Messers above the Negev Desert
Text: Jan Zdiarský
Illustrations: Piotr Forkasiewicz
Cat. No. 948011
After the end of World War II, major political and territorial changes took place not only in Europe and the Pacific region, but also in the Middle East. The problems that this process brought to the latter region continue to this day.
One of the fundamental issues of the anticipated changes was the end of British control over the territory of Palestine. On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly issued Resolution No. 181, on the basis of which the territory of Palestine should be divided into two independent states, Jewish and Arab. While the Jewish side agreed to the proposal, the representatives of the Arab world rejected it. Months of armed clashes between the two sides followed, which escalated into open conflict after the British left in May 1848.
Based on the aforementioned UN decision, the independent state of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948. The very next day, the armies of five Arab countries invaded its territory, and gradually some others became involved in the conflict to varying degrees. These were Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. Thus began the first Israeli-Arab war, known as the War of Independence. The Arab world refers to it as An-Nakba – The Catastrophe.
At first, Israel had only a few tens of thousands of soldiers and very inadequate weapons. The Arab armies were more numerous and better equipped, but they lacked unified command and a clear strategy. The UN responded to the conflict by imposing an arms embargo on the entire region. The young state of Israel, which lacked its own production of heavy weapons, was thus left without the possibility of at least purchasing arms. Israel's requests for help were heard by Czechoslovakia, with the tacit consent of the Soviet Union, which was consolidating its influence in the Czechoslovakia after the communist coup in February 1948.
Czechoslovakia was thus the only European country to decide to secretly provide military aid to Israel. The process of supplying weapons and training Israeli pilots and technicians in Czechoslovakia was based on agreements that had been concluded even before the formal establishment of Israel. Czechoslovakia supplied Israel with some of its own Avia S-199s aircraft, along with light and heavy weapons with ammunition, many of which were of German World War II origin, and later also Spitfire Mk.IX aircraft, with which the Czechoslovak RAF squadrons had returned from Great Britain in the summer of 1945.
Mezek (Mule) in Czech, Messer in Israel - Avia S-199, a fighter aircraft with problematic characteristics, was created by combining a Bf 109G airframe and a Jumo 211 engine, designed for bomber aircraft. In the immediate post-war years, together with the Spitfires, it became the backbone of the Czechoslovak fighter air force. A total of more than 500 S-199 and CS-199 (two-seater training version) aircraft were produced in postwar Czechoslovakia.
During the secret Balak operation, 24 Avia S-199s were sold to Israel. Four of them carried out their first attack on May 29, 1948, against Egyptian columns heading for Tel Aviv. The militarily controversial result had a huge moral impact. Deliveries of Czechoslovak S-199s to Israel were gradual. The aircraft shown, marked D-123, was delivered on July 28 aboard Balak flight No. 79 and entered combat on August 15, 1948. It was assigned to the 101st Squadron, whose emblem at the time was a winged skull wearing a flight helmet and goggles. The skull symbolizes the Jewish belief in the resurrection of the dead, who will form a great army when the Messiah comes to earth. The D-123 aircraft took part in Operation Yoav, which took place over seven days in October 1948 in the Negev Desert. The aim was to divide the Egyptian forces located along the coast and on the road between the cities of Beersheba, Hebron, and Jerusalem. The Mezek D-123 entered these battles on the first day of the offensive on October 16, 1948, when Israeli pilot Rudi Augarten claimed to have shot down an Egyptian Royal Air Force Spitfire Mk.IXc. The seven-day operation was successful and significantly strengthened Israeli positions.
In 1949, Israel began the process of concluding ceasefires with individual Arab states. However, the situation remained very fragile. The outcome of the conflict, namely the initial Arab rejection of the 1947 UN resolution on a two-state solution for the territory of former Palestine, and the subsequent attack on Israel, meant political and territorial strengthening of the Jewish state in the region. The first Israeli-Arab war was not only a clash for borders, but above all a question of identity and the right of the State of Israel to exist. For the Palestinians, it meant the loss of their homes and the beginning of refugee exile. The echoes of this war still resonate today in all other conflicts in the region. The 1948 – 1949 War of Independence claimed the lives of around 6,000 Israelis and 10,000–15,000 Arabs. About 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes.
Thanks in part to aid from Czechoslovakia, Israel was able to defend itself in this war. The same was true in subsequent wars, in which, however, aid from Czechoslovakia did not come. Under the rule of the communist USSR, Czechoslovakia gradually turned away from Israel. A return to normalcy, based on the fact that Czechoslovakia had helped Israel in the most difficult moments of its birth, came only after the collapse of the socialist block at the end of the 1980s.