Survive and Tell (cont.)

Vacation in London

We rented a room in the Abbey Boarding House in Adamson Road, not far from Finchley underground station, which is on the Bakerloo line.

I regret that neither Biri, nor myself, had the sense to hire a car and travel through England instead of staying in London for the month. It is not that London isn't an interesting place, but staying there for one whole month was not wise.

London is an enormous city, with low buildings built over a large expanse. During the first days we walked together, visited museums, attended concerts. The first philharmonic concert that I had ever attended in my life was at the Royal Festival Hall.

The conductor was Otto Klamprer who conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the auditorium that was the pride of England. The place was so revered that they had granted special permission to build it higher than St. Paul's Cathedral. Since then, the building laws have changed even in conservative England.

We saw theater productions, but mostly wandered around the streets of London that, every day, impressed us more. My English was gradually improving; in any case, I had gained confidence to use the little language that I knew. About a week later, we split up, each one traveled at his own pace and according to his spheres of interest. During our studies in Manorbier we had each received one pound sterling per day and, with this, we had paid for our lodgings, food and butler. I had saved 20 pounds sterling.

Arie Kedar, Shalom Eitan and Yehuda Birnbaum,
vacationing in London

In London I met up with the technical group that was learning equipment maintenance. There was Arieh (Schwartz) Kedar who had studied with me on the officer's course and who had later on, upon my recommendation, studied to be a radar technician and two other technicians, Rafi Mansour, born in Egypt, and Shlomo De-Beer, born in Holland.

We also traveled with them and, of course, took photos of Waterloo Bridge that became famous in Israel from the film starring Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor. In spite of the interesting tours of London, I was sorry that I did not travel to Scotland or other interesting cities in England.

Field Artillery Officers Conversion Course

The vacation was over and we returned to the second course in Manorbier. This time the students were older officers, more polite. During this course, we studied the principles of antiaircraft and operating the radar and computerized predictor gunnery batteries. The computer was made by Cossor and was called Predictor No. 11A.

The computer was electro-mechanical, water cooled, and it was possible to observe the calculations as they were being formed, which is not the case in electronic computers. I was enthralled with the computer and I loved learning about it and teaching it. I was so eager to learn about each and every detail of the computer that I had no time for anything else. I spent all my time in getting to know all the basics of the computer.

Regimental Instructors course-No. 3 Mk 7 AA RADAR

We finished the course by firing with an entire battery on a target towed by an airplane. We shot down the target on the first round. It is certain that, in Israel, they would have thought that this had been executed via pyrotechnics.

During my entire stay in England, I had been writing to people in Israel. I wrote to my brother and sister-in-law, my parents and my parents-in-law, friends but, mostly, to my wife. I received letters from everyone but did not receive a reply from my wife. This angered me and prompted different assumptions, perhaps she had forgotten me or maybe she had found somebody else because I had left her soon after our wedding. To this day I have not solved this mystery. I missed her very much and I expressed this and my anger that she had not written in my letters. I asked for a photograph and, only following threats, I later on received a photograph of Rivka who looked different than when I had left. I have no doubt that this separation scarred our relationship.

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