12-Oct-10
Marge
Hagai Cohen
“We are the only flight tonight,” I said to Manny after we had crossed longitude 40 west.
“Nobody flies on Christmas night,” said Manny. “Anybody with any little sense stays home.”
Even the oceanic controller in Gander, judging by his voice, had been asleep. It was a very boring cargo flight.
Manny was in the middle of complaining about our bad luck when a woman's voice came over the radio.
"This is delivery 036 transmitting blind, request relay.”
It was a call from a female pilot on flight 036. She wanted us to call Gander for her. To our ears, her voice was like the singing of the sirens on the Aegean Sea. The night was shaping up after all.
“Delivery 036 Echo Lima Yankee 851, go ahead,” said Manny on the radio.
“Delivery 036, position, Checked 40 west 52 north at 08:35 flight level 110 estimate 30 west 54 north at 11:05”.
I looked at Manny and he looked at me. What she said meant that she was flying too low and too slow.
“Repeat your Estimated Time over 30 west,” said Manny. And the lady answered “Echo Tango Oscar 30 west 11:05”.
I could not conquer my curiosity and I said to her “What airplane are you flying?”
“A piper cub,” was her answer.
“What?! Are you flying a single engine aircraft over the Atlantic?”
“Yes,” was the incredible answer. “That’s what I do for a living. I deliver small airplanes from the manufacturer to the customer.”
“What is your flight plan time from Gander to Shannon?"
“I'm lucky today,” she said. “I have good winds. 12 hours and forty minutes. And my name is Marge.”
We relayed her position to Gander, introduced ourselves and continued to talking with her.
We spoke on the VHF radio which have a limited range and using the emergency frequency, always 'on' when an airplane is airborne.
Marge Many and I were the only people on the radio. We felt quite comfortable chit chatting with her although it was against the regulations. She was very cooperative answering our interrogative questions.
"Call me if you happen to be in Köln, Germany or Annapolis, Maryland, I live in both places, I promise to answer all your questions and to prove to you that I am not crazy” she said and gave us her phone numbers as her voice faded out.
"A woman flying over the ocean with a single engine is, in my opinion, an unimaginable provocation against manhood. I would never dare to fly as she does. I don't have the courage and I’m definitely not an idiot. She is challenging her luck. She must be crazy, do you really think she wants us to call her ?” I said to Manny.
She was very friendly, and I think she wants to brag about her ability and prove to us she is as good and as professional anyone could be.
In truth, I was full of respect for her bravery and somewhat jealous. “We have to see her one day; there are a million questions I'd like to ask her.”
Four months later, Manny and I were assigned to fly together to Köln.
“Jack,” said Manny “did you ever call Marge?”
“No. I have been in Köln twice since that flight, but I just didn't have the guts.”
“I neither," said Manny. "I didn't know what to expect”.
"Well, we’re together now so why don’t we pool our poor courage and give her a call?"
“OK let’s do it.”
“I thought you'll never call,” she said over the telephone. “I was sure you had forgotten me. I’ll pick you up at seven. I have a place in mind for dinner but I have to call first.” In answer to our question, as to whether she was changing her plans for us, she answered, “Definitely not, but I would change my plans for you any time.” Her statement left us wondering. Is she so desperate? We decided to plan against uncertainty. “In the event we don’t like her, we'll make an excuse about an early flight and leave,” we agreed.
We were sitting in the lobby waiting when a man and a woman walked through the door. There was no one else in the lounge. We did not pay much attention to them as they looked too young and we were expecting a woman alone. They started to walk in our direction. As they approached, the woman said: “Manny? Jack?”
We stood up and said together “Marge?”
Our jaws hit the floor. The lady in front of us was a glamorous blonde dressed in an evening gown. We learned later she was just twenty four years old. She could not possibly be the lady from 40 West. Women like this are not let loose, I thought. The last time I saw a woman like Marge was in a James Bond movie.
“This is my husband Julius,” she said. "He is a pilot too and we work together." Marge drove us in her big Mercedes to Aachen, a nearby town. “I have reserved a table at the best restaurant I know, it's a part of the Aachen casino and run by a world renowned Chef George Lemoine.”
To get into the restaurant, we had to go through the casino. The rule of the house was, one must state one's occupation to the guard. It really seemed funny. I could not imagine anyone announcing: "gambler," “Bank robber,” “Kidnapper,” or such. Julius led the way in.
“Piloten,” he said and walked passed the guard. Manny followed and repeated “Piloten.” I was next and I recited the magic word. The guard looked puzzled. When Marge said “Piloten,” the guard pushed a button and two oversized gorillas appeared from nowhere grabbed the four of us and pushed us towards the door.
I do not know what Marge said to the older gorilla, which had a good hold of her arm, but it was very effective. In less than a second, the giants became as soft as marshmallows and immediately apologized, straightened our clothes and led us into the lounge. The owner of the casino came rushing in apologizing for the ignorance of the stupid gorillas, summoned the Maitre d’ and said,
“These people are my guests.”
Then he turned to Marge:
“Well, Well, Well! It took you far too long to report in. Please enjoy your evening, I will join you later,” he said and left.
“What's going on Marge”? I asked.
“Oh, nothing, He owns several casinos throughout Europe. He needed an airplane to hop between the casinos and I delivered it.”
“You knew he'd be here tonight”?
"Yes, of course. I called earlier."
I was beginning to respect Marge; she looked to me less and less crazy and more and more calculated, and definitely not spontaneous.
The entire menu was recommended by the chef in person. He came to the table at the owner’s request. We let the chef decide for us. The outstanding dinner suggested by the chef was, Pate de foie gras au truffe as an appetizer. “Soupe de tortue aquatique , and as a main course Faisan A la Georgienne, a Russian aristocratic dish, cooked only on special occasions.
The sommelier came to the table to suggest the wines wearing a traditional costume with a big golden key on his chest, the key to the wine cellar of course.
The conversation was mostly about flying. While drinking an aperitif, Julius explained the structure of their airline. Marge is the president of the company,” he said. “She deals with the commercial aspects. I am the vice-president of operations; I deal with the technical aspects. We have ten pilots working for us. Marge founded the company, some three years ago. She is a born pilot. She has been flying since she was fifteen. I was hired only after the company was founded.”
“Any privileges for being the boss’s husband?” I asked.
“Privileges! I get the worst flights because Marge is afraid to lose her pilots,” he laughed.
The more we learned about the technical aspects, the more we realized we were dealing with professionals. Special equipment is installed for the delivery: extra fuel tanks, anti-icing systems, navigation equipment and a special radio. They carry a survival suit made to sustain body temperature up to a hundred hours in the cold north Atlantic waters. The suit is equipped with special candies for energy and a water desalination kit, enough to survive for a long time.
For Manny and me, it was a completely new facet of aviation and a very fascinating one at that.
We learned about Ms Diane and her husband in Bangor Main, who do the necessary installations. We were educated about the flight watch services for delivery pilots, about the flight plan and route calculations,when the delicious appetizer, the goose liver paste with truffles arrived.
"Marge" I asked
“Have you experienced any hazardous incidents?”
“Not too many.”
“Tell us about them."
“I'll tell you about two” said Marge, "both of which happened while delivering birthday presents to the rich."
“You mean airplanes?"
“Yes, a Swiss banker” she smiled, “wanted to give his daughter an airplane for Christmas. I brought the airplane to Bangor for the installations. I had to take off on time so the Christmas present would not miss the chimney.
It was evening, Bangor airport was under light snow; with sub zero Fahrenheit temperatures. The airplane was refueled for an eighteen hour flight, from Bangor to Bordeaux, and was very heavy.
It was a very long takeoff run on powdery snow, and a very slow climb after the takeoff. At an altitude of a thousand feet, the right door burst open, left hanging on one hinge. The airplane became almost impossible to handle because of the extra drag.
To descend to the runway took more than thirty minutes. I could not dump the extra fuel so I had to descend very slowly.
During the extended descent I got very cold, my goggles fogged up and I had to remove them. My frozen eyes could hardly see the instruments or indeed the runway. I had to defrost for an hour after the landing.
Diane and her husband decided to weld the broken hinge. Luckily the door itself was not damaged. They took it to the repair shop and two hours later, I took off again and happily started my climb. The hinge broke again at fifteen hundred feet. The door blew away completely and caused some damage to the stabilizer.
Handling the airplane was easy this time as there was no door. Unfortunately I made a big mistake. I was too quick to celebrate. During my initial climb, it was quite warm and I had decided to unzip my overalls. To do it, I removed my gloves and placed them on the seat next to me. When the door blew away, the sudden suction took my gloves away too. I flew the airplane with one hand alternately, trying to warm the other by sitting on it. The goggles, as before, fogged up and had to be removed. My frozen fingers could not zip up the overalls. I was so cold I could not even apply the brakes after landing.
This time it took me half an hour in a hot bath to thaw. The new toy was delivered not as a Christmas present but rather for New Year’s Eve instead.”
Marge paused while we thought about what a great pilot she must be to handle the plane in such terrible circumstances.
“Actually the incident was more in the category of unpleasantness and not in the category of dangerous” said Marge.
“What do you mean unpleasantness?” I said. “At twenty west, a similar incident and you would have had to ditch in the middle of the ocean - and with your broken H.F radio, no one would have ever found you.”
“You're right, of course,” said Marge “but we are not speculating on what could have happened. In my next story, you will hear about a really dangerous experience."
We quietly consumed our superb turtle soup enriched with chunks of bone marrow while waiting for Marge to talk. She took her time.
"I think it was my fourth or fifth delivery after I founded my company" She started, but was interrupted by a mobile platoon of waiters bringing the impressive main dish. After the plates, garnished on sight, were served and a fancy unique decanted wine was poured into our glasses Marge continued.
"It was a single engine two-seat Cessna. The route was from Annapolis Maryland to Shreveport Louisiana; about 700 miles and six hours away.
I took off at 14:00 hours so I could be there at 20:00. The machine I was delivering was a birthday present to an eighteen year old boy, the son of a wealthy “farmer,” who owned 20,000 acres of cotton and corn in addition to numerous oil rigs.
The man insisted I come to the party as a local girl dressed in a tight mini skirt, a blouse and the proper hat and boots.
He wanted me to taxi the Cessna into the meadow in front of the old plantation house, to make it look as if it was a forced landing, to pretend I was lost and after inquiring where I was, I would give the keys to the boy.
It was staged to be a dramatic scene. The Cessna was brand new; champagne in color, with a Magnolia Grandiflora flower painted on the door and a brown pelican on the fin.
I had to stop for refueling at a small airport in Mississippi. After takeoff, I was airborne for half an hour cruising at an altitude of 700 feet when my engine started coughing and sneezing. The fuel was contaminated.
I looked for a proper strip to land. The ground beneath me was dark although the horizon was in twilight. The engine stalled completely after two minutes. Attempts to restart were unsuccessful. I glided down, trying to maintain the best angle.
Beneath me was interstate 20, which was practically my route. I still could vaguely see the highway, and there were no cars on it. I got to the ground quickly without increasing my speed and landed safely. I touched down at Lincoln Parish, a place with almost no population.
After landing, I pushed the airplane off the road into the dividing area between the opposite side of the highway.
Before touchdown,” Marge continued, “I noticed an exit and some lights at the end of the exit ramp. It was an easy walk, about a mile and I was wearing my sneakers. I could not very well fly with the fancy boots I was supposed to wear for the party.
The place I had seen before landing was a kind of a rural bar with the “Bud” neon sign. I was quite happy to find civilization in a place like this. I went into the bar looking for a pay phone.
There were only two men in the bar; one of them was the bartender. The other was this ugly looking man, with two front teeth missing. He had tattoos covering most of his arms. He definitely had not seen a barber for many years. He was constantly scratching his head, armpits and crotch. It was obvious his body was the natural habitat for various vermin. He was consuming whisky directly from a bottle and seemed quite drunk.
I went toward the phone to make a call for the local sheriff. 'Howdy!' I said 'do you happen to know the sheriff’s phone number?'
I had probably said something very wrong for the man at the bar turned and yelled: 'Don't touch the phone.'
The volume of his voice shocked me. 'Do not touch the phone and get the fuck out of out of here.'
I was still holding the receiver, very surprised as the man got off the bar, came at me, snatched the receiver from my hand and broke the cable. With his other hand, he grabbed me by my leather tie and started to push me toward the door. The stench emanating from the man was unbelievable. He smelled sour and moldy. His clothes stank like rotten rags. He was strong and I felt as if I were flying when he almost lifted me off the ground. I was certain I’d be thrown out. I was mistaken. He bolted the door, turned off the ‘Bud’ sign and said,
'You want to play games, Missy, let me see what you have got here.'
He tore off my blouse, popping the buttons. I was petrified. I looked across to the bartender for help but he had conveniently disappeared.
The first action in a flight emergency, as we were taught,” Continued Marge, “is to keep flying the airplane. Power, speed, attitude, level wings, then think, identify the problem and try to solve it. In this situation, I took the same steps. I realized fighting the guy was useless. He was too big and violent. The only way out was to distract him and run. I knew for sure the drunk could not run as fast as I.”
“Hey, big boy,” I said. “I came here for fun and you come on to me with force? Let’s do it on the pool table.”
He was so surprised, he let go of me. I put down my pocket book and started to pull up my skirt very slowly. The guy looked confused. He did not expect it to be so simple.
“Go ahead, Poppy, take them down. Show him to me, Let me see what I am getting.” While speaking, I backed up slowly continuing to pull up my skirt. The guy got the message and started to drool.
Now he was fighting his sticky stinky tight jeans. He managed to take his pants all the way down. My skirt went up a little more while the guy started to walk with funny tiny steps towards me. My skirt was now fully up and he was getting closer to me.
As he moved on I realized that a skunk definitely smelled better. The man was now about three feet away from me; exposed and ready. With my skirt up I had greater maneuverability to my legs. My foot moved fast and hard into his testicles. My hands followed the foot and pushed him away from me, my back was against the pool table and I could push him hard despite the fact he was taller and heavier than I.
The man screamed like a slaughtered pig, and fell back folded like a baby in the womb. I had plenty of time now. A woman with her skirt up can run much faster than a man with cracked nuts and pants down. I picked up my pocket book, and ran to the door. I was out within two seconds. I did not know what to do next."
I looked at Many and he looked at me it was very unusual for a woman to talk about a rape experience. From what I read it takes year of therapy to get the victim to tell her story. On the other hand it is quite common amongst pilots to talk about near misses and incidents. In fact we were taught to tell our stories as many times as we can and to many people.
"Once outside" marge continued "I looked around and found there was only one pickup truck next to the house. Only one truck I said to myself the two guys are together and it may be dangerous.
I ran to the truck bursting with a great desire to drive the truck with its heavy bumper, right through the front wall and smash down the bar with its bottles. I took my gloves from my pocket book put them, so as not to leave fingerprints, and I got into the truck. The key was in the ignition switch as I expected, and there was also a shotgun. A loaded shotgun! Immediately my plans changed I felt more secure and I waited for them to come out. Nothing happened for a long time.
My skunk was probably indulging his balls with ice cubes. I could not wait the entire night. So I started the engine and backed the truck up to the door. The noise made them rush out and then the chase began. I drove the truck slowly so they would think they could catch it, then a little faster and then another stop. I was driving the truck on the highway in the opposite direction and took them about a mile away from their bar. When I had gained a nice distance from them I brought the truck to a stop, and used the gun butt to break the key inside the switch.
I left the truck with the lights on. I crossed the highway to the opposite side and started to run back to my Cessna. It was about two miles down the road.
Once at my plane, I took off my skirt and blouse and put on my flight overalls, the fancy boots and changed my hair. The changes made me look taller and different. The descent and landing with the lights on and no engine running had depleted my battery. The radio had not worked either after my landing. I hoped my radio would work after the battery’s “rest”. I tried the radio “transmit blind” hoping any commercial airplane would hear me.
I got lucky. After some time, a commercial flight heard me on the emergency frequency. They managed to get my message through.
The sheriff, who came to the site, was very surprised to see me. 'Never before, in my twenty five years on the force, has an airplane landed on my highway' he said to me. 'I will leave an officer next to your airplane and you will be my guest. My wife will be thrilled. Let’s go through the station so I can finish my paper work and then we’ll drive home.'
Down at the station I saw an officer bringing in my “friends” from the bar. They were thrown into the detention room handcuffed. They were charged with drunken driving, possession of an illegal firearm and driving in the wrong direction. They looked into my eyes but did not seem to recognize me.
On the way home the sheriff was talking to me and to himself at the same time. 'They think I was born yesterday, idiots, even a child can come up with a better story.
A whore they said came with a shotgun to the bar to rob them. They did not have any money so she hijacked their truck and dumped it on the highway next to her getaway car.
Whore my ass. You know Margaret' said to me the sheriff: 'there was a famous whore house five miles down the old road. The last whore of our parish died of old age fifteen years ago.' "
We sat quietly for some time after Marge finished her story. We were astounded and speechless.
“Well Marge” I said “I am now convinced, flying is dangerous, I am convinced that you are professional, industrious, brave and quite crazy. However, this succulent 'Pheasant Georgian Stile' created by chef Lemoin The Great is definitely one of the fringe benefits of the life on the edge."
The end
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
The best date
The best date
Hagai Cohen
We were on a flight from Paris to NYC and my colleague Joe seemed to be quite happy.
"What happened to you?" I asked, "You did not dine with us last night, was she good?
"The best date ever" answered Joe "the best."
"Ok spill the beans," I said.
"It all started seven years ago when I was in senior year of high school. In my class there was this girl Dahlia, impressive, very pretty and extremely intelligent.
Dahlia had no friends. For the boys well, she was out of their league and the girls were jealous of her.
I was the only person in the class who was not afraid of her and the only one who ever spoke to her.
Very soon, when she felt she knew me rather well, she started taking advantage of me. She made me run errands for her, replace electric switches, unclog the sewer and fix leaky faucets. She was using me but I did not complain, just talking to her was an intellectual challenge. She was intelligent and smart. Meeting with her was rewarding, and the exchange was well balanced; however, we never got too close to each other or became lovers.
She asked me from time to time to hitch ride on my bike. Once she even wanted me to take her to visit her friend in Givat Adda .
'I need to take three buses to get there with three hours of waiting, would you please take me on your bike?' She said
'Of course,' I agreed.
On the porch before entering her friend's house, she said. 'Look, I did not want to explain to my friend who you are so I told her you are my cousin.
Her announcement to me was both troublesome and insulting 'who am I for her? Not even a class mate. Is she that ashamed of me?' Of course, cousins you do not choose especially if they own a bike. I became furious and you know what, I never forgave myself for not leaving her with her friend and riding away.
I did not say a word. During the two hours n visit neither of the girls spoke to me, they whispered and giggled and I felt like a piece of furniture.
I rode home with her and did not mention the incident. It was the end of the year, and I decided not to see her again.
You must understand, I never spoke to her again, and never recovered from that insult.
Yesterday, while walking down the Champs Elysees, to my biggest surprise I saw her walking towards me. We were in a collision course and avoiding her was impossible.
She too was very surprised and we exchanged a few informative sentences.
She was glad to know I was flying airplanes and she informed me she was working on her PhD at the Sorbonne.
She told me she was very busy with the studies and had little time to socialize.
'Why don't we have dinner together and catch up the last seven years?' she said.
I said okay and felt she was lonely, desperate, had no money, and back to the old routine of using me.
'Seven o'clock at the lobby of the Royal Monceau' I said.
She was punctual I saw her coming but I let her look for me. I was sitting in the dark lobby with about ten crew members deliberating which restaurant to choose.
Finally she approached and I greeted her brought her closer to the group. The girls in the group were astounded and the boys started to drool. Everyone was quiet when I said in French 'Je vous presente ma cousine' . No one in the group spoke French I said it just for her. It is an expression used in Paris meaning, 'this is the broad I picked up for the evening.'
When she heard it, she turned red. She turned on her hills and walked away. I ran after her faking an innocent face and asked 'What happened, did I say anything wrong?'
'You have no idea?'
'Look,' I said, seven years ago when we visited your friend you made me your cousin I was under the impression we still are cousins.
She looked into my eyes with her bewitching eyes, those eyes that nobody could look into them longer than one second. I kept staring at her while controlling my facial muscles from smiling.
She acknowledged immediately that the cousin phrase was pre planned. The fury in her face ascended to unbelievable heights and her eyes were spitting fire.
She did the only thing she could do:
Without saying a word, she turned slowly and just walked away.
After she left, I picked up a fancy restaurant and enjoyed my dinner alone immensely. I was pleased, happy, and In addition, had no regrets.
In between bites and wine, I had those uncontrolled surges of smiles. I smiled, like an idiot, staring into space.
My main course was a dish that people say tastes better when it is served cold: Vengeance a la carte."
The end
Hagai Cohen
We were on a flight from Paris to NYC and my colleague Joe seemed to be quite happy.
"What happened to you?" I asked, "You did not dine with us last night, was she good?
"The best date ever" answered Joe "the best."
"Ok spill the beans," I said.
"It all started seven years ago when I was in senior year of high school. In my class there was this girl Dahlia, impressive, very pretty and extremely intelligent.
Dahlia had no friends. For the boys well, she was out of their league and the girls were jealous of her.
I was the only person in the class who was not afraid of her and the only one who ever spoke to her.
Very soon, when she felt she knew me rather well, she started taking advantage of me. She made me run errands for her, replace electric switches, unclog the sewer and fix leaky faucets. She was using me but I did not complain, just talking to her was an intellectual challenge. She was intelligent and smart. Meeting with her was rewarding, and the exchange was well balanced; however, we never got too close to each other or became lovers.
She asked me from time to time to hitch ride on my bike. Once she even wanted me to take her to visit her friend in Givat Adda .
'I need to take three buses to get there with three hours of waiting, would you please take me on your bike?' She said
'Of course,' I agreed.
On the porch before entering her friend's house, she said. 'Look, I did not want to explain to my friend who you are so I told her you are my cousin.
Her announcement to me was both troublesome and insulting 'who am I for her? Not even a class mate. Is she that ashamed of me?' Of course, cousins you do not choose especially if they own a bike. I became furious and you know what, I never forgave myself for not leaving her with her friend and riding away.
I did not say a word. During the two hours n visit neither of the girls spoke to me, they whispered and giggled and I felt like a piece of furniture.
I rode home with her and did not mention the incident. It was the end of the year, and I decided not to see her again.
You must understand, I never spoke to her again, and never recovered from that insult.
Yesterday, while walking down the Champs Elysees, to my biggest surprise I saw her walking towards me. We were in a collision course and avoiding her was impossible.
She too was very surprised and we exchanged a few informative sentences.
She was glad to know I was flying airplanes and she informed me she was working on her PhD at the Sorbonne.
She told me she was very busy with the studies and had little time to socialize.
'Why don't we have dinner together and catch up the last seven years?' she said.
I said okay and felt she was lonely, desperate, had no money, and back to the old routine of using me.
'Seven o'clock at the lobby of the Royal Monceau' I said.
She was punctual I saw her coming but I let her look for me. I was sitting in the dark lobby with about ten crew members deliberating which restaurant to choose.
Finally she approached and I greeted her brought her closer to the group. The girls in the group were astounded and the boys started to drool. Everyone was quiet when I said in French 'Je vous presente ma cousine' . No one in the group spoke French I said it just for her. It is an expression used in Paris meaning, 'this is the broad I picked up for the evening.'
When she heard it, she turned red. She turned on her hills and walked away. I ran after her faking an innocent face and asked 'What happened, did I say anything wrong?'
'You have no idea?'
'Look,' I said, seven years ago when we visited your friend you made me your cousin I was under the impression we still are cousins.
She looked into my eyes with her bewitching eyes, those eyes that nobody could look into them longer than one second. I kept staring at her while controlling my facial muscles from smiling.
She acknowledged immediately that the cousin phrase was pre planned. The fury in her face ascended to unbelievable heights and her eyes were spitting fire.
She did the only thing she could do:
Without saying a word, she turned slowly and just walked away.
After she left, I picked up a fancy restaurant and enjoyed my dinner alone immensely. I was pleased, happy, and In addition, had no regrets.
In between bites and wine, I had those uncontrolled surges of smiles. I smiled, like an idiot, staring into space.
My main course was a dish that people say tastes better when it is served cold: Vengeance a la carte."
The end
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
the navigator
The Navigator
Hagai Cohen
Captain Ben Feldman and I were enjoying a glass of Koelsch, 'brewed on location' at a small Beerstube in front of the Köln Cathedral, when Ben remarked, "This cathedral is quite old, you know. It has catacombs, escape tunnels, many buried secrets and relics dating back to Roman times." I looked at the two steeples and remembered from the flight charts that they tower to a height of 700 feet.
"Did you notice the marks of bomb fragments on the two stone steeples?" asked Ben.
The year was 1980; thirty-five years since the end of the war, yet several war-damaged buildings were still to be seen. "We were very careful not to bomb the cathedral," Ben added. He had been a flight Leader in the Royal Air Force and had flown the Lancaster bombers for his majesty.
"How is that?" I asked. "Don't tell me you had a religious conscience."
"Not at all" said Ben "The two tall steeples of the cathedral usually protruded out of the stagnant morning smog giving us a positive position update for further bombing or returning home. The congested anti-aircraft German guns were in several strategic spots around the town and the Rhine; the cathedral enabled our navigator to avoid the guns. Thanks to those steeples, the Germans never got us.”
With this, Ben launched into his story:
"The squadron policy was to keep the same crew together; my navigator, my engineer, my bomb aimer, and my radio operator were always the same people, though the gunners were not a part of the permanent crew. The boys called us 'the lucky bastards'. The average number of missions per crew never exceeded 31. My crew and I flew over a hundred sorties. As I once said to an outsider, it looked like we were lucky. In fact, we were very lucky, but for a different reason.
Our crew’s charm, and in my opinion, the reason for our survival was our genius navigator. Before the war, he had been a postgraduate mathematician working on his PhD in Oxford.
He was a man with an unbelievably fast and accurate analytical brain, and a photographic memory to boot. One scan over the intelligence report charts was enough for him to memorize all the coordinates of the anti-aircraft batteries, and the temporary Luftwaffe bases. Another short scan of the weather reports and he remembered the synoptic charts, the location of the storms, the fog and the wind. He usually managed to take us to the targets from an unexpected direction, and the headings he gave me after our bombing missions avoided all anti-aircraft fire. Sometimes he took us so low that we flew on the deck, almost touching the meadows.
By the way, he was a Jew. In fact, he and I were the only Jews in our base’s four squadrons.
One winter morning our target was the Central Train Station of Köln, the one not far from where we sit now. Many of the German industries were situated along the Rhine and this train station served them. That day there was stagnant fog over the Rhine valley, up to a level of 600 to 700 feet. It was a very good day to approach the targets. We were invisible to the anti-aircraft guns, and could therefore ‘lay our eggs’ from a low level, right onto the target. The tip of the two protruding steeples gave us a very good indication of the location of the train workshop. That day I was leading a flight of four Lancaster's in close formation. We stayed together while dropping the bombs. The target was small and I did not want to risk a second bombing run.
After releasing our payload, our tail gunner spotted five Messerschmitt interceptors behind us, diving towards our tail. My navigator immediately took control and instructed me: 'Fly to the steeples, over the cathedral steer to heading 360 degrees. Descend to flight level 500 feet and increase your speed to 230 knots.' He continued: 'No 2 follow us, maintain speed 215 knots flight level 470'.' He instructed the other two planes accordingly and within less than 20 seconds we all were in the fog, flying in line one after the other with speed and altitude separation.
I trusted him with my life. The ‘sonofabitch’ flew us into the fog for one full hour. He knew our location every given second. He knew there would be no drift, as there is no wind in this kind of weather. He knew of every obstacle along the valley. He also knew that the Germans would wait for us on route home over the sea, where there is no fog. However, he took us all the way up to Borkum Island. Funnily enough, it was a German island. Who would believe we would escape into German territory.
It was a nerve-breaking hour that I'll never forget. As I said I trusted my navigator, I knew how he thinks and I knew how he works. He tuned our 'direction finder' to civil radio stations for which he remembered their exact location. With this information and his unbelievable quick brain, he could tell our position at any time.
The rest of the crew had no idea what he was doing and were scared to death. They did not say a word. My engineer was sweating heavily and nervously sliding back and forth on his seat for no reason. The radio operator, very agitated, got up every 30 seconds to look through the cockpit windows into the fog. With the British Air Force discipline and hierarchy I am not sure if their silence was because they were afraid of me or of the situation. The navigator on the other hand was cool, calm and very professional. He didn’t say one unnecessary word.
The heavy breathing of the crew consumed all the oxygen and what we breathed at the end was contaminated lung tickling smog. After a tense-full hour, my navigator suddenly announced:
'In five minutes we will be out of the fog, gunners wake up and watch out.'
Four minutes later, we saw the Borkum Island in front of us. 'Take heading 270 degrees. Descend 200 feet. Resume normal speed.' He than gave instructions to the other three planes, directing them to close into a formation.
We turned westbound before we were over the island and soon we were over the North Sea. We entered England way up north far away from our base, but also far away from the German fighters that were waiting for us in the channel. During this saga, we kept radio silence. The first time we used the radio was about fifty miles from the English coast. We landed almost two hours later than planned. For Bomber Command, we were already lost in action. It was a happy day for my people, but not so for the squadron. Two Lancaster's had been shot down and both crews were missing. We lost two more Lancaster's when they were too crippled to fly home and had to land on the shoreline not far from Brighton. The crews survived with little injuries.
During the debriefing, our Squadron Leader screamed at me and at my navigator. it was not clear why he was screaming when in fact he should be happy we are back.
'Why didn't the radio operator 'Morse' to base?' he shouted. With a very straight face, I answered ‘Damn it sir we were so frightened and I could not risk the radio operator’s shaking hands on the 'Morse' key. The Squadron Leader did not take the joke well. Rather he increased his volume and threatened us with court martial. "I'll discuss it with the wing commander," he said, "and may be we will separate the two of you." The cold-blooded navigation officer, to further annoy the Squadron Leader said: "We did our job sir; we hit the targets and came back safely, in one piece." Then he added innocently, 'Did the other four Lancaster hit the target sir?' The Squadron Leader, looked like he was going to explode. He made a sharp turn and left without answering.
We did not need to get an answer from him, as we already knew they had dumped the bombs, just to get rid of the heavy load when they were attacked. The Germans had been waiting for them over the sea and had shot them all. Two crews had survived.
Later on, the surviving crews that had landed in Brighton arrived back at the base after getting medical treatment. Those people were welcomed like heroes. "They had crashed and yet still managed to walk away from the wreckage on their own feet." A real achievement and a wonderful forced landing on the shoreline pebbles," said the Squadron Leader in his speech during the party they gave the survivors. The wing Commanding Officer authorized liquor and even champagne.
My crew and the crews of the other three planes under my command were not invited. I was angry about this and decided to join the party uninvited and talk to the StationWing Commander. I got to him after his blood was well diluted. As a good friend of my father, he was always willing to listen to me. He and my dad had gone together to Eton. I told him my version of the story and he was very attentive. "Disregard the court-martial threat". He said and dismissed me.
"Just watch your step. One day, you'll make a mistake and I’ll get both of you!" said the squadron commander after reluctantly assigning us to fly together again. Everything returned to normal except for one thing, my Flight Lieutenant the navigator was never seen again in the officers club and did not socialize with anyone. Nobody liked successful Jews. After that incident, we flew together about thirty more missions, and never had even one bullet hole in our planes.
The war ended a few months later. On the day, Germany surrendered, at the victory party I spoke again to the Station Wing Commander and suggested that he give citations to the crews with the maximum sorties. He agreed and assigned twenty people to research the logbooks, my crew and I were the aces of all of Royal Air Force bomber squadrons. King George the sixth gave us the medals in person. My navigator sent his medal to the squadron commander with a note saying something like: "We stayed alive despite your lousy command." There was a lot of anti-Semitism in the Air Force at that time. Even the Air Attaché to the British Embassy in Washington, was a notorious anti-Semite.
Open mouthed I listened to Ben's story until I suddenly interrupted him. "What happened to your navigator?" I asked
"I don't know," said Ben "He was originally from Czechoslovakia who studied in England. After the war, he went back to Prague to look for his family and found nobody. I kept in touch with him for a year and lost track of him after that. In 1948, I volunteered to serve in the Israeli Air Force and fought in the War of Independence. I flew the Mosquito, became a wing commander, I tried to find him with my contacts but had no luck."
"What was the name of your navigator?" I asked.
“Sam, Samuel Cohen was his name.”
"Wow" I said very much excited, "I suspected that much from your story, if I am not mistaken your navigator Sam Cohen is in Israel and I even know his address in Jerusalem."
"What? How come you know him?" he asked surprised.
"Sam Cohen was my English teacher in high school from 1950 to 1952. At that time, I was already interested in aviation and even learned to fly gliders. When Sam Cohen heard about it, he made me spell words like, atmosphere, altitude, sound barrier, dead-reckoning, wind-component and more. One day he saw me at a library in his neighbourhood and invited me for tea at his home. He showed me a navigation calculator and a shiny sextant he took out of a wooden box. He explained to me how it was used but did not say a single word about his military service or his flight experience."
A few months after the beer at the beerstubbe in Köln, Ben retired. Since that afternoon in Köln, I had made plans to bring the two ex RAF officers together for a surprise meeting at my home. "A retirement party for Ben sounds like a good idea" I said to my friends. My plan was to screen a movie about the Royal Air Force and the Battle of Britain, to have live baroque chamber music, which I knew they both liked, and to listen to their stories. Sam still lived in the same house. When I called, I got his daughter who arranged the meeting.
She greeted me at the door.
"He is not in" she said "he will be back soon, come in please."
I told her the purpose of my visit. She was very surprised
"Did he ever tell you his war time stories or speak of his flying experiences?
"No" she said, "not about the war and not even about his parents and the sister he lost.
I felt it was my duty to tell her word for word what Ben Feldman had told me. I explained to her the burden of the responsibility and the need of internal strength, to fly a flight of four Lancaster's in a fog with almost zero visibility. "Your father was a decorated hero; he got his citation from King George in person." I said at the end of my story.
I could see the tears in her eyes. She was sobbing quietly. "He never spoke about the four years he was in the army." She said. "Until today I didn't even know he was an officer. He never kept in touch with his Air Force friends and no one ever came to visit. You are the first one to uncover that hidden part of my father's life. Thank you so much."
It did not go so smoothly with Sam. First, he did not remember me. When he did, he did not want to participate with anything related to the Royal Air Force. Only after I had reminded him of the escape into the fog, and how Ben Feldman described him he agreed to come'
Sam and Ben challenged each other and told stories using the Air Force language and the slang of the forties. Ben told us that without Sam, the navigator, they would never have lived to attend this party. He also told us that from all of the recruits who had joined the squadron in 1941, only five people had made it to the end of the war: “ Sam, the navigator, my radio operator, my engineer, my bomb aimer and myself."
At some point I brought them back to the steeples and the escape in the fog.
Why didn't you 'Morse' home any messages? I said.
They looked at each other and started to laugh as if I had told a joke.
"Sending a message was very dangerous" said Sam. "Very very dangerous."
"Why?" I asked. 'Nobody could intercept an HF transmitter.'
Yes, you're right, but communication meant getting orders and disobeying orders in war time meant court-martial. Obeying orders on the other hand meant putting your life in the hands of some jerk in the command post who couldn’t assess your condition."
The evening was concluded with a long speech by Ben.
"In the squadron we were known as the 'old-peoples-home recruits.' We were five years older than the rest of the pilots. Nobody older than 26 was still flying. We did not explain why or how we survived. Had we explained it; nobody would have believed it. We kept it to ourselves, even my engineer and my radio operator did not always understand what Sam and I were doing. Many times I followed Sam's directions without understanding his logic myself. As you see, we are still here.
I said in the beginning of this meeting, and I will repeat it again I owe my life to Flight Lieutenant Cohen.
That evening at my place allowed Sam to finally live with his past, in peace. The four buried years of his Air Force service had come to life. The bond between Sam and his daughter tightened as she started to write down his stories.
Bringing Sam and Ben together again, after so many years was my greatest reward.
Hagai Cohen
Captain Ben Feldman and I were enjoying a glass of Koelsch, 'brewed on location' at a small Beerstube in front of the Köln Cathedral, when Ben remarked, "This cathedral is quite old, you know. It has catacombs, escape tunnels, many buried secrets and relics dating back to Roman times." I looked at the two steeples and remembered from the flight charts that they tower to a height of 700 feet.
"Did you notice the marks of bomb fragments on the two stone steeples?" asked Ben.
The year was 1980; thirty-five years since the end of the war, yet several war-damaged buildings were still to be seen. "We were very careful not to bomb the cathedral," Ben added. He had been a flight Leader in the Royal Air Force and had flown the Lancaster bombers for his majesty.
"How is that?" I asked. "Don't tell me you had a religious conscience."
"Not at all" said Ben "The two tall steeples of the cathedral usually protruded out of the stagnant morning smog giving us a positive position update for further bombing or returning home. The congested anti-aircraft German guns were in several strategic spots around the town and the Rhine; the cathedral enabled our navigator to avoid the guns. Thanks to those steeples, the Germans never got us.”
With this, Ben launched into his story:
"The squadron policy was to keep the same crew together; my navigator, my engineer, my bomb aimer, and my radio operator were always the same people, though the gunners were not a part of the permanent crew. The boys called us 'the lucky bastards'. The average number of missions per crew never exceeded 31. My crew and I flew over a hundred sorties. As I once said to an outsider, it looked like we were lucky. In fact, we were very lucky, but for a different reason.
Our crew’s charm, and in my opinion, the reason for our survival was our genius navigator. Before the war, he had been a postgraduate mathematician working on his PhD in Oxford.
He was a man with an unbelievably fast and accurate analytical brain, and a photographic memory to boot. One scan over the intelligence report charts was enough for him to memorize all the coordinates of the anti-aircraft batteries, and the temporary Luftwaffe bases. Another short scan of the weather reports and he remembered the synoptic charts, the location of the storms, the fog and the wind. He usually managed to take us to the targets from an unexpected direction, and the headings he gave me after our bombing missions avoided all anti-aircraft fire. Sometimes he took us so low that we flew on the deck, almost touching the meadows.
By the way, he was a Jew. In fact, he and I were the only Jews in our base’s four squadrons.
One winter morning our target was the Central Train Station of Köln, the one not far from where we sit now. Many of the German industries were situated along the Rhine and this train station served them. That day there was stagnant fog over the Rhine valley, up to a level of 600 to 700 feet. It was a very good day to approach the targets. We were invisible to the anti-aircraft guns, and could therefore ‘lay our eggs’ from a low level, right onto the target. The tip of the two protruding steeples gave us a very good indication of the location of the train workshop. That day I was leading a flight of four Lancaster's in close formation. We stayed together while dropping the bombs. The target was small and I did not want to risk a second bombing run.
After releasing our payload, our tail gunner spotted five Messerschmitt interceptors behind us, diving towards our tail. My navigator immediately took control and instructed me: 'Fly to the steeples, over the cathedral steer to heading 360 degrees. Descend to flight level 500 feet and increase your speed to 230 knots.' He continued: 'No 2 follow us, maintain speed 215 knots flight level 470'.' He instructed the other two planes accordingly and within less than 20 seconds we all were in the fog, flying in line one after the other with speed and altitude separation.
I trusted him with my life. The ‘sonofabitch’ flew us into the fog for one full hour. He knew our location every given second. He knew there would be no drift, as there is no wind in this kind of weather. He knew of every obstacle along the valley. He also knew that the Germans would wait for us on route home over the sea, where there is no fog. However, he took us all the way up to Borkum Island. Funnily enough, it was a German island. Who would believe we would escape into German territory.
It was a nerve-breaking hour that I'll never forget. As I said I trusted my navigator, I knew how he thinks and I knew how he works. He tuned our 'direction finder' to civil radio stations for which he remembered their exact location. With this information and his unbelievable quick brain, he could tell our position at any time.
The rest of the crew had no idea what he was doing and were scared to death. They did not say a word. My engineer was sweating heavily and nervously sliding back and forth on his seat for no reason. The radio operator, very agitated, got up every 30 seconds to look through the cockpit windows into the fog. With the British Air Force discipline and hierarchy I am not sure if their silence was because they were afraid of me or of the situation. The navigator on the other hand was cool, calm and very professional. He didn’t say one unnecessary word.
The heavy breathing of the crew consumed all the oxygen and what we breathed at the end was contaminated lung tickling smog. After a tense-full hour, my navigator suddenly announced:
'In five minutes we will be out of the fog, gunners wake up and watch out.'
Four minutes later, we saw the Borkum Island in front of us. 'Take heading 270 degrees. Descend 200 feet. Resume normal speed.' He than gave instructions to the other three planes, directing them to close into a formation.
We turned westbound before we were over the island and soon we were over the North Sea. We entered England way up north far away from our base, but also far away from the German fighters that were waiting for us in the channel. During this saga, we kept radio silence. The first time we used the radio was about fifty miles from the English coast. We landed almost two hours later than planned. For Bomber Command, we were already lost in action. It was a happy day for my people, but not so for the squadron. Two Lancaster's had been shot down and both crews were missing. We lost two more Lancaster's when they were too crippled to fly home and had to land on the shoreline not far from Brighton. The crews survived with little injuries.
During the debriefing, our Squadron Leader screamed at me and at my navigator. it was not clear why he was screaming when in fact he should be happy we are back.
'Why didn't the radio operator 'Morse' to base?' he shouted. With a very straight face, I answered ‘Damn it sir we were so frightened and I could not risk the radio operator’s shaking hands on the 'Morse' key. The Squadron Leader did not take the joke well. Rather he increased his volume and threatened us with court martial. "I'll discuss it with the wing commander," he said, "and may be we will separate the two of you." The cold-blooded navigation officer, to further annoy the Squadron Leader said: "We did our job sir; we hit the targets and came back safely, in one piece." Then he added innocently, 'Did the other four Lancaster hit the target sir?' The Squadron Leader, looked like he was going to explode. He made a sharp turn and left without answering.
We did not need to get an answer from him, as we already knew they had dumped the bombs, just to get rid of the heavy load when they were attacked. The Germans had been waiting for them over the sea and had shot them all. Two crews had survived.
Later on, the surviving crews that had landed in Brighton arrived back at the base after getting medical treatment. Those people were welcomed like heroes. "They had crashed and yet still managed to walk away from the wreckage on their own feet." A real achievement and a wonderful forced landing on the shoreline pebbles," said the Squadron Leader in his speech during the party they gave the survivors. The wing Commanding Officer authorized liquor and even champagne.
My crew and the crews of the other three planes under my command were not invited. I was angry about this and decided to join the party uninvited and talk to the StationWing Commander. I got to him after his blood was well diluted. As a good friend of my father, he was always willing to listen to me. He and my dad had gone together to Eton. I told him my version of the story and he was very attentive. "Disregard the court-martial threat". He said and dismissed me.
"Just watch your step. One day, you'll make a mistake and I’ll get both of you!" said the squadron commander after reluctantly assigning us to fly together again. Everything returned to normal except for one thing, my Flight Lieutenant the navigator was never seen again in the officers club and did not socialize with anyone. Nobody liked successful Jews. After that incident, we flew together about thirty more missions, and never had even one bullet hole in our planes.
The war ended a few months later. On the day, Germany surrendered, at the victory party I spoke again to the Station Wing Commander and suggested that he give citations to the crews with the maximum sorties. He agreed and assigned twenty people to research the logbooks, my crew and I were the aces of all of Royal Air Force bomber squadrons. King George the sixth gave us the medals in person. My navigator sent his medal to the squadron commander with a note saying something like: "We stayed alive despite your lousy command." There was a lot of anti-Semitism in the Air Force at that time. Even the Air Attaché to the British Embassy in Washington, was a notorious anti-Semite.
Open mouthed I listened to Ben's story until I suddenly interrupted him. "What happened to your navigator?" I asked
"I don't know," said Ben "He was originally from Czechoslovakia who studied in England. After the war, he went back to Prague to look for his family and found nobody. I kept in touch with him for a year and lost track of him after that. In 1948, I volunteered to serve in the Israeli Air Force and fought in the War of Independence. I flew the Mosquito, became a wing commander, I tried to find him with my contacts but had no luck."
"What was the name of your navigator?" I asked.
“Sam, Samuel Cohen was his name.”
"Wow" I said very much excited, "I suspected that much from your story, if I am not mistaken your navigator Sam Cohen is in Israel and I even know his address in Jerusalem."
"What? How come you know him?" he asked surprised.
"Sam Cohen was my English teacher in high school from 1950 to 1952. At that time, I was already interested in aviation and even learned to fly gliders. When Sam Cohen heard about it, he made me spell words like, atmosphere, altitude, sound barrier, dead-reckoning, wind-component and more. One day he saw me at a library in his neighbourhood and invited me for tea at his home. He showed me a navigation calculator and a shiny sextant he took out of a wooden box. He explained to me how it was used but did not say a single word about his military service or his flight experience."
A few months after the beer at the beerstubbe in Köln, Ben retired. Since that afternoon in Köln, I had made plans to bring the two ex RAF officers together for a surprise meeting at my home. "A retirement party for Ben sounds like a good idea" I said to my friends. My plan was to screen a movie about the Royal Air Force and the Battle of Britain, to have live baroque chamber music, which I knew they both liked, and to listen to their stories. Sam still lived in the same house. When I called, I got his daughter who arranged the meeting.
She greeted me at the door.
"He is not in" she said "he will be back soon, come in please."
I told her the purpose of my visit. She was very surprised
"Did he ever tell you his war time stories or speak of his flying experiences?
"No" she said, "not about the war and not even about his parents and the sister he lost.
I felt it was my duty to tell her word for word what Ben Feldman had told me. I explained to her the burden of the responsibility and the need of internal strength, to fly a flight of four Lancaster's in a fog with almost zero visibility. "Your father was a decorated hero; he got his citation from King George in person." I said at the end of my story.
I could see the tears in her eyes. She was sobbing quietly. "He never spoke about the four years he was in the army." She said. "Until today I didn't even know he was an officer. He never kept in touch with his Air Force friends and no one ever came to visit. You are the first one to uncover that hidden part of my father's life. Thank you so much."
It did not go so smoothly with Sam. First, he did not remember me. When he did, he did not want to participate with anything related to the Royal Air Force. Only after I had reminded him of the escape into the fog, and how Ben Feldman described him he agreed to come'
Sam and Ben challenged each other and told stories using the Air Force language and the slang of the forties. Ben told us that without Sam, the navigator, they would never have lived to attend this party. He also told us that from all of the recruits who had joined the squadron in 1941, only five people had made it to the end of the war: “ Sam, the navigator, my radio operator, my engineer, my bomb aimer and myself."
At some point I brought them back to the steeples and the escape in the fog.
Why didn't you 'Morse' home any messages? I said.
They looked at each other and started to laugh as if I had told a joke.
"Sending a message was very dangerous" said Sam. "Very very dangerous."
"Why?" I asked. 'Nobody could intercept an HF transmitter.'
Yes, you're right, but communication meant getting orders and disobeying orders in war time meant court-martial. Obeying orders on the other hand meant putting your life in the hands of some jerk in the command post who couldn’t assess your condition."
The evening was concluded with a long speech by Ben.
"In the squadron we were known as the 'old-peoples-home recruits.' We were five years older than the rest of the pilots. Nobody older than 26 was still flying. We did not explain why or how we survived. Had we explained it; nobody would have believed it. We kept it to ourselves, even my engineer and my radio operator did not always understand what Sam and I were doing. Many times I followed Sam's directions without understanding his logic myself. As you see, we are still here.
I said in the beginning of this meeting, and I will repeat it again I owe my life to Flight Lieutenant Cohen.
That evening at my place allowed Sam to finally live with his past, in peace. The four buried years of his Air Force service had come to life. The bond between Sam and his daughter tightened as she started to write down his stories.
Bringing Sam and Ben together again, after so many years was my greatest reward.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Obsession
The Obsession
Hagai Cohen
October 10, 2009
This is a story about an obsession. My obsession.
Over five decades from December 28, 1947, I was preoccupied with the disappearance of my friend, Yehuda. One sunny winter’s day, he was yanked out of my life. He had simply vanished. To find him and to understand what had happened became my obsession.
Three months before Yehuda disappeared, on the first day of fifth grade, the headmaster walked into the class holding the hand of a very strange looking boy. The boy wore blue short pants with braces, socks up to his knees and a plaid shirt. He carried a leather backpack and matching lunch box, that seemed expensive. He looked out of place and out of time.
"This is Yehuda Noymark", announced the headmaster, "a new immigrant from New Zealand." At that time, we saw many ‘new immigrant boys' whom we called refugees, or holocaust survivors. They were usually very thin, wore torn or patched clothes, were frightened and looked around for potential enemies. They were always hiding from any official looking person, as many of them were illegal immigrants in the eyes of the British government. However, this boy looked healthy. He was tanned, well dressed and athletic. I asked myself, why would anyone emigrate willingly from a peaceful place to Palestine, where war is imminent and the future obscure? To me it was an unexplained mystery.
I was still studying the new boy when the headmaster pointed at me and said: "You, Yakov - I am assigning you to help Yehuda with his homework and teach him Hebrew.” I was proud to be 'the chosen' and took to my assignment with all seriousness and devotion. I spent two to three hours a day helping him with his homework and his Hebrew. During these visits I met Yehuda's parents and his brother, David, but I never had any conversations with them as they always seemed preoccupied.
Three months later the family mystery became even more mysterious. "How was it that the new immigrants from New Zealand had found jobs so quickly, rented a large apartment and paid tuition for both of their children? In the Jerusalem of 1947, it was inconceivable. Unfortunately, my English and his Hebrew were too poor to conduct a real conversation so I could never discover the secret of the family’s success.
One Sunday morning, on my way to school, I heard sporadic automatic machine gun fire, the sound of police vehicles, whistles and sirens. In the classroom, from time to time, we heard the whine of bullets but the heavy stonewalls and high windows provided enough shelter for classes to continue as usual.
During the class, the headmaster burst through the door and ran straight to our surprised teacher. He whispered in his ear. The teacher’s face whitened. Without waiting for any response, the headmaster went to Yehuda, took him by his hand, said, "Come with me," and led him out. After they had left, we found our teacher in a faint on the floor. "Call the nurse," someone screamed and I dashed out. While running to the infirmary, I looked around for Yehuda but he was gone.
Class was dismissed, and we were sent home without knowing what it was all about. Although I had standing orders to go straight home, my curiosity got the better of me and I walked towards Yehuda's home. At the intersection near Yehuda's house a concertina wire police barrier blocked my way. A two-seater armored vehicle was parked in the middle of the intersection, and there were about fifteen spectators milling around.
"What happened?" I asked one of the bystanders. “The redheaded police sergeant in that armored vehicle shot the boy with the fancy bicycle.” I knew only one boy with a fancy bicycle, David, Yehuda's elder brother. "Was he killed?" I asked. "We don’t know. They took him away." He replied flatly.
I was still reeling from the shock when I saw Baruch Noymark, Yehuda's father running with a long barrel Parabelum handgun. The redheaded sergeant ducked into his armored car just as Noyman jumped over the concertina fence and shot at him. At that moment, I had the strange feeling that the two men knew one another. The redhead, realizing the danger, ducked into his turret and the armored car drove away in haste.
I went to where David had been shot, and a chill passed through my bones. David's bicycle was still there. I learned David had cycled down the street and when he was about 400 yards away, the police officer spotted him. David was apparently unafraid, as he had no reason to be scared. The sergeant opened fire when David was slowing down in front of the grocery store about 40 yards away. At that distance, the sergeant must have known David was unarmed and presented no danger to him or to the armored vehicle. So why would he have targeted David? I felt sick. I could not get rid of the notion that Baruch Noymark and the officer knew each other. Did the sergeant also know David? "This is murder," I said to myself.
The next day, the newspapers told a strange story:
"In yesterday’s Lechi attack on an Arab stronghold, several people were killed. British police officers accidently shot David Noymark, a boy of 15, who was caught in the crossfire." I could not believe what I read. It was no accident. This was an execution. The police sergeant ambushed David and, after a positive identification, shot to kill. Just as if he was foxhunting.
It still did not make sense to me. How could a new immigrant, such as Yehuda's father, who had only been in the country for three months, be in possession of a handgun, charge at a police officer equipped with a Bren machinegun and manage to chase him away?
I went to Yehuda's apartment and found the doors and windows shuttered, the place abandoned. None of the neighbors could tell me where the family had gone. "They will probably return later," they said. "This is their home. They have no place else to go." I walked there daily, but they never returned. I talked to my teacher and the headmaster, but they knew nothing.
In the days after David was killed, I looked in the obituaries for some mention of funeral arrangements and found nothing. Four days after the shooting, I read that the victims killed on Dec 28 were laid to rest in the cemetery on the Mount of Olives. The funeral procession had been under heavy police protection. In fact, this group of people, David among them, whose names were not published, were the last Jews to be buried there until 1967.
With the disappearance of the Noymark family, I looked for them in every official publication. I checked every telephone book, every Board of Education report. I went from one school to another and asked for him with no luck. Where was this family? Why had they come to Israel in wartime? How did they manage to settle so quickly? How did a new immigrant warrant a 9mm handgun? Were my suspicions correct that the police officer knew Baruch and David Noymark? I could not stop thinking about them. No answers were forthcoming and life moved on for me, with Yehuda and his family pushed to the back of my mind.
Thirty-six years later, in the summer of 1983, while driving a truck in the Sinai desert during my army reserve duty, I urged the man by my side to ask me questions and to demand answers to keep me awake. The topic we discussed was the disappearance of people. The example he gave me was of a Yehuda Noymark, who changed his name to Noy after his father became the military governor of Acre in 1949. Though the name Yehuda Noy intrigued me, I dismissed it as irrelevant. A new immigrant becoming the military governor of Acre two years after landing in Haifa seemed a bit too farfetched. I could not believe it was the same Yehuda and I did not pursue the information.
Fifteen years later I started to write up my childhood experiences and decided that it was time to check the Acre story. I called the Acre city hall and asked about the first mayor of the city. The city spokesperson confirmed Baruch Noy was the first military governor, who was re-appointed mayor as a civilian, but lost the elections in 1953. She did not know any details about the family but she said, "Hassan, the administrator of Algazar Mosque worked for the family and he might know more."
Excitedly I called Hassan, who immediately confirmed that the Noy family for whom he had worked was Yehuda's family. He told me about Yehuda’s brothers, Bennie, Oded and Yehi’am. He named a street in Acre dedicated to David Noy. He told me also that the family had immigrated to Toronto, Canada. A street named after David Noy? This prompted me to search into David's background. What I found surprised me. David Noy, even at 15, was a member of the Hagana and was listed in the "memorial for fallen soldiers” book. It also mentioned that he had not been on duty when he was shot. Only three months in Israel and already a member of the Hagana? This information compounded the mystery.
Isaac Shelf, a classmate of mine with whom I had kept in contact, was, at that time, the Israeli ambassador to Canada. When I called him, he remembered Yehuda Noy and was aware of my research on the family. With Isaac’s help, we found ten Noy's in Toronto. I struck it lucky on my first call. A woman, D. Noy, told me she did not know Yehuda Noy personally, but that she often got phone calls asking for him. "Yehuda Noy worked for the U.J.A.," she said. "He was their fundraiser, and I understand that he returned to Israel."
"Well, back to square one," I said to myself with a sigh. (Had I not stopped with D. Noy I would have talked to Yehi’am Noy, David and Yehuda’s brother. His name was down my list and he lived in Toronto at the time.)
Endless phone calls followed that lead, yet I only ever found traces. The search sent me to the stock exchange, where I found that Yehuda's company was traded on the market. Then I followed a lead to the 'Medals and Coins Authority,' where he used to work. I found many tracks, but no Yehuda. Finally, in desperation, I read the names of all the Noys in the telephone book and found a Ricky and Yehuda Noy.
On the second ring, a young girl answered the phone and was reluctant to talk. I begged her to answer only one question "Was Yehuda Noy's father Baruch Noy, the first mayor of Acre?" Her answer was, “Yes.” "Ok," I said, "please write down my phone number and ask Yehuda to call me." I waited and waited for his call. It came two days later. After explaining to Yehuda who I was, I quickly cut to the chase. I reminded him of the day he had disappeared from the school; I told him of my passion to find him during all those years. Yehuda remembered nothing - neither me nor the events of that day. He did not want to talk. To him I was a total stranger invading his family and his privacy.
"Look Yehuda," I said before he could put the telephone down, "you were important to me. I was assigned to teach you Hebrew and to help you with your homework. You were my first responsibility. I can understand you're not remembering me, as it must have been very traumatic for you." I rapidly continued, "After only a few months in Israel and still adjusting, your brother was murdered, you had to leave school and even your home. However, your family remained a mystery to me from the first day we met. With your disappearance, I was left with many unanswered questions. All I want are a few moments of your time." Yehuda finally agreed to meet me.
We met at his Tel-Aviv home. Yehuda was pleasant, friendly and answered all of my questions, however he insisted he did not remember the school or me. I began to realize how traumatic this event must have been for Yehuda when he related what had happened. I started with the question, “How is it that a ‘normal family’ decides to immigrate to a war zone?
"What do you mean immigrate?” he replied. “I was born in Israel. My father was a civil engineer who specialized in bridges and harbors. He volunteered to the Jewish brigade, became an officer and was sent to Christchurch, New Zealand to build a harbor for the Pacific war. I was very young and simply forgot my Hebrew." “Fine,” I said, “That explains how he became an officer in the IDF so quickly. But how come your brother, David, at the age of fifteen, was a Hagana member?” "Simple," said Yehuda. "The school we went to in New Zealand was a special school for children of army personnel. It was located within the perimeter of the British camp. We received military training as part of our curriculum. David was a full-fledged soldier at the age of twelve.”
It was my turn to fill in the gaps for Yehuda. I told him how frightened he looked when the headmaster pulled him out of his chair. I told him about his father charging at the police sergeant and how he had shot and missed. "No," said Yehuda. “That couldn’t have happened. My father was a sharpshooter. He could never miss.” "Look," I said, “I saw your father shoot at him and, believe me, the police officer’s head was already within the armored vehicle when he did. I believe the officer knew your father, as he spotted your father long before he was in range." Yehuda confirmed my suspicions. "The redheaded police officer,” he said, “was part of a unit similar to the FBI or the Israel Shabak. He was investigating my father. He came to our house twice when my father was not at home. He was not friendly. We believe he knew who David was and shot him in revenge for what he called my father's treason. He believed that for a Major in Her Majesty’s Engineering Corps, to become a member of the Hagana was treachery. My father told me they never found any evidence to support the fact that he was a member of the Hagana. The police sergeant was furious that he could not make his accusations stick and thus took his anger out on David.
David was an easy target, identified by his unique bicycle. “My Father was on the other side of town when he got the message. It took him half-an-hour to get to the site. According to my Dad’s report, there was something between him and the police sergeant, but he never mentioned any shooting.”
"Where did you go after David was killed?" I asked. “For a few months we lived in the Palace hotel. My uncle who owned it, kept us under assumed names for a few months. All this time hiding in our claustrophobic room was very difficult for me, for my Mom, and for my brother who became depressed. We could not go to school. We did not go out even to shop. It was in fact a prison sentence. I could not believe this kind of life after our peaceful existence in Christchurch." “While still in hiding, my father was assigned as commander of the Mount Scopus Hebrew university campus, which was under Arab siege. Being a remote place and, like all other university campuses under British rule, it was out of bounds for the Police and the military. and very safe for my fasther. The hotel on the other hand was unbearable for me. It felt like losing my father. I had nothing to keep me occupied, no English books, and the Hebrew books there, I could not read."
“Later we moved to another hiding place, very close to the Schneller army camp. At that time, we got fake Id's and it became a little better. The sergeant in charge of the investigation had returned to England and no one else in the investigating unit pursued the case. We came out of hiding on May 15, 1948 when the British mandate ended. We moved with my father's unit to the Galilee. He became a staff officer in the Carmeli Division and was a member in the group planning the Yehi’am supply convoy. However, the convoy was ambushed and 46 of the 90 people, who comprised the convoy, died. My father took it as a personal failure and became depressed, which affected us all. When my youngest brother was born, my father named him Yehi’am, after that unfortunate convoy.
“After the Israeli Defense Forces captured Acre, my father was assigned as military governor. Later he became the first civilian Mayor. During his term, he created a model town in which Jews and Arabs lived peacefully side by side.” With that the 50–year-old mystery was solved, and I felt lucky and grateful to be a minor player in the story of Yehuda Noy and his extraordinary family.
*****
Hagai Cohen
October 10, 2009
This is a story about an obsession. My obsession.
Over five decades from December 28, 1947, I was preoccupied with the disappearance of my friend, Yehuda. One sunny winter’s day, he was yanked out of my life. He had simply vanished. To find him and to understand what had happened became my obsession.
Three months before Yehuda disappeared, on the first day of fifth grade, the headmaster walked into the class holding the hand of a very strange looking boy. The boy wore blue short pants with braces, socks up to his knees and a plaid shirt. He carried a leather backpack and matching lunch box, that seemed expensive. He looked out of place and out of time.
"This is Yehuda Noymark", announced the headmaster, "a new immigrant from New Zealand." At that time, we saw many ‘new immigrant boys' whom we called refugees, or holocaust survivors. They were usually very thin, wore torn or patched clothes, were frightened and looked around for potential enemies. They were always hiding from any official looking person, as many of them were illegal immigrants in the eyes of the British government. However, this boy looked healthy. He was tanned, well dressed and athletic. I asked myself, why would anyone emigrate willingly from a peaceful place to Palestine, where war is imminent and the future obscure? To me it was an unexplained mystery.
I was still studying the new boy when the headmaster pointed at me and said: "You, Yakov - I am assigning you to help Yehuda with his homework and teach him Hebrew.” I was proud to be 'the chosen' and took to my assignment with all seriousness and devotion. I spent two to three hours a day helping him with his homework and his Hebrew. During these visits I met Yehuda's parents and his brother, David, but I never had any conversations with them as they always seemed preoccupied.
Three months later the family mystery became even more mysterious. "How was it that the new immigrants from New Zealand had found jobs so quickly, rented a large apartment and paid tuition for both of their children? In the Jerusalem of 1947, it was inconceivable. Unfortunately, my English and his Hebrew were too poor to conduct a real conversation so I could never discover the secret of the family’s success.
One Sunday morning, on my way to school, I heard sporadic automatic machine gun fire, the sound of police vehicles, whistles and sirens. In the classroom, from time to time, we heard the whine of bullets but the heavy stonewalls and high windows provided enough shelter for classes to continue as usual.
During the class, the headmaster burst through the door and ran straight to our surprised teacher. He whispered in his ear. The teacher’s face whitened. Without waiting for any response, the headmaster went to Yehuda, took him by his hand, said, "Come with me," and led him out. After they had left, we found our teacher in a faint on the floor. "Call the nurse," someone screamed and I dashed out. While running to the infirmary, I looked around for Yehuda but he was gone.
Class was dismissed, and we were sent home without knowing what it was all about. Although I had standing orders to go straight home, my curiosity got the better of me and I walked towards Yehuda's home. At the intersection near Yehuda's house a concertina wire police barrier blocked my way. A two-seater armored vehicle was parked in the middle of the intersection, and there were about fifteen spectators milling around.
"What happened?" I asked one of the bystanders. “The redheaded police sergeant in that armored vehicle shot the boy with the fancy bicycle.” I knew only one boy with a fancy bicycle, David, Yehuda's elder brother. "Was he killed?" I asked. "We don’t know. They took him away." He replied flatly.
I was still reeling from the shock when I saw Baruch Noymark, Yehuda's father running with a long barrel Parabelum handgun. The redheaded sergeant ducked into his armored car just as Noyman jumped over the concertina fence and shot at him. At that moment, I had the strange feeling that the two men knew one another. The redhead, realizing the danger, ducked into his turret and the armored car drove away in haste.
I went to where David had been shot, and a chill passed through my bones. David's bicycle was still there. I learned David had cycled down the street and when he was about 400 yards away, the police officer spotted him. David was apparently unafraid, as he had no reason to be scared. The sergeant opened fire when David was slowing down in front of the grocery store about 40 yards away. At that distance, the sergeant must have known David was unarmed and presented no danger to him or to the armored vehicle. So why would he have targeted David? I felt sick. I could not get rid of the notion that Baruch Noymark and the officer knew each other. Did the sergeant also know David? "This is murder," I said to myself.
The next day, the newspapers told a strange story:
"In yesterday’s Lechi attack on an Arab stronghold, several people were killed. British police officers accidently shot David Noymark, a boy of 15, who was caught in the crossfire." I could not believe what I read. It was no accident. This was an execution. The police sergeant ambushed David and, after a positive identification, shot to kill. Just as if he was foxhunting.
It still did not make sense to me. How could a new immigrant, such as Yehuda's father, who had only been in the country for three months, be in possession of a handgun, charge at a police officer equipped with a Bren machinegun and manage to chase him away?
I went to Yehuda's apartment and found the doors and windows shuttered, the place abandoned. None of the neighbors could tell me where the family had gone. "They will probably return later," they said. "This is their home. They have no place else to go." I walked there daily, but they never returned. I talked to my teacher and the headmaster, but they knew nothing.
In the days after David was killed, I looked in the obituaries for some mention of funeral arrangements and found nothing. Four days after the shooting, I read that the victims killed on Dec 28 were laid to rest in the cemetery on the Mount of Olives. The funeral procession had been under heavy police protection. In fact, this group of people, David among them, whose names were not published, were the last Jews to be buried there until 1967.
With the disappearance of the Noymark family, I looked for them in every official publication. I checked every telephone book, every Board of Education report. I went from one school to another and asked for him with no luck. Where was this family? Why had they come to Israel in wartime? How did they manage to settle so quickly? How did a new immigrant warrant a 9mm handgun? Were my suspicions correct that the police officer knew Baruch and David Noymark? I could not stop thinking about them. No answers were forthcoming and life moved on for me, with Yehuda and his family pushed to the back of my mind.
Thirty-six years later, in the summer of 1983, while driving a truck in the Sinai desert during my army reserve duty, I urged the man by my side to ask me questions and to demand answers to keep me awake. The topic we discussed was the disappearance of people. The example he gave me was of a Yehuda Noymark, who changed his name to Noy after his father became the military governor of Acre in 1949. Though the name Yehuda Noy intrigued me, I dismissed it as irrelevant. A new immigrant becoming the military governor of Acre two years after landing in Haifa seemed a bit too farfetched. I could not believe it was the same Yehuda and I did not pursue the information.
Fifteen years later I started to write up my childhood experiences and decided that it was time to check the Acre story. I called the Acre city hall and asked about the first mayor of the city. The city spokesperson confirmed Baruch Noy was the first military governor, who was re-appointed mayor as a civilian, but lost the elections in 1953. She did not know any details about the family but she said, "Hassan, the administrator of Algazar Mosque worked for the family and he might know more."
Excitedly I called Hassan, who immediately confirmed that the Noy family for whom he had worked was Yehuda's family. He told me about Yehuda’s brothers, Bennie, Oded and Yehi’am. He named a street in Acre dedicated to David Noy. He told me also that the family had immigrated to Toronto, Canada. A street named after David Noy? This prompted me to search into David's background. What I found surprised me. David Noy, even at 15, was a member of the Hagana and was listed in the "memorial for fallen soldiers” book. It also mentioned that he had not been on duty when he was shot. Only three months in Israel and already a member of the Hagana? This information compounded the mystery.
Isaac Shelf, a classmate of mine with whom I had kept in contact, was, at that time, the Israeli ambassador to Canada. When I called him, he remembered Yehuda Noy and was aware of my research on the family. With Isaac’s help, we found ten Noy's in Toronto. I struck it lucky on my first call. A woman, D. Noy, told me she did not know Yehuda Noy personally, but that she often got phone calls asking for him. "Yehuda Noy worked for the U.J.A.," she said. "He was their fundraiser, and I understand that he returned to Israel."
"Well, back to square one," I said to myself with a sigh. (Had I not stopped with D. Noy I would have talked to Yehi’am Noy, David and Yehuda’s brother. His name was down my list and he lived in Toronto at the time.)
Endless phone calls followed that lead, yet I only ever found traces. The search sent me to the stock exchange, where I found that Yehuda's company was traded on the market. Then I followed a lead to the 'Medals and Coins Authority,' where he used to work. I found many tracks, but no Yehuda. Finally, in desperation, I read the names of all the Noys in the telephone book and found a Ricky and Yehuda Noy.
On the second ring, a young girl answered the phone and was reluctant to talk. I begged her to answer only one question "Was Yehuda Noy's father Baruch Noy, the first mayor of Acre?" Her answer was, “Yes.” "Ok," I said, "please write down my phone number and ask Yehuda to call me." I waited and waited for his call. It came two days later. After explaining to Yehuda who I was, I quickly cut to the chase. I reminded him of the day he had disappeared from the school; I told him of my passion to find him during all those years. Yehuda remembered nothing - neither me nor the events of that day. He did not want to talk. To him I was a total stranger invading his family and his privacy.
"Look Yehuda," I said before he could put the telephone down, "you were important to me. I was assigned to teach you Hebrew and to help you with your homework. You were my first responsibility. I can understand you're not remembering me, as it must have been very traumatic for you." I rapidly continued, "After only a few months in Israel and still adjusting, your brother was murdered, you had to leave school and even your home. However, your family remained a mystery to me from the first day we met. With your disappearance, I was left with many unanswered questions. All I want are a few moments of your time." Yehuda finally agreed to meet me.
We met at his Tel-Aviv home. Yehuda was pleasant, friendly and answered all of my questions, however he insisted he did not remember the school or me. I began to realize how traumatic this event must have been for Yehuda when he related what had happened. I started with the question, “How is it that a ‘normal family’ decides to immigrate to a war zone?
"What do you mean immigrate?” he replied. “I was born in Israel. My father was a civil engineer who specialized in bridges and harbors. He volunteered to the Jewish brigade, became an officer and was sent to Christchurch, New Zealand to build a harbor for the Pacific war. I was very young and simply forgot my Hebrew." “Fine,” I said, “That explains how he became an officer in the IDF so quickly. But how come your brother, David, at the age of fifteen, was a Hagana member?” "Simple," said Yehuda. "The school we went to in New Zealand was a special school for children of army personnel. It was located within the perimeter of the British camp. We received military training as part of our curriculum. David was a full-fledged soldier at the age of twelve.”
It was my turn to fill in the gaps for Yehuda. I told him how frightened he looked when the headmaster pulled him out of his chair. I told him about his father charging at the police sergeant and how he had shot and missed. "No," said Yehuda. “That couldn’t have happened. My father was a sharpshooter. He could never miss.” "Look," I said, “I saw your father shoot at him and, believe me, the police officer’s head was already within the armored vehicle when he did. I believe the officer knew your father, as he spotted your father long before he was in range." Yehuda confirmed my suspicions. "The redheaded police officer,” he said, “was part of a unit similar to the FBI or the Israel Shabak. He was investigating my father. He came to our house twice when my father was not at home. He was not friendly. We believe he knew who David was and shot him in revenge for what he called my father's treason. He believed that for a Major in Her Majesty’s Engineering Corps, to become a member of the Hagana was treachery. My father told me they never found any evidence to support the fact that he was a member of the Hagana. The police sergeant was furious that he could not make his accusations stick and thus took his anger out on David.
David was an easy target, identified by his unique bicycle. “My Father was on the other side of town when he got the message. It took him half-an-hour to get to the site. According to my Dad’s report, there was something between him and the police sergeant, but he never mentioned any shooting.”
"Where did you go after David was killed?" I asked. “For a few months we lived in the Palace hotel. My uncle who owned it, kept us under assumed names for a few months. All this time hiding in our claustrophobic room was very difficult for me, for my Mom, and for my brother who became depressed. We could not go to school. We did not go out even to shop. It was in fact a prison sentence. I could not believe this kind of life after our peaceful existence in Christchurch." “While still in hiding, my father was assigned as commander of the Mount Scopus Hebrew university campus, which was under Arab siege. Being a remote place and, like all other university campuses under British rule, it was out of bounds for the Police and the military. and very safe for my fasther. The hotel on the other hand was unbearable for me. It felt like losing my father. I had nothing to keep me occupied, no English books, and the Hebrew books there, I could not read."
“Later we moved to another hiding place, very close to the Schneller army camp. At that time, we got fake Id's and it became a little better. The sergeant in charge of the investigation had returned to England and no one else in the investigating unit pursued the case. We came out of hiding on May 15, 1948 when the British mandate ended. We moved with my father's unit to the Galilee. He became a staff officer in the Carmeli Division and was a member in the group planning the Yehi’am supply convoy. However, the convoy was ambushed and 46 of the 90 people, who comprised the convoy, died. My father took it as a personal failure and became depressed, which affected us all. When my youngest brother was born, my father named him Yehi’am, after that unfortunate convoy.
“After the Israeli Defense Forces captured Acre, my father was assigned as military governor. Later he became the first civilian Mayor. During his term, he created a model town in which Jews and Arabs lived peacefully side by side.” With that the 50–year-old mystery was solved, and I felt lucky and grateful to be a minor player in the story of Yehuda Noy and his extraordinary family.
*****
Thursday, October 1, 2009
The case of rigor mortis
THE CASE OF RIGOR MORTIS
Hagai Cohen
“B-R-E-A-K T-H-E R-I-G-O-R M-O-R-T-I-S. B-R-E-A-K T-H-E R-I-G-O-R M-O-R-T-I-S,” came the garbled voice from the speakers on the flight deck. “P-L-E-A-S-E R-E-P-E-A-T Y-O-U-R M-E-S-S-A-G-E, P-L-E-A-S-E R-E-P-E-A-T Y-O-U-R M-E-S-S-A-G-E” I said into the mike. The conversation went through the H.F. radio of the 707 jetliner. We were on the ground in Teheran. “U-S-E F-O-R-C-E, U-S-E F-O-R-C-E. Came the scratchy voice again. Obviously, my partner across the ‘ether’ didn’t hear my last request and after he said: “use force” twice our communication was lost altogether.
“Now what?” I knew I had to break the rigor mortis. I also knew I had to use force. I had no idea what it meant.
Seven hours earlier, while having my early morning coffee, a phone call had disturbed my peace. I was on “immediate standby,” meaning, ready to fly at a short notice. I was surprised when I heard the crew assignment officer telling me: “Be ready a.s.a.p. a cab is already waiting outside.” It had never happened before. What she could have added to the strange message was: “The chief pilot himself will brief you, prepare for an overnight stay.”
I put on my uniform, grabbed my pre-packed bag, and got in the cab.
At the dispatch office, our chief pilot laconically briefed us: “There was an accident outside of Teheran, a bus with fifty people on board, tourists from South Africa, fell off a cliff, many are dead the rest have injuries of various degrees. We were chartered to fly them home. The crew is the standby crew except for purser Benny Kaufman who was removed from his scheduled flight. Benny is a qualified nurse and is experienced in handling emergencies; he was the chief nurse in a military trauma ward.”
Benny was a very small man, and to imagine him as an army major, running an emergency room was almost impossible. Benny himself joked, “In a ‘civilized’ country, I would make an excellent jockey, not a purser.”
Our flight was planned from Tel Aviv to Teheran and from Teheran, direct to Johannesburg.
Our ground crew in Tel-Aviv removed seats and installed stretchers. Oxygen cylinders and life support equipment were fastened around the cabin. Benny felt at home.
We flew fast and we made it at a record time. Exactly five hours after I’d left my coffee behind, we touched down in Teheran International Airport. Ground control directed us to a remote military section of the airport. The ambulances were already there, Maintenance connected the fuel truck. A cargo high loader was used for the stretchers. Everything seemed to be moving smoothly.
Our navigator got sick when he saw and smelled the injured. “I am preparing the flight,” he said and closed himself in the cockpit.
The five cabin attendants, three women and two men, had no idea what to do. Benny found it easier to work alone rather than delegating authority. At one stage, Benny asked for my help. The oxygen fittings were of a different standard as were the electrical connectors. We had to improvise. Benny was on top of the operation. It took about an hour to board the wounded, to attach them to the IVs, the monitors and to the oxygen tanks. We wondered where the doctor was. He was supposed to join us and do the work.
The outside temperature was now forty centigrade; inside the cabin it was a little better as we had connected an external air conditioner, but despite it, the temperature inside was 34 degrees and rising.
We had almost completed the loading, when the station manager came with a package of bad news: “Iranian morticians, whom we hired to place the bodies in the coffins, and the doctor engaged to accompany the wounded, have been detained outside the base gates, they do not have the necessary pass.”
“I don't understand,” I said. “Where are the bodies?”
“They’re in the hangar,” said the station manager.
“Let’s have a look,” I said. The station manager was under tremendous stress and completely lost. He had no idea whom to bribe, or how to unravel the bureaucracy. The army was not on his pay roll.
The horrifying scene inside the hangar was sickeningly hard to take. Fifteen coffins were aligned nicely by the wall, but in the middle of the hangar, was, an impressive pile of fifteen entangled bodies, all in odd positions and hard as wooden statues.
“What happened”? I asked the station manager
“The police threw the bodies on a hired dump truck and drove it to the middle of the hangar, dumped their cargo and drove away. There were a few moments of silence. I made a mental note to avoid Iranian treatment, dead or alive.
“O.K. I said to the station manager “let's call Tel Aviv. We have a great military relationship with the Shah, so perhaps a call from our ministry of defense will solve the problem.” I got on the H.F radio and called our dispatch radio operator. I explained our situation. He did not know whom to call and I had the feeling I was wasting time.
“Get me a phone patch to Abu Kabir,” I said and he put me through. The pathologist in charge had difficulty understanding who I was, why I was calling from Teheran, and how to communicate on a two-way radio. Ten precious minutes were lost to establish the communication, when finally we understood each other the transmission became garbled. “B-r-e-a-k- the- r-i-g-o-r m-o-r-t-i-s, u-s-e- f-o-r-c-e”. Those were the last words, said over the radio on the subject before the transmission went dead. Everybody focused on me, I spoke to the pathologist, and I was expected to come with the answers.
I left the crew in the cockpit and went to Benny in the cabin “Benny” I asked, “doesn't rigor mortis goes away between eight to twelve hours after it sets in?”
"Yes."
“Is there any way to accelerate the process?"
“Damned if I know,” said Benny.
“The Pathologist said we should break the rigor mortis. Do you have any idea what he meant?”
“No,” said Benny, “Let's go and look.”
With Benny next to me, I got a little more courageous and stopped two feet short of the pile. I could see and hear the thousands of flies hovering over the bodies.
“Use force, use force,” the pathologist last words were pounding in my head. I looked at the pile and locked on to one of the bodies who looked less frightening than the rest. Only his legs were out and one knee was bent. He looked more like a mechanic working underneath a car than a dead person. I came close to him and pressed with my foot on the knee. The leg was as hard as a welded construction. It did not move at all, nothing happened, I tried harder, nothing. I climbed on the knee. I might have been climbing a rock. I jumped on it. As I landed on the knee, as if in magic the knee became loose and straightened under my foot, in fact I almost tripped and joined the pile. At that moment, I wanted to run naked in the streets screaming Eureka.
“Get the entry permit just for the doctor,” I said to the station manager. "Benny and I will take care of the bodies.” I did not want him to be present when Benny and I jumped on them.
After the discovery, it was strictly business; we moved from one to the other, softened them, straightened them, and put them in the coffins. Physically, it was not an easy job as Benny was too light and I am not heavy-set myself. We worked fast and, half an hour later, the bodies were in sealed coffins, packed with dry ice. Benny and I returned to the plane. The air in the cabin had become extremely unpleasant. The temperature was rising rapidly and the wounded were beginning to moan and complain, as their sedation wore off. The station manager returned without the doctor. Benny was livid and said, “With or without the doctor we have to take the aircraft off the ground. It’s a life threatening situation.”
I had to agree but for different reasons. The outside temperature was now forty-two centigrade and very soon, takeoff would be impossible. We were already pushing the performance envelope. After a short discussion, we decided to leave without the doctor.
Benny assured us he could handle it; after all, preparing injured for transportation was Benny’s expertise. Nervously, I complied. “ after the cargo doors are closed we’ll start and go” I said
The takeoff was on performance boundaries, 3500’ field elevation with 42 degrees, 70 ton of fuel for the nine-hour flight put the takeoff run on the margins of safety.
Benny’s competence and his dedication to the people caused them to arrive in better shape than they departed. They were very grateful to him.
I have no recollection of the flight. I remember only that none of us slept the night after. In the morning, my entire crew was in a deeply depressed state. I suggested we pay a visit together to ‘our patients’ in the hospital as “therapy.”
The visit was highly emotional. We all cried. I was relieved to learn that all the wounded were out of danger. I could not believe we had taken such a huge responsibility, flying without a doctor.
My rigor mortis trauma stayed with me and for years after, I had recurrent nightmares in which the “mechanic” from underneath the pile was chasing me with a thirty-inch spanner.
It took three decades after that incident before the mechanic stopped haunting me.
Sometimes however, especially at wedding banquets, when they serve chicken legs, I relive the memories. The chicken legs served are unquestionably in a state of rigor mortis, and as there is no way I can jump on them, I do not risk my teeth on wedding drumsticks!.
Hagai Cohen
“B-R-E-A-K T-H-E R-I-G-O-R M-O-R-T-I-S. B-R-E-A-K T-H-E R-I-G-O-R M-O-R-T-I-S,” came the garbled voice from the speakers on the flight deck. “P-L-E-A-S-E R-E-P-E-A-T Y-O-U-R M-E-S-S-A-G-E, P-L-E-A-S-E R-E-P-E-A-T Y-O-U-R M-E-S-S-A-G-E” I said into the mike. The conversation went through the H.F. radio of the 707 jetliner. We were on the ground in Teheran. “U-S-E F-O-R-C-E, U-S-E F-O-R-C-E. Came the scratchy voice again. Obviously, my partner across the ‘ether’ didn’t hear my last request and after he said: “use force” twice our communication was lost altogether.
“Now what?” I knew I had to break the rigor mortis. I also knew I had to use force. I had no idea what it meant.
Seven hours earlier, while having my early morning coffee, a phone call had disturbed my peace. I was on “immediate standby,” meaning, ready to fly at a short notice. I was surprised when I heard the crew assignment officer telling me: “Be ready a.s.a.p. a cab is already waiting outside.” It had never happened before. What she could have added to the strange message was: “The chief pilot himself will brief you, prepare for an overnight stay.”
I put on my uniform, grabbed my pre-packed bag, and got in the cab.
At the dispatch office, our chief pilot laconically briefed us: “There was an accident outside of Teheran, a bus with fifty people on board, tourists from South Africa, fell off a cliff, many are dead the rest have injuries of various degrees. We were chartered to fly them home. The crew is the standby crew except for purser Benny Kaufman who was removed from his scheduled flight. Benny is a qualified nurse and is experienced in handling emergencies; he was the chief nurse in a military trauma ward.”
Benny was a very small man, and to imagine him as an army major, running an emergency room was almost impossible. Benny himself joked, “In a ‘civilized’ country, I would make an excellent jockey, not a purser.”
Our flight was planned from Tel Aviv to Teheran and from Teheran, direct to Johannesburg.
Our ground crew in Tel-Aviv removed seats and installed stretchers. Oxygen cylinders and life support equipment were fastened around the cabin. Benny felt at home.
We flew fast and we made it at a record time. Exactly five hours after I’d left my coffee behind, we touched down in Teheran International Airport. Ground control directed us to a remote military section of the airport. The ambulances were already there, Maintenance connected the fuel truck. A cargo high loader was used for the stretchers. Everything seemed to be moving smoothly.
Our navigator got sick when he saw and smelled the injured. “I am preparing the flight,” he said and closed himself in the cockpit.
The five cabin attendants, three women and two men, had no idea what to do. Benny found it easier to work alone rather than delegating authority. At one stage, Benny asked for my help. The oxygen fittings were of a different standard as were the electrical connectors. We had to improvise. Benny was on top of the operation. It took about an hour to board the wounded, to attach them to the IVs, the monitors and to the oxygen tanks. We wondered where the doctor was. He was supposed to join us and do the work.
The outside temperature was now forty centigrade; inside the cabin it was a little better as we had connected an external air conditioner, but despite it, the temperature inside was 34 degrees and rising.
We had almost completed the loading, when the station manager came with a package of bad news: “Iranian morticians, whom we hired to place the bodies in the coffins, and the doctor engaged to accompany the wounded, have been detained outside the base gates, they do not have the necessary pass.”
“I don't understand,” I said. “Where are the bodies?”
“They’re in the hangar,” said the station manager.
“Let’s have a look,” I said. The station manager was under tremendous stress and completely lost. He had no idea whom to bribe, or how to unravel the bureaucracy. The army was not on his pay roll.
The horrifying scene inside the hangar was sickeningly hard to take. Fifteen coffins were aligned nicely by the wall, but in the middle of the hangar, was, an impressive pile of fifteen entangled bodies, all in odd positions and hard as wooden statues.
“What happened”? I asked the station manager
“The police threw the bodies on a hired dump truck and drove it to the middle of the hangar, dumped their cargo and drove away. There were a few moments of silence. I made a mental note to avoid Iranian treatment, dead or alive.
“O.K. I said to the station manager “let's call Tel Aviv. We have a great military relationship with the Shah, so perhaps a call from our ministry of defense will solve the problem.” I got on the H.F radio and called our dispatch radio operator. I explained our situation. He did not know whom to call and I had the feeling I was wasting time.
“Get me a phone patch to Abu Kabir,” I said and he put me through. The pathologist in charge had difficulty understanding who I was, why I was calling from Teheran, and how to communicate on a two-way radio. Ten precious minutes were lost to establish the communication, when finally we understood each other the transmission became garbled. “B-r-e-a-k- the- r-i-g-o-r m-o-r-t-i-s, u-s-e- f-o-r-c-e”. Those were the last words, said over the radio on the subject before the transmission went dead. Everybody focused on me, I spoke to the pathologist, and I was expected to come with the answers.
I left the crew in the cockpit and went to Benny in the cabin “Benny” I asked, “doesn't rigor mortis goes away between eight to twelve hours after it sets in?”
"Yes."
“Is there any way to accelerate the process?"
“Damned if I know,” said Benny.
“The Pathologist said we should break the rigor mortis. Do you have any idea what he meant?”
“No,” said Benny, “Let's go and look.”
With Benny next to me, I got a little more courageous and stopped two feet short of the pile. I could see and hear the thousands of flies hovering over the bodies.
“Use force, use force,” the pathologist last words were pounding in my head. I looked at the pile and locked on to one of the bodies who looked less frightening than the rest. Only his legs were out and one knee was bent. He looked more like a mechanic working underneath a car than a dead person. I came close to him and pressed with my foot on the knee. The leg was as hard as a welded construction. It did not move at all, nothing happened, I tried harder, nothing. I climbed on the knee. I might have been climbing a rock. I jumped on it. As I landed on the knee, as if in magic the knee became loose and straightened under my foot, in fact I almost tripped and joined the pile. At that moment, I wanted to run naked in the streets screaming Eureka.
“Get the entry permit just for the doctor,” I said to the station manager. "Benny and I will take care of the bodies.” I did not want him to be present when Benny and I jumped on them.
After the discovery, it was strictly business; we moved from one to the other, softened them, straightened them, and put them in the coffins. Physically, it was not an easy job as Benny was too light and I am not heavy-set myself. We worked fast and, half an hour later, the bodies were in sealed coffins, packed with dry ice. Benny and I returned to the plane. The air in the cabin had become extremely unpleasant. The temperature was rising rapidly and the wounded were beginning to moan and complain, as their sedation wore off. The station manager returned without the doctor. Benny was livid and said, “With or without the doctor we have to take the aircraft off the ground. It’s a life threatening situation.”
I had to agree but for different reasons. The outside temperature was now forty-two centigrade and very soon, takeoff would be impossible. We were already pushing the performance envelope. After a short discussion, we decided to leave without the doctor.
Benny assured us he could handle it; after all, preparing injured for transportation was Benny’s expertise. Nervously, I complied. “ after the cargo doors are closed we’ll start and go” I said
The takeoff was on performance boundaries, 3500’ field elevation with 42 degrees, 70 ton of fuel for the nine-hour flight put the takeoff run on the margins of safety.
Benny’s competence and his dedication to the people caused them to arrive in better shape than they departed. They were very grateful to him.
I have no recollection of the flight. I remember only that none of us slept the night after. In the morning, my entire crew was in a deeply depressed state. I suggested we pay a visit together to ‘our patients’ in the hospital as “therapy.”
The visit was highly emotional. We all cried. I was relieved to learn that all the wounded were out of danger. I could not believe we had taken such a huge responsibility, flying without a doctor.
My rigor mortis trauma stayed with me and for years after, I had recurrent nightmares in which the “mechanic” from underneath the pile was chasing me with a thirty-inch spanner.
It took three decades after that incident before the mechanic stopped haunting me.
Sometimes however, especially at wedding banquets, when they serve chicken legs, I relive the memories. The chicken legs served are unquestionably in a state of rigor mortis, and as there is no way I can jump on them, I do not risk my teeth on wedding drumsticks!.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
The Party
The party
Hagai Cohen
I found a lilac envelope in my mailbox. There was no return address. I slit open the envelope and removed the contents. The name Rachel Halevi was on top of the personal stationary. Rachel Halevi, a member of the elite, and a classmate of mine, had never taken me into her circle of friends. I was therefore surprised to receive her note.
Dear Yakov
As you well know, the Principal cancelled the end of year party for our class. I am planning to host the class party in my garden instead. I want to ask you a favor. It's not easy for me as we were never close friends and, of course, you may say no. I want you to help me organize and 'produce' the party. I know you can do it. I also know you can write Maqams* (I kept some of the things you wrote in the past and I think you are great). You are the only one who can turn boring parties into memorable events.
If you agree to help, please do not spare the sarcasm. I want you to bring the class snobs down to size.
Please, please do it for me. I am counting on you.
Your friend, Rachel"
Of course, I agreed. It was a chance to see the house of the richest family in Jerusalem.
Rachel was smart, pretty and never spoke about her wealth. Her house was a medium sized palace with an indoor swimming pool and a huge garden. The circular foyer with a diameter of fifteen meters was paved with Carrara marble in which was centered a single huge red marble rose.
Rachel Halevi although issued with a birth permit to be a snob, was in fact, quite modest. Still, it was strange to hear her call the others snobs.
She and I met several times to plan every step of the party. Timing was an important element in my plans and it was up to Rachel to play host and keep to the timing.
Our ‘superior’ classmates played solo instruments. Ruth Goldberg was the first. She played on her flute an obscure piece. It was hard to tell if she played out of tune or what we heard was the nature of the piece. Yair Goodman was next; he played a violin solo, the Chacone by Bach. Although he played better than Ruth, his high tones appeared to come from a circular saw. Some other girl, whose name I have forgotten, played a nocturne by Chopin on the baby grand. It put us to sleep and must have made Chopin squirm in his grave. At this stage, every guest was, as planned, pretty much annoyed. This prelude was a necessary step in my plan to deflate the over-inflated egos of the 'musicians.'
Hagai Cohen
I found a lilac envelope in my mailbox. There was no return address. I slit open the envelope and removed the contents. The name Rachel Halevi was on top of the personal stationary. Rachel Halevi, a member of the elite, and a classmate of mine, had never taken me into her circle of friends. I was therefore surprised to receive her note.
Dear Yakov
As you well know, the Principal cancelled the end of year party for our class. I am planning to host the class party in my garden instead. I want to ask you a favor. It's not easy for me as we were never close friends and, of course, you may say no. I want you to help me organize and 'produce' the party. I know you can do it. I also know you can write Maqams* (I kept some of the things you wrote in the past and I think you are great). You are the only one who can turn boring parties into memorable events.
If you agree to help, please do not spare the sarcasm. I want you to bring the class snobs down to size.
Please, please do it for me. I am counting on you.
Your friend, Rachel"
Of course, I agreed. It was a chance to see the house of the richest family in Jerusalem.
Rachel was smart, pretty and never spoke about her wealth. Her house was a medium sized palace with an indoor swimming pool and a huge garden. The circular foyer with a diameter of fifteen meters was paved with Carrara marble in which was centered a single huge red marble rose.
Rachel Halevi although issued with a birth permit to be a snob, was in fact, quite modest. Still, it was strange to hear her call the others snobs.
She and I met several times to plan every step of the party. Timing was an important element in my plans and it was up to Rachel to play host and keep to the timing.
Our ‘superior’ classmates played solo instruments. Ruth Goldberg was the first. She played on her flute an obscure piece. It was hard to tell if she played out of tune or what we heard was the nature of the piece. Yair Goodman was next; he played a violin solo, the Chacone by Bach. Although he played better than Ruth, his high tones appeared to come from a circular saw. Some other girl, whose name I have forgotten, played a nocturne by Chopin on the baby grand. It put us to sleep and must have made Chopin squirm in his grave. At this stage, every guest was, as planned, pretty much annoyed. This prelude was a necessary step in my plan to deflate the over-inflated egos of the 'musicians.'
Amos Dagan came next. He was a real musician and he was party to our plans. He loved to imitate other instruments on his accordion and could compose and play in any style and any type of music. However, his "inferior instrument" was a target for scorn from our classmates, who didn’t appreciate his talents. Amos was to imitate the flute, the violin and the piano. He repeated the mistakes, remembering exactly the places where they had played out of tune and he played it comically. It put those other musicians' noses out of joint.
I came to the party well prepared with a chain of trivia questions, many elephant joke and with personalized Maqams. Only a few of my fellow classmates escaped the sarcasm. About thirty verses, all in rhyme, dealt with our principal, our teachers, and our classmates. I had rehearsed the 'show' with Amos Dagan, who accompanied me with his musical improvisations.
I had promised my classmates to read a 'self-incriminating' maqam, but had no intention of doing so. I stalled, until the audience started booing. As planned, I gave Rachel a pre-arranged signal. She moved swiftly towards me with a phone on a long extension and said, "Excuse me, Yakov; you forgot to make your call.”
“Oh, thank you so much, it slipped my mind.” I said.
I took the phone, begged excuse from the audience and dialed the number I had picked earlier from a phone book.
There was dead silence as I was dialing. I had aroused audience curiousty. Whom was I calling and what could be so important for me to stop the the verses?
“Mr. Orleansky?”
“Yes,” answered an old man’s voice at the other end.
“Mr. Samuel Orleansky?” I asked again.
“Yes,” said the man.
“Mr. Samuel Orleansky of 17 Balfour Street in Haifa?”
“Yes – who's calling please”?
“Thank God, Mr. Orleansky, I was afraid I woke the wrong person. Am I glad it’s you, Mr. Orleansky. My name is Yakov,” I said. “I have just arrived from Orleans in France. I met a relative of yours, who sends her regards. Her name is Jeanne - Jeanne D’Arc - also known as the Maid of Orleans.”
The old man paused and then said: "Please wait a moment," and went to consult his wife.
Mr. Samuel Orleansky did not keep me waiting long. “There must be some mistake, Mr. Yakov. We do not have any relatives in France.”
“You are Mr. Orleansky aren’t you?” I asked. “What do you want me to tell her when I go back?” I could barely control the laughter in my voice.
"You may go back to hell where you belong, you idiot nut and don’t you dare wake people up again at two o’clock in the morning. You are a schmock,” screamed the man and hung up. Of course, the conversation was heard by all over the speakers, prepared in advance.
To my great satisfaction Mr. Orleansky supplied the necessary diversion. In fact Mr. Orleansky ended the party and was remembered thereafter as the climactic moment.
A letter from Yair Goodman, the violinist, arrived twenty-three years later. It was an invitation to a class reunion, an offer I couldn’t refuse; I had to see what had happened to all the rich and famous classmates.
Most of the evening was spent to update and renew contacts, and addresses. ‘Mother’s brag books’ changed hands. Boring job-related and number-of-bedrooms issues dominated the conversation. It went on and on. As I was about to leave, Amos blocked my way and said: “Yakov, you are not leaving till you tell us how Mr. Orleansky is.”
“I don't remember being assigned to keep track of his well being,” I said, “but it’s easy to find out.”
I picked up the nearest phone and called information. The operator delivered the number and I dialed without delay.
“Mr. Orleansky?”
The voice of a very old man answered “Yes.”
“Mr. Samuel Orleansky?”
“Yes.”
“Mr., Orleansky I have just arrived from France. You have regards from your relative---"
Mr. Orleansky didn’t wait for me to finish. He screamed in Yiddish:
“Surre! Surre! Shttaiioff Shttaioff! Yakov, der mishiguiner,is noch nisht Geshtorbn”. (“Sara! Sara! Wake up, wake up! Yakov, the nut, is not yet dead.")
I was pleased to know that Sara and Sam Orleansky kept a warm place in their hearts for me. I was sure now I’d be remembered forever.
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