page_title: The Sergeants affair
section_title: Kidnapping
hierarchical_section_title: The Sergeants affair / Kidnapping
caption_attribution_description: English: institutes building in netanya עברית: בית המוסדות בנתניה, רחוב הרצל 15. נוסד באמצע שנות ה-30 ושכנו בו מוסדות שונים כמו משרדי ועד המושבה, בנק "הלוואה וחיסכון, משרדי "הנוטע", מרכזיית הטלפונים, הדואר וועד הביטחון שהיה משותף לכל המחתרות
context_page_description: The Sergeants affair was an incident that took place in Mandate Palestine in July 1947 during Jewish insurgency in Palestine, in which the Jewish underground group Irgun kidnapped two British Army Intelligence Corps NCOs, Sergeant Clifford Martin and Sergeant Mervyn Paice and threatened to hang them if the death sentences passed on three Irgun militants: Avshalom Haviv, Meir Nakar, and Yaakov Weiss, were carried out. The three had been captured by the British during the Acre Prison break, tried, and convicted on charges of illegal possession of arms, and with 'intent to kill or cause other harm to a large number of people'. When the three men were executed by hanging, the Irgun killed the two sergeants and hanged their booby-trapped bodies in a eucalyptus grove near Netanya. When the bodies were found, the booby trap injured a British officer as they were cut down. This act was widely condemned in both Palestine and the UK. After hearing of the deaths, some British troops and policemen attacked Jews in Tel Aviv, killing five and injuring others. The killings also sparked off rioting in some British cities.
context_section_description: Several weeks earlier, Irgun had learned about a Jewish refugee from Vienna named Aaron Weinberg, who had fled to Palestine and was working as a clerk at a British military resort camp in north Netanya. This information was already known to the local SHAI (the intelligence arm of the Haganah) commander, Yehoshua Bar-Ziv. Weinberg, who was a SHAI agent, was entrusted by Bar-Ziv with striking up a relationship with two sergeants from the British Army Intelligence Corps, Clifford Martin and Mervyn Paice, who used to spend a lot of time in the camp.
  The sergeants were of interest to SHAI since they belonged to the field security unit and worked with the Tulkarm police, which was in charge of the Sharon district. Their mission was to circulate within the local population and pick up information on the Irgun and Lehi and their supporters. They often operated in civilian clothes and were not subject to standing orders intended to prevent abduction attempts. Notably, they did not have to leave camp in groups of four, and sometimes went unarmed. Weinberg was very successful in his task, and occasionally got the sergeants to go out to the Netanya beach.
  On one of those visits, on the night of Saturday, 4 July, they were noted by an Irgun member sitting in the Gan Vered café who heard them speaking English and who followed them back to the camp. Based on his information, a week later Irgun made arrangements to kidnap them in the hope that they would return to the café.
  On 11 July 1947, a group of Irgun men retrieved weapons, chloroform, cloths and ropes from a hidden cache. After the recent failures, the Irgun militants in Netanya were sceptical regarding the chances of this kidnapping attempt. Because of this they did not go to any great lengths to cover their tracks, considering the complicated operation they were planning: they did not steal or borrow a vehicle or bring in non-local members who were less likely to be recognized. Furthermore, Yosef Meller, a longtime Netanya resident and newly recruited Irgun member, volunteered to use his black taxi cab, which was well known around town, for the kidnapping. The abduction operation was led by Benjamin Kaplan, who had been freed in the Acre Prison break. At nightfall one basic precaution was taken; the taxi's license plates were changed in an attempt to prevent it being recognized in the course of the abduction.
  That evening Weinberg and the intended victims showed up once more at the café. Martin and Paice were in civilian clothes, were unarmed, were outside their camp at hours typically forbidden for British soldiers to be outside camp, and were not part of a group of four. After being informed that his intended victims were there, Kaplan posted his men around the coffee shop and along the road leading north to the camp and waited for an opportunity to perform the abduction. Weinberg and the two sergeants did not leave the coffee shop until after midnight. The two sergeants had decided to walk Weinberg home before returning to camp. Meller's cab, with Kaplan and three others inside, started after them. It pulled over and the four men emerged, masked and holding guns, and assaulted their targets. After resistance by one of the sergeants, they were forced into the car and Meller drove off. Weinberg was left, under guard, in an orchard in north Netanya, from where he was later taken to another orchard and released.
  The hostages were taken to the inactive "Feldman" diamond polishing plant in the industrial area on the south side of Netanya, and were held in a specially-built underground chamber that had been built in the plant's cellar. It was sealed with an aluminum-ringed airtight hatch that was hidden by a thick layer of sand, and there were sandbags under the hatch to prevent any hollow sound if it were tapped. Inside was a canvas bucket, a week's supply of food and two cylinders of oxygen which the sergeants were instructed to use to refresh the air in their cell. Every few days while they were there, the bucket was emptied and the food re-stocked.
caption: The site of the abduction
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