page_title: Gordon Levett
section_title: With the Israeli Air Force
hierarchical_section_title: Gordon Levett / Biography / With the Israeli Air Force
caption_attribution_description: Česky: Synagoga v Žatci. Stavba z let 1870 až 1872 v maurském slohu podle projektu Johanna Stanieka. Vypálena za Křišťálové noci roku 1938, za války využita jako lazaret a pomocná škola, po roce 1949 skladiště. Deutsch: Synagoge in Žatec. Deutsch: Synagogue in Žatec. Edifice in the Moorish style from 1870-72 by Johann Staniek. Burned out during the Kristallnacht in November 1938, during the WWII used as a military hospital and auxiliary school, after 1949 as a warehouse.
context_page_description: Gordon Levett was a former Royal Air Force pilot in World War II who volunteered for a covert mission to fly supplies including dismantled fighter planes into the fledgling state of Israel in its 1948 Arab–Israeli War as part of Operation Balak. Later Levett joined the first squadron of the newly created Israeli Air Force, helping establish a permanent Israeli military and aiding in the founding of the state of Israel. Levett was the only English gentile pilot in the Israeli Air Force, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
context_section_description: The Mahal pilots, mostly English Jews, began ferrying dismantled Avia S-199s (a modified Messerschmitt-109G with a bomber engine and gunpods) fighter aircraft from their base in Žatec, Czechoslovakia, where a group of mostly American Jewish volunteers had assembled a fleet of transport aircraft acquired in the United States, to Ekron airbase in an operation codenamed Operation Balak. Levett's job was shuttling the Avias and an enormous cache of arms bought from the Czechs, with Soviet approval, to Israel. The cargo included the disassembled fighter planes, bombs, firearms and even first aid equipment.
  Located on an out-of-the-way road in a rural area some 20 miles from the East German border, the Czech base was a primitive facility with a small control tower, a few huts and a single concrete runway used by the Luftwaffe during World War II. The scene at the tiny facility startled Levett and other volunteers: they were greeted by a jarring jumble of American transport aircraft and several Messerschmitt 109 fighters, six or seven Curtiss Commando C-46s, a Douglas Skymaster DC-4 and several smaller aircraft. "Even more astonishing, the ground staff wore baseball caps and were speaking with American accents."
  The Balak airlift, operating under Israel's Air Transport Command, lasted three months. Operating under cover of darkness, Levett transported tons of arms, ammunition and personnel, as well as the disassembled Avias. The airlift was instrumental in Israel's success in the war. The hazardous trips, recounted by Levett in his memoir Flying Under Two Flags: An RAF Pilot in Israel's War of Independence, skirted enemy groundfire and hostile fighter planes in making their deliveries.
  Some 5,000 foreigners from Mahal volunteered to help Israel in the fight for independence. Levett was one of the few non-Jews, and his role as the primary pilot in the Balak airlift proved pivotal. The Avia fighters, dismantled and flown in pieces from the Czech base, were reassembled and painted in new colors when they arrived in Israel. The fighters Levett transported became the backbone of the new Jewish state's first air force.
  Following the airlift, Levett joined Squadron 101 in November 1948. The squadron, which included Ezer Weizman (later commander of the Israeli Air Force, Minister of Defense and President of Israel), was instrumental in the war. During its first eight months, the fighter squadron shot down 20 Arab aircraft, including a few former RAF fighter planes piloted by the enemy during a January 1949 engagement. In that unlikely dogfight, Israeli pilots flying Nazi-designed Avias downed several English-made Spitfires flown by the Egyptians.
  Being a non-Jew wasn't the only thing that made Levett unusual. Some of the fledgling nation's new pilots were strictly mercenaries, paid far more than volunteers like Levett. Levett was scornful of the motives of the mercenaries. "One American fighter pilot," he wrote, "was getting 2,000 dollars-a-month and a 500-dollar bonus for every enemy aircraft he shot down," Levett recalled in his memoir. "They did their job well, but I did not care for them. At the toss of a shekel they would have been on the other side."
  Before he began flying the hazardous sorties for 101 Squadron, Levett had kept secret from his Israeli handlers the fact that he had never flown a single RAF combat mission in a fighter, although he had trained in them. His only operational experience was flying lumbering cargo planes.
  His early attempts at flying the nimble British-made Spitfires and American-made Mustangs didn't always go smoothly. The Spitfires weighed less than four tons; the C-46 cargo planes Levett flew weighed more than 25 tons. Eventually Levett grew accustomed to the smaller aircraft, but it was a steep learning curve. The morning of Levett's first combat sortie on 28 December 1948, for instance, found Levett and pilot Syd Cohen dining on boiled eggs and black coffee in the predawn hours; both pilots were nervous. They were dressed casually, without badges of rank. They listened to the sound of their Spitfir
caption: Bombed-out synagogue in Žatec, Czechoslovakia, site of Operation Balak
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