The Altalena Sunk

The Altalena Sunk- 1948

Off the coast of Tel Aviv

On June 1, Israel Galili signed an agreement with Menachem Begin to dissolve the Etzel and fold its units into the IDF. Etzel battalions were to enter the Alexandroni and Givati brigades, while its units in Jerusalem, which was not yet legally part of Israel, would stay separate. One clause required the Etzel to stop buying arms on its own. The Altalena was already at sea. She was formerly USS LST-138, a tank landing ship bought as American surplus and named for Ze'ev Jabotinsky's pen name, an Italian word meaning “seesaw”. She sailed from France under Captain Monroe Fein, a former U.S. Navy lieutenant, with the Etzel commander Eliyahu Lankin aboard, carrying 940 fighters, 5,000 rifles, 250 Bren guns, five million rounds, fifty bazookas and ten Bren carriers. Ben-Gurion agreed to let the ship land in secret, in violation of the UN truce that had begun on June 11. He refused to let her enter Tel Aviv port, where observers would see everything, and directed her to an unlit shore. Begin wanted twenty% of the arms kept for the Etzel, and Ben-Gurion refused, on the principle that there would be one army. Three Days, Not One … The ship anchored off Kfar Vitkin, north of Netanya, on the night of June 20. The 940 passengers came ashore and were taken to an army camp for induction, and unloading went on through the night. About 2,000 rifles, two million rounds, 3,000 shells and 200 Bren guns came off and went to the IDF, where they went into the war against the Arab armies. On June 21, the Alexandroni Brigade sealed the area and gave Begin an ultimatum to hand over the rest. Fighting broke out on the beach. Six Etzel men and two soldiers were killed, and Fein took the ship back out to sea with Begin aboard. On June 22, the Altalena anchored off Tel Aviv and negotiations collapsed. Ben-Gurion ordered her shelled, and a field gun on the beach, in a sector under Yitzhak Rabin's command, set her on fire. Ten more Etzel men and one soldier died. Nineteen dead in all, sixteen from the Etzel and three from the IDF, and no passengers among them. What Became of Her … The ship did not sink off Tel Aviv. She burned and ran aground at the foot of Frishman Street, where the wreck sat in plain view of the city for about a year. She was then refloated, towed roughly 15 miles out, and deliberately sunk, after which the position was lost. That is why the search took months and why the hull turned up at 503 meters. Begin went on the radio that night and ordered his men not to return fire. Around 200 Etzel members were arrested, some of them charged with treason. The organization's Jerusalem units stayed independent until September, when the Etzel was dissolved for good.