Destiny
everybody has one
Lou's Story
How is it that Lou Lenart happened to appear in the air over Israel that fateful day? How did his life and his destiny lead him there?Lou was born in 1921 on a farm in Hungary near the border with Czechoslovakia. His father breeds horses, and gypsies from the nearby hills come by to work odd jobs and play haunting melodies on their violins. Everyone is working hard and the farm is thriving.
One day in 1930 a local peasant gets drunk and comes onto the farm to scream anti-Semitic curses at Lou's grandmother. Lou and his father are doing chores nearby, hear the uproar and run to see what is going on. The man is standing there screaming, "You Jewish pig!" at the grandmother. Lou's father orders the man off his property and when the man keeps yelling, slugs him and knocks him down. The judge says, "How dare you, a JEW, touch a Catholic?" and puts him in jail. The locals are gloating at this, anticipating being able to buy the family farm and stock at pennies on the pengo.
Responding to the emergency, Lou's uncle arrives from America. He knows what to do. He hands out fistfuls of American dollars to the judge and police. Then he bribes the American consul to issue visas, and the family emigrates to the United States.
Lou's passport photo, 1931
Now Lou is a scrawny kid living in a mean coal town in Pennsylvania. When he first arrives, at age 10, he does not speak a word of English.
As a "foreigner," a Hungarian immigrant, Lou is bullied daily by the Polish boys, as he walks to and from school. They love to surround him, push and hit at him from all sides, and scream "Christ killer." This challenge turns out to be a great gift, for to survive their attacks, Lou develops "eyes in the back of his head," learning to sense blows coming at him from behind and take evasive action. It is like 360 degree radar, an instinctive situational awareness that will serve him all his life.
Right there and then Lou decides on a code of ethics: No one has the right to bully another person. He sees an ad by Charles Atlas and writes to him, asking for the secret of being strong.
Atlas sends him a little manual of how to work out with weights, which Lou follows devotedly.
Lou age 15 at the lake in Pennsylvania, proud of his muscles after working out with weights for a year.
At the train station one day, Lou sees a Marine in his uniform and the guy looks fearless and happy to be alive. Later he sees this poster, First to fight.
He determines to join the Marines and signs up as soon as he graduates, becoming one of the handful of Jews in that force. The United States has not entered the war yet, but Lou knows it is coming and wants nothing more than to go over to Europe and kill Nazis.
With fierce dedication, Lou works his way up from an enlisted Marine to a decorated Captain. He becomes a skilled fighter pilot with bombing training, and flies dangerous support missions in the Pacific Theater in World War II. He never sees a Nazi.
Lou miraculously survives the crash of his fighter plane and experiences a mystical near-death vision. The doctors tell him he will never walk again, and certainly never fly, but Lou soon proves them wrong. Now he is in awe and gratitude just to be alive, and wonders what saved him that day. “Okay, World, here I am. What do you want from me?”
Hollywood, 1948. Lou is out of the service and having the time of his life, enjoying the California sun and dating actresses. But a series of news stories is making Lou’s heart ache. The UN announces that in 5 months, on May 15, it will recognize Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people. Then Azzam Pasha, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, announces a “war of extermination” against the Jews. Military experts are saying that Israel will last at most two weeks, because it has no army and no air force, while the Arabs have been fully supplied by the British with tanks, artillery, armored cars, and warplanes.
Lou learns that his Hungarian grandmother was murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz. As he grieves over her fate, he starts to become aware that thousands of devastated Jewish survivors and orphaned children are trying to get to Israel, because no other country will take them in.
Lou can see these refugees – he sees them in his heart when he wakes up in the morning, and he sees them when he walks on the beach. He knows that he has to help, no matter how impossible the odds.
As a fighter pilot, his instinct is to get a squadron together and fly in Israel’s defense. Through underground channels he makes contact with the Haganah, the Israeli secret service, and meets mastermind AL SCHWIMMER. With Al’s mentoring, under the guise of starting an airline, Lou buys an old C-46 cargo plane and flies first to New Jersey, then Italy, then Israel. Along the way he meets other young pilots, and together they form a brotherhood devoted to creating an air force for Israel. Their mission is opposed by every nation on earth – there is a worldwide embargo against weapons for Israel.
At every step, the pilots are hunted by the FBI. The United States does not want to see any weapons manufactured in the U.S. used by Arabs against Jews, or Jews against Arabs. So FBI agents with binoculars were watching as Lou took off from Burbank Airport near Los Angeles, and watching when he landed at Teterborough Airport in New Jersey.
In New York the team gathers at Hotel Fourteen, at 14 East 60th Street. The Haganah, in its wisdom, is using as headquarters the same building that houses the Copacabana, the most glamorous night club in the world.
Frank Sinatra, Jackie Gleason, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin at the Copa
Every night at the Copa, there are shows by the legendary performers of the day – Count Basie, Abbot and Costello, Cab Calloway, Carmen Miranda, Desi Arnez, Jimmy Durante, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
The Copacabana is also the favorite watering hole of the Italian, Irish, and Jewish Mafia (Meyer Lanksy’s people), who protect and assist the pilots. Secret agents, wise guys, and long-legged dancers pass Lou and the other pilots in the hallways. Life is good.
Then the pilots fly to Rome, which they use as a base for their operations. A sensuous Italian beauty, CAROLINA, adopts the pilots and uses her extensive contacts to protect and guide the men in their mission. Although she is only 24, Carolina came of age when the Fascists ruled Italy, and she learned to use her beauty and sexuality to disarm and manipulate men. She detests goose-stepping bullies of all kinds and can read anyone's motivations at a glance, infallibly. She uses her street smarts and circle of admirers to protect the pilots and give them advance warning when British or Arab spies come hunting them.
Lou says that Carolina looked like Gina Lollobrigida.
The streets of postwar Rome are chaotic and dangerous, full of gangsters, opportunists of all kinds, mobs of Communists, and Nazis bribing their way to South America. Lou’s heart breaks as he sees Jewish families trying to find passage to Israel. The team meet every day in outdoor cafes, wearing their jeans and flight jackets, as they pretend to be smugglers dealing in American cigarettes and perfume. This, they calculate, is the perfect cover for their real mission, which is to fly at night from Italy to Israel, bringing rifles, bullets, and medical supplies. They have to fly at night because the British Navy controls the Mediterranean.
Incredibly, British warships are intercepting passenger ships full of Jewish refugees headed for Israel, arresting them, and putting them in concentration camps, which they call “Internment Camps,” on Cyprus. The Egyptian Air Force roams at will over Israel, strafing Jewish civilians in the street, for sport, and shooting down any cargo planes they find. But the Egyptians only fly during the day, so the Jewish pilots land in the darkness, unload, refuel, and take off again before dawn to fly back to Italy.
In Europe Lou and his friends are stalked by British agents and Arab assassins. Their planes are impounded, some of the team are killed, and most of their efforts are frustrated.
Finally just as the May 15 deadline of Israel’s independence approaches, a deal is struck to obtain some war-surplus Nazi Messerschmitt fighter planes from Czechoslovakia. These planes are made up out of mismatched, left-over parts and tend to shoot off their own propellers. The pilots get only a couple of hours of training in the rickety planes and manage to smuggle four of them Israel. The planes have to be taken apart, stuffed into cargo planes, and then painstakingly reassembled at an abandoned air base near Tel Aviv.
The team now consists of Lou and three other young pilots, all in their early 20’s, EZER WEIZMAN, MODI ALON, and South African EDDIE COHEN.
NAMING THE SQUADRON
While they are waiting for the planes to be bolted together, the pilots hold a meeting and name their tiny squadron “The Angels of Death,” in honor of the Angel in the Biblical Exodus story that God sent to persuade the Egyptians to let the Jews go. In the Bible story, God sends all kinds of plagues against the Egyptians – frogs, lice, locusts, hail, darkness – but nothing works. It is only when God finally sends the Angel of Death that the Egyptian Pharaoh relents and lets the Israelis go.
Now it is May 29, 1948 and Arab armies are rampaging through the newborn State of Israel. The Arabs are being true to their word of total extermination, and are taking no prisoners. The Egyptian Army is only 16 miles from Tel Aviv and about to conquer the city. There are only a few hundred Israeli troops on the ground to stop them. In a desperate act, some Israeli troops blow up a bridge to stop the advance, so the Egyptians are now stalled until the bridge is repaired. They are parked bumper-to-bumper near the bridge, their hundreds of armored cars, fuel trucks, and ammo trucks all in a line.
Suddenly out of the late afternoon sun, four Nazi warplanes painted with the Star of David appear. The Nazi advisors who are assisting the Egyptians recognize the sound and silhouette of the BF-109, the most famous German warplane of World War II. The lead plane turns upside down, dives for the ground and executes a daring strafing and bombing attack, ignoring the anti-aircraft shells exploding in the air all around.The other three planes follow. Each plane walks its machine gun and cannon shells along the line of Egyptian vehicles, and then releases its bombs, creating destruction, death, and panic. Eddie goes for one more strafing run and his plane is hit by flak, catches fire, and crashes. The Egyptians are stunned by the attack, abandon their attack on Tel Aviv and scatter. Israel is saved.
This is the first combat mission of the Israel Air Force, led by Lou. The victory gives Israel crucial time to equip its soldiers and consolidate its defenses. Word flashes around the world that “the Jews can fight.” Success attracts success, and soon many other veterans arrive in Israel, eager to help out.
Several days later, Lou is flying a lone patrol in the skies over Israel, at peace with the force of destiny that pulled him to be at this spot at this moment. He is satisfied that the refugees, himself included, now have a fighting chance to make a home for themselves in the world.
Flying with Lou on that crucial mission was Ezer Weizman, who later became head of the IAF, the Israel Air Force, and then President of Israel. Lou is the “last man standing,” the only survivor of the four founding pilots of the IAF.