Operation Balak

The first Haganah–Czechoslovak arms contract was concluded on December 1, 1947, before the air bridge began.[2] Czechoslovakia sold rifles, machine guns, ammunition, and aircraft despite the international embargo, and provided training for Israeli pilots and military technicians.[4] The aircraft supplied through the wider relationship included Avia S-199 fighters and Spitfires; among the pilots trained in Czechoslovakia was the future Israeli president Ezer Weizman.[4]

At the beginning of 1948, the Soviet Union gave tacit approval to Czechoslovak arms deals with Israel, without itself sending equipment directly.[3] The air bridge also relied on an IAF base in Czechoslovakia.[1][2] The deliveries equipped Israeli recruits with weapons and ammunition and helped the Haganah undertake offensive operations before independence.[3]

Overseas aircraft procurement began before the air bridge opened.[1] Al Schwimmer, an American aeronautical engineer and licensed pilot, left his job as a TWA flight engineer in November 1947 to arrange aircraft purchases and recruit airmen.[1] With assistance from Haganah agent Yehuda Arazi, he acquired several C-46s and other heavy transport aircraft, which were covertly ferried to an Israeli air-force base in Czechoslovakia by unconventional routes.[1] Schwimmer subsequently helped organize the Air Transport Command that operated the air bridge.[1]

The immediate impetus for the first Balak flight was an urgent telegram from David Ben-Gurion to Ehud Avriel and Dr. Otto Felix, also known as Uriel Doron, in Prague at the end of March 1948.[2] It called for rifles and machine guns to be sent by Dakota for the forces preparing Operation Nachshon, the offensive intended to open the road to besieged Jerusalem.[2] “Balak,” the high-priority code name for the Haganah’s weapons flights to Palestine, came from the biblical Moabite king of that name.[2]

The first Dakota departed Prague on March 31, 1948, approximately 36 hours after Ben-Gurion’s telegram, and landed at Beit Daras in southern Palestine at 10 p.m.[2] Supplied by the Overseas Airline Company, it flew under the cover story that it was carrying scrap iron to Ethiopia.[2] Its crew was non-Jewish, while Haganah navigator Ami Kupperman accompanied the flight to help locate the destination airfield.[2] The cargo was transferred to trucks as the aircraft refueled, and the Dakota departed for Prague about 80 minutes after landing.[2]

On the crew’s return, American embassy representatives in Prague questioned them angrily and ordered them not to participate in further weapons flights.[2] The episode gave American officials their first confirmation of Czechoslovak arms shipments to the Haganah, although public American protests over the relationship followed only in September 1948.[2]

An air bridge subsequently developed under Avriel in Prague and Munya Mardor and Benjamin Kagan in Palestine.[2] During the spring and summer of 1948, 95 additional Balak flights were made using DC-3s chartered from Czech National Airlines and several factories.[2] The Air Transport Command’s air and ground personnel were almost exclusively Machal volunteers, many bringing considerable experience from World War II.[1]

Between March 31 and May 20, Balak flights delivered more than 107 tons of arms.[2] The numbered consignments included large quantities of infantry weapons and ammunition: Balak 2 comprised 10,000 Mauser P-18 rifles, 1,415 machine guns, 16 million rounds of 7.92 mm ammunition, and 1.5 million rounds of 9 mm Parabellum ammunition, at a stated cost of $2,528,000.[2] Balak 3 comprised 10,000 rifles, 3,400 machine guns, and 30 million rounds of ammunition, costing $4,467,000.[2] Balak 4 comprised 75 heavy machine guns, one million rounds of anti-tank ammunition, and five million other rounds, at $700,000.[2]

Refueling and transit rights presented recurring logistical difficulties.[2] Corsica had served as a refueling stop, but its distance from the direct route made it unsuitable for heavily loaded Balak transports.[2] Greece barred the flights and confiscated consignments from aircraft that landed there.[2] Bulgaria offered landing facilities for $10,000 per landing, and ten aircraft eventually used them.[2] In June, Yugoslavia granted landing rights, allowing an abandoned airfield at Podgorica to become the standard refueling point; Israeli organizers supplied fuel and food from tankers at the nearby port of Kotor.[2]

Fighter aircraft required dismantling before they could be carried to Israel.[2] Ten Messerschmitt-derived Avia fighters began arriving at Žatec from the Avia plant on May 17.[2] Czech technicians removed their wings and propellers and packed them separately, while crates containing spare parts, bombs, and armament were labeled “Fragile—Glassware.”[2] The transport fleet used for this effort included Lockheed Constellations, DC-3s, and Curtiss Commandos.[2] Transports carrying the dismantled fighters departed on May 20, with arrivals on May 21; another early S-199 delivery reached Tel Nof aboard a C-54 Skymaster on May 20.[2][5]

The aircraft transported under Operation Balak included the Czech-made Avia S-199, known in Israel as “Sakin,” meaning “Knife.”[6] A derivative of the German Bf 109, it combined an unsuitable engine and propeller that made it dangerous to fly.[7] The type was difficult to handle and also acquired the nickname “mule.”[5] Its operational effectiveness was low, but its unexpected appearance gave Israel an element of surprise.[6]

Training accompanied the supply effort.[2] Eight Haganah members left Palestine on May 5 to learn to fly Messerschmitt fighters in Czechoslovakia, and between 50 and 75 Israeli pilots completed qualification there between May and September.[2] A two-month parachutist course ended in mid-August; its graduates returned to Israel aboard Balak flights and formed the nucleus of Israel’s paratrooper force.[2]

On May 29, 1948, four S-199 fighters flew the Israeli Air Force’s first operational mission, attacking Egyptian forces near the bridge at Isdud, later called Ad Halom.[8] The pilots were Modi Alon, Lou Lenart, Ezer Weizman, and Eddie Cohen.[8] The mission had initially been planned against the Egyptian airfield at El Arish, but Ben-Gurion decided that target could wait and the fighters were redirected toward the Egyptian ground forces.[7]

The four aircraft had been secretly reassembled at Ekron after arriving dismantled from Czechoslovakia.[9] Each carried two 70-kilogram bombs, but their guns quickly jammed, and the attack inflicted little material damage while producing a strong psychological effect.[9] Cohen’s aircraft crashed during the mission, killing him.[8][9] Egyptian troops were surprised by the appearance of Israeli fighters, whose availability they had not anticipated.[7][9]

The operation’s deliveries belonged to a wider influx of arms that accelerated after independence.[10] Small shipments had reached Israel by air and sea from Czechoslovakia and elsewhere beginning in April 1948, with larger quantities arriving after the end of the British Mandate.[10] Arms, ammunition, and aircraft arriving in the week after May 14 were quickly put into action.[11] By July, the Israel Defense Forces had balanced the Arab armies’ initial superiority in heavy equipment.[10]

The broader Czechoslovak supply relationship extended beyond the Balak air deliveries. The exact quantity bought between January 1948 and February 1949 is difficult to determine, but an accounting compiled from bills and receipts included 25 Avia S-199 fighters and 59 Spitfire IX fighters, together with rifles, machine guns, tanks, ammunition, and bombs.[2]

Contemporary intelligence reporting also reflected the scale of overseas procurement.[12] An August 5, 1948 American intelligence report, based on information current to July 1, described Zionist agents as having stockpiled light weapons and ammunition in Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European countries for eventual shipment to Palestine.[12] Most of those stocks came from Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, with possible supplies from Poland and the Soviet Union.[12]

Operation Balak brought the new Israel Air Force its first fighters and other urgently needed equipment, linking overseas procurement to immediate wartime requirements.[1] Its experienced volunteer aircrews also contributed to the force’s organizational foundation.[1] Former air-force commander Herzle Bodinger later said that non-Israeli aircrews “played a decisive role” in achieving the air force’s objectives and establishing that foundation.[1] Ben-Gurion’s statement that Czech arms “saved the country” expressed his assessment of the wider arms relationship, rather than of Balak alone.[3]

The name Operation Balak applies specifically to the Czechoslovakia–Israel air bridge; broader accounts of Czech arms purchases do not establish that every weapon acquired traveled through it.[1][2] Likewise, the wartime airlift that supplied isolated Negev settlements with food, weapons, and ammunition after Egyptian forces cut them off from the north was a separate supply activity, with no established identification as Balak in the account describing it.[11] Procurement totals covering the broader relationship therefore should not be read as the airlift’s shipment totals.[2]

Assessments differ over the May 29 fighter attack’s precise contribution to halting the Egyptian advance.[7][8] One account emphasizes the bombs’ role in stopping the convoy, while another stresses the limited physical damage and the Egyptian intention to hold position; the aircraft’s surprise appearance and psychological impact are distinct from the question of how much direct military damage it caused.[7][8] The subsequent fighting involved Israeli ground operations, and a full Egyptian withdrawal came only after Operation Yoav, rather than as an immediate result of the air attack.[7][8]

Explanations of Soviet support emphasize strategic calculations, particularly weakening Western influence and control in the Middle East.[13] The more specific claim that Stalin personally authorized the arms deals appears only in some accounts.[3]