1 April 1948
At five o’clock in the morning our commanders stormed into the dormitories to wake us. No morning gymnastics. We are in a high state of alert. Our comrades who were on night duty report that the superiors were summoned to battalion HQ around midnight. So it really is serious.
What it is about is still a secret. But most of us can guess the aim. We know that Jerusalem is cut off and that no supply convoys are getting through. This is an existential matter for the whole popula-tion. In this situation the army has no choice but to start a large-scale offensive for the first time.
In the evening we are transferred to a temporary field camp near the port of Tel Aviv. Four companies in total (at that time a tremen-dous force). For the first time we have enough equipment: Australian uniforms, sock hats, shoes.
Our comrades tell the most amazing stories about heavy auto-matic weapons that they claim to have seen somewhere: a Browning machine gun, an Italian anti-tank weapon, even a machine gun called Schwarzlose is among them! But nobody has seen simple rifles.
On the high seas a drama was being enacted at the same
time. The first of the Army’s munitions ships was trying to run the British blockade. In the hold of that ship are the rifles and the automatic weapons that can determine the result of that operation, the fate of the whole of Eretz Israel.1 The British warships detected it, but it slips by in the dark. On 2 April it docks in the harbor of Tel Aviv. The hour has struck for Operation Nachshon.
In the afternoon there is a roll call for the company. We are reorganized in preparation for combat. Aryeh Spack, the