a wider audience.
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by Francis Gary Powers with Curt Gentry
Thirty Seconds over Tokyo
by Capt. Ted W. Lawson
“Wildcats” over Casablanca:
U.S. Navy Fighters in Operation Torch
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My Life as a Fighter Pilot
and a Founder of the Israel Air Force
For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth;
And the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create;
For behold I create Jerusalem for rejoicing,
And her people for gladness.
âIsaiah 65:17â18
Boris Senior
Foreword by Peter B. Mersky
Foreword to the First Edition by Ezer Weizman
Copyright © 2005 by Potomac Books, Inc.
Published in the United States by Potomac Books, Inc. (formerly Brassey's, Inc.). All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Senior, Boris.
[Shamayim òhadashim. English]
New heavens : my life as a Fighter pilot and a founder of the Israel Air Force / Boris Senior; foreword by Peter Mersky; foreword to the first edition by Ezer Weizman.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-57488-679-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Senior, Boris. 2. Israel òHel ha-aòvirâHistory. 3. IsraelâHistory, Military. 4. Israel-Arab War, 1948â1949âAerial operations. I. Title.
UG635.I75S4613 2005
956.04'2âdc22Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 2003021721
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute Z39-48 Standard.
Potomac Books, Inc.
22841 Quicksilver Drive
Dulles, Virginia 20166
First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Foreword to the First Edition by Ezer Weizman
CHAPTER ONE
A Yellow Stain in the Water
CHAPTER SIX
Airplanes and Volunteers
Egypt, showing Egyptian and Israeli airfields
during the War of Independence
Israel, showing Israeli airfields
during the War of Independence
THE establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948 caught the world by surprise, especially when this event was so quickly followed by a particularly nasty war between the Israelis and their Arab neighbors. Confrontations between Jewish settlers and their sworn enemies, who had lived in the region since before biblical times, were an unfortunate part of life for the new arrivals seeking a homeland after the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. The influx of these refugees swelled the ranks of the new nation and forced a do-or-die defense that has yet to be resolved after more than fifty-five years.
The Israel Army of 1948 was far removed from the well-equipped, highly trained force the world has come to know and respect. It relied on a vast collection of volunteers from all over the world, and an equally large, disparate assembly of equipment, much of which had long since been discarded by its original owners after World War II. Cadres of ex-patriots from Europe, America, Canada, and South Africa bolstered the meager ranks of the native-born Israeli
defense forces against the Arab League, whose might, at least on paper, seemed poised to hurl the Israelis headlong into the Mediterranean. In similar fashion, an influx of weapons from behind the Iron Curtain and from forgotten airfields in South America and Europe arrived to help the hard-pressed Israelis. Everything from discarded rifles to biplanes eventually helped defend the tiny struggling country that became a symbol of resistance to the world and a beacon of hope to people without a home.
Although Boris Senior may not be well known outside Israel, he played an important, even vital, part in the formation of the Israel Air Force (IAF) and in the War of Independence in 1948. Those who do know of his efforts and dedication hold an abiding respect and appreciation for this transplanted South African who nearly died after being shot down on a mission in 1945 for the Royal Air Force. Leaving the RAF after World War II, he brought his family's history of service to the formation of the State of Israel.
He used his own money to buy supplies and aircraft and fly them to Israel. He flew combat sorties in such widely differing aircraft as the Spitfire and, of all things, a Beech-craft Bonanza, a general-aviation type, known for its unique butterfly tail assembly, which he had bought with his own money.
Yet, with all his experiences, Senior maintained a deep understanding of the overall situation that still bedevils the Middle East, and in particular Israel and its neighbors. As a senior citizen, his fondest wish was to see the resolution of the age-old problems that result in so many Israelis and Arabs dying in attacks and counterattacks, more than fifty
years after he helped birth the IAF. (As this book entered production, word came of Boris Senior's death at age eighty in April 2004.)
This memoir describes an earlier period when Senior and many like him were dedicated to getting Israel on its feet among the nations of the world. During that turbulent time these men did whatever it took to get the job done. Senior is direct and forceful as he describes his attempts to circumvent European security while desperately trying to get precious aircraft to Israel. Although soft-spoken and always hopeful that things will improve, Boris Senior had no problem heading into dangerous situations if the end would help his newly adopted country retain her place in the family of nations.
With a title that refers to a biblical passage, this first-time English edition of Boris Senior's wartime autobiography sheds a new and very personal light on the struggle that began as the establishment of a new country and its concurrent fight to maintain that nationality, and yet today, still persists as one of the world's primary conflicts between people who are, in reality, brothers.
Peter B. Mersky
Editor
ABOUT a year ago, Boris Senior told me he had decided to write a book for the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel and to tell the story of the foreign volunteers, the “Machalniks,” who joined the air service of the state in the making. He stressed that his main aim in writing the book was to tell of the rise of the state and the miracle that happened to the Jewish people between the most terrible period of its history, the Holocaust, and the wonder of the founding of an independent country and its War of Liberation. I knew that as always he would fulfill his promise and complete his mission in time.
When Boris had appeared in the skies of Israel about six months before the declaration of independence, he was the right man at the right time. At that time, it was becoming evident to our national institutions that a confrontation between us and the Arab world was inevitable. The forces of the Haganah and its commanders had been organized into military formations, but they had been trained mainly as infantry fighters. The air sector, as a result of the restrictions
imposed by the mandatory administration, was limited to a flying club, the aviation arm of the Palmach and the flying school of the Irgun. At the outbreak of hostilities, we had only a few light aircraft with some pilots who knew how to fly them, but without the necessary ability to take part in the great struggle we would face.
Ezer Weizman in the cockpit of a Spitfire in 1948.
In November 1947, immediately following the United Nations's decision to partition the country into two states, one Jewish, one Arab, I received a cable that said “arriving on ⦠signed Boris Senior.”
Boris was born in South Africa to a Zionist Jewish family.
He was an excellent fighter pilot who had taken part in many important missions in Italy during the decisive stages of World War II. I met him in the Palestine Club in London in 1946. We had both just completed our service in the RAF, and within a few days, we became close friends. We were both mad about flying and were deeply attached to the Zionist cause. We had already decided that our place was to be in an Israel Air Force, which was to arise in the distant, uncertain future. Boris never forgot this, and at the time, he said he would come to Israel. He arrived, first of the fighter pilots to come as volunteers from abroad, the Malchalniks, who came to fight in the War of Independence.
Immediately after his arrival, Boris joined the group of the first pilots of the air service, and among other missions, he participated in the historic sorties of the four light planes that air dropped ammunition to the Etzion bloc. After having seen the shortage of aircraft and pilots, he went to South Africa to recruit volunteers and to buy aircraft. When they eventually reached Israel, they tripled our air strength.
In July 1948 some of our gifted technical staff succeeded in building a complete Spitfire from scrap and from parts of Egyptian aircraft we had shot down. Boris agreed to be the first test pilot to fly the improvised craft, though we were not sure it could take off and land in one piece.
Boris Senior, one of the first pilots of 101 Squadron, eventually found his place in the air force headquarters and was one of the pioneers who established guidelines for the organization and operations of the air force. But most of all, unlike most of the Machal pilots, he made his home in the country, raised a family, and became an Israeli citizen.
It remains for me to thank him for his contribution in general, and for having written of his part in the glorious history of the Israel Air Force.
Ezer Weizman
President of Israel
March 1998
A Yellow Stain in the Water