Saving Israel

The Unknown Story of Smuggling Weapons and Winning a Nation's Independence

By: Boaz Dvir

Narrated by: Neil Hellegers

Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

As it prepared to ward off an invasion by five well-equipped neighboring armies in 1948, newborn Israel lacked the weapons to defend itself. Enter Al Schwimmer, an American World War II veteran who feared a repeat of the Holocaust. He created factitious airlines, bought decommissioned airplanes from the US War Asset Administration, fixed them in California and New Jersey, and sent his pilots - Jewish and non-Jewish WWII aviators - to pick up rifles, bullets, and fighter planes from the only country willing to break the international arms embargo: communist Czechoslovakia.

For the crime of arming Israel with basic war instruments and battle-ready planes, including Messerschmitt fighters and B-17 bombers, Schwimmer and key members of his team paid a heavy price. They lost their civil rights after being convicted of breaking the arms embargo and America's Neutrality Act. Years later, three presidents would pardon three of them.

The operation members risked their lives, freedom, and US citizenship to prevent what they viewed as an imminent genocide. They evaded the FBI and State Department, gained the support of the mafia, smuggled weapons - mostly Nazi surplus - across hostile territories, and went into combat in the Middle East.

This book recreates the operation members’ sui generis journey in vivid scenes, capturing their multilayered stories and larger-than-life personalities. It documents the spirit as well as the facts of a mostly unknown mission to save a nascent-yet-ancient nation.

©2020 Boaz Dvir (P)2020 Rowman & Littlefield

My Father was one of the American Jews & POWs

A personal book, loved comparing stories my father told to those in the book. My father collaborated the atrocities agaist the Palestines.

I Didn’t Want To Stop Listening

I loved this book. It made learning history a joy. Riveting, beautifully written and I read it in three days.

Narrator is very good. He has pronunciation issues

The narrator has a very pleasant speaking voice.
He has very good resonance and is a very good voice actor.
His pronunciation can use some help. I’m about 6hrs into the reading, at the point where the C46 crew(s) are in Sicily. Several crew members are listening to a musical performance. The narrator mispronounced Cello as “Sello”, not “Chello, during this passage. He also is not pronouncing the Hebrew names of the characters correctly in some cases as well as the location Acre or Acco in Israel.
Other than this he’s very good.

Amazing History

This is a type of Book that needs 9 parts mini-series done by Amazon. My Dad tells me stories about his uncle who took part in Gun smuggling operations in NYC shipping weapons to Israel. This is one of the important stories that History has forgotten.