18 TULKARM, PALESTINE
MAY 30, 1948
Only twelve hours had elapsed since the 101 Squadron’s first mission, the strike at Ishdud. The Egyptians had been stopped in the south, but another threat was advancing in the north. A massive Transjordanian–Iraqi armored column was 10 miles from the coastal city of Netanya. If they cut the critical north–south highway connecting Tel Aviv to Haifa in the north, the Arabs would divide Israel and surround Tel Aviv.
At dawn the Arabs’ 30-mm cannons had begun shelling the Jewish settlement of Kfar Yona, their only obstacle on their march to the sea. Opposing them was a single Israeli unit, the Alexandroni Brigade. The little unit was just as beat up and depleted as the Givati Brigade at Ishdud.
Only two flyable Messerschmitts were left after the raid at Ishdud. Early on the morning of May 30, air force chief Remez sent the order: The fighters would attack the enemy column in the north. Ezer Weizman and Milt Rubenfeld, the only pilot not yet to fly, would execute the mission.
Milt Rubenfeld was a swarthy, athletic twenty-nine-year-old from Peekskill, New York. He’d learned to fly as a kid and was earning a living teaching aerobatics when WWII began in Europe. He volunteered to fly with the RAF, fought in the Battle of Britain, and ended the war in the USAAF Air Transport Command ferrying almost every military aircraft in the inventory.
Rubenfeld was a classic fighter pilot. When he was recruited by the Haganah in 1948, his interviewer jotted in his notes that Rubenfeld was “so cocky he seemed to swagger even while sitting down.”
Rubenfeld was sent to Rome, where he hung out with the other idle fighter pilots until he and Lou Lenart made the first long Norseman ferry flight from Italy to Palestine. Three days later Rubenfeld was in the first group on their way to 
eské Budějovice to learn to fly the Messerschmitt.
Today was Milt Rubenfeld’s first combat mission since 1941. In the thin light, he was having trouble finding his target. It was a few minutes past dawn. The landscape of northern Israel was covered in long shadows.
Then Rubenfeld saw the target. Not one target but hundreds—tanks, trucks, armored carriers—stretching for miles along the east–west road from Tulkarm to Netanya. The Iraqi forces at Tulkarm possessed more armored vehicles than the entire Israeli Army.
As Rubenfeld peered down at the enemy column, explosions erupted around him. The Arabs had spotted the incoming fighters. A curtain of flak was going up over Tulkarm.
Weizman led them in a wide left turn, then he lined up in a slanting approach from east to west. Diving down through the antiaircraft bursts, the pilots planted their bombs in the Tulkarm railway station where the Arab vehicles appeared to be staging.
Rubenfeld could feel the thud of the nearby explosions. Five minutes into his first mission he was dropping bombs, strafing, dodging flak—all the special skills they hadn’t had time to learn in eské Budějovice.
Rubenfeld knew about the jammed guns during yesterday’s mission at Ishdud. The Israeli armorers had promised him his guns would fire today.
And they did. He squeezed the trigger, and 13-mm bullets and 20-mm cannon shells poured into the convoy in front of him. He released the trigger and pulled up for another pass.
The flak was getting thicker. And closer. Then, a hard thump, as if something had slammed into the nose of the fighter. Seconds later black smoke gushed from the cowling of the Messerschmitt. The deep baritone of the V-12 Jumo engine changed to a death rattle.
Every fighter pilot knew the dictum that dated back to the First World War: It is never a good idea to bail out over a place you have just bombed.
Rubenfeld had just bombed Tulkarm. He definitely did not want to bail out there.
A string of commands rushed through Rubenfeld’s adrenaline-charged brain: Climb. Head for the water. He could see farms below. Ahead was the beach. He didn’t know whether the Arabs had gotten to the coast yet.
It no longer mattered. The Messerschmitt’s engine was dying. Rubenfeld was a little over a thousand feet above the terrain. He yanked the canopy release and the cockpit filled with the roar of air noise.
Rubenfeld unfastened his straps. He stood in the wind stream and hurled himself out of the Messerschmitt’s cockpit.
Ezer Weizman was rolling in for his next firing pass. He looked around for his wingman. What happened to Rubenfeld?
Then he saw the smoke—a long black ribbon, heading west. At the head of the smoke trail was the unmistakable shape of a Messerschmitt. While Weizman watched, a tiny object separated from the smoking Messerschmitt. A few seconds later, Weizman saw the round canopy of a parachute blossom, descending to the countryside below.
Weizman was stunned. How can this happen? He’d flown two combat missions in the Messerschmitt. Each time he’d lost a wingman.
Weizman had no more time to think about it. He heard a whap, followed by shards of glass and a hurricane blast of wind in his face.
The front windshield of the Messerschmitt was smashed. Weizman tilted his head to the side, trying to avoid the blast of wind. He yanked the Messerschmitt up and away.
When he was far enough from the flak around Tulkarm, he slowed the fighter down. He peered back over his shoulder. Rubenfeld’s Messerschmitt was gone. So was the parachute.
Rubenfeld watched the water rush toward him. He’d made it all the way to the beach before he bailed out. Seconds after his parachute opened, Rubenfeld was splashing down in the Mediterranean.
Everything hurt. His side and his groin ached, and he was bleeding from several wounds. He didn’t know whether it was from the flak bursts or hitting the tail on the way out of the fighter.
He was several hundred yards offshore. After trying to swim for what seemed like hours, Rubenfeld realized that the water was so shallow he could walk.
Dripping wet, aching all over, he limped through the shallow surf toward the beach. Rubenfeld’s optimism was returning. He’d just survived a shoot down and a bail out. He was still a free man.
Blam. A gunshot rang out. A plume of water erupted beside him. Blam, blam. More gunshots, more plumes. Then he saw them. They were clustered on the beach, a group of men with weapons. The bastards were shooting at him.
Arabs or Israelis? It didn’t matter who they were if they killed him. Rubenfeld raised his hands in surrender. He limped toward the dry shore. No one had shot him yet. They were lousy shots or else they were waiting to kill him at close range.
Some of the men on the beach held rifles. A few had pistols. Others were waving pitchforks and spades. They were farmers, Rubenfeld guessed, probably from the nearby Kfar Vitkin moshav—a collective farm. And he could see that they were furious. They were brandishing the weapons as if they wanted to make mincemeat of the pilot.
Then it dawned on Rubenfeld. They thought he was an Arab pilot. The existence of an Israeli fighter squadron was still a secret. Worse, Rubenfeld looked like an Arab. His naturally dark complexion had been burned darker by the Mideast sun.
Rubenfeld spoke no Hebrew. His mind was racing to come up with something—anything—that these wild-eyed dirt farmers would understand. He threw his arms in the air and yelled the only Yiddish words he could think of.
“Gefilte fish! Gefilte fish! Shabbes! Shabbes!”
The farmers stared at him as if he’d just landed from outer space. Gefilte fish? They kept their pitchforks and rifles at the ready as Rubenfeld hobbled onto the beach.
One of them snatched Rubenfeld’s pistol. Another frisked him and came up with the identification folder from the pocket of his flight suit. The farmer examined the folder, then held it for all of them to see. It was a black-and-white photo of Milton Rubenfeld with his name and rank as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force. In Hebrew.
The pitchforks lowered. The exuberant Israelis took turns embracing the American volunteer in the air force they didn’t know they had. It was time for a celebration.
Ezer Weizman had stopped thinking about Rubenfeld. He had problems of his own. His windshield was shattered and he was trying to get the Messerschmitt back on the hard, unforgiving concrete at Ekron. With his goggles down, wind blasting his face, Weizman landed the Messerschmitt and managed to keep the fighter on the runway.
When he shut the engine down back at the hangar, he was met by Yehuda Pilpel, the squadron’s tough senior mechanic. Weizman gave him the bad news. They’d lost another Messerschmitt.
Then he showed him his own combat damage. “I seem to have been hit,” said Weizman, with a touch of drama in his voice.
Pilpel could see the smashed windshield. He crawled into the cockpit. Seconds later he emerged wearing a wry smile. He showed Weizman the remains of the bird that had smashed the windshield.
Weizman would have laughed, except he couldn’t. He’d just lost another wingman. The past twelve hours had been a violent mixture of high drama and comedy. He’d taken battle damage to his own fighter—he looked again at the bloody bundle of guts and feathers—from a bird. It was a hell of a war.
With his shoulders slumping, a depressed Weizman trudged over to the squadron operations shack.
Seconds later, his spirits were surging again. The report had just come in from the north. Rubenfeld was alive. He’d been rescued by villagers from the Kfar Vitkin kibbutz. Rubenfeld had some injuries, but as soon as he was patched up at the Hadassah hospital he’d be joining them at their quarters in the Yarden Hotel in Tel Aviv.
A broad smile spread over Ezer Weizman’s face. It was the first good news he’d received since going into combat with the Messerschmitts. If there was ever a reason to throw a blow-out party, this was it.