Two days before the State of Israel was declared, on May 12, 1948, Ben-Gurion declared: “There are five regular Arab armies, awaiting the withdrawal of the English, concentrated on the borders of Palestine, with the intention of invading us and crush us as soon as our country comes into existence.” At that time Israel was facing an international arms embargo and only one country dared to disobey it. A single country, Czechoslovakia, saved Israel.
Since the period before independence, an international arms embargo was in force and the yishuv1 (the community of Jews residing in what was then British Mandated Palestine) desperately needed weapons, equipment, ammunition and, especially, military aircraft.
The Arms Embargo
After 2a World War II, the United States and Great Britain were the two main arms supply holders, but neither showed a desire to help. The American State Department strictly enforced the Neutrality Law, which placed an arms embargo on any country that was engaged in an armed conflict, as was the case with Israel. The British government was even less friendly, refusing to sell military material to Israel while providing aircraft and training to the Arab air forces.
On May 29, 1948, two weeks after Arab armies invaded Israel with the declared purpose of destroying the newly created Jewish State, the United Nations Security Council also imposed an embargo, banning the supply of weapons, war material and other forms of military aid to parties directly involved in the conflict.
The balance of arms at the outbreak of war favored the Arab countries. Therefore, the embargo fell with greater weight on the Jews, who had recently declared their State and had barely had time to organize an army. Until the declaration of independence, the country still did not have a regular army and was still defended by paramilitary groups. However, it was the shortage of weapons – not men – that almost cost the Jews the existence of their state.
Unbridled search for weapons
David Ben-Gurion, the then leader of the Jewish Agency Executive and future prime minister, expected war to break out as soon as the Jewish State was declared. Because the Jews of British Mandated Palestine desperately needed weapons, he began searching for them well before the United Nations Partition Plan of November 29, 1947, created a Jewish state and an Arab state. His wish was that Israel would be prepared to defend itself when the regular Arab armies began the attack. He was also aware that the yishuv he would fight alone, without any outside help.
As we saw, the legal sources for obtaining weapons were blocked at the time. yishuv and the acquisition of illegal weapons did not cover needs. The country was in despair – obviously, the imminent war could not be won without weapons and other military equipment. Czechoslovakia, which had recently begun its transformation into a Soviet satellite country, was the only one that ignored the international arms embargo and, from 1947-1949, sold weapons to the State of Israel, before and after its independence.
Czech armament
During World War II, Nazi forces occupied Czechoslovakia, setting up weapons production factories there to serve the German war effort. When the Red Army liberated this country, on May 2, 9, there were a huge number of general armaments and large weapons factories.
Between 1947 and 1949, the Jewish Agency and, later, the Israeli government, made several purchases of weapons in Czechoslovakia, some remnants of the German army's weapons arsenal or copies of them newly manufactured by the Czechs in the post-war period. That country sold rifles, machine guns, ammunition and aeronautical equipment to Israel during those two years. He also trained Israeli military pilots and technicians.
Purchases amounted to around 400 tons of mortars and other heavy equipment, aerial bombs, rifles, ammunition, machine guns, flamethrowers, explosives, tanks and combat vehicles from the Czechs. The quantities were incredibly exorbitant; the country sold more than 34.000 rifles, 5.500 machine guns, 10.000 bayonets and more than 100 million rounds of ammunition.
As a result of the arms agreement with Prague, within a few weeks, every IDF soldier was equipped with his own weapon and ammunition, and each squad and platoon was in possession of weapons suitable to international standards.
The newly declared state also lacked an air force. Even though volunteer aeronauts had smuggled a good number of transport and training aircraft, circumventing the embargo laws, they still needed to buy fighter-bombers. And Israel was able to build its air force thanks solely to the purchase of Czech fighters. Czechoslovakia sold 86 combat aircraft: 25 Avia S-199 fighters, a version of the German Messerschmitt, and 61 Supermarine Spitfires.
It was a costly deal, but it was a watershed for Israel. According to a 1952 report by Viliam Široký, Czechoslovak foreign minister, his country received about $14.5 million for the weapons sold. It was a tremendous amount for the meager coffers of the State of Israel. And it represented about a third of Czechoslovakia's annual foreign currency income.
The delivery of Czechoslovak military equipment was proven to be crucial to the defense of Israel's independence. Transporting the weapons faced numerous difficulties, but, in the end, the equipment arrived in Israel in time to have a definitive impact on the battlefield.
Prague made Jatech airport available to the Israeli delegation. This airport, nicknamed Etzion, became the center of bustling Israeli activity on Czechoslovak soil. Etzion became the base in that country for Operation Balak – the airlift to transport weapons from Czechoslovakia to Israel. It was also an important confluence point for the smuggling of aircraft into Israel, coming from various parts. In this operation, around 100 trips were made on transport planes. The highlight of Operation Balak was the transfer of the Messerschmitts to Israel. At this point of confluence, pilots and ground staff were also trained.
And the War of Independence begins...
On May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv, Ben-Gurion declared: “We declare the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz Israel,to be known as the State of Israel.” One day after the declaration of the State of Israel, a military coalition of Arab countries attacks the newly formed State – the Arab armies of Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan, Iraq and Egypt and expeditionary forces from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The war was being fought along the entire Israeli border: against Lebanon and Syria, to the north; Iraq and Transjordan, to the east; Egypt, to the south; and Palestinians and volunteers from Arab countries inside the country.
The War of Independence cost the country the most in terms of human losses, with 6.373 Israelis killed in action (from the time before the State until July 20, 1949) and 15.000 injured. The number of casualties represented almost 1% of the entire yishuv.
Construction of the Israeli Air Force
In early 1948, after it finally became clear that the United States embargo on arms shipments could not be circumvented, David Ben-Gurion ordered the purchase of Czech fighters and immediately sent his pilots to learn how to fly them. . These aircraft were technically inferior and significantly more expensive than American planes, at an exorbitant list price: US$180.000 per fighter, including armament, pilot training and support equipment. In the meantime, the American P-51 Mustang, the best combat fighter of all in World War II, was purchased from the United States government by the Swiss, for a mere US$2. But Israel had no choice and, at the end of March, purchased 4.000 Messerschmitts. In a subsequent transaction, it acquired an additional 10 units, but in the end, only 15 aircraft arrived in Israel.
Nobody liked the Messerschmitt – a Czechoslovakian version of the German fighter. After its first flight, Lou Lenart, an American volunteer combat pilot, declared that the fighter was “the worst piece of crap I have ever flown”...
Most of the Israeli Air Force's early pilots were World War II pilots from the air forces of Great Britain, the United States, Canada, South Africa and Australia. On May 2, 11, the first Israeli pilots and foreign volunteers arrived in Czechoslovakia to train on the new combat aircraft – among them, Ezer Weizmann, who would later command the Israeli Air Force and later become President of Israel. . During training in Czechoslovakia, only five volunteers, with experience in the Second World War, had managed to qualify to fly the fighter complex, and even these had flown it very few times.
The training was far from over when the War of Independence broke out on May 15, and the pilots heard on the radio that Tel Aviv had been bombed from the air; they were ready to go, right away. The fighters had to be hastily dismantled and sent to Israel, where Czech technicians would assemble them again.
On May 20, 1948, Israel received its very first fighter. The Messerschmitts played an essential role in the War of Independence. They helped tip the scales toward Israel in the critical battles against the Arab armies between May and October 1948. However, such fighters were a nightmare. Accidents were a constant, causing the loss of lives of heroic pilots, in addition to its maintenance being very difficult. Furthermore, the volunteers had received a minimum of training in Czechoslovakia. They were used to Fighters, American combat planes, and were quite unprepared for the strange Messerschmitt. The bomber's first operational mission took place on May 29, carried out by four Messerschmitts, against the Egyptian column stationed near Ashdod. Six thousand Egyptian troops were advancing on Tel Aviv when the Israelis bombed them.
When the pilots took off on their first mission, the newly assembled fighter still needed to be flight tested; They still hadn't fired a single shot and none of the radios worked. However, everyone knew that none of these concerns would matter if they did not stop the Egyptian army.
This air raid is considered by many to be the reason the Egyptians halted their advance on Tel Aviv. Israel's fledgling Air Force inflicted minimal damage – but caused a tremendous shock. The existence of the newly arrived Czech-made fighters was a closely guarded secret. Israeli monitors had intercepted a radio message from the Egyptian commander in Ashdod. Astonished and terrified by the appearance of Israeli fighters, the Egyptians halted their advance. Until then, Egypt had no idea that Israel had an air force. Tel Aviv had been saved – at least for that moment...
For all their dangerous attributes, the Messerschmitts played a crucial role in the creation of Israel, and without them, the 1948 Arab-Israeli war could have had a tragically different ending. The mere sight of those fighters, so clumsy and frightening, in the first days of the war, had terrified the invaders, raising the spirits of the defenders, so outnumbered. “It was all we had. So we piloted them. And we managed to stop the enemy,” said Gideon Lichtman, an American pilot who volunteered in the War of Independence.
In September 1948, another agreement was signed with Czechoslovakia for the purchase of 'Spitfire' fighter jets – at a price of US$30.000 per aircraft. During the War of Independence, 50 Spitfire fighters were purchased from Czechoslovakia, and a few others after the war.
These Czech fighters marked the beginning of Israel's glorious Air Force, which, over time, would become one of the most powerful in the world.
Israel wins the war
Fighting continued until February 1949, when formal armistice agreements were signed between Israel and the Arab countries. Armistice lines were determined in separate agreements between Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt, Lebanon, Transjordan and Syria. Despite everything, Israel had survived.
In February 1948, Czechoslovakia became a communist country under the orbit and influence of the then Soviet Union. At first, Joseph Stalin supported the State of Israel. However, when pro-Soviet parties lost the first Knesset election in January 1949, Stalin withdrew his support – followed by Czechoslovakia – putting an end to arms sales to Israel.
By January 1949, Czechoslovakia had trained 200 Israeli specialists, paratroopers and aviation mechanics, including 82 pilots and 1.600 volunteers from Czech and other European countries, as well as the United States. In 1968, David Ben-Gurion declared that thanks to this aid, the IDF managed to win the war. “Czech weapons saved the State of Israel. Without this weaponry, we would not have survived.” In her memoirs, Golda Meir wrote, “Without the weaponry of the European Bloc, I do not know whether we would have been able to hold out until the tide changed, as it did in June 1948.”
During Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's visit to Prague in May 2012, he declared: “Israel has no better friend in Europe than the Czech Republic.”
1 Yishuv ou ha-yishuv is the Hebrew term that refers to the Jewish settlements that existed in the Holy Land before the creation of the State of Israel, as well as their residents.
REFERENCES
The Czech arms that saved Israel, article published by Gita Zbavitelová in the November 30, 2020 edition of The Jerusalem Post
The Czech Fighter That Helped Israel Win Its War of Independence, article published by Robert Gandt in the September 2019 issue of Air&Space Magazine on the website “http://www.smithsonianmag.com”
Rekhesh & The Arms Ships, article published on the website “http://www.palyam.org/eng”