R. 71 Yitzhak Moore Transcript TRT 31:12
Interviewer: Your position in the seventh brigade, background:
Moore: My background, I served in the British Army during World War II and worked
for what called “Tuish (?) units,” Palestinian units. I was an officer in the British Royal
engineers. After I was released from the army I went to study but on the 15th of May ’48
I was mobilized and as an ex officer in the engineers, I joined the engineer corps of the
Israel army which was just being organized. After a few days I was told to proceed to a
training center of the engineer corps and to form a unit of battle engineers so I did. After
a day or two I was ordered to join the seventh brigade which was just being organized
and for the purpose of going to Latrun to try to open the road to Jerusalem.
Interviewer: As an engineer what were you…
Moore: I was an architect by profession but I served in the engineers as a battle engineer
in World War II. So I organized the unit, I joined the brigade and I was the brigade
headquarters engineer. The Israeli army in those days each brigade had a battle engineer
officer. The brigade staff consisted of a commander, intelligence officer which was in
this case our later president of Israel, Mr. Herzog. The operations officer was ex British
Jewish officer, Mr. Wolf. I was the engineer officer. Mr. Ted Arison, who is a very rich
Israeli Jew now, he was the communications engineer, commander. This was actually the
headquarters of the brigade. I commanded beside that an engineering unit which I
organized. So this is how I came to join the seventh brigade.
Interviewer: Give me a little description of how the brigade was organized, physically
on the ground, creating a brigade in a matter of really days which is a very big operation.
Give me a sense of what it was like to put together all these pieces and with the pressure
of knowing that you have to go fight a battle in a matter of one week or so. Talk about
that a little bit.
Moore: You see, the detailed information about the formation of the brigade will be
taken from Shlomo Shamir who was a commander of the brigade, he organized the
brigade. But since I joined the brigade more or less from the beginning, I followed also
the setup, setting up of all of the units. There wasn’t enough manpower in those days to
organize a brigade so as far as I remember, the brigade was formed partially by attaching
to it existing regiments or battalions from existing brigades. There was one from
Alexandroni, one from Golani, partly something from Givati. These were the first
brigades of the Israeli army. So each one actually contributed part of a unit to join the
brigade because the only regiment which was actually belonging to the brigade was
newly organized which was organized partly from new immigrants who just came off the
ships. I, for instance, in my unit, had one boy who came off the ship, he came with a
suitcase, and they were taking off the ships in Tel Aviv harbor and then Haifa harbor and
they were sent out to units, most of them, the young ones. This fellow came with a
suitcase and with a violin, a violin case. He didn’t have shoes; he had sandals on and a
caskat (?). Poor fellow was killed during the battle. He didn’t even have a chance to see
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Israel as a citizen. He came from the ship to the brigade after about ten days; on a patrol
he was killed. He was shot by a sniper. So what happened? The units were formed from
partially from new immigrants from the ships, partially from groups of trainees who were
at different stages of training, existing units, existing training schools; they were called
nemkafim, they were platoon commander school, section commander schools. They were
taken out of the schools and sent to join the brigade. All this happened in the course of
more or less a week or ten days. People were, first of all, in the beginning they were
gathered at Ein Shemer camp which was previously a British army camp and from there a
whole organization, actually a day before the battle was set, we were transferred to Na’an.
Na’an is a settlement next to Hulda; it’s on the way to Rehovot. Our first staging area
was at Na’an. I was given the order to take the convoy from Ein Shemer, I don’t know
why I had the honor to do it, but I led the convoy from Ein Shemer camp to Hulda, to
Na’an camp where the first staging of the Brigade was. We arrived there at about three
or four in the morning. It was a night movement. It was dark so everything was blacked
out. Right there we went more or less to sleep, somewhere in the fields. Next day, we
were equipped; equipping was very simple because most of the boys were in civil dress.
I went to the headquarters. The headquarters, there was a crate of boots, a crate of shirts,
go and pick whatever you need. So we went to the shoe crate and I tried to find boots for
my soldiers. All I could find were shoes or boots the size of 48. Somebody from
Australia had sent a present to the Israeli army of boots, Australian army boots. I
remember them like today. They were red, you know a brown red. All of them were this
size. It was actually a surplus probably from the Australian army. It fitted only one
soldier in my unit. So all of them were left without boots.
Interviewer: That’s how things were really at that time. Where you kind of made do
with what little you had.
Moore: Everything was improvised. I came with my old British Army uniform because
I had as an officer I was relieved in my uniform. So I dressed up in my old uniform
whatever went on me at this time. But the soldiers who never went ever in the army
didn’t have anything. Most of them got some shirts or something. We got some shorts.
It was summer, it was end of May, it was hot. But I remember the boy who took those
boots. I recognized him when he was killed by his boots. Because the first battle when
we went out, three of my soldiers were killed. But they were blown up actually. So I
recognized him by the boots because nobody else had such boots. As a whole you see,
the whole organization of the brigade was hasty, improvised, with a lot of difficulties,
with a lot of hardship and you see the arms arrived next day, next morning. They took
arms of I believe it was a plane that came from Prague, from Czechoslovakia with
machine guns, rifles, and heavy machine guns. I remember the first day, first morning.
People were cleaning the grease off the weapons that came at night. So we came to the
first staging area without any arms. I had a revolver but all my soldiers didn’t have
anything. Next day we were given stun guns. Stun guns, if you have never heard the
name, are something which sometimes you were tracking, it shot, in most cases they
didn’t. It was a very primitive sort of light machine gun.
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Interviewer: Yitzhak, I’d like to move ahead and talk about this first battle at Latrun,
Bin- Nun 1. If you could describe for me what was supposed to happen, what you were
responsible for. Then describe for me what happened that morning.
Moore: The first night, the first day we were organizing, getting set up. We got some
tents; we set up tents and so on. The first evening there was at headquarters brigade
headquarters meeting. We were given instructions about the battle to come.
Interviewer: What did they tell you?
Moore: Actually we should have gone out to start the battle sometime at midnight,
slightly after midnight. But not all the units that were supposed to participate in the battle
arrived in time. And it protracted ‘till late in the morning, ‘till about three o’clock when
it started getting light. The sun started coming out. Actually, the light began to come out
when the battle started and it was too late. It was actually the reason for the failure of the
first battle because we were seen right from; we were opposite on the mountain. And
then the fort, they saw us coming up. It actually was a lost battle from the beginning
because instead of starting in the dark which was planned, it started in the daylight, in full
daylight.
Interviewer: Where were you during the battle?
Moore: After the headquarters meeting, everybody was apportioned to his duties. I was
given the task of mining, laying mines along the, across the road leading from Masmiya
to Latrun. Masmiya is a crossing on the Be’er Sheva road. The road connecting
Masmiya or the Be’er Sheva road to Latrun was called the Masmiya- Latrun road. This
was the road on which the battle was fought, along which the battle was fought. I was
given the order to lay mines, mine the area so that in case of retreat we could hold up the,
because we knew the Jordanians, the Arabs had armored vehicles. They didn’t have any
tanks but they had the armored vehicles and they had guns. So what I did I went out to
mine the road and the sides of the road and I had to mine all the culverts all the road
crossings leading further to Hulda. A culvert if you don’t know the name, a culvert is a
road where the water passes under the road. So we went out and mined all of these.
When the battle started, what happened? They started bombarding the forces with guns.
They had twenty-five pound British guns. The range of those guns was about 25km. We
had, I believe three guns, 65 mm guns. The range of which was about 5-6 km or so, so
we couldn’t even reach them. Those were the famous old guns which were bought in
Mexico, some surplus from Mexico. They were from last century. They didn’t even
participate in the last world war, because they were so old. They still had wooden wheels.
It was even difficult to stabilize them because I was sent out as an engineering group to
stabilize the guns, to anchor them. You had to anchor them to the ground otherwise when
they shoot, they fall off. They tip over. This was what was expected of them. So there
was no chance. These guns didn’t help at all. They were alright and they did some duty
in previous battles in the Galilee, around Kinneret. If you’ve heard about the battle of
Kinneret, they participated in the battle of Kinneret. They did alright there because there
they fought against the regulars but here we had a battle against a well organized, well
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equipped army led by British officers. The commanders of the Arab Legion were British
officers.
Interviewer: Did you know that the Arab Legion was there before the battle?
Moore: We knew. We knew. We had the intelligence more or less of which of the
battalions of the Arab Legion were at Latrun but we didn’t know at the beginning that
they had sent down another two battalions I believe from Jerusalem to reinforce the
garrison at Latrun, which was actually a happy strike. A lucky strike, actually because by
removing two battalions or two companies, no two battalions probably from Jerusalem to
Latrun, they eased the pressure on Jerusalem, so Jerusalem was able to defend itself.
Interviewer: Again, during this first battle of Bin-Nun 1, were you actually out in the
field with your men laying mines?
Moore: Yes. I was out in the field but then I went back to a headquarters meeting.
Before I arrived at the headquarters meeting, I was called back. A gun shell fell in our
dump, in our mine dump. It blew up and I had three of my soldiers killed.
Interviewer: That was in the field or back at Hulda?
Moore: It was in the field. On the front line. See, the troops were lined up across the
road. We had our mines laid across the road. Actually we were laying the mines actually
and three of my soldiers went… the procedure of laying mines was first of all that you
laid down a mine dump somewhere where the mines were concentrated which was
behind. And then you usually took a number of mines, laid them because you are not
supposed to carry all of the mines together but unfortunately a shell fell right in our dump
which was a few hundred meters behind. Those boys who came to pick up the mines
were blown up. So I had my first three casualties the first night of the battle. But next
when the daylight came we could assess. We had reports at headquarters. We had
reports of what happened about how many more or less casualties, an out come of the
battle. But there was a retreat, we didn’t succeed. Some of the groups came near the
monastery hill but most of our attacks were beaten back. It was a very unfortunate thing
because it was the height of the hottest day of the year. Everything was…there was a
hamsin, a very heavy hamsin. If you have ever heard the word hamsin, hamsin is a very
hot eastern wind. A lot of little flies which are called barhash, you know them. Barhash
is a very tiny fly which goes into every opening in your body. They penetrate and they
usually come in a day of very extreme heat. What happened actually is that the whole
valley, you went to photograph the valley near Latrun. The road leading up to Latrun
was a valley stretching on both sides. The wheat was at the height of its ripeness because
at the end of this day. Shavuot is usually the time of harvesting. All the wheat in the
fields was ripe for harvesting: nice brown and dry. When the shells started falling there it
started burning. You see when I came out next morning to the valley, it looked like hell.
Everything was burning from Latrun ‘till Hulda, everything was on fire. Fire, smoke, and
barhash, those little flies. The soldiers that were retreating, they didn’t have any water
bottles because we didn’t have any time to equip them because there wasn’t enough
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supplies to equip everybody. Some of them were dying of thirst. I asked at my
headquarters, engineering headquarters to send me up bottles, to send us a few hundred
bottles, simple glass bottles. We fill them with water and we send them out to the troops
which we are meeting who are retreating because we are in retreat. Some of them were
wounded, some of them were exhausted. Just give them water because they were dry;
dry from the night’s fighting from the heat, from the fighting, from the smoke. The
whole thing was like hell. You can’t imagine what it was like. Smoke hanging all over
the area and fire burning. This was the first battle, actually.
Interviewer: What was the feeling after you had gone back? After the men had
retreated, you had assessed the damage and really realized that how painful a loss it was.
Moore: As far as my unit was concerned, which I was responsible for which was the
engineers, it was a terrible loss because I started out with 28 soldiers and the first night I
lost three. And what was even more unfortunate was that two of the three were section
commanders, were in charge because a funny thing happened to me when I organized my
engineering unit and I went with a truck to Ein Shemer base to join the brigade, I only
had 25 soldiers. At Ein Shemer when I came to the camp, I started asking where the
headquarters is. A truck drove by with soldiers on them. Everything was an organization.
There are on the truck, two soldiers called out to me: “Marcovitch! Marcovitch! What
are you doing here?” (My name was previously Marcovitch). So I said I am organizing
an engineering unit. Those two boys were under my command in the British army in my
unit, but they were organized hastily and they were sent to the infantry. So what
happened? They jumped off the truck they were on and jumped onto my truck and they
joined me. Poor fellows didn’t even know they were going to live more or less three or
four days. They’ll fall in the first battle. We had a lot of trouble later because they were
mobilized as infantry soldiers not as engineering because administration is always very
strict. If you are mobilized as an infantry man, you die as an infantry man. Because
when I reported casualties, they said there are no such soldiers in the engineering unit. It
took a lot of time before the engineering headquarters managed to transfer them
posthumously to the engineering branch so they became casualties of the Israeli
engineering corps. So this is by chance that I met those fellows at the camp, at the base
and they joined me because they knew me I was their commander in the British Army.
Interviewer: Between the two battles, between Bin-Nun 1 and Bin-Nun 2 there was
some activity in south of Latrun in Beit Jees and Beit Susin…
Moore: Well, after the first battle, actually the day after the first battle, Shlomo Shamir
called me in and said “Look here, Yitzhak, we have reports that there are groups of
retreating soldiers losing their way, who lost their way back. Some of them are wounded,
some of them are exhausted. Go out with a group of your soldiers and try to locate these
retreating soldiers and bring them back to camp.” So I was given a half-track. We had a
battalion of armored vehicles and half tracks. You know it’s actually an American battle
vehicle, a half track. A half track: it’s half on chains and half on wheels. This battalion
was under the command of Haim Laskov, who became later Chief of Staff of the Israeli
army. I was given one of these half tracks and because we were sent out to areas where
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we didn’t know neither the topography nor the roads nor the security around there
because we didn’t know where the Arabs are actually because I haven’t done the
reconnaissance. On the way after I left headquarters I joined the group… We had a very
famous war correspondent, a war photographer who was staying with the brigade, who
was following the battle. His name was Robert Capa. He was very famous person
among reporters. He was reporting on the whole battle. He was photographing the whole
time. I was very friendly with him because he was Hungarian. He was an American,
Hungarian speaking. And since I spoke Hungarian too we became very friendly and he
was all the time following our actions. When I left on this half track to go out on the
mission, he took photographs. He had a sense of history, this man because he knew
where to be at the right time. One thing he wasn’t in the right place because later on after
the Battle of Independence he was sent to Korea and there he was killed. It was one thing
he didn’t anticipate. But he was very much interested to follow what I am doing. So he
was photographing the group of my soldiers in the vehicle as we left for the
reconnaissance.
Interviewer: Tell me about…you went in the half track and what did you do?
Moore: We went up a certain slope. Actually we went as far as Beit Jees. We met some
soldiers, we met some retreating soldiers. We directed them back to camp. And I came
to Beit Jees which was an Arab village which was; in that night it was captured because
the Arabs ran away. It was liberated. I went as far as the end of the village because there
I was looking for soldiers and I found some and sent them back. I came back to
headquarters and I reported to Shlomo Shamir and I told him “Look here Shlomo, with a
little bit of improvement we could lay a road, improve the road leading up to Beit Jees.”
I can’t remember whether he came out to see it but he said “Ok, go ahead, do it.” So I
took my soldiers and we started clearing the area and more or less giving it shape of a
road because we knew we would have some task to do in those areas. Next night,
another village which was called Beit Susin was also captured. So I came up as far as
Beit Susin to reconerate (?) it. There I, since I had an engineering background it was in
my imagination that actually we could putting a road up there. I reported to Shlomo
Shamir and he saw the possibility because there I believe this was the beginning of the
idea of making a bypass to Jerusalem, because the objective of the Battle at Latrun was to
break through and to take Jerusalem. There was a book that Shlomo Shamir wrote…
Interview is continued on R. 72.
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