Old men forget: Yet all shall be forgot.
But he’ll remember with advantages What feats he did that day.
—SHAKESPEARE, KING HENRY V
The volunteer airmen scattered around the world. They became lawyers, teachers, test pilots, military officers, doctors, screenwriters, airline pilots, business moguls, movie producers. A few stayed to build successful careers in Israel.
For the next half century and more the aging veterans came together to tell stories, toast each other’s successes, celebrate weddings, bar mitzvahs, graduations, and, with increasing frequency, bury one of their own.
They held reunions in Israel, including a monumental fiftieth anniversary of the country’s independence. They walked the old airfields, gazed at the changed skyline of Tel Aviv, listened to the lapping of the waves at night along the Mediterranean. They paid solemn visits to the gravesites of fallen Machal comrades. Most of all they marveled at the changes in the country they helped save.
Even as their numbers dwindled, the volunteers would remain what they had been since 1948. They were brothers in a righteous cause.
RUDY AUGARTEN earned fame as one of only a handful of US aces to score kills in two wars, achieving his five victories in four different types of fighter. Augarten finished his degree at Harvard, then returned to Israel to serve for two years as commander of the IAF base at Ramat David with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Augarten went back to the United States, earned another degree in engineering, and then worked as an engineer and real estate businessman in Seal Beach, California. He passed away in 2000 at the age of seventy-eight.
SYD COHEN, the much-respected Red Squadron commander, completed his studies and practiced medicine for several years in South Africa. At the urging of Ezer Weizman, Cohen and his family resettled in Israel in the mid-1960s. Cohen served as an airborne combat medic in the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War and held the post of Chief Medical Officer for El Al. Cohen died in Israel in 2011 at the age of ninety.
JOSEPH JOHN “JACK” DOYLE followed his fellow volunteer, John McElroy, back to Canada and the RCAF, serving in the same squadron, flying fighters with NATO forces in Europe.
AARON “RED” FINKEL worked in several professions before settling in commercial real estate in California. He was a ringleader of the American Machal pilots and returned to Israel several times to renew friendships. He died in 2006 at the age of eighty-six in Encino, California.
MITCHELL “MIKE” FLINT returned to California to confess to his mother about the bogus postcards from the 1948 Olympics. He was working as an engineer for Lockheed when he was recalled to active duty in the navy during the Korean War. After Korea, Flint went to law school, earned a JD, and established a successful practice in Los Angeles. He retired from the naval reserve with the rank of commander. In Israel on his ninetieth birthday, Flint was awarded the rank of Rav Seren—major—in the Israeli Air Force, the rank he had turned down sixty-four years earlier.
LEO GARDNER, after his conviction with Al Schwimmer for conspiracy to violate the Neutrality Act, became a pilot for El Al. Later, with Gordon Levett, the adventuresome Gardner ferried warplanes to and from Israel. He passed away in Boca Raton, Florida, in 2003 at the age of eighty-nine.
CHALMERS “SLICK” GOODLIN served as chief test pilot in the IAF. He then flew DC-4s for Near East Transport on humanitarian missions carrying refugees to Israel. Goodlin was involved in various aviation ventures, becoming CEO of the Burnelli company, developer of the “lifting fuselage.” He was portrayed—unfairly in his opinion—in the movie about test pilots and astronauts The Right Stuff. Goodlin died in Florida in 2005 at age eighty-two.
RAY KURTZ, leader of the Cairo raid, returned to the United States to start a new freight airline. In May 1951, he was reported missing while ferrying a Mosquito bomber to Israel with navigator Seymour Lerner. Wreckage was eventually found on the shore of Greenland, but no trace was ever found of the airmen. Kurtz was thirty-two years old.
LOU LENART airlifted thousands of Jewish refugees from Iraq to Israel, flew for El Al, worked as general manager for the San Diego Clippers basketball team, and served as a producer on several movies, including Iron Eagle and Iron Eagle II. Lenart died in 2015 at the age of ninety-four at his home in Israel.
GORDON LEVETT, the former orphan and diaper-laundry worker, left Israel with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was involved in multiple warplane-ferrying operations, wrote the biographical Flying Under Two Flags (London: Frank Cass, 1994), married twice, and became a father for the first time at the age of forty-eight. Levett died in England in 2000 at age seventy-nine.
SAM LEWIS, the Smilin’ Jack look-alike, became the first chief pilot for El Al, where he remained until his mandatory retirement age, then continued flying for Schwimmer’s company in Israel and later for an Israeli tycoon. Lewis passed away in 2004.
GIDEON LICHTMAN, the tough-talking fighter pilot, stayed active in the USAF reserve and flew combat missions in Korea. Later he returned to Israel as a test pilot for Al Schwimmer’s company. Returning once again to the United States, Lichtman became a high school teacher and settled in Miami, Florida.
HAROLD LIVINGSTON, the wisecracking Bagel Lancer radio operator, went home to become a novelist and screenwriter. He wrote the screenplay for the first Star Trek movie, earning an Academy Award nomination. Among Livingston’s seven books is No Trophy, No Sword (Chicago: Edition Q, 1994), an account of his service flying as a radio operator with the Air Transport Command in Israel’s war of independence.
CHRIS MAGEE, bored with the lack of combat action during the long summer truce, returned to the United States and became a bank robber. The Marine ace and Navy Cross winner eventually served eight and a half years in federal prison. When he was released in 1967, his old squadronmates held a grand party for him. Magee worked as a journalist in Chicago until his death in 1995 at the age of seventy-eight.
JOHN MCELROY missed flying fighters. After he was sure he wouldn’t be arrested for having shot down two RAF warplanes, he rejoined the Canadian Air Force and flew Sabre jets in Europe. He left the military in 1963 and became a real estate salesman in Ontario, Canada.
NORM MOONITZ, the tough ex–New York fireman, stayed in Israel to fly with El Al, and later worked as a test pilot for Lockheed, a contract pilot for Lufthansa, then for Trans International Airlines, from which he retired in 1981. A hardy man who ran the New York marathon at age 61, sailed, surfed, and skied, Moonitz died in 1998 at the age of seventy-seven.
WAYNE PEAKE returned to the United States and joined Flying Tiger Airlines. The guitar-strumming fighter pilot died in 1979 of cancer at age fifty-five. In compliance with Peake’s wishes, he was given a military funeral in Israel. Peake was laid to rest near the grave of another non-Jewish volunteer, Buzz Beurling.
MILTON RUBENFELD, after his dramatic mission over Tulkarm, became a businessman in Oneonta, New York, and then Sarasota, Florida. He and his wife appeared in the 1988 movie, Big Top Pee-wee, starring their son, Paul Reubens, better known as Pee-wee Herman. Rubenfeld died in Sarasota in 2004 at the age of eighty-four.
IRWIN “SWIFTY” SCHINDLER became one of the first pilots for Israel’s national airline, El Al, moving with his family to Israel for two years. After he left El Al he became a Miami, Florida, developer, mortgage broker, and a talk-show host on a radio station. He died in September 2007 at the age of ninety-one.
ADOLPH “AL” SCHWIMMER was persuaded by David Ben-Gurion to return to Israel in 1951, where he founded Israel Aircraft Industries, the country’s largest employer and developer of much of Israel’s high tech military hardware. Schwimmer received a pardon from President Clinton in 2001 for his Neutrality Act conviction. Schwimmer died in Israel at the age of ninety-four.
BORIS SENIOR remained in the IAF until 1952, when he left with the rank of colonel. Senior became a manufacturer of photographic materials and an international investor. During his wartime stint at Herzliya he became smitten with the nearby village of Kfar Shmaryahu, where he built a home and lived until his death in 2004 at the age of eighty-two.
EZER WEIZMAN rose to become commander of the Israeli Air Force between 1958 and 1966. As deputy chief of the general staff he directed the surprise air attacks during the Six-Day War in 1967, destroying the Egyptian Air Force in three hours. After serving as defense minister in 1977, Weizman was elected president of Israel in 1993, serving until 2000. He died in 2005 at the age of eighty.
CHARLES “CHARLIE” WINTERS settled in Miami after his eighteen-month prison sentence for violation of the US Neutrality Act and founded an export company. When he started a family, he never told his children about the B-17 caper or his prison time. Winters died in 1984 at the age of seventy-one. He was posthumously pardoned by President George W. Bush in 2008.