Excursions in Jewish Military History and Jewish Genealogy

Perhaps symbolically (and not coincidentally!) Ted Lurie’s fifth and final article about Yishuv troops in the Eighth Army was entitled “The Flying Fifth”; it’s subject, the 5th Water Tank Company of the Royal Army Service Corps.  This company was one of nine companies comprised of troops from the Yishuv, albeit Lurie specifically mentions only one other: the 6th.  Like other military units mentioned in this series, the company’s location is not specified, though it is revealed to the reader that the unit was stationed somewhere close to the Mediterranean Sea, near the 738th Artisan Works Company.

Though tasked with a responsibility nowhere near as dramatic and dangerous as that of armor  or infantry – especially for cinema and the popular press – the task of military units such as the 5th W.T.C. was nonetheless absolutely essential to Allied victory.  At least two soldiers from the Yishuv were killed while serving in the unit.  They were:

– .ת. נ. צ. ב. ה –

תהא
נפשו
צרורה
בצרור
החיים

Driver Heinrich Eduard Freud, PAL/988, killed in action on May 10, 1942, commemorated on Column 74 of the Alamein Memorial

…and…

Driver Nochum Undi Hochman, PAL/1129, killed in action on August 7, 1942, buried at collective grave XXXIII, D, 23-26, at the El Alamein War Cemetery

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And so, this is the last of Ted Lurie’s five 1942 Palestine Post articles about Jewish soldiers from the Yishuv in North Africa. 

In future posts, I hope to present lists of the names of Jewish Brigade soldiers who received military awards, as well as men who were killed or wounded in action.

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THE FLYING FIFTH
By T.R. LURIE
The Jerusalem Post
May 12, 1942

This is the last of a series of five articles by The Palestine Post News Editor who has just returned from a tour of the camps of the Palestinians in Egypt and Libya.

THE Flying Fifth is the name that was given to the Fifth Water Tank Company of the R.A.S.C. during last November’s push across the wire into Libya.  They piloted, not planes, but heavy trucks containing water tanks, with such speed and precision across hundreds of miles of desert that they well earned their title.

Today “No. 5 Water Tank” are the farthest forward of all the nine Palestinian companies serving in Egypt and Libya.  Of these nine companies, five belong to the R.A.S.C., including two new companies formed only last week.  The two oldest R.A.S.C. Palestinian companies, No. 5 M.T. and No. 6 M.T., were both much larger than normal strength, and detachments of these companies have been spread too far afield, so that they now have been split up.  And so were born two daughter companies known as Q and W General Transport Companies.

I SAW “W” G.T. Company on the day of its formation.  The first new draft from Palestine was just arriving, and I found their youthful Commanding Officer busily engaged with his new men.  Another officer showed me round their new camp site, of which they were justly proud.  They have pitched or rather dug in their tents on the sea-shore, on dunes formed of sand and white limestone – just as white as the tents themselves.

The sand along the shore is really as white and fine as snow.  Indeed, from only a short distance away, the tents look like a winter sports’ camp in snow-covered hills, but only a few feet away is the blue Mediterranean warmly bathing the beautiful beach.  A swim in the sea is most welcome after a hard day’s driving of the long-nosed Chevs [Chevys], but the men have other recreations as well.

One of their officers is specially detailed to look after this side of the men’s life, and from what I could see in a short visit his good work is appreciated.  Apart from their canteen, they have two other tents in which to relax: one for games and other recreations and the other an “educational tent,” both large and roomy, and the latter with a special “reading-room” curtained off.

“W” G.T. company are off to a fine start.  The have a first-class group of young officer, and the men seem keen and more than pleased at being camped on so fine a site – no desert dust for them.  They are only a couple of miles away from 738 of the R.E.s, and there are already indications of the sappers and driver becoming fast friends.  The narrow roadway along the shore connecting the two camps they call the Johore causeway as it is usually flanked by waterpools on both sides.

Their football fields will, no doubt, shortly see really hot matches between the two companies. “W”, being new, needs football gear and other sport equipment.  Any Palestine club that has some of last season’s jerseys still on hand would be doing a good turn by sending them on to the Jewish Soldier’s Welfare Committee for “W” Company.

Speaking of sports, No. 6 M.T., which is “W’s” parent company, has a gymnasium rigged up in part of one of its large barrack sheds at its camp somewhere along the Canal.

BUT to get back to the desert, No. 5 Water Tank – the Flying Fifth – arrived in the desert in October, 1941, equipped with trucks that were real museum pieces, most of them having already done their hundred thousand miles.  This “fleet” got more than one laugh on its first appearance, but it soon earned the respect and admiration of all who met them.  In their first month as water carriers they only had short hauls, so that they returned to camp each night, but they learned the desert and how to drive across it.  When the push began, their first order was to carry water to a point which was, at the time the order was given, still in enemy hands.  They crossed the wire into Libya with 40 of their trucks.  The point to which they brought their tanks was over 200 miles from their camp, and that not on roads or tracks buy across bumpy desert.

The trucks had to make a long detour southwards to outflank the enemy positions along the wire and to reach the attacking forces.  Minefields and black desert nights did not prevent them from getting through.  From November 18 until Christmas the company transported half a million gallons of water, in these old derelict trucks.

They drove by day and by night.  Trucks broke down from time to time, and some had to be left with their drivers in the midst of the desert.  There was one case of a driver who stayed with his truck eleven days in the desert until help could reach him, but in no case did a driver leave his vehicle, and never was a broken-down vehicle abandoned.  Every one was brought in and repaired, and after doing eighteen thousand miles in two and a half months the company was given new vehicles.

DURING all this time they took their trucks back and forth with such clock-like precision, a Headquarters officer told me, that it was unnecessary to detail them each time.  They did the job almost automatically, under all conditions, and another officer remarked that they seemed to have solved the problem of perpetual motion.

Later they took their tanks off the lorries and were employed as a General Transport Company.  One of their convoys was in Benghazi attached to a division detailed to fight a rea-guard action.  This convoy got out of Benghazi only half an hour before the enemy arrived.  As a G.T. company the Flying Fifth transported defence materials during the withdrawal and were later employed in transport work at the new desert railhead.

Despite air attacks the company suffered no losses, and now they have moved forward again with bigger and more important jobs before them.  They are, like all Palestinian soldiers in the desert, in excellent spirits, and the kind of support they need from their people at home to keep up these spirits is more and more recruiting.  An increased flow of fresh men from home is what they are looking for.  They should not be let down.