It must have been like this when de Gaulle entered liberated Paris, or the Red Army Kiev and Odessa.
They see their own soldiers who fought to open the roads into their besieged city, the soldiers who suffered, attacked, and fought to provide them with food and equipment. And we - we see "our" citizens, the people for whom we fought.
This entrance into Jerusalem has made up for everything we went through in recent weeks. And even if none of the daughters of Jerusalem have come to kiss us, even if instead of pretty girls a shaven-headed military policeman climbs into the truck, still it was a wonderful experience.
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We were in the city for about two hours. We helped to unload the cheese, we drank milk until our stomachs could take no more, and attracted cheers and applause to the point of exhaustion.
The vehicles arrived at the collection point, ready for the return trip. A crowd of people gathered there. One asked for his greetings to be passed to someone, a woman wants us to take a letter for Tel Aviv. Our photo is taken and our photo is taken and our photo is taken. Standing, sitting, on the trucks, with rifles, without rifles, with girls, without girls, in groups and singly...
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The way back. We are tired and talk about politics. The talk comes back to our treatment of the Arabs, and we talk about the Etzel action in Deir Yassin.21 The discussion becomes heated and gets on everybody’s nerves. In the end nobody knows what we are arguing about.
On the way we meet a British convoy driving in the opposite direc-tion. A strange experience: Israelis with rifles and automatic weapons exchange dark looks with British soldiers, who have rifles and auto-matic weapons with them. With a certain admiration they stare at our weapons. The length of the convoy seems to impress them.
On the next day it is reported: "A big convoy of 235 vehicles has reached Jerusalem safely."
A few days later we drove to Tel Aviv. Our first leave since we started active operations. The city received us with open arms. Our title, the "Nachshonim," was on everybody’s lips. Those were the glory days of the people’s army. We came to feel that the fighting was