Between June 1947 and October 31, 1949, the Jewish agency (later to become the

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

i government) seeking weapons for Operation Balak, made several purchases of weapons in

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

, some of them of former German army weapons, captured by the Czechoslovak army on its national territory, or newly produced German weapons from Czechoslovakia's post-war production. In this deal, sale activities of Czechoslovak arms factories were coordinated by a special-purpose department of the ''Československé závody strojírenské a kovodělné, n.p.'' (Czechoslovak Metal-Working and Engineering Works, Nat.Ent.) Holding, called ''Sekretariát D'' (Secretariat D), headed by Gen. Jan Heřman (ret.). The deliveries from Czechoslovakia proved important for the establishment of Israel.

The arms contracts and deliveries

The first contract was signed on January 14, 1948, by

Jan Masaryk Jan Garrigue Masaryk (14 September 1886 – 10 March 1948) was a Czech diplomat and politician who served as the Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1940 to 1948. American journalist John Gunther described Masaryk as "a brave, honest, turbule ...

, the Czech foreign minister. Ideology played no role in these initial transaction. They were exclusively commercial. The contract included 200

MG 34 The MG 34 (shortened from German: ''Maschinengewehr 34'', or "machine gun 34") is a German recoil-operated air-cooled general-purpose machine gun, first tested in 1929, introduced in 1934, and issued to units in 1936. It introduced an entirely ...

machine guns, 4,500 P 18 rifles and 50,400,000 rounds of ammunition. Syria bought from

a quantity of arms for the Arab Liberation Army but the shipment arrived in Israel due to

Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...

intervention.

Deliveries

The first shipment of two hundred rifles, forty MG-34 machine guns, and bullets, secretly landed during the night of 31 March–1 April at a makeshift airfield at Beit Daras in a chartered American Skymaster cargo plane. The second larger shipment, covered with onions and potatoes— of forty-five hundred rifles and two hundred machine guns, with bullets, arrived at Tel Aviv port aboard the Nora on 2 April. (A third shipment of ten thousand rifles, 1,415 machine guns, and bullets, reached the

Yishuv The Yishuv (), HaYishuv Ha'ivri (), or HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el () was the community of Jews residing in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 2 ...

by sea on 28 April.) At last, the Haganah command had at hand a stockpile of thousands of weapons that it could freely deploy. The two shipments proved decisive. Without doubt, of all the shipments that subsequently reached the Yishuv, none was to have greater immediate impact or historical significance." ;Total deliveries (confirmed until October 1948) ;Infantry weapons *34,500 P-18 rifles *5,515

machine guns with 10,000 ammo belts *10,000 vz.24

bayonet A bayonet (from Old French , now spelt ) is a -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , now spelt ) is a knife, dagger">knife">-4; we might wonder whethe ...

s *900 vz. 37 heavy machine guns *500 vz. 27

pistol A pistol is a type of handgun, characterised by a gun barrel, barrel with an integral chamber (firearms), chamber. The word "pistol" derives from the Middle French ''pistolet'' (), meaning a small gun or knife, and first appeared in the Englis ...

s *12 ZK-383 submachine guns *10 ZK 420

semi-automatic rifle A semi-automatic rifle is a type of rifle that fires a single round each time the Trigger (firearms), trigger is pulled while automatically loading the next Cartridge (firearms), cartridge. These rifles were developed Pre-World War II, and w ...

s *500 vz. 26 light machine guns (shipped, yet delivery not confirmed in Czech sources) ;Infantry ammunition *91,500,000 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridges *15,000,000

9mm Parabellum This is a list of firearm cartridges that have bullets in the to caliber range. *''Case length'' refers to the round case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design ...

cartridges *375,000 13mm cartridges for MG 131 *150,000 20mm cartridges for

MG 151 The ''Maschinengewehr'' (MG) 151 is a belt-fed autocannon for aircraft use, developed in Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1940 and produced by Waffenfabrik Mauser during World War II. It was originally produced in 15.1 mm caliber from 1940, with a ...

*375,000 7.65mm cartridges for vz. 27 pistol

Aircraft

*25

Avia S-199 The Avia S-199 is a propeller-driven Messerschmitt Bf 109G-based fighter aircraft built after World War II using the Bf 109G airframe and a Junkers Jumo 211F engine in place of the original and unavailable Daimler-Benz DB 605 engine. It is notab ...

fighters *61

Supermarine Spitfire The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was used by the Royal Air Force and other Allies of World War II, Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. It was the only British fighter produced conti ...

Mk. IX fighters Some of the aircraft were lost en route to Israel. The delivery of aircraft began on May 20, 1948, and was conducted from the Czech airfield near the town of

Žatec Žatec (; ) is a town in Louny District in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 19,000 inhabitants. It lies on the Ohře River. Žatec is famous for an over-700-year-long tradition of growing Saaz hops, Saaz noble hops u ...

. Some of Avia fighters were dismantled and flown to Israel in transport airplanes. Some of the deliveries were not finished until after

cessation of hostilities A ceasefire (also known as a truce), also spelled cease-fire (the antonym of 'open fire'), is a stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions often due to mediation by a third party. Ceasefires may be ...

. Only eighteen Spitfires reached Israel prior to end of

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

by direct flight from Czechoslovakia during Operation Velvetta, including 6 in September and 12 in December 1948, both with a refueling stop in

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

. During the second run, Spitfires were repainted in

Yugoslav Air Force The Air Force and Air Defence ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Ратно ваздухопловство и противваздушна одбрана, Ratno vazduhoplovstvo i protivvazdušna odbrana ; abbr. sh-Cyrl-Latn, label=none, separator=/, РВ и ПВ� ...

markings for the flight from Kunovice to

Nikšić Nikšić (Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: Никшић, ), is the second largest city in Montenegro, with a total population of 32,046 (2023 census) located in the west of the country, in the centre of the spacious Nikšić field at the foot of Trebjesa ...

. The rest were shipped in crates, officially declared as scrap iron, along with 12 Merlin 66 engines, and deliveries lasted until the end of April 1950.

Other defense cooperation

Czechoslovakia also trained 81 pilots and 69 ground crew specialists, some of them later forming the first fighter unit of the

Israeli Air Force The Israeli Air Force (IAF; , commonly known as , ''Kheil HaAvir'', "Air Corps") operates as the aerial and space warfare branch of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It was founded on May 28, 1948, shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Indep ...

, and on Czechoslovak soil a group of Jewish volunteers the size of approximately a

brigade A brigade is a major tactical military unit, military formation that typically comprises three to six battalions plus supporting elements. It is roughly equivalent to an enlarged or reinforced regiment. Two or more brigades may constitute ...

(about 1,300 men and women) were also trained, from August 20 until November 4, 1948.Czech army page
/ref> The Czechoslovak Armed Force's codename of the training (mainly) was «DI» (an abbreviation from "Důvěrné Israel", literally meaning "Classified, Israel"). A Moto-Mechanized Brigade Group of Jewish volunteers trained in Czechoslovakia didn't take part in the 1948 war.

References

Sources

*Jan Skramoušský: ''Zbraně pro Izrael'', Střelecký Magazín 11/2005 * Arnold Krammer: ''The Forgotten Friendship - Israel and the Soviet Bloc, 1947–53'', University of Illinois Press 1974pp. 54–123.

External links

101st Israeli Fighter Squadron History
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arms Shipments From Czechoslovakia To Israel 1947-1949 Foreign relations of Israel Foreign relations of Czechoslovakia Non-combat military operations involving Israel Military history of Czechoslovakia Israel–Soviet Union relations 1948 in Israel 1947 in Czechoslovakia 1948 in Czechoslovakia 1949 in Czechoslovakia 1949 in Israel 1947 in international relations 1948 in international relations 1949 in international relations Weapons trade Czechoslovakia–Israel relations