John Elliott is back in town – Jerusalem 1948-2017

THE BALFOUR Declaration of 1917

The Balfour Declaration was made in November 1917. The Balfour Declaration led the Jewish community in Britain and America into believing that Great Britain would support the creation of a Jewish state in the Middle

On November 2nd 1917, Arthur James Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary of the time, wrote to Lord Rothschild. The Rothschild’s were considered by many Jews to be one the most influential of all Jewish families – they were certainly one of the wealthiest. Their influence in America was considered to be very important to the British government.

Balfour declared his support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the area known as Palestine – though there had to be safeguards for the “rights of non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. This communication was accepted by the Jewish community as Great Britain’s support for a Jewish homeland. Other nations that fought for the Allies offered their support for the declaration

However, from a Palestinian Arab point of view, the same area had been promised to them for siding with the Allies in World War One and fighting against the Turks who were fighting on the side of the Germans.

Therefore, when Britain was given Palestine to govern as a League of Nation’s mandate at the end of the war, both the Jews and the Arabs believed that they had been betrayed as both believed that they had been promised the same piece of land. After 1918, politics in the Middle East was to become a lot more complicated as many Jews took the Balfour Declaration as read and emigrated to Palestine. The Arabs there saw the increasing number of Jews moving to the region as a threat to their way of life and problems quick

THE BATTLES OF LADRUN

The Battles of Latrun were a series of military engagements between the Israel Defence Forces and the Jordanian Arab Legion on the outskirts of Latrun between 25 May and 18 July 1948, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Latrun takes its name from the monastery close to the junction of two major highways: Jerusalem to Jaffa/Tel Aviv and Gaza to Ramallah. During the British Mandate it became a Palestine Police base with a Tegart fort. The United Nations Resolution 181 placed this area within the proposed Arab state.[1] In May 1948, it was under the control of the Arab Legion. It commanded the only road linking the Yishuv-controlled area of Jerusalem to Israel, giving Latrun strategic importance in the battle for Jerusalem.

Despite assaulting Latrun on five separate occasions Israel was ultimately unable to capture Latrun, and it remained under Jordanian control until the Six-Day War. Regardless, during the Battle for Jerusalem, the Jewish population of Jerusalem could still be supplied by a new road, named the “Burma Road“, that bypassed Latrun and was suitable for convoys. The Battle of Latrun left its imprint on the Israeli collective imagination and constitutes part of the “founding myth” of the Jewish State.[2] The attacks cost the lives of 168 Israeli soldiers, but some accounts inflated this number to as many as 2,000. The combat at Latrun also carries a symbolic significance because of the participation of Holocaust survivors.

March 1948

Jerusalem was bad news. The Jews were besieged in the Old City though they were dominant in several suburbs and the Arabs were pressing from all sides.  Our camp suffered from being between a small Jewish community and the surrounding Arabs. Every night they fired at one another over our camp.  Apart from the fact that it was difficult to sleep, there was a continued danger from ricochets and direct fire. Several people were wounded in the camp and a W-O was found dead in his tent one morning.  One evening the firing was so intense that a film show in one of the huts had to be abandoned, because of the noise and intensity of the firing.  Several rounds ricocheted off the tin roof. In the end we slept on the floor.

The Jaffa Road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem ran across the plain and up through the mountains was a killing ground for the Arabs. The Jews in the Old City of Jerusalem had been besieged for months and were starving.  Sometime in March the Jews sent a large convoy of buses, trucks some with armour plating secured to them and a few improvised Armoured Cars. The Arabs saw the convoy from miles away and blew a large crater on a sharp bend, well into the mountains. The Jews tried to bypass it without success and tried to back off.  At this stage the Arabs blew a crater behind the convoy and the massacre commenced. The battle lasted most of the day and we were called out to fill the craters, blow up any of the burnt out wrecks on the road and tow the disabled armoured vehicles off the road (more on this 37ish years later).  P.

Some 10 days later we were called to another crater, the Arabs opened fire on us as soon as we arrived.   Two vehicles had bullets through their windscreen (P) and Sgt Dyte suffered a wound in his thigh. At last an armoured car from The Life Guards arrived fired a few rounds, whilst we hastily filled the crater.

Some days later a big Jewish convoy came up the Jaffa Rd.  We got to the crater early, but the Arabs were not going to let us do our road repairs.  Three mortar rounds were fired from the hills, probably by elements of the Iraqi army who had been infiltrated ready for partition. One landed in the back of a Tipper truck, killing Spr Smith (only 18½ he had only been with us for about 2 months) and another Spr. Cpl Tom Baker? Spr Williams and 2 others were wounded. We beat an undignified retreat with our dead, wounded and battered vehicles.

The Arabs were using the platform of a windmill to fire into The Old City (P). We were sent to blow the top off the windmill. This we achieved on the second attempt (more 34 yrs later). (P) Pictures of the unit lifting guns and searchlights onto the roofs of high buildings.

BATTLE ON THE BETHLEHEM/JERUSALEM ROAD

The Neve Daniel convoy refers to a group ambushed on their return to Jerusalem on 27 March 1948 The Scotsman newspaper’s correspondent Eric Downton described the incident

The first battle ended this evening when British troops rescued the survivors of the Jewish convoy which was trapped near Solomon’s Pools, a mile or so from Bethlehem. Greatly outnumbered, the Jews had fought off constant attacks. They received supplies and assistance from the Jewish planes, which went into action for the first time, attacking and bombing the Arabs and dropping food, water and ammunition to the defenders. ThroughoutSaturday night Haganah relief forces from Jerusalem tried to break past the Arabs, but the steep, boulder-strewn hills gave cover to the attacking guerrillas, and the relief forces were forced back.

A British task force was also compelled to return to Jerusalem on Saturday night after encountering roads heavily mined and obstructed by many blocks. The battle near Bethlehem began on Saturday morning after a convoy of forty trucks with a heavy guard of Haganah troops – men and women – had made a surprise dash from Jerusalem to the isolated Jewish colony Kfar and Zion in the hills eight miles north of Hebron. They delivered their cargo of goods and munitions, but ran into a trap on the return journey. The Arabs had blocked the road with piles of rocks at short intervals, and also laid extensive minefields, while hundreds of guerrillas lay in wait on the steep hillsides. Half the convoy returned to Kfar and Zion, while the remainder tried to plough forward under heavy fire. The Jews made a stand in a large stone house in the valley near Solomon’s Pools, ranging some of their trucks around the building to form a defence perimeter.

The Jews in the besieged house had suffered 50 per cent casualties. Forty-five wounded lay crowded on the floors. There were also the bodies of four dead. The Haganah leader in the house said : ‘We had about ten women among us in the house, but none of them were hurt. Although bullets were whizzing all night long and causing mounting casualties. We had no food, as only seven or eight of our lorries managed to reach the house, and we formed them into a protective barrier. We started out with 35 lorries and 14 armoured cars, and now we are left with seven or eight lorries and about six armoured cars. The rest were wrecked by the Arabs.’ When the rescued Jews were loaded on to army lorries and ambulances there were found to be 210, according to a senior police officer with the army convoy

Bethlehem (Attachment  Battle on the Bethlehem/Jerusalem Road)

Three Jewish vehicles were burning on roadside about 3 miles from Bethlehem. The Jewish survivors were in a farmhouse, surrounded by 100plus Arabs, all wildly shouting and firing at the farmhouse our officer, Lt Maulding, somehow negotiated a ceasefire. The Jews were allowed back to the road where an Army patrol had arrived, but they left their weapons behind, which the Arabs gleefully seized and ran away firing into the air.  One was so keen to get a better weapon that he shot one of his mates in the back, took his new found toy and threw his old one away.  One could never escape the oily black smoke from burning vehicles and the smell of death.

Another crater was outside Jerusalem, heading west towards Sinai. A big crater in the road, also blocked the track to a large house and farm buildings, I drove too near the crater and ran over an A/P mine. I was holding the door of the GMC open for more view and suffered slight shrapnel wounds in my lower right arm.  The boys lifted 3 or 4 more mines and then backed a tipper truck up a short track to a small quarry and ran over another mine.  Spr Jenkins was leaning over the side and suffered a severe wound in his upper arm. This was a textbook situation of what NOT TO DO. The enemy will usually booby trap craters, tracks and quarried where one would look for material to fill the crater.  It was another crestfallen return to Jerusalem with our wounded.

Mount Scorpus (Attachment Hadassaha Medical Convoy Massacre)

There was heavy firing all morning from the Mount Scopus area. Eventually we were called out to find 2 Jewish Ambulances burning on the S bend of the road, which led to the Hadassah Hospital.  The Ambulances were taking about 20 children to the hospital and were ambushed and set on fire by an Arab mob, which had taken over the houses either side of the road.  I looked in one of the ambulances and saw the charred bodies of several children, the heavy black smoke, the smell of death everywhere. It had taken a Company of the Suffolk Regt most of the morning to clear the houses and establish some sort of order.  (More about this 37 years on). A number of Jews from the hospital turned up and were allowed to collect the remains from the Ambulances We then placed our explosive charge in the vehicles.  Big bang, lots of bits of vehicles flying about. I towed most of the bigger sections off the road and back to camp for another night of cacophony.

No officers appeared to thank us for performing this thankless task – no one offered counselling – all in the days’ work for a National Serviceman, We came cheaply!!!

And so it came to pass that on 15 May 1948 the British Mandate on Palestine expired and we left Jerusalem in a long, long convoy to cross the Sinai into the sanctuary of Egypt. We passed the Jewish Farm where I was wounded, it was well on fire and crowds of Arabs were streaming from the farm over the hills with their loot.

And now you are back with your family.  thank you

this is the clip I have made for you

much love

Erez