The Jewish settlers’ air arm started inauspiciously as the Sherut Avir, or Air Service, on November 10, 1947, and then transitioned into the Heyl Ha’Avir, or Israeli Air Force, on May 26, 1948, 12 days after the creation of the state of Israel and the beginning of its War of Independence. The author describes how the feisty little air force scraped together an eclectic fleet of airplanes that ironically included the Avia S-199, the Czechoslovakian version of Germany’s Messerschmitt Me-109G. In those early days, many of the pilots were combat-hardened foreign volunteers.
The book offers extensive details of the IAF’s role in Israel’s consequential conventional wars, providing a blow-by-blow account of the preemptive airstrikes against Egyptian air bases in June 1967 that cemented victory in what came to be known as the Six-Day War. The concluding chapter describes the harrowing tale of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Israel was caught off guard but successfully snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Packed with incredible archival photos, color profiles of key aircraft and renderings of unit insignia, this history of the IAF’s first quarter century is highly recommended.
Philip Handleman
75 YEARS OF THE ISRAELI AIR FORCE
Volume 1: The First Quarter Century 1948-73
by Bill Norton, Helion & Company Ltd., 2020, $29.95.
Retired U.S. Air Force officer Bill Norton has spent years researching and writing about the history of the Israeli Air
