Al Schwimmer built Israel’s clandestine air force

 

By Joe Spier 

CALGARY, Alberta, Canada — Al Schwimmer, an American citizen, born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1917, a hero of Israel’s War of Independence, died on June 10, 2011, his 94^th birthday, at central Israel’s Tel Hashomer Hospital. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, described Schwimmer’s activities during 1947-48 as “the Diaspora’s single most important contribution to the survival of Israel.”

Schwimmer came from an unaffiliated and non-Zionist family. He was an aeronautics graduate and licensed pilot who was working for Trans World Airlnes (TWA), when the United States entered World War II. The entire airline was drafted into the war effort. Schwimmer, now a Captain, spent the war ferrying troops and equipment all over the globe.

Following the war, Schwimmer stayed on with TWA. His identity as a Jew meant little to him. Then several flights to Europe, seeing liberated concentration camps and encountering Jews who had survived the camps, turned Schwimmer into an ardent Zionist almost overnight.

Full of enthusiasm, one day in 1947, Schwimmer, then 30 and single, turned up at the clandestine office of the Jewish Agency in New York and pitched them with an idea. At that time, the British were turning back from Palestine, Haganah ships crammed with European Jewish refugees.  Schwimmer proposed flying the refugees over the British patrol boats plying the Mediterranean and landing them at secret airfields in Palestine. The idea was not warmly received. Schwimmer’s name was taken down, his aviation experience noted and he was dismissed.

In September 1947, Schwimmer received a telephone call and was asked to meet an “Albert Miller” on the sidewalk in front of Grand Central Station in Manhattan. In reality, “Miller” was a Palestinian Jew, Yehuda Arazi, a legendary Haganah figure. Arazi was the Haganah’s preeminent smuggler of arms and illegal immigrants and the inspiration for the character, Ari Ben Canaan in Leon Uris’ classic novel Exodus. When it became clear that the British would withdraw from Palestine and a war between the Jews and Arabs over Israel’s independence was inevitable, Arazi was sent to America to acquire weapons. The U.S. was awash with arms, surplus from World War II, but the 1935 Neutrality Act, prohibited the exportation of military equipment to Israel. All acquired armaments would have to be smuggled out of America and all involved would be criminals under U.S. law.

Arazi took Schwimmer to his room in the Empire Hotel where he explained that the United Nations’ coming partition plan would mean an unavoidable Arab-Jewish war and to survive it the Jews needed planes. The Haganah did not have a single aircraft. Schwimmer was asked to build an air force. Within days, Schwimmer quit his job with TWA and headed to California, the country’s aviation center, to see what was available.

The most pressing need was to acquire a fleet of planes to transport to Palestine weapons illegally purchased by the Haganah.  Schwimmer soon bought three Constellations, long-range transports and ten C-46 twin-engine cargo planes, which he had overhauled at “The Schwimmer Aviation Company” his base of operations in Burbank. At the same time, aircrews were recruited and trained, mostly from returned Jewish war veterans. Many of the pilots, engineers and mechanics that would serve in Israel’s fledgling air force were recruited and trained by Schwimmer’s organization.

The funds for the secret Haganah operations in the U.S. were raised from a group of wealthy North American Zionists who called themselves the “Sonneborn Institute” named after their leader, New York industrialist Rudolf Sonneborn. The exact purpose for which the money was used was never disclosed to the donors and no receipts were issued. The “Sonneborn Institute” was financier to the Haganah.

As cover for flying Schwimmer’s planes out of the U.S., a commercial freight and passenger business was required which came in the form of “Service Airways Inc.” an almost bankrupt New York licensed air charter company.

By the end of January 1948, the FBI caught wind of the Haganah’s illegal arms smuggling operation when a crate labelled “used industrial machinery” being loaded onto a freighter in New Jersey accidentally broke apart spilling explosives all over the dock. As the crate and seventy-six identical ones were destined for Palestine it was not difficult to figure out who was shipping them.

Shortly afterwards, agents of the FBI raided the airbase at Burbank. They were too late. Earlier another Jewish ex-serviceman familiar with weaponry had been sent to Hawaii by Schwimmer to check out a salvage yard full of war surplus. His name was Hank Greenspun who would later become the crusading editor of the Las Vegas Sun newspaper and would make an unsuccessful run for the governorship of Nevada. Greenspun ended up acquiring 58 crates of machine guns of various calibres and 45 spare aircraft engines. The engines were shipped to Schwimmer in Burbank but had been moved before the arrival of the FBI agents who found nothing suspicious but were not really fooled.

With the authorities hot on the trail of “Schwimmer Aviation” and “Service Airways,” it was time to get the operation out of the country away from the jurisdiction of the FBI and free of rigorous U.S. civil aviation regulations. Panama was the answer. Panama had built a large airport at Tocumen, which turned out to be a white elephant as Panama had no airplanes and foreign airlines were wary of the country’s political instability. Schwimmer and his associates presented to the Panamanian Government a proposal to obtain a franchise to run the flag line of Panama based in Tocumen. Panama accepted the proposal and Lineas Aereas de Panama, S.A. (LAPSA) was born. It was just a matter of money. Schwimmer was now in charge of what pretended to be the official airline of Panama.

Over the next several months, the three Constellations and ten C-46s, now painted over with LAPSA insignia and registration numbers were flown to Panama. On April 21, 1948, one C-46, overloaded with spare parts, crashed en route, the pilot William Gerson and co-pilot Glen King killed, the first fatalities of the nascent Israeli Air Force.

The original plan was for the aircraft now in Panama to be flown to Palestine, but that was about to change. While Britain continued arming the Arab states, virtually no country was prepared to sell weaponry to Israel. That is except Czechoslovakia who in April 1948 agreed to sell a substantial amount of rifles, machine guns, ammunition and fighter planes to the Israelis. The fighter planes were Czech Avia S-199s, short-range aircraft incapable of flying the more than 1,800 miles to Israel and therefore would have to be disassembled and loaded onto cargo planes. From May to August 1948, Czechoslovakia lent to Israel its Zatec airbase for use to refit planes, train pilots and as a shipping point for guns, ammunition and the Avias. Israel now had a secret airbase behind the Iron Curtain manned by foreign volunteers, mostly American. Schwimmer’s airplanes were flown to Zatec.

Organized by Schwimmer, his cargo and transport aircraft and his trained aircrews became “Israeli Air Force Air Transport Command” which conducted an airlift that would become one of the miracles of the War of Independence. The airlift operated nonstop around the clock for three months and completed 95 flights between Zatec and Israel delivering 25 disassembled Avias and an incredible 35 tons of arms and ammunition all essential for Israel to survive.

During the airlift, on May 15, 1948, one day after the creation of the Jewish State, Israel was invaded by five Arab countries with modern armies. Israel had cargo and transport planes, the fighter planes were on the way, but no long-range bombers to match those of Egypt. Schwimmer went back on the acquisition trail. He set up a dummy corporation, the “Irwin L. Johnson Company” and soon purchased four B-17 heavy bomber aircraft and four A-20 light attack bombers, all U.S. war surplus stripped of military equipment.

On June 12, three of the B-17s departed the U.S. filing a fictitious flight plan declaring they were to conduct an aerial survey and then return. In fact, the B-17s flew via a circuitous route to Zatec where they were fitted with bomb racks and machine gun turrets. On July 14, the planes flew on to Israel, pausing on the way to bomb Egyptian bases in Sinai and King Farouk’s palace in Cairo. The three B-17s constituted Israel’s total bomber fleet during her War of Independence.

When the three B-17s did not return to American soil, the U.S. authorities were furious. The four A-20s purchased by Schwimmer were put under such tight surveillance that they were effectively grounded. The fourth B-17 slipped out of the U.S. on July 11. However, when landing in the Azores to refuel, the Portuguese authorities, at the request of the U.S. State Department, impounded the plane and returned the crew to America to face charges.

Schwimmer now under threat of arrest was forced to flee. He took a commercial flight to Rome and then on to Zatec. From there he flew on the airlift he was instrumental in creating, to Israel where he became director of maintenance and engineering of the Israeli Air Force.

In the fall of 1949, Schwimmer went back to the United States and was immediately charged with violating the Neutrality Act by shipping aircraft and engines to an embargoed Middle Eastern Nation. Schwimmer and three associates were found guilty. The government argued for prison sentences but a lenient judge fined each $10,000 with no jail time. The fines were paid by the Haganah. As a convicted felon, Schwimmer was stripped of his civil rights and could never vote again in a U.S. election.

Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion came calling in 1951 with a personal request for Schwimmer to make Aliya and establish an aircraft maintenance and repair business in the fledgling State of Israel. Schwimmer returned to Israel, this time permanently, with a vision and the maintenance and repair company he founded grew during his tenure as president and CEO into “Israel Aircraft Industries” a global leader in military and civilian aircraft manufacture. The company constructed such aircraft as the vaunted Kfir multirole turbojet combat plane and the popular Westwind business jet. When Schwimmer retired in 1978, the company was the single largest industrial enterprise in the State of Israel employing over 13,000 workers.

Although he never asked for one because “you have to express regret for what you did and I didn’t feel that way” he said;  outgoing U.S. President Bill Clinton, in 2000, granted Schwimmer a pardon from his conviction for violating the Neutrality Act.

In his later years, Schwimmer focused his energy on a movement to give Israel its long delayed written constitution together with a bill of rights guaranteeing equality to all branches of Judaism, an unfulfilled dream. And at the age of 88, in 2006, Schwimmer founded the “Israel Leadership Institute” an educational foundation dedicated to nurturing future generations of Israeli and Jewish leaders based on Zionist values adapted to modern and changing times. The same year, he was awarded the Jewish State’s highest honour, the “Israel Prize” for his lifetime achievement and special contribution to society and the State.

Interestingly even though Schwimmer married a Sabra and has children and grandchildren, he never learned to speak Hebrew because he said he was “never very good with languages.”

There are critical moments in history when to act morally one may be called upon to ignore the letter of the law and for a just cause to choose to put one’s freedom at risk. Al Schwimmer understood this. Had it not been for Al Schwimmer’s choice, the State of Israel, at its birth, would have been without an effective air force and the outcome of her War of Independence may have been quite different.
*

Spier is a retired lawyer with a keen interest in Jewish history.  You may contact him via joe.spier@sdjewishworld.com