Survive and Tell (cont.)

Courses in England

Biri, who had returned from the course, informed me that it had been decided to acquire from Great Britain a battalion of heavy antiaircraft guns 94 mm. (3,7") operated with a radar and computer. He had been ordered to establish this battalion. He asked me to join him. I agreed without hesitation. I had had similar experience two years beforehand, when Lieutenant Colonel Joel Paran informed me that I must attend a course in Fort Bliss, in Texas. I had already arrived at a transit camp for candidates to travel abroad. At the last minute, it was cancelled in view of the retaliation actions of the IDF in Gaza, which was condemned by the Americans and, as a token of their protest; they refused to sell us the armament and ammunition. This time, the same level of tension accompanied my trip. There were alternate announcements of my trip and its cancellation.

The tension was great and it was difficult to concentrate on work. I was not assigned a job because of my impending trip. Three months passed and we still had not left. It drove us all crazy, I did not believe that anything was going to materialize and I was beginning to reassess my future service when the announcement came that we were leaving. During the time we were waiting for this announcement there was an incident that greatly annoyed me and nearly put a stop to my army career.

The Battalion adjutant gave me a short duplicated stenciled letter with only a few short lines, demanding that I waive three months salary in view of a mistake that had apparently occurred in 1949 when I had signed to serve in the permanent service. The following is the entire story: While I was on the radar technicians' course, there had been a campaign to recruit men to the permanent army service that was just being established. In order to ensure that technical professionals, whose training period was lengthy, would serve for a minimum period of time, they determined that those serving in the air force would receive permanent service conditions after 18 months of obligatory service and those in the ground forces would receive these conditions after 21 months.

As I attended a radar technician's course in the air force, I signed up via the air force, because that is where I was supposed to serve in the future. But, in the meantime, the ordnance corps had requested that I return in order to attend an officer's course, and I did, indeed, return. Some years later, while they were handling my file in view of my trip abroad, one of the clerks noticed a variance of three months obligatory service. I refused to sign the waiver and thus began a conflict between a junior officer, the mighty IDF and myself.

When I refused to sign the waiver, instructions were given to immediately discharge me from the IDF. This greatly saddened me, but this was the price I was prepared to pay because I decided that I was not the one who should have had to pay for a mistake that had been made by someone else - had such a mistake been made. Lieutenant Colonel Joel Paran, one of the officers that I greatly admired, tried to convince me to change my mind but, at the end of our meeting, he was convinced that I should not give in, perhaps even that I was right, because he took my side and used all his convincing power to cancel the dismissal orders from the army. He even managed to ensure my demand that all documents presenting me in a negative light in my personal file be destroyed in case they hindered my future army career - my future in the State of Israel.

When the nightmare of my impending discharge from the army was over, the nightmare of Israeli bureaucracy began. They sent me to the "Sochnut" (Jewish Agency) to obtain confirmation that I did not owe them anything. At the "Sochnut" offices in Haifa I was informed that I owe them a bed, mattress and blankets. It did not help when I informed them that I was taken from the ship to the "Technion" and from there straight to the absorption center in Beit Lid and that I had never received anything from the "Sochnut" and that I had never been to the "Sochnut" facilities.

They showed me a file and in the file there was a signature that they claimed was mine. I refused to pay for equipment that I had never received and, only after I had gone from manager to manager, I received the confirmation.

Then I was sent to the Income Tax office in Yaffo. I hitched a ride there on the rainiest day I had seen since I had been in the country. Yaffo was flooded. I walked through the water that was up to my knees and when I finally reached Dr. Rubinstein, the assessing officer, he asked me if, on such a rainy day, training drills would still be held in the army. I immediately answered that military operations would not cease because of bad weather. I had failed in his eyes. His only son was in basic training and he said that if all the officers were like me, then we were not suitable to command people if, on such a rainy day, we mistreat the soldiers in basic training and they could, God forbid, get sick. From this moment on, he became very hostile. I gave him a cheque for the amount that I supposedly owed to the Income Tax.

There was no point in arguing with him because, as far as he was concerned, I was "finished" – I had told him that army exercises took place in all weathers. They sent me to the Chief Rabbi to receive guidance on how to pray when I meet up with Jewish communities abroad and to the Foreign Office in order to receive guidance on European behavior.

The Chief of Ceremony released my from this course very quickly when he realized that I was European and not a "Sabra" (this was the first time that my origin had played a positive factor since I had arrived in Israel).

At the end of December or early January, after endless running around, cancellations and cancellations of cancellations, Biri and I flew in a Constellation plane to England. The excitement was great but leaving my parents, my wife and the rest of my family was very hard.

RADAR Regimental instruction Officers Course

I was very pleased with my status as an Israeli soldier traveling to study abroad and I was very proud that Biri and myself had been chosen by the army to establish a new unit with advanced equipment. After landing at London Airport, a very funny thing happened that Biri, the "Yekkeh", took very seriously. I was a lieutenant due to be promoted that month to the rank of captain.

Biri had been promoted to the rank of Major in view of his appointment as Commander of the squadron we were due to establish. My promotion was postponed so that I would not leave the country as a caption because I was too young to be a captain in comparison to British Army officers. The Assistant Military Attaché, Major Mati Sharon, left us a telegram at the airport, in which, he had mistakenly written Col. Eitan and Capt. Birnbaum. They called our names and Biri asked me to go and get the telegram because they had called my name. When I went over to pick up the telegram, they were very surprised to see such a young Colonel, but they most probably thought that in such a young country, anything was possible.

Lt. Shalom Eitan, in London

Biri, the disciplined "Yekkeh", began to behave towards me with respect and honor as customary to a senior officer. We played along without understanding the reason why, until we arrived at our boarding house in Swiss Cottage where our ranks were in order. Once the embassy had issued our movement orders, we traveled by train to Sheringham in the north of England. It was the height of winter. The entire area of Sheringham was snowed in and very cold, in spite of the "Gulf stream" that I had learned about that is responsible for the milder weather in England.

While we were being offered coffee and English tea, my tooth started to ache. The toothache was so bad that I began to be sorry that I had come to England and not listened to my dentist's advise that I should postpone my trip for six months until the problem that he had found had cleared up.

A special advanced study course was prepared for us in order to help us enter the course. We trained for two weeks; we observed the shooting ranges of the 90-mm guns known as the 'Sky Sweeper', which we were supposed to have studied two years earlier at Port Bliss in Texas. In Sheringham, I met American soldiers who were also in training. For the first time in my life I watched television, of course in black and white and with lots of "snow", similar to the snow outside. At the end of the training, we left for the antiaircraft artillery school in a town near the Bristol Channel. The name of the Welsh town was Manorbier, near Tenby in the Pembrookshire region. Tenby was a little old town with remnants from the Roman era, when Julius Caesar had conquered the islands. During the summer months the town was used as a holiday and leisure resort. We stayed at the training base for about two months. The studies were hard. Of course, everything was in English. Most of the students were very young officers and I was one of the youngest. Biri was one of the eldest of participants and there were a few more officers of similar age. They were all educated and some of them came from families with generations of military history. Even though I was of the opinion that I had a good understanding of English and, even though I passed the tests that I took in Israel in 1952, it became clear that there was a gap between what I thought was English to the English I heard at the base. Biri knew English well from when he served in the British Army during the Second World War.

Biri and I., and the other students, received a nice, well furnished room and a butler was appointed to each two officers. My butler was a veteran soldier with the rank of corporal and was old enough to be my father. He polished my shoes, tidied the room, prepared a bath for me, and woke me up every morning with a cup of tea informing me of the anticipated weather. He could not understand why I would not allow him to shine my buckles and brass ranks, because the IDF had decided, during Dayan's time, that they had to be opaque.

The course focused on learning the basics of antiaircraft radar number 3 Mark 7 made by British Thompson Huston. I had no difficulty in understanding the material and soon learnt how to operate the machine.

I received exceptional grades when it was my turn to give an example lesson. My extensive instructing experience came to my aid, as did the knowledge of radar that I had acquired during the Radar Technicians course that I had taken. They actually wrote on my certificate upon completion of the course that, even though the results of the written exam were not so great, my knowledge of radar was good, apparently in view of previous experience, and that I was going to make a good instructor.

AAA officers conversion course
Standing L to R: 3 NCO Instructors, Lt. Eitan, and Maj. Biran Capt. Carter
Seating: Capt. Moicop, Capt. Winterton, Capt. Talbot, Maj Fox,
Capt. Butler, Capt. Auer, Capt. Perry, Capt. Sherwood

At the end of the first course, in which we were authorized RADAR Regimental Instructors, we traveled to London for a month's vacation, in order to wait for the second course intended for Field Artillery Officers for those who were transferred to antiaircraft Artillery.

The railway strike practically left all of us in a remote hole. But in view of our great yearning to finally reach London, we found unconventional solutions. We hired a taxi that brought us to Cardiff, in the hope that, from there, we would find something. We arrived at the train station at midnight.

It became clear that there were no trains, but perhaps there would be the next day. There were not even available rooms in the hotels. We did not know anyone there and we had nowhere to go. We were very tired and it was unthinkable that Israeli officers wearing the uniform of the IDF would sleep on benches at the station. Biri was my boss and it was his job to find a solution for both of us. But as the time passed, we became more and more tired and there was no solution in sight. Biri agreed to let me try and, within ten minutes, I had found a room.

The room was actually taken by a woman, who had finished "working" that night but had no objections to our sleeping in her bed for a fee, without receiving "services". Biri was very angry with this and ordered me to immediately hide the uniforms. We slept very well that night and, even though I had not been near a woman for over two months, my fatigue overcame my natural instincts. We even received breakfast in the morning while we were wearing raincoats over our uniforms, in order to hide them. Then we were informed that the train strike was over and, by lunchtime, we had arrived in London.

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