Shlomo Erell

Erell was born in Poland in 1920 and immigrated to Palestine in 1927.[1] He was active in the Betar movement and received maritime training at the naval school in Civitavecchia, Italy.[1] He qualified as a first officer and captain on coastal vessels before serving in the British Navy during World War II, operating in the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea.[1]

At the end of 1945, he returned to Palestine and took responsibility for the maritime transport of the Dead Sea Works company.[1]

During Israel’s War of Independence, Erell commanded the patrol vessel INS Palmach, which penetrated the area near Beirut harbor during Operation David.[1] After the war, he commanded the small flotilla and subsequently the frigate INS Misgav, which sailed to New York during David Ben-Gurion’s official visit to the United States.[1]

In 1951, Erell was appointed commander of the navy’s large flotilla.[1] During its first training voyage near the Greek islands, ships under his command participated in a rescue operation for earthquake victims on Cephalonia.[1] In 1955, he became Israel Defense Forces attaché in Italy and naval attaché in Western Europe.[1] He entered the British Navy’s staff college in 1956, and his attendance prevented him from participating in the Suez Campaign, also known as Operation Kadesh.[1]

Erell became commander of the destroyer flotilla in 1959 and head of the navy’s Sea Department in 1960.[1] His principal work in the latter position concerned the development of missile boats and the Gabriel sea-to-sea missile.[1] While serving as deputy to navy commander Yohai Bin-Nun, he was assigned to examine a proposal to arm small boats with sea-to-sea missiles.[4] Seeing the proposal as a way out of a dead end for the navy, he organized a think tank of senior naval officers in late 1962 to pursue it.[4]

The effort to develop small, affordable missile-armed boats followed the Defense Ministry’s rejection of a request to update the aging fleet, on the grounds that Israel’s wars would be decided by tanks and aircraft rather than ships.[5] Discussions among naval officers and military-industry experts expanded into a project involving hundreds of engineers, scientists, naval architects, and other specialists.[5] Erell was a driving force behind that effort.[5]

In 1966, Erell succeeded Bin-Nun as commander of the navy; his term lasted until 1968, when Avraham Botser succeeded him.[1][2] A newspaper headline dated January 2, 1966, identified him as the navy commander replacing Ben-Nun.[6] As navy chief, Erell formed a think tank with personnel from the navy and Israel Aircraft Industries to explore the missile-boat concept under the code name Shalechet, meaning “Falling Leaves.”[3]

Erell advocated multipurpose vessels rather than boats designed only to launch missiles.[3] At a meeting at the German Defense Ministry, he explained that the boats were “capital ships” for Israel and “must be capable of carrying out an assortment of missions.”[3] His command coincided with the arrival of the first missile boats from Cherbourg and the development of a modern navy based on an original Israeli operational concept.[1]

Erell led the navy during the Six-Day War.[1] On the evening of June 14, 1967, he met the U.S. naval attaché and conveyed the Israeli Navy’s apologies and regret over the USS Liberty incident.[7] He also said that he was preparing a letter to the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations.[7] He called the incident a “great mistake” and said that it had “spoiled all feeling of victory of IDF Navy in recent hostilities.”[7]

After the Six-Day War, the navy had to reorganize its operations across newly expanded maritime areas.[1] In 1967, an Egyptian missile boat sank the destroyer INS Eilat.[5] Erell then asked the navy’s chief electronics officer, Captain Herut Tsemach, whether anything could be done to counter the Soviet Styx missile.[5] Tsemach estimated the weapon’s likely radar parameters and devised electronic and other countermeasures intended to divert incoming missiles.[5] These systems were installed aboard Israeli boats, although their effectiveness could be tested only in combat.[5]

The disappearance of INS Dakar brought another crisis during Erell’s command.[1] He later recalled that the submarine’s final transmission reached navy communications on January 25, 1968, approximately three months after Eilat’s sinking.[8] At a Cabinet meeting on January 27, he told ministers that it was unlikely Egypt had sunk the submarine, but he could not explain its disappearance.[9] He raised the possibility of an unintended Soviet attack while explicitly describing the suggestion as “just surmise.”[9] A paper he prepared several weeks later listed technical or human error, Soviet action, and collision with another vessel among the possible causes.[9]

In his later account, Erell said that searches continued across the eastern Mediterranean for roughly a week, perhaps ten days.[8] A review of transmissions from the area concluded that none had come from Dakar except its final transmission.[8] He recalled public pressure to continue searching despite his own assessment that further searches had no realistic chance of success.[8] Erell ended his naval service in 1968.[1]

When the Yom Kippur War broke out, Erell was in Europe; he returned to Israel and joined a missile-boat flotilla on a nighttime operation against the Syrian coast.[3] One of the missile-boat captains was his son, Udi.[3] Erell watched the crews coordinate during the fast-moving night battle and felt fear as incoming missiles appeared as balls of flame approaching his vessel.[3]

Erell’s work on missile boats and the Gabriel missile formed a central part of his contribution to the navy’s modernization.[1] His insistence on versatile vessels linked the missile-boat project to a broader range of naval missions rather than a single weapons system.[3] In a 2018 Maariv commentary, Yossi Ahimeir argued that Erell saw the fruits of his commitment to small, fast, heavily armed missile boats in the navy’s victories during the Yom Kippur War.[10] Ahimeir also wrote that Erell advocated building submarines at Israel Shipyards, a vision that remained unrealized at the time of publication.[10]

Erell’s book, Facing the Sea: The Story of a Fighting Sailor and Commander, was published in Tel Aviv by the Ministry of Defense in 1998.[11] The book is cited in an account of the USS Liberty incident concerning Captain Rahav, who dispatched the torpedo boats and called on the air force to attack the ship, and who was subsequently forced to resign.[11]

In a 2013 interview, Erell recalled his close friendship with Naomi Ra’anan, the widow of Dakar’s commander, Major Yaakov Ra’anan, and with her children.[8] He described her as courageous and remembered her standing by the navy despite public pressure and accusations that officials had not told the truth.[8]

Erell died in November 2018 at the age of 98.[1] He was widowed and was survived by one son; arrangements called for his burial with a military ceremony at Kiryat Shaul military cemetery.[1]

The USS Liberty incident and explanations of the attack remain historically contested.[12] During his June 1967 meeting with the U.S. naval attaché, Erell declined to discuss details before the Israeli court of inquiry issued its findings and said he presumed those findings would be sent to the United States.[7] He remarked on the ship’s proximity to the shoreline, while the attaché replied that it had been in international waters.[7] In a statement attributed to him in June 1977, Erell said Israeli authorities had been advised that no American ship was within 100 miles.[12]

The precise cause of Dakar’s loss remained undetermined.[8][9] In 2013, Erell rejected hostile action and collision as explanations and said he believed a technical failure was responsible.[8] He said the wreck had been found in 1999 where the navy expected it, after equipment became available to scan at a depth of about three kilometers.[8] He also relayed the search director’s estimate that water had entered the submarine’s forward section and it had continued to sink; this remained an explanation rather than an established finding of the exact cause.[8]