Lorin Roche, Ph.D.
and Camille Maurine
We became interested in this story in 2005, when we met an 84-year old Hungarian Jew by the name of Lou, who moved to the United States in 1931 when he was 10 years old. As an immigrant kid in a tough steel town in Pennsylvania, he was beat constantly for being Jewish. So he joined the Marine Corps as soon as he could. Then World War II broke out, and he flew fighters for the Marines in the Pacific. In 1948, with some friends, Lou flew to the week-old country of Israel to help defend the tiny country. He wanted to help give the people there a chance at making a homeland.
In May, 1948, the neighboring nations of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq declared war on Israel and sent troops to invade and “finish Hitler’s work”. At the time, Israel consisted of about 600,000 people, half of whom were concentration camp survivors. The other half were Jews who had been living in the area since time immemorial. This teeny-tiny little country managed to survive in spite of it all. They must be among the toughest people in the world.
Map courtesy of Stand With Us. See also this map.
Israel is less than 1% of the size of the Arab world. The population of Israel, as of 2008, is 7,340,000. 5,500,000 are Jewish and 1,500,000 are Israeli Arabs. Note that the total population of Israel is about the same size as the city of London or Cairo.
By a bizarre series of coincidences and seeming miracles, Lou wound up leading the first mission of the Israel Air Force, on May 29, 1948. The IAF on that day consisted of four Nazi-surplus Messerschmitt fighters that had been cobbled together out of left-over parts, and tended to shoot off their own propellers. The other three young Jews had never flown in combat, so Lou led the mission, which succeeded in scaring off the Army of Egypt, that was about to conquer Tel Aviv. Thus Lou wound up being eye-witness to the founding and first few week of Israel’s existence. We find that pilots are interesting to talk to, because they have bird’s-eye view of things.
When war is declared, civilians flee if they can. The first couple of minutes of the film Casablanca (1942) portray the plight of refugees fleeing the Nazis in 1940. The copyright holders won’t let me show the first 60 seconds of the movie, so watch it yourself if you can.
World War II ended in 1945, but the dying didn’t. There was mass starvation and mass migration across the Eurasian continent, from Germany to China. For years, millions of people lived in refugee camps. The numbers are staggering. The total deaths caused by the war are estimated at 72 million people, 47 million of those being civilians, and 20 million deaths were caused by starvation. From 1945 on, the United States Army had to feed millions of starving and homeless Germans, French, Poles, Czechs, Estonians, Lithuanians, and others. Included among the displaced persons who had no homes to return to were about 250,000 Jews who had somehow survived the death camps, but were now housed in those same camps.
In 1947 and 1948, another Casablanca-like migration of refugees took place, this time it was Jews fleeing the Displaced Persons camps, smuggling themselves to Palestine, and trying to settle in their ancestral homeland of Israel. This is where our story focuses. When the Arab nations declared war on Israel, about 600,000 Palestinian Arabs living in the area fled, to get out of the way of the invading armies.
The Arabs lost the war, so many of the Palestinian Arabs had no homes to return to. They had to eke out a pathetic existence in desperate refugee camps. At the same time, the Arab nations, from Morocco to Iran, expelled about 900,000 Jews who had been living in those areas for hundreds, or thousands of years; their homes and farms were seized and they were forced to flee. They straggled their way to the newly founded Israel. The trauma to everyone involved must have been incredible.
The Declaration of Independence of Israel
There was a moment in history when the Jewish people said, "Here we take a stand. Here, in this dry and dusty land of our ancestors, we will make a home for ourselves and defend it. We will live free here or die."
This moment came on May 14, 1948. On that day, Israel sent forth into the airwaves of the world a Declaration of Independence. Within eleven minutes the new country was recognized by the United States. The next day, the armies of Lebanon, Syria, TransJordan, Iraq and Egypt invaded, intent on a "war of annihilation."
The Israelis did not even have one gun for every soldier, and only a few bullets per gun. Yet somehow they won. This was a triumph of the human spirit and a victory over despair. The impact of the Israeli's courage and survival is still resonating through the world.
“Destiny”
This project, DESTINY, tells the story of the founding of Israel from the point of view of the daring young pilots who came from the four corners of the world to support and protect the newborn nation. They cobbled together an air force out of Nazi-surplus planes, and in May 1948, used these to fend off an invasion by the Egyptian army.
This story is not widely known, even though the events have been recorded in newspaper accounts, magazine articles, hundreds of public lectures, and history books. These brief accounts only touch on the main points of this improbable adventure. Now Dr. Lorin Roche and Camille Maurine are developing a feature film, nonfiction book, and documentary film based on their research and in-depth interviews with Captain Lou Lenart (USMC, Ret.), the pilot who led that first mission of the Israel Air Force.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. – Douglas Adams
The Founding of Israel
The modern nation of Israel was founded in 1948, and this made a lot of people very angry – especially Muslims living in the surrounding countries. Many people – Jews, Gentiles and Muslims, thought this was a bad move, and said, “Why put the homeland for the few remaining Jews on Earth in the middle of hundreds of millions of hostile Arabs? Why not put Israel in, say, Alaska, or Arizona, Argentina or Uganda?”Who Are the Jews?
We do not know, but they sure have been living an amazing story. “Israel” means, “He struggles with God,” or “God-wrestler.” Islam means “surrender your will to God.” These two seemingly opposed approaches to God are existing side-by-side in tiny little countries in the Middle East.We became interested in this story in 2005, when we met an 84-year old Hungarian Jew by the name of Lou, who moved to the United States in 1931 when he was 10 years old. As an immigrant kid in a tough steel town in Pennsylvania, he was beat constantly for being Jewish. So he joined the Marine Corps as soon as he could. Then World War II broke out, and he flew fighters for the Marines in the Pacific. In 1948, with some friends, Lou flew to the week-old country of Israel to help defend the tiny country. He wanted to help give the people there a chance at making a homeland.
In May, 1948, the neighboring nations of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq declared war on Israel and sent troops to invade and “finish Hitler’s work”. At the time, Israel consisted of about 600,000 people, half of whom were concentration camp survivors. The other half were Jews who had been living in the area since time immemorial. This teeny-tiny little country managed to survive in spite of it all. They must be among the toughest people in the world.
Map courtesy of Stand With Us. See also this map.
Israel is less than 1% of the size of the Arab world. The population of Israel, as of 2008, is 7,340,000. 5,500,000 are Jewish and 1,500,000 are Israeli Arabs. Note that the total population of Israel is about the same size as the city of London or Cairo.
By a bizarre series of coincidences and seeming miracles, Lou wound up leading the first mission of the Israel Air Force, on May 29, 1948. The IAF on that day consisted of four Nazi-surplus Messerschmitt fighters that had been cobbled together out of left-over parts, and tended to shoot off their own propellers. The other three young Jews had never flown in combat, so Lou led the mission, which succeeded in scaring off the Army of Egypt, that was about to conquer Tel Aviv. Thus Lou wound up being eye-witness to the founding and first few week of Israel’s existence. We find that pilots are interesting to talk to, because they have bird’s-eye view of things.
The Refugee Problem
When war is declared, civilians flee if they can. The first couple of minutes of the film Casablanca (1942) portray the plight of refugees fleeing the Nazis in 1940. The copyright holders won’t let me show the first 60 seconds of the movie, so watch it yourself if you can.
World War II ended in 1945, but the dying didn’t. There was mass starvation and mass migration across the Eurasian continent, from Germany to China. For years, millions of people lived in refugee camps. The numbers are staggering. The total deaths caused by the war are estimated at 72 million people, 47 million of those being civilians, and 20 million deaths were caused by starvation. From 1945 on, the United States Army had to feed millions of starving and homeless Germans, French, Poles, Czechs, Estonians, Lithuanians, and others. Included among the displaced persons who had no homes to return to were about 250,000 Jews who had somehow survived the death camps, but were now housed in those same camps.
In 1947 and 1948, another Casablanca-like migration of refugees took place, this time it was Jews fleeing the Displaced Persons camps, smuggling themselves to Palestine, and trying to settle in their ancestral homeland of Israel. This is where our story focuses. When the Arab nations declared war on Israel, about 600,000 Palestinian Arabs living in the area fled, to get out of the way of the invading armies.
The Arabs lost the war, so many of the Palestinian Arabs had no homes to return to. They had to eke out a pathetic existence in desperate refugee camps. At the same time, the Arab nations, from Morocco to Iran, expelled about 900,000 Jews who had been living in those areas for hundreds, or thousands of years; their homes and farms were seized and they were forced to flee. They straggled their way to the newly founded Israel. The trauma to everyone involved must have been incredible.
The Declaration of Independence of Israel
There was a moment in history when the Jewish people said, "Here we take a stand. Here, in this dry and dusty land of our ancestors, we will make a home for ourselves and defend it. We will live free here or die."
This moment came on May 14, 1948. On that day, Israel sent forth into the airwaves of the world a Declaration of Independence. Within eleven minutes the new country was recognized by the United States. The next day, the armies of Lebanon, Syria, TransJordan, Iraq and Egypt invaded, intent on a "war of annihilation."
The Israelis did not even have one gun for every soldier, and only a few bullets per gun. Yet somehow they won. This was a triumph of the human spirit and a victory over despair. The impact of the Israeli's courage and survival is still resonating through the world.
“Destiny”
This project, DESTINY, tells the story of the founding of Israel from the point of view of the daring young pilots who came from the four corners of the world to support and protect the newborn nation. They cobbled together an air force out of Nazi-surplus planes, and in May 1948, used these to fend off an invasion by the Egyptian army.
This story is not widely known, even though the events have been recorded in newspaper accounts, magazine articles, hundreds of public lectures, and history books. These brief accounts only touch on the main points of this improbable adventure. Now Dr. Lorin Roche and Camille Maurine are developing a feature film, nonfiction book, and documentary film based on their research and in-depth interviews with Captain Lou Lenart (USMC, Ret.), the pilot who led that first mission of the Israel Air Force.
Modi Alon, Lou Lenart, and Giddy Lichtman
in front of a Czechoslovakian-manufactured Nazi
Messerschmitt, painted with the Star of David. 1948.
destiny@nobleheartmedia.com