American pilot
Chalmers “Slick”
Goodlin, who was
the corporate test
pilot for the Bell
X-1, volunteered to
fl y for Israel during
the 1948 war.bridge would be repaired and the Egyptians would
be in the city.
The existence of the Czech-built fighters at the
Ekron airfield was a closely held secret. The newly
assembled S-199s had not been test flown. The guns
had never been fired. None of the radios worked.
But if the Egyptian army was not stopped, none of
these concerns would matter.
Four S-199 pilots took off an hour before dark.
Lenart, who led the four-ship flight, had never flown
in Israel before. Where was Ashdod? he wondered.
All the villages along the coast looked alike. Seconds
later, it became stunningly clear. A column of enemy
trucks and armor stretched for more than a mile
south of the bridge at Ashdod.
“We started coming down, and right away thewhole place erupted,” said Lenart to Leonard Slater,
author of The Pledge, a book published in 1970. One
after the other, the pilots dove on the enemy column.
Each dropped his pair of bombs, then swept back
down to strafe. After only a few rounds, though,
the wing-mounted cannon on each fighter jammed.
The mission ended in calamity. The number four
S-199, flown by South African Eddie Cohen, was
shot down in flames. Israeli pilot Mordechai “Modi”
Alon, flying the number two aircraft, swerved off
the runway at Ekron in what would be the first of
many S-199 gear-demolishing ground loops.
Darkness fell, and a mood of despair swept over
the little band of airmen. They had inflicted little
real damage on the enemy, leading them to question
the value of their efforts. An hour later, they had
an answer. Israeli monitors had intercepted a radio
message from the Egyptian commander at Ashdod.
StunnedbytheappearanceofIsraelifighters,the
Egyptianswerehaltingtheiradvance.TelAvivhad
beensaved—forthemoment.
Atdawnthenextday,thetworemainingS-199s,
flownbyWeizmanandAmericanvolunteerMilt
Rubenfeld,attackeda Jordanian-Iraqiarmored
columninthenorthofIsrael.Rubenfeld’sfighter
washitbygroundfire.Hebarelymadeit tothe
Mediterraneanshorebeforebailingoutat lowalti-
tude.Thoughseriouslyinjured,hesurvived.
It wasaninauspiciousdebutfortheCzechKnife.
Inthefirsttwomissions,twofightershadbeenlost
andoneseverelydamaged.Ofthefirstfivepilots,
onewasdeadandanothertooinjuredtoflyagain.
Butthesecretwasout:Israelhadanairforce.ToA German pilot fl ies
his Bf 109 over the
Mediterranean in- With almost
34,000 produced, the
109 was the
foundation of the
Luftwaff e’s fi ghter
force.
September 2019 AIR&SPACE 59TOP: MITCHELL FLINT COLLECTION; BOTTOM: NASM (SI-73-1989)