20 EKRON AIR BASE, ISRAEL
JUNE 3, 1948
It was warm, even this late in the evening. Stepping down from the C-46, Gideon Lichtman could smell the dry, sweet smell of the countryside. He could see the outlines of the hills to the north and east.
A feeling swept over Lichtman like a pleasant breeze. I’m in Israel. After the weeks of secretive contacts and mysterious agents and trips across the world and a fourteen-hour plane trip, he was in the ancient land of his people.
For all Gideon Lichtman’s swaggering and tough talk, he was, at heart, an idealist. He was one of the few who had volunteered to fight in Israel for zero pay. Lichtman was here for the sole purpose of helping to save the new nation.
The feeling deepened during the jeep ride into town. At roadblocks along the route they were halted by uniformed IDF soldiers. “It thrilled me,” Lichtman recalled. “I saw Jews protecting their own country.”
Tel Aviv was blacked out. The jeep pulled up to a darkened building along the beach. In the darkness Lichtman could barely make out the sign: Park Hotel. Hefting their duffel bags, Lichtman and his fellow fighter pilot, Maury Mann, trudged up to the main door.
The place looked deserted. Then they opened the door.
The light almost blinded them. Raucous noise spilled out the door. Music blared from a phonograph. Inside the big open room couples were dancing. Someone was singing. A buzz of conversation permeated the air. The lounge was packed with partiers, men in uniform, dozens of cute women, some also in uniform.
At the bar he met his fellow fighter pilots in the 101 Squadron. One was a tall, skinny guy who introduced himself as Ezer Weizman. His left arm was in a plaster cast, he explained, due to a stupid motorcycle cock-up a few days ago.
Lichtman was introduced to Milt Rubenfeld, still banged up and bandaged from being shot down on his first mission only a week ago. He met Lou Lenart, the Hungarian American ex-Marine who had led the first Messerschmitt mission against the Egyptians.
Tiredly, Lichtman tossed down his drink. He needed sleep. He wondered how long he would have to wait before they sent him into combat.
Lichtman was asleep when he felt someone tapping his shoulder. “Giddy, wake up. Wake up.”
It was Modi Alon. He was wearing a flight suit, and he had a serious look on his face. It was the morning of June 8. They were in the bunkroom at Ekron Air Base. Lichtman had moved out to Ekron so he’d be closer to the Messerschmitts when it was time to fly.
It was time.
“Get your parachute and flight gear, Giddy. We’ve got a call. Four Spitfires are heading north toward Tel Aviv.”
Lichtman was instantly awake. He pulled on his flight suit, trying to listen while Alon rambled through a mission briefing. “. . . no radios, so I’ll give you a circling motion with my hand, then point to the bogeys . . .”
Lichtman just nodded. “Bogeys” was a term coined in WWII. It meant aircraft suspected of being hostile. If the bogeys were Spitfires, they were automatically hostile.
With their parachutes flopping against their butts, the two men trotted across the ramp to where the Messerschmitts stood waiting. The only two in the air force that happened to be flyable.
Alon was still talking. “. . . and stay on my wing when I make the intercept so we can cover each other . . .”
Lichtman kept muttering, “B’seder, b’seder.” B’seder meant “okay.” It was one of the few Hebrew words he knew.
Things were happening too fast. They reached the parked fighters, and it was the end of Alon’s briefing. He was already climbing into his Messerschmitt.
A mechanic helped Lichtman into his cramped cockpit. He fumbled with the straps and then set up the switches for engine start. It came rushing back to him how short his training at Budějovice had been.
The mechanic was winding up the inertia starter. It sounded like a cat being tortured—a low howl rising in pitch. The mechanic yanked the crank handle out and gave Lichtman the signal to start.
Lichtman peered around the cockpit. Where the hell is the start handle? The mechanic pointed to the handle by Lichtman’s left knee. Oh, yeah.
Lichtman pulled the handle and the paddle-bladed propeller whirled in a jerky rotation. The Jumo engine rumbled to life.
Lichtman was still trying to set the flaps and the engine mixture and the trim for takeoff when he looked up. Alon’s Messerschmitt was already rolling. Lichtman powered up his own fighter and hurried to catch up. At the end of the runway he stopped alongside Alon’s fighter, slammed down the clamshell canopy of his fighter, and gave his engine a quick run-up. Lichtman was trying to make sense of his gauges when he glanced up.
Alon’s fighter was gone. It was halfway down the strip, tail raised, accelerating like a runaway Doberman. Lichtman shoved his throttle forward and pointed his own Messerschmitt down the runway.
As they headed out toward the coast, Lichtman was fuming. He was at full throttle and he still wasn’t catching up with Alon. Worse, at this high power setting the Messerschmitts were burning nearly twice the normal amount of fuel. At this rate, they’d be out of gas before they ever engaged the enemy.
Lichtman couldn’t transmit on the radio. These goddamned airplanes didn’t have radios. The low-hanging sun was blazing into Lichtman’s face. Tears gushed from his eyes as he tried to stay in formation.
He saw Alon making a circling movement with his left hand and then he pointed down and left. Lichtman blinked away his tears and gazed down.
He spotted the elliptical-winged shapes. Spitfires. Four of them, cruising along in a loose formation.
The pair of Messerschmitts swept down on the Spitfires from behind. Lichtman was still groping in the cockpit. Where is the arming switch for the guns? He couldn’t find it.
He kept flipping switches. None of them worked.
Closing the range, Alon opened fire. As his tracers spewed through the formation, the Spitfires scattered like a covey of quail.
Lichtman hadn’t fired a shot. He watched the four Spitfires duck into a layer of cloud. He kept his eye on the cloud, waiting for a Spitfire to emerge, while he fumbled with his switches.
Aha! He found one that worked. He gave the trigger on his stick a short squeeze and heard a satisfying Brrrrappp.
Then he realized he was running out of fuel. At full throttle chasing Alon, he had consumed most of the Messerschmitt’s minuscule fuel load. Now they were far from their base. He was still thinking about his fuel when he saw it.
A Spitfire. Coming of the cloud bank.
Lichtman whipped the Messerschmitt into a pursuit curve behind the Spitfire. At two hundred yards, he opened fire. It was the first time he’d actually fired the guns or cannons on a Messerschmitt. He saw the two streams of cannon tracers arcing toward the Spitfire.
And missing. The tracers were spewing past the Spitfire on either side. Even in his hyper-excited state, Lichtman knew what was happening. The guns hadn’t been sighted in to converge at the optimum range.
The Spitfire pilot abruptly reversed his turn and put the fighter into a dive. Lichtman stayed on his tail. He fired again, kicking the rudder pedals to spray the cannon fire across the Spitfire’s airframe. This time he saw hunks of metal spewing off the Spitfire. The enemy fighter was coming apart, heading for the floor of the desert.
Lichtman pulled up and away. Is the Spitfire down? It no longer mattered. Lichtman’s attention was riveted on the fuel gauge in his Messerschmitt. The needle was ominously close to the bottom mark.
He throttled back to an economy power setting. As he flew back to his base, it occurred to him that running out of gas would be a hell of way to complete his first mission.
He made it. When he rolled up to the hangar opening and shut down the Jumo engine, Modi Alon and Ezer Weizman were waiting for him. Weizman was bubbling with excitement. “We just got a confirmation. A Spitfire was shot down. That was you who shot him down, wasn’t it?”
For the first time that morning, Lichtman allowed himself to relax. Frozen in his memory was the sight of his tracers pouring into the enemy fighter. He still saw the pieces flying off the Spitfire as it headed for the desert.
It was what he had come to Israel for.
“Yeah,” he said, “that was me.”
Such an event, of course, called for another party. The squadron convened that evening at the Park Hotel bar, where they were joined by a few of the transient Operation Balak airmen from the Zebra base.
As usual, toasts were proposed. Songs were sung, tales told, and Lichtman’s achievement was properly celebrated. Though Modi Alon had made the squadron’s first air-to-air kills when he shot down the Egyptian Dakotas, Lichtman had just scored the first kill of an enemy fighter.
On his first mission.
As usual, Weizman was in the center of the party, cracking jokes, egging everyone on. Also as usual, squadron commander Alon presided over the rowdy pilots like an indulgent father watching teenagers.
Someone got around to asking Lichtman what it felt like to shoot down the Egyptian fighter. By now Lichtman was in his tough-talking fighter pilot mode. “It was wonderful,” he said. “Better than getting laid.”
At that, the pilots all laughed. But no one believed him.