SOE / OSS Operations ROMANIA 1943-1944

Romania SOE Agents 

Front left to right : B.Kamin , I.Schacham Macarescu

Mid Raw : Shaike Dan,D.Berger,Michal Ben Yaakov, Z.Ben Yaakov, Kanner,Hermes

Upper Raw : M.Karmiel, A.Lipsker,unknown, Reik,Reiss, L.Schwarz, I.Berginsky,A.KaufmannS.Bravermann,Rico Lupescu, Itzhak Ben Efrayim

Operation Ranji

In the Autumn of 1943 , Russell was deployed to what was then Yugoslavia on clandestine SOE mission code.named Ranji.Operation Ranji aim was to organize and arm local resistance and bring a substantial financial help to Iuliu Maniu ( middle on photo beneath )  leader of Romanian 

 Peasent Party in Bucharest a mission which remains classified as we speak . As part of the operation ,Russell had to dress as a German officer in an effort to gain access to a high security area . Old habbits die hard (his and SIG Tobruk roles) and Russell had taken the lessons learned from SIG ( Special Interrogation Unit ) into a new theater of war 

Code named Operation Ranji, on the night of 15/16 Juni 1943, David Russek  allias ( alias Albert Thomas) his wireless operator Nicolae Turcano (allias Antonia Vella) callsign Reginald, and an ex Polish Army officer were dropped into a landing area by                                                        Maj.Jasper Roothham (left)  in Homologe region Yugoslavia,

In the wartime memoir, Miss Fire,Rootham recalled : David Russell,tall,fair-haired and blue eyed with infectious smile, instantly won all hearts,not least because he was the Serbs idea of what an Englishman should look like. 

On night of 4 September 1943 Russell was murdered in an isolated barn in the Yugoslav mountains near Romanian border by unknown assailants. He was 28 years old at the time of his death.He was burried in a small Church yard at Vaciorova , near where he fell and later on reintered at the military English cemetery in Bucharest .

Some argue that he was killed by thieves who stole the gold sovereigns that all SOE operatives carried to pay informants and to buy their way out of trouble. This was discounted when the UK gold sovereigns were subsequently recovered (not 100% true because the amount carried was substantial well above what an SOE agent should have carried for such purposes ) .He'd been shot in the head with a large caliber pistol during sleep and it seems likely that he was targeted by his enemies ( also this remaining classified as we speak )

Ranji mission remained with Rootham's and East of the Krsh and, the end of the month. Russell conducted a recce in the Golubac area to find a secure Danube crossing point. Rootham wrote on July 23 : David Russell took leave of us . I had been worried about his enterprise, which in its present form seemed a madcap one,and I could not forget Velja's warning (Velja was a local chetnik commander who had offrered a body guard  of 30 armed man to secure a base in a Serbian-inhabited

village in Romania, otherwise  he would not give much for Russell's chances : Cairo OSE ruled the bodyguard out of court) I spoke seriously to Russelland said that , in Erik (Greenwood) absence, as the person who was nominally the senior officer I was quite prepared to forbid him to go and tell HDQ so. He thanked me , but said he wished to go. 

He had undertaken to see the  thing though,and he would so so. Linking with Capt.Vuchkevich near the Danube, Russell selected a Serb Chetnik who appears to have used the name Petre Mihai (code name Pera). Impressed by this former sgt.maj.in the Gendarmerie who spoke good German and Romanian,Russell persuaded Vuchkevich to second him to the Mission as a guide.

They crossed the heavily patrolled Danube River on 2 August at the point somewhere between Upper and Lower Lipova and moved 50 miles and moved 50 miles across enemy territory.From ther first LUP at the Vinitza commune, they made their way to Mehadia where the former mayor,Magedaru, was a well-known supporter of Maniu. After staying

After staying  the night with him.he suggested that they would be safer staying in his vineyards. But before they left, he insisted that they left their weapons and uniforms with him so that he could hide them in his vineyard. As an afterthought, Russell asked him to stah the propaganda leaflets they had brought with them and to distribute them in the villege two weeks later. However under alchool next day Madgearu distributed the leaflets through the town . Not surprisingly a house to house search conducted by the Gendarmeried , police and Gestapo was in full swing .

By now now Madgearu was such a liability that Russel and Turcanu convinced him to find a car to take them to Timisora where they had  important business. As soon as he had gone . they made their way to the station , caught the train to Turnul Severin and then backtracked to the village Varciorova. Here they made contact with Pitulescu brothers , the eldest of whom had been a postmaster .

Mrs Pitulescu also had in her possesion a long written statement by Petre Mihai , who had presented himself to the the family the day after the murder of Russell, but she could not decipher it since it was in Serbian.

Suspicion remained on Petre Mihai ( Chetnik guide ) although there was considerable evidence of police and military patrols in the area and several bands of cut-throat theives inclusing Serbian guerrillas . In the OSS report dated November 3,1944 Romanian officials knew about the a 3-man W/T party . The information was highly accurate :Vella Nicolo Antonio, Albert Thomas (Russell) Petre Mihai  Serb Chetnik . A forest ranger had reported them nothing that Russell was in British Army battlesdress and Petre Mihai in Romanian costume.  Curiously there was even a record of the languages they spoke.   According to SOE files , police reports state that his body was  recovered some days and that a bullet was a 12 mm or .455 .Such forensic evidence  is surprizing , given Russell had been dead for some days  and that the capabilities of the police was rather limited.

But whose gun ? When the mission has stayed with Madgearu they had allowed him to cache 2 of the 3 .455 revolvers . This is made clear by Russell when he signalled Cairo on Aug.24 : Only weapon is one pistol.Pse send colt automatic and magazines. Suicide was ruled out.

Turcanu managed to send a signal to SOE on 20 September :

To TED from Malta . The difficulties and perils have passed a little. After 3 days will be in contact continously . I found a serious contact with a solid  pro English organization . Thomas shot dead on 4 Sept in forest Varciorova by unknown persons and in the night they stole our things  but the money and the secret papers were hidden and they are complete .For the present  the money is hidden with Pitulescu , I am in Bucharest /give urgent instructions /all will be executed (DICK) and his people up till now have  done nothing for us .  Frightened for their saftey .Regards (MALTA) . Protopopescu head of Pro-English organization

Thomas Charles David Augustan Russell (born 28 August 1915, South Mimms, Hertfordshire; died 4 September 1943, Vârciorova, Romania). Educated at Eton where he was a member of the Officers Training Corps, Russell went up to Trinity College, Cambridge where he read Agriculture and Estate Management. He continued his studies at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester and then started a career in farming based at Broke Hall at Nacton near Ipswich. 

Capt.T.David C.Russell + (1915 - 4.9.1943)

Russell was parachuted into Yugoslavia on 15 June with instructions to endeavour to cross into Romania and to establish himself in the Godeanu mountains where he was to arrange a reception area for further British Liaison Officers’ (TNA, HS 5/798).

Russell was killed in mysterious circumstances, found shot in the back of the head, less than  a week after his 28th birthday (Alan Ogden (2007), ‘Romanian Riddle:  Unsolved Murder of Capt. David Russell MC, Scots Guards’

Captain Scots Guards Reg. 132235 AWARD: Military Cross PLACE : Tobruk,Libya 1942  Scots Guards born 28.8.1915 Bridgefoot House,South Mimms,Hertfordshire  resided Ipswich  son of Charles Ernest and Enid Barbara ,Kingsford,Essex  Educated Eton (Cpl in OTC) educated Trinity College,Cambridge  educated Royal Agricultural llege,Cirencester  farmer,Broke Hall,Nacton,near Ipswich  graduated RMC Sandhurst 25.5.1940 (2Lt) training at Pirbright 13.7.1940  Scots Guards Training Bn 5.10.1940  1 Bn Scots Guards (C Company) 21.4.1941  2 Bn Scots Guards 1942  51 Commando 25.5.1942  Special Interrogation Group (SIG) (2IC)  L Detachment SAS 30.6.1942  1 SAS (D Squadron) September 1942 - April 1943 award M.C. (for Tobruk Op.Agreement)  SOE Force 133 April 1943

According to SOE papers he was later at Heidelberg and Bonn universities and spoke fluent German.

On the outbreak of war, Russell was introduced to the Scots Guards by Lt. Gen. Sir William Pulteney.

Commissioned from Sandhurst on 25 May 1940, Russell joined the Scots Guards Training Battalion on 5 October (Alan Ogden (2010), Through Hitler’s Back Door: SOE Operations in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, 1939–1945 (Barnsley: Pen and Sword), p. 242). He took part in September 1942 in the raid on Tobruk and, dressed as a German officer, was later responsible for arranging the escape of two officers and eight other ranks for which he was awarded the Military Cross.

Mission Ranji David Russell alias " Albert Thomas  "  dropped into Yugoslavia 15/16.6.1943 into Romania August 1943 shot on neck by a Chetnik guide while asleep in a cottage  set overnight on purpose to set next day W/T antenna by an other team member , 6 k from Arciorova, Romania while rubbed of his considerable gold coins   by London intended for the Romanian resistance party of Maniu . Awarded posthumous Mention in Despatches

    Tobruk , British  Special Interrogation Group (SIG 2IC)  Sept.1942

Russell was parachuted into Yugoslavia on 15 June with instructions to endeavour to cross into Romania and to establish himself in the Godeanu mountains where he was to arrange a reception area for further British Liaison Officers’ (TNA, HS 5/798).

Operation Agreement Tobruk , Sept 1942

After the unexpected fall of Tobruk to the Germans/Italians in June 1942, the road to Egypt was opened to Rommel's Panzer Army Afrika. Churchill was shocked that Tobruk fell, and pressed the commanders in the Mediterranean to try to block Tobruk and Benghazi harbors, and when that proved impractial, to raid and destroy them as much as possible so as to deny their use to the Axis, almost regardless of the cost. Like many of Churchill's ideas, they were theoretically sound on the surface, but in reality, very impractical. However, he was able to browbeat his commanders into attempting it. While the raid on Benghazi was converted to a raid from the desert only, the raid against Tobruk involved the Long Range Desert Group, the SAS, the Royal Air Force, the Royal Army, the Royal Marines, and the Royal Navy ... indeed a combined arms effort.

After the unexpected fall of Tobruk to the Germans/Italians in June 1942, the road to Egypt was opened to Rommel's Panzer Army Afrika. Churchill was shocked that Tobruk fell, and pressed the commanders in the Mediterranean to try to block Tobruk and Benghazi harbors, and when that proved impractial, to raid and destroy them as much as possible so as to deny their use to the Axis, almost regardless of the cost. Like many of Churchill's ideas, they were theoretically sound on the surface, but in reality, very impractical. However, he was able to browbeat his commanders into attempting it. While the raid on Benghazi was converted to a raid from the desert only, the raid against Tobruk involved the Long Range Desert Group, the SAS, the Royal Air Force, the Royal Army, the Royal Marines, and the Royal Navy ... indeed a combined arms effort.

The raid against Benghazi had only mixed results, but the raid against Tobruk was, if not actually a massacre as per the title of the book, then a solid thrashing. The author points out that while there were many things that contributed to the British defeat, such as improper planning, insufficient training, and an inadequate number of barely seaworth landing boats, the biggest factor was that the RAF bombed Tobruk for several hours before the seaborne portion of the raid commenced. Far from crippling the defenders, this air raid ensured that the German and Italian defenders were awake and alert. Oddly enough, a month earlier the Canadians were badly repulsed at Dieppe, and one of the factors for their defeat was that the RAF had bombed there, too, shortly before the Canadian landings. This lesson unfortunately didn't carry over to Operation Agreement, the code name for this raid on Tobruk.

Hollywood movie "Tobruk" (1967) inspired on SIG Ops "Agreement " 

Brother : 2Lt.George Anthony Russell, KIA 2.11.1942 age 21 at El Alamein (184845) on 7 Bn Rifle Brigade

Operation Autonomous Romania 

Start date: 22 December 1943

End date: 30 November 1943

Lt.Col.Alfred Gardyne de Chastelain SOE
Capt.Ivor Porter SOE
 Silviu Meţianu Capt.Rom.Army

This was a British secret mission by the Special Operations Executive to discuss with the Romanian government the possibility of a Romanian defection from the Axis to the Allied camp (December 1943).

In 1943 an SOE delegation was parachuted into Romania to instigate resistance against the Nazi occupation at "any cost" (Operation Autonomous). The delegation, including Colonel Gardyne de Chastelain, Captain Silviu Meţianu and Ivor Porter, was captured by the Romanian Gendarmerie and held until the night of King Michael's Coup on 23 August 1944.

This and other attempts to secure Romania’s change of allegiance foundered on the Allies’ unwavering demand for Romania’s unconditional surrender, which the government of Maresal al România Ion Antonescu saw as being tantamount to a Soviet take-over of his country.The three agents parachuted into Romania in 1943 were Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Gardyne de Chastelain, experienced SOE officer, as the leader, Captain Ivor Porter and Captain Silviu Meţianu, a Romanian who had emigrated to the UK. The operation’s two objectives were, firstly, to persuade Romanian politicians, especially Iuliu Maniu, the leader of the National Peasants’ Party, to negotiate an armistice with the Allied powers and, secondly, in the event that the three-man party was captured by authorities loyal to the Antonescu government, to convince the Romanian secret service during the inevitable interrogation that the Allies were preparing to land in the Balkans and thereby prompt a reinforcement of German strength in the south-east of the European theatre to the detriment of their strength in Normandy.

RAF Special Ops B-24 ,departed Tocra , Lybia 22.12.1943

During the night of 22/23 December 1943 the three agents were parachuted into thick fog and some distance away from the target. They were captured by Romanian gendarmerie almost immediately in the area of Plosca. They were held as well-treated prisoners of war at the gendarmerie headquarters in Bucharest. 

Prime Minister Winston Churchill promptly sent a message to Antonescu warning him that should the British prisoners fall into German hands that he would be held personally responsible. Churchill had been told that de Chastelain had information which in German hands could change the outcome of the war. 

After the war had broken out, and Romania had been absorbed into the Axis sphere of influence, Lt. Colonel Alfred Gardyne de Chastelain, an experienced Special Operations Executive (SOE) officer, and the operation’s commander, Capt. Ivor Porter and Capt. Silviu Mețianu, of Romanian origin, a Great Britain emigrant, played an important role in the plot to overthrow the pro-Nazi regime of Marshal Antonescu.

The operation hastened the end of the war by several months, with implications on post-war Eastern Europe.

 

On 23 August 1944, the „luxury” prisoners were set free, at the same moment King Michael of Romania carried out his well prepared coup d’état which took Hitler completely by surprise and so Romania entered the war against the Axis.

On 23 August 1944 the young King Mihai I of Romania carried out his well prepared coup d’état which took Adolf Hitler completely by surprise, and Romania then changed sides. The British prisoners were released and that evening the king arranged for de Chastelain to fly to Istanbul, whence he could travel to Cairo and then London to report. Meţianu stayed on for a time and then returned to England. Porter remained to maintain a radio link with SOE headquarters until the British mission arrived in the country.

Ivor Porter first came to Romania in 1939 as a teacher of English - to the exotic, semi-oriental Bucharest described by Olivia Manning. After the war had broken out, and Romania had been absorbed into the Axis sphere of influence, he - together with his fellow-expatriates - was forced to leave a colourful, turbulent country to which he had become increasingly attached; but he was to return in 1943 as a member of SOE, parachuted in to play his part in the plot to overthrow the pro-Nazi regime of Marshal Antonescu and install a government more sympathetic to the Allied cause. Operation Anonymous, and the successful coup that followed in 1944, may well have hastened the end of the war by several months by helping the Red Army to sweep through the Carpathians into Central Europe, and south to the frontiers of Greece, yet for the Romanians themselves Russia, rather than Germany, was the ancient enemy. Mixing the author's own experiences with detailed diplomatic and military history, Operation Autonomous opens up an important and neglected aspect of the war - and one that was to have momentous implications for the settlement of post-war Europe.

The extraordinary Ivor Forsyth Porter, CMG OBE (Mily), Cross of the Royal House of Romania, Commander of the Order of Cultural Merit (Romania), died on 29th May 2012, at the age of ninety nine years. He was a hero of the WWII and a close friend of King Michael of Romania, instrumental in the successful execution of the 23 August 1944 royal coup through which the Romanian sovereign arrested the military fascist leader Ion Antonescu and his country joined the Allied cause against Germany, shortening the war by at least six months. He published two books “Operation Autonomous: With SOE in Wartime Romania” (Chatto & Windus, 1989) and ‘Michael of Romania. The King and the Country” (Sutton, 2005). I am honored to be connected with the later book, which contains a genealogy of the Romanian Royal Family that I compiled for the publishers.

Ivor Porter grew up in the Lake District of England, and was educated at Barrow-in-Furness Grammar School, continued by studies at Leeds University. He worked for the British Council in Romania, as a teacher of English at the University of Bucharest in 1939, and for the British Legation until 12 February 1941. As the war engulfed Romania, he became a member of Special Operations Executive from 1 March 1941. Porter was part of a three-man team, led by Alfred Gardyne de Chastelain, parachuted in the country in December 1943. Captured, the team became a vital channel of communications between the British and Romanians, essential in King Michael’s actions that broke the ties with Nazi Germany and reinstalled the old democratic constitution in August 1944.

He joined the Foreign Office in May 1946 and has served in London, Washington, D.C., the U.K. delegation to NATO, Cyprus, as U.K.representative to the Council of Europe, and India. He was also ambassador to Senegal and later to the Arms Control Committee in Geneva. Ivor Porter was awarded by HM King Michael of Romania in 2008 with the Cross of the Royal House of Romania.

Lt. Constantin C. Roșescu (later a lieutenant-colonel), one of the Romanian officers that took care of the British prisoners. His portrait, including his habit of smoking using a cigarette holder,

Operation MANTILLA 30.9.1943

In the evening of  30 September 1943 Sgt.Liova Bokovsky and Arich Fichmann took off from Tocra

in an RAF Liberator under code name Mantilla and were dropped over Lipova in Western Romania early the following morning. They were captured almost immediately by the Romanian Gendarmerie and taken into custody , joining the captured USAAF aicrews held there since the low level raid of Ploesti in August 1943.

Liova Bokovsky along with USAAF POW's left of the Romanian officer (middle ) Timisul 1944

L.Bokovsky

In training in Egypt 1943

A.Fichmann 

Marshal Ion Antonescu refuses to hand over the Gestapo Bucharest Fichmann and Bukovsky. The news of the capture of the two paratroopers immediately reached the ears of the German ambassador to Bucharest Manfred von Kilinger and further to Herman Georing. 

The Romanian authorities managed to escape the pressure of the Germans through various deceptions. Marshal Antonescu ordered the chief of the General Staff of the Royal Romanian Air Force  to tell the Germans that the paratroopers will be interrogated by the Romanian services and the results will be transmitted to the Luftwaffe.

The response of the Romanian authorities is due to the fact that the two prisoners were Jews, a good enough reason not to be handed over to the Nazis. 

However, the Romanian authorities were not able to withstand the German pressure and eventually agreed to allow the German authorities to interrogate Arie Fichman by the Germans in Germany.  Romania has decided to set up a commission made up of Romanian officers to accompany Arie Fichman (Ghideon Jacobson) and to receive information on the interrogation technique and methods used by the Germans in interrogating prisoners of war of the Allied Powers.

Blind Jump Romania 1943

Arie Fichman (Ghideon Jacobson) left on October 9, 1943 in Germany with the Romanian officers and returned at the end of October with the same Romanian officers. The German research dossier signed by Von Killinger, Hitler's minister in Bucharest, contained nothing new to what the Romanians knew. Iosef Hanani met Arie Fichman again in the prison camp of the Allied Powers in Timișul de Jos (after being admitted a few weeks to the hospital in Sinaia and Brasov). The two prisoners were released on September 2 and 3, 1944. They were taken together with other Allied airmen on planes which took off from the airport from Popești Leordeni to Italy 

On July 29, 1954, an aviation demonstration was held in the memory of Peretz Goldstein, one of the paratroopers who had been parachuted into Romania during World War II. An airplane flying over those attending the ceremony collapsed in the middle of the crowd.  Arie (Leova) Gucovski, Arie Fichman and Dov Berger three of the paratroopers originally from Romania who had been launched during the war in Romania were killed. Prime Minister Moshe Sharet, who was present at the aviation demonstration and over which he flew a few meters, banned the broadcast of the crash news until the next day

Operation GOULASH  2/3 May 1944

Sgt.Isaac Macarescu  "Tutsi "

Itzhak Shaham Macarescu, one of the founders of Kibbutz Avoca and the city of Arad. Born in Romania and studied law. Immigrated to Eretz Israel in 1937 and joined the 'Gordonia' nucleus established by graduates of the Gordonia youth movement from Romania. The members of the group received training in Pardes Hanna and in July 1941 they came to the ground in Beit Shean Valley and established a kibbutz called "Kibbutz Abouka".Isaac Shacham Macarescu was nicknamed by his friends Tutsi. In 1943, he enlisted in the British Army and volunteered to serve in the RAF Jewish Agency paratroopers unit. However, like the other paratroopers of the Jewish agency, Tutsi decided to use his activities to save Jews as well. Tutsi passed a parachuting course in a British army camp in Ramat David, and a wireless and liaison course at Kibbutz Ramat Hakovesh.  To complete his training, he was sent to Cairo and in the spring of 1944 he parachuted into Craiova, Romania though captured next day by Nazi sympathizers and handed over to the Romanian Police. The information on the Net that he was handed over to the Germans is erraneous . He spent time as POW at Allied airmen Camp 13 in Bucharest and by the end of the war returned to Palestine. He was killed in car accident near Beer Sheba early 60's .

Sgt Levy / Raico Depescu

Send trained volunteers to rescue the murdered Jews in Europe. For a campaign that requires great

courage and willingness, young recruits, most of them kibbutz members. Of the 100 tested, 30 are considered to be most suitable for the task and empty. But as a condition of their mission to save the Jews, they have another task - gathering news for the English army. All the selected members are sent to the English base in Ramat David, under the auspices of the British army, parachute training, contact and morale, learn to read a map and use espionage and more as needed.

At the end of training, they were dropped in pairs, each pair in a different country. Rico  and his friend Isaac Macarescu, both native Romanian speakers, dropped on night of May 2,1944 near Craiova, in what is called "blind parachute jump" in which no one is waiting for them and meets them on the ground.

With Kanner ,Egypt 1944

7.6.1944 

After a hard two days of walking in the fields and woods, especially at night, a patrol of the Romanian army stops them. They are taken to Bucharest prison, where they are interrogated for three months. The two present themselves as British officers who speak only English, and yet their captors try to fail (and fail) and sometimes - as if by chance - address them in Romanian. After three months in harsh conditions in prison, Rico and Isaac were transferred to a prison camp that houses mainly English and American airmen named Camp 13 Below are selected excerpts from a diary written by Rico in the POW camp.

11.8.1944

Last night, the rumor spread that Romania is negotiating peace and today of course we only talk about it and make accounts when we get home…hope …

14.8.1944

In talking to friends, I see that they have the same thoughts for everyone: from day to day it's harder to be here. While the conditions have gotten better, the food is better, but the boredom, the quarantine, the distance from home, and above all the feeling that you are captive. It burdens everyone more and more and everyone says I can no longer, but there is no choice, you have to endure and wait.

20.8.1944

Today passed peacefully without the bomb and also without new rumors. I'm in the room, hot, stuffy, smoke, the people sitting and telling each of the wonders they went through. How it was dropped, how it jumped, etc., etc.

23.8.1944

Quiet in the air yesterday and today. Apparently, the Russians are making huge strides and, in a matter of days, they will come to us ... and the only question remains what will happen to us. Leave us here or take us to Germany. Of course there are optimists and there are pessimists. Some require action and some leave everything to the fate.

4.9.1944

This time again, I write very late ... It came as a snap. As usual I listened to the radio and suddenly hello, hello, hello. It is easy to describe my excitement and excitement with the other members. It was hard to believe. It was too good to believe and yet it was true. At 12:30, a colonel from the Romanian headquarters came and announced that we were now free.

Having already been in the country, Rico describes his extended stay in the prison camp and the advantage he and his friend Isaac Macarescu had over the other prisoners, as only the two of them knew the Romanian language about her ignorance. At some point, and after the rest of the prisoners already trust them, Rico joins the POW camp headquarters. 

Allied airmen  School House Bucharest POW Camp July 1944

Not long before the surrender of Romania, when the Soviet army was already about to break into it, the prisoners began digging a tunnel extending 80 meters to try to escape.  The excavations continue for over a month and on the day they manage to drill a hole in the camp's concrete wall and are just about to escape, the Russian army arrives in Bucharest, the alarmed Roman guards abandon the camp and flee, and without guard the excavation of the tunnel becomes unnecessary and the prisoners leave the camp gate.

Rico remains in Europe and works to organize the Jewish immigration from Romania. At the end of the war, he returned to Israel, embarked on a three-month course and was sent by the Jewish Agency under a pseudonym and forged certificates in the name of Arie Mendelssohn, to continue organizing the emigration of Romanian Jews to Israel.

Operation "Schnitzel "4 June 1944

Brindisi 1944 ,from left Ben Efrayim ,Kanner and Trechtenberg

Shaike Dan Trachtenberg and  Issak Ben Efraim were parachuted in June 1944 near Arad undetected and reached connection contact man Zissu in Bucharest .

                                            Isaac Ben Efraim

Cairo 1944 with a Brit soldier 

Egypt February 1944

  Dan Trechtenberg

with Dov Harari 


From left : Kanner , Berger , Macarescu Cairo Zoo 1944 (Romania Team )

Operation "Doiner "  29 July 1944 

Dov Berger

At the end of 1942, when they arrived in the first line of horror from the Diaspora, and then a soldier in the artillery corps in Haifa, he began to think of parachuting and then underwent parachuting training in Israel and in May 1944 took a special course in Cairo - and what a joy he was with his paratroopers to Europe that year. He also worked on a special mission in Romania.

Return from Bucharest October 1944

In liberated Bucharest November 1944 with Rico,Trechtenberg and Ben Efraym

With Soviet NKVD Officer Bucharest 1945

In Bucharest October 1944

When the paratroopers returned to their war-orange homes, he was allowed to remain there as an interpreter and wireless in the British headquarters, whose task was to oversee the execution of the Armistice Agreement; But he spent all his free time secretly on immigration matters, the establishment of the Zionist movement, the "pioneer" and the like, without limiting himself in his movement. Among his other works there, he published dozens of Romanian-language books and brochures on the history of Zionism, the workers' movement in Israel, the settlement, the political struggle and more. In June 1946 he returned home to his friends and movement. 

 On the 29th of Tammuz, July 29, 1954, he fell in the role of Kibbutz Maagan; It was at a rally held in memory of the paratroopers who served on a mission in Europe during World War II. During the ceremony, an airplane crashed, causing a bear to die. He was laid to rest at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. Assumed wife and son; His daughter was born about four months after they fell.  Cairo Zoo, 1944

In "Thirty", the battalion leaflet appeared with a few notes on it and in his memory. At the end of three years after his fall, his friends and loved ones have extracted a file in his memory that includes all of his letters, diary and even chapters from his notes. In 1963 it was commemorated by the municipality of Ramat Gan in a street in one of its neighborhoods. His mother donated a prize to his name and his memory which is awarded one year at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to an outstanding student in the social sciences. With the inauguration of the memorial room at the "Hichal Carmel" in Beit Oren in July 1964, a booklet was published "in their memory" with a page dedicated to his memory and several other memorial lists, whose lives were staged at the memorial assembly in the dock. His name is also engraved on the memorial monument erected in the "Paratroop House" and dedicated to a page in his memory in the booklet "The Paratroopers of the People," published by Kibbutz Maagan and the Jewish Agency's Public Information Department

On the way back from Romania October 1944

Baruch Kaminker 

He was among the Jewish parachutists from the Yishuv in Mandate Palestine, dropped behind enemy lines in WWII  in Romania by the British army.  Parachuted in Romania with Berger to establish contacts with local Jewish Community and help Jewish immigration .

Kanner Milo Uriel "Unknown Operation " 

Milo volunteered to study fishing and worked for a year and a half as a fisherman at Atlit until World War II broke out. For the next two years, he worked in the Na'man brick factory until he was drafted into the Defense Forces course until 1942. He served as a topography instructor in Kfar Vitkin. At the same time, Moshe Dayan brought up the idea of ​​the paratroopers group. 

Milo and his uncle Rico were among the first to join this dangerous unit, but Milo was forced to To wait for over two years until given the opportunity to leave Romania, which had already surrendered on August 27, 1944 but was still in a dangerous state of unrest, he was dropped as blind parachute near city Arad without knowing the situation on the fronts when he might fall in the fighting or German domination, Milo Managed to get to Bucharest and make a meaningful contribution 

In the formulation and movement of the movement, until it was returned to the country by the British military authorities, Uriel once again went to Romania again in the underground, this time on the movement's mission from 1945 to 1947. 

When he returned to Israel in 1947, he was joined by a group of members who owned the workshops in the village of Warburg. During the War of Independence, he served as Deputy Director of the 1949 Brigade, receiving the Bulgarian Ashalim Youth Company and guiding that year. For the following years until his last days he worked in the brush factory first as a machine operator and then for many years in management positions

In training Egypt 1944

Operation "RAVIOLI "

Bravermann Sara

In August 1944, she set out on her first mission, with other paratroopers.

Each was armed and in his clothing hidden very large amounts of money for subsistence, bribes and financial aid to partisans or Jews who met on the way. Sarah Braverman did not finish the paratrooping course at the British Air Force base "Ramat David" because when the moment came when she was supposed to jump off the plane and plummet, fear was felt and froze instead. She later said that the same event of fear of the jump is a trauma that accompanies her all her life. 

Although not parachuted, the settlement institutions in Israel, as well as the British commanders in charge of introducing the paratroopers into Europe, recognized its importance and skills. Therefore, it was flown to partisan-controlled territory in Yugoslavia and from there it was to move to Romania, its mission. Her mission was canceled due to Romania's capitulation to the Allies. After a period among the partisans, she was returned to Italy and from there to Israel, to the kibbutz, Shamir .  Bravermann Sara (left)  with Haviva Reik 

In August 1944, she sent out on her first mission, with other paratroopers. Each was armed and in his clothing hidden very large amounts of money for subsistence, bribes and financial aid to partisans or Jews who met on the way. Sarah Braverman did not finish the paratrooping course at the British Air Force base "Ramat David" because when the moment came when she was supposed to jump off the plane and plummet, fear was felt and froze instead. She later said that the same event of fear of the jump is a trauma that accompanies her all her life. 

Left : with Reiss, Egypit 1943

Although not parachuted, the settlement institutions in Israel, as well as the British commanders in charge of introducing the paratroopers into Europe, recognized its importance and skills. Therefore, it was flown to partisan-controlled territory in Yugoslavia and from

there it was to move to Romania, its mission. Her mission was canceled due to Romania's capitulation to the Allies. After a period among the partisans, she was returned to Italy and from there to Israel, to the kibbutz, Shamir 

Left : Sara Egypt 1944