Earlier Intentions To Attack The Ship and IDF Disobedience
According to Shlomo Nakdimon's book, "Altalena", Ben-Gurion instructed the Israeli Air Force to sink the ship on the high sea, long before it approached Israeli shores. This would have resulted in much greater loss of life aboard. Gordon Levett, a Mahal volunteer pilot, wrote in his book Flying Under Two Flags that Heiman Shamir, Deputy Commander of the Air Force, tried to convince non-Jewish pilot volunteers to attack the ship. However, three pilots refused to participate in the mission, one of them saying, "You can kiss my foot. I did not lose four friends and fly 10,000 miles in order to bomb Jews."
The option of an aerial strike against the ship was then scratched, and the IDF opted to use Artillery. The first gunner ordered to fire on the ship, Yosef Aksen, refused, saying he was willing to be executed for insubordination and this would be "the best thing he did in his life." The next gunner, Hillel Dalesky, at first protested, but then relented and fired on the ship, igniting it.
Read more about this topic: Altalena Affair
Famous quotes containing the words earlier, intentions, attack, ship and/or disobedience:
“The very locusts and crickets of a summer day are but later or earlier glosses on the Dherma Sastra of the Hindoos, a continuation of the sacred code.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... if we look around us in social life and note down who are the faithful wives, the most patient and careful mothers, the most exemplary housekeepers, the model sisters, the wisest philanthropists, and the women of the most social influence, we will have to admit that most frequently they are women of cultivated minds, without which even warm hearts and good intentions are but partial influences.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched seabeams glitter in the dark near the Tennhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.”
—David Webb Peoples, U.S. screenwriter, and Ridley Scott. Roy Batty, Blade Runner, final words before dying—as an android he had a built-in life span that expired (1982)
“And he was lost among the waves,
His ship rolled helpless in the sea,
The fourth month of his voyage
He shouted grievously
“Beloved, do not think of me.””
—Alun Lewis (1915–1944)
“Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)