32
Friday, October 26, 1984
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
LOOKING BACK
$35
Jewish efforts recalled
in two WWII battles
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BY ARI BERNSTEIN
Special to The Jewish News
One of the pivotal battles of
World War II was fought in Egypt
in November 1943. At stake in the
minds of the Allied commanders
was the future of the Suez Canal.
For Jews of the yishuv in Pales-
tine, the consequences of an Axis
victory was even grimmer: Nazi
occupation and death.
The Battle of El Alamein and
its classic confrontation between
two great generals, Montgomery
and Rommel, has been the subject
of books and films and will be long
remembered. What has been for-
gotten is the Jewish contribution
to Monty's victory. One interest-
ing sidelight of that contribution
is its foreshadowing of _Israeli_
military expertise.
Almost from the beginning of
the war, the British used Jewish
fighters from Palestine for the
riskiest assignments. In his 1943
book, The Forgotten Ally, Dutch
writer Pierre van Passen de-
scribes what he calls "Jewish
suicide squads." It is from that
source that I have selected two
examples.
In June 1943, five months be-
fore Montgomery's "big push," an
all-Jewish engineers battallion
commanded by Major Felix Lieb-
man of Tel Aviv was assigned to
lay down an anti-vehicular
minefield over a 12-square-mile
area near Mechili. They had just
begun when thy were spotted by
German scout planes. The
engineers were promptly as-
saulted by some 60 German bom-
bers.
For three days Liebman and his
men were bombed and strafed by
wave after wave of Stukas, while
the Germans assembled a force of
over 100 tanks, largely Italian,
with which they surrounded the
Jews on three sides. The air as-
sault subsided and a German tank
drove up with a white truce-flag
and a demand that the engineers
raise their own white flag and
surrender. Major Liebman told
the German tank officer who
brought the message, "We have
no white flag," and so saying pro-
duced the only flag he had, the
blue and white flag of Zion. "This
we are going to fly," he said.
"You are a Jew," the German
said, apparently astonished. He
then saluted Liebman and drove
away.
The massed enemy armor -at-
tacked in three columns and the
Jews waited until they were al-
most upon them. Then the
engineers opened fire with anti-
tank guns and destroyed 19 tanks,
seven of which were accounted for
by one sergeant. Two more tanks
blew up when they hit mines.
Caught off guard by the ferocity
and accuracy of this resistance,
the main tank column halted,
wheeled around and started to
pull out. But Liebman had
planned for that and at once 60
Jews rushed from hidden dugouts
and attacked the fleeing tanks
'with grenades and Molotov
cocktails. Some of . the fighters
jumped on the tanks and fired pis-
tols into the machinegun open-
ings. Five more tanks were dis-
abled for a total of 26.
Enraged, the Germans called
off the tank assault, opting for a
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massive aerial bombardment,
much as they had done at the
Warsaw Ghetto. For ten days
exploding bombs and mines
turned Mechili into a $2geihinom
of lethal shrapnel and twelve-
foot-deep craters and boiling des-
ert heat. Then, on June 20, the
tanks returned. Again they were
repelled with heavy losses — 41
tanks were hit by anti-tank fire —
but only 90 of the 500 Jews were
still alive. Another ten days
passed in like manner, repeated
bombings and tank attacks.
On July 2, with only 45 men
left, the Jewish engineers were fi-
nally rescued by a column of Free
French commanded by General
Koenig (whose dispatches ulti-
mately became the source for van
Passen's account). With tears in
his eyes, Koenig embraced Major
Liebman and said, "You held out
till the end."
When he saw the blue and
white flag beging taken down,
General Koenig wondered why.
He was told it was against regula-
tions to fly that flag. Koenig re-
sponded that he was in command
and that he didn't care about such
regulations. He ordered the flag
attached next to the French
tricolor on his own car. Then he
shouted to his soldiers,
"Legionnaires, the Jewish flag.
Salute!"
The night before the Battle of El
Alamein began, an all-Jewish
company of 85 men under Com-
mander Osterman-Averni was
sent by Montgomery to create a
diversion behind Rommel's lines.
It was hoped that they might be
able to destroy the munition
dumps and supplies of gasoline at
the highly-fortified town of Bar-
dia where some 9,000 Italian
soldiers — an entire division
backed by German artillery —
were installed. Osterman-
Averni's account of the mission,
published in Hebrew in
Hamashkif, is quoted at length by
van Passen.
The Jews arrived by sea on
British destroyers and were
rowed ashore under cover of
darkness. They moved stealthily
from guard post to blockhouse,
taking each position without fir-
ing a shot, using daggers on the
guards and sleeping soldiers. At
one point, they were surprised by
a caravan of Italian trucks.
Osterman-Averni writes, "It did
not seem to enter the drivers'
heads that an enemy party was
marching along right in their
midst."'
The group set itself up in "a
well-built concrete blockhouse"
after disposing of its Italian garri-
son. An hour after dawn British
artillery opened up along the
entire front and the Battle of El
Alamein was underway. Italan
soldiers streamed out of their
blockhouses and were cut down by
the Jews' ten machineguns and 65
tommy guns. At first the Italian
officers thought that their own
men were shooting each other by
mistake. Then, realising the
truth, they sent two companies to
deal with the unknown quantity 10-1
of intruders. The two companies 'ma
were dispersed by a well-aimed
grenade volley.