The early days of Israel

[Beer]

I am sure there are many very interesting stories to share about this topic. Let's start with couple of articles about the weird and sometimes downright crazy history of Czechoslovak assistance which helped Israel to survive its early days. It's true that Czechoslovakia asked a lot of money for bypassing the UN embargo but it doesn't change the fact that it helped in the critical time - before the change of course was ordered from Kremlin in 1949. It's also worth mentioning that the arms-smuggling to Israel brought up to 1/3 of all foreign currency income of Czechoslovakia at that time! It's all in Czech but well understandable with the google translate. 

 

Here in short the story of the secret Czechoslovak operation DI - the military asistance to Israel from the website of the Czech Institute of the military history. The article contains rare historical photos from the covert military training for army specialists (pilots, tankers, mechanics and even an infantry brigade made of volunteers from the former Czechoslovak Army Corps in USSR). 

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vhu.cz%2Fprubeh-a-podrobnosti-cs-vojenske-pomoci-izraeli-na-konci-40-let%2F

 

If you really like the topic, you can learn many more details from these six chapters of this superlong article (sure worth studying for anyone interested in the topic).

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.valka.cz%2F14222-Ceskoslovensko-a-jeho-vojenska-pomoc-statu-Izrael-v-prvnim-obdobi-jeho-samostatne-existence-I%3Futm_source%3Dvalka_cz%26utm_medium%3Darticle%26utm_campaign%3Dserial

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.valka.cz%2F14223-Ceskoslovensko-a-jeho-vojenska-pomoc-statu-Izrael-v-prvnim-obdobi-jeho-samostatne-existence-II%3Futm_source%3Dvalka_cz%26utm_medium%3Darticle%26utm_campaign%3Dserial

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=cs&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.valka.cz%2F14230-Ceskoslovensko-a-jeho-vojenska-pomoc-statu-Izrael-v-prvnim-obdobi-jeho-samostatne-existence-III

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=cs&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.valka.cz%2F14236-Ceskoslovensko-a-jeho-vojenska-pomoc-statu-Izrael-v-prvnim-obdobi-jeho-samostatne-existence-IV%3Futm_source%3Dvalka_cz%26utm_medium%3Darticle%26utm_campaign%3Dserial

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=cs&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.valka.cz%2F14242-Ceskoslovensko-a-jeho-vojenska-pomoc-statu-Izrael-v-prvnim-obdobi-jeho-samostatne-existence-V%3Futm_source%3Dvalka_cz%26utm_medium%3Darticle%26utm_campaign%3Dserial

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=cs&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.valka.cz%2F14246-Ceskoslovensko-a-jeho-vojenska-pomoc-statu-Izrael-v-prvnim-obdobi-jeho-samostatne-existence-VI%3Futm_source%3Dvalka_cz%26utm_medium%3Darticle%26utm_campaign%3Dserial

 

After that we have the totally crazy story of the Cairo bombing raid actually performed from the communist Czechoslovakia in 1948. Why don't we have yet any movie about three B-17s smuggled from USA, crewed by American-Jewish airmen, armed with former German machineguns and bombs and operating from an airfield located in then communist Czechoslovakia? If that doesn't deserve to be filmed than what does? 

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.idnes.cz%2Fzpravy%2Fdomaci%2Fnalet-zatec-kahira-b-17-izrael.A130712_105045_domaci_jw

 

Most of you likely know that the first combat aircraft of the Israeli airforce were Czechoslovak Avia S-199 fighters. This stillborn stop-gap modification of the leftover Bf-109G airframe was rather useless in fact (Czechoslovakia had loads of Bf-109 airframes but no spare DB-605 engines whose reliability was absurdly low due to bad late-war steel, so the engines were replaced with Jumo-211 bomber units - completely unsuitable but available) but nevertheless it helped to stop the Egyptian attack on Tel Aviv and brought a very important psychological advantage on the Israeli side. More about these planes here. 

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.idnes.cz%2Ftechnet%2Fvojenstvi%2Fizrael-ceskoslovensko-vyroci-izraelske-letectvo.A180526_235424_vojenstvi_erp

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.idnes.cz%2Ftechnet%2Fvojenstvi%2Fceskoslovenske-letectvo-stihaci-letadlo-avia-s-199.A200116_174150_vojenstvi_erp 

 

To add to the absurdity of that time... the man behind the support for the Israel was Czechoslovak FM Vladimír Clementis who was executed just few years later as a result of an intra-communist power struggle.