This is a writeup I did for Carol Mann, our literary agent. I sat down at 10 in the morning and finished at 10 in the evening, just writing it straight through without referring to any other documents. I haven't edited it – it may have errors. But it has a kind of momentum. The idea is to write the story up as narrative nonfiction. A memoir and history that reads like a novel.


DESTINY

Based on a true story


Treatment by
Lorin Roche, Ph.D. and Camille Maurine



Noble Heart Media
(310) 821-0620
13900 Fiji Way #107
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
lorin@lorinroche.com




Genres: Drama, Thriller, History, War.

Tagline: When everything was saying no, they said yes.

Plot: A ragtag group of young pilots from around the world takes on the Arab Empire and wins.

Short Synopsis: Hollywood, early 1948. Lou Lenart, is 26 and retired from the Marines, where he was a fighter pilot. Now he is dating actresses. He hears the news – the UN is going to recognize Israel as of May 15, in 5 months. Also, the surrounding Arab nations say they are going to launch a “war of extermination” against the Jews. Lou’s heart aches and he decides he can’t stand idly by. The only thing he really knows is flying, so he buys an old cargo plane, under the guise of starting an airline, and flies first to New Jersey, then Italy, then Israel. Along the way he meets three other young fighter pilots, and together they form a brotherhood devoted to creating an air force for Israel. They are opposed by every nation on earth, for there is a worldwide embargo against weapons for Israel. They are hunted by the FBI, British agents, and Arab assassins. The pilots manage to smuggle four Nazi-surplus fighters from Czechoslovakia to Israel. They name their squadron the Angels of Death, in honor of the Angel in the Exodus story, that God sent to persuade the Egyptians to let the Jews go.

It is now May 29, 1948 and Arab armies are rampaging through the newborn State of Israel. The Egyptian army of 12,000 men is only 18 miles from Tel Aviv and about to conquer the city. There are only a few hundred Israeli troops to stop them, so the Egyptians are parked bumper-to-bumper at a bridge, their hundreds of armored cars, fuel trucks, and ammo trucks all in a line. Suddenly out of the late afternoon sun, four warplanes painted with the Star of David appear, bombing and strafing. This is the first combat mission of the Israel Air Force, led by Lou. It stuns the Egyptians into abandoning their attack on Tel Aviv. This first crucial victory gives Israel desperately-needed time to equip its soldiers and consolidate its defenses. This is a true story, as dictated by Lou Lenart, and validated by the official archives of the Israel Air Force. Lou’s wingman that day was Ezer Weizman, who later becomes head of the IAF and then President of Israel.


SYNOPSIS

Hollywood in 1948 is a boom town. The war is over and everyone is getting back to work and partying. Lou Lenart is lean and muscular at 26, and just got out of the Marine Corps, where he was one of the very few Jewish fighter pilots. Now he feels he is in heaven. He is dating gorgeous actresses. Lou has survived battles and crashes and is grateful every day, all day, just to be alive.

The UN announces that it is going to recognize the nation of Israel as of May 1948. The leaders of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Jordan announce that they are going to launch “a war of extermination” against the Jews and “finish the work Hitler began.” Israel is not a nation yet, so it has no army and no air force. The Arabs have been lavishly supplied with weapons by the British.

Lou’s heart is aching as he realizes the war is not over. He sees that the Nazi spirit is still alive and coming again, to murder those poor refugees trying to make a home in Israel. He is haunted by a vision of his grandmother, Rosa, who was killed at Auschwitz. Word came from someone who survived the camp that Rosa was one of the first to die, because she was 70 they took her right from the train, stripped her, and threw her in the ovens. But, the witness said, on the train to the camp, Rosa fed all the children. She had smuggled food in, and she cared for the children. Lou knows that some of the children survived the camps, and have made their way to Israel. He cannot stand the thought that these people, who have suffered so much, be denied a home.

Lou has a very simple code of honor: “No one has the right to bully another person. And if they do, they forfeit the right to life.” Lou was beaten up frequently, just for being Jewish, as a child growing up in a coal town in Pennsylvania. So he never picks a fight, but he never backs down if one comes at him. Fending off the bullies who would surround him and come at him from every direction, Lou developed an instinctive 360 degree awareness that would serve him the rest of his life, on the streets and in the skies. The Marines trained this to perfection and so now he is a poised martial-arts master, as relaxed as a cat and deadly as a lion. Lou decides to get a plane, get it to Israel, and fly in defense of the tiny country about to be born.

Everyone tries to talk him out of it – his friends, his sisters, his mother. “You already fought your war, Lou. You just had your fourth surgery to fix your legs, knees and face broken in that plane crash. Stay here. Get a life.” But Lou says, “I have to go. Some force I don’t understand is calling me. I don’t understand it but I can’t resist.”

Lou meets a mentor, Al Schwimmer, a flight engineer who just retired from TWA in order to focus on cobbling together some kind of air force for Israel. Together they buy an Army surplus C-46, a cargo plane. Then they part ways – Al will focus on getting more planes, and Lou will try to get other pilots.

On his way to Israel, Lou flies the C-46 to New Jersey, where he finds surprising allies in Meyer Lansky’s people – the Jewish mafia. They help in hiding and repainting the plane and readying it for the long flight over the Atlantic. The FBI is trying to prevent anything that could possibly be used as a weapon from going to Israel, even cargo planes, and they almost impound the C-46.

In Manhattan, the agents for Israel are staying in Hotel Fourteen, which also houses a fabulous nightclub, The Copacabana, where Desi Arnez, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, and Carmen Miranda are playing nightly. The dancers from the club live in the basement and mingle with Mossad agents. Lou is trying to find other pilots to come with him and fly for Israel. He even goes through the Manhattan phone book, looking for Jewish-sounding names and calling around, but everyone says no, sorry.

Finally, Lou meets Coly – Coleman Goldstein, who flew B-17’s during World War II, bombing Germany. He is a master aviator, so skilled that when German fighters shot out the engines of his bomber, he glided it to a perfect landing in a vinyard in France, and all his crew were saved. Coly is working as a flight instructor on a seaplane base on the Delaware river, and is restless, so he agrees to join the team.

Lou also meets Steve Schwartz, a short, skinny, happy Jewish kid from Brooklyn who has dark skin and looks like an Arab. Steve is 22, a jokester and chameleon, and their liaison with the Mossad.

Lou, Coly, and Steve go to Rome, which they use as a base while they round up some war-surplus planes the US Army left behind in Europe. As a cover story in Rome, they are posing as black marketeers dealing in cigarettes and alcohol, to camouflage their real mission, which is the black market in weapons of war, guns and warplanes. Steve hooks up with a stunning beauty, Carolina. She looks like Sophia Loren, and uses her looks to hide the fact that she is smart and street smart. Carolina is a great ally to the team because she knows everyone and can manipulate the local police with a smile and a little money. They all hide out in the open in Rome and meet every day in sidewalk cafes and restaurants, as they plan an air force for Israel. Rome in 1948 is full of furtive people – Jewish refugees trying to get to Israel, Nazis trying to get to Argentina, Communists trying to take over the country, and the British secret service trying to keep tabs on everyone and prevent any means of self-defense from getting to the Jews in Israel. There are also Arab agents looking to do the same thing – prevent supplies from getting to the Jews.

The team hears about a cargo ship full of Nazi-surplus guns destined for Syria. Sipping espresso and eating pasta, they discuss what to do about it. “We can’t let that ship get to Syria – those guns and bullets will be killing Israelis in a few weeks.” Lou and Coly drive down to a civilian air base, and posing as tourists, rent a Piper Cub and fly patrols over the Tyrrhenian Sea of southern Italy. Finally they spot the ship and note where it comes into port. They decide to sink the ship in port – just blow a hole in the side – and they manage to do so. Steve dresses up as an Italian customs officer and pompously marches into the port office with a clipboard and arranges for the the ship and its contents to be purchased at salvage – a nickel on the dollar – by the Mossad. As soon as he gets back from the mission, he celebrates with Carolina.

Another pilot shows up to join the team. He is Buzz Beurling, one of the greatest fighter aces of World War II. A Canadian, Buzz flew in the RAF and shot down many Germans and Italians, for Italy was an ally of the Nazis. Buzz turned down a fortune offered by Egypt to fly for them, and is instead going to fly for Israel. But when Buzz takes off from the airport in Rome, his plane bursts into flame, apparently sabotaged by Arabs and Italians, and he dies in the crash.

Al shows up with bad news. He can’t get good airplanes. The P-51 Mustangs he has been trying to buy from Mexico are sitting on the ground, while the Mexicans keep stalling, asking for more money, and stalling. The P-41’s from South Africa are held up, no exit permits. The worldwide search for fighter aircraft to protect Israel has come to nothing, for every country is honoring the arms embargo against Israel.

Then word comes of a possible deal – a factory in Czechoslovakia has some leftover Nazi airplane parts – the fuselages of Messerschmitt Me-109 fighters, the engines and propellers from Junkers bombers – and they have cobbled these together to sell for export. Al hates the idea of these “Frankenplanes.” None of them know how to fly or maintain German equipment. But the day of Israeli nationhood is coming near, and nothing else is available.

Lou and Coly fly two US Army spotter planes to Israel. These are called Norsemen, and they are single-propeller planes made of wood and cloth, capable of carrying 6 passengers. Although they are relatively slow, with a top speed of 100 mph, they can land almost anywhere. They are needed in Israel to deliver supplies and pick up the wounded from isolated settlements. Because no country will allow them to land for fuel they have to add extra fuel tanks and make a dangerous 11-hour flight over water, all the way across the Mediterranean from a small base in the south of Italy, to Tel Aviv. It is an insane mission, one Coly would ordinarily never undertake, because he knows that the odds are against them. Coly is a transport pilot – he believes in arriving THERE safely and not taking unnecessary chances. But he knows Israelis are dying for lack of medical supplies and medical evacuation, so he risks it.

Because the Egyptians rule the air over Israel with their British-supplied Spitfires, Lou and Coly will have to arrive after dark. They arrive at 9 pm over the coast of Israel, exhausted and almost out of fuel. Because of communication difficulties, no one is expecting them, and there are no lights at the dirt airfield they are supposed to use. They circle Tel Aviv for half an hour in the dark, looking for a place to land. Sima, an 18-year old Israeli woman, hears them. She has walked out of a party and is on the beach near the Park hotel in Tel Aviv and knows that it is significant that there are planes overhead. She goes inside the hotel and tells her sometimes-boyfriend, Ezer Weizman, who at 23 is one of the most experienced pilots in Israel. Ezer steps outside, hears the motors of the planes as they fly up and down the coast, and guesses what they are and that must be looking for a place to land. He jumps on his motorcycle, Sima jumps on behind him, and they race through the night to the nearby dirt airfield and light the oil cans that serve as runway markers. Lou and Coly spot the flames, and safely land. In the flickering torchlight they meet the flamboyant Ezer, who is tall and skinny, with blonde curly hair and blue eyes. Lou realizes he is meeting another member of the team. Sima smiles at Lou and he is instantly smitten.

Ezer immediately takes them to the wild party underway at the Park Hotel in Tel Aviv. Lou is so dazed with exhaustion that Sima takes him by the hand upstairs to her room, where he immediately falls asleep for 14 hours. Sima prays over him and prays for her city and country. At dawn, anxious people come and try to awaken Lou, but he is dead to the world. So they wake Coly up and have him fly an emergency mission in one of the Norsemen to drop medical supplies and food to an isolated farm and pick up a wounded Israeli.

The next evening, Sima and Lou walk through the streets of Tel Aviv and Lou has a mystical experience, feeling at home as he never has in his life. He has a taste of what called him on this crazy, against-all-odds adventure. His heart is filled with a strange love for this dusty little country.

Ezer comes to get Lou and they go to the bar of the Park Hotel, where he introduces Lou to two other pilots – Modi Alon, an extremely handsome 26-year old with large blue eyes and blonde hair; and Eddie Cohen, a quiet, sensitive, gentle 22-year old who came to Israel to volunteer on a kibbutz. Ezer, Modi and Eddie all have been trained in how to fly fighters, but they have never flown in combat. They look around at each other and realize that they are a squadron. Now they need planes to fly in Israel’s defense. The Egyptians are flying over Tel Aviv and Jerusalem every day in their fighters, strafing civilians and dropping bombs on houses and bus stations. Right now, they have absolutely nothing, nothing to stop the Egyptians from killing Israelis at will.

Finally, word comes that the Czech Messerschmitt deal is happening. The four pilots go to an air base in Budavice, Czechoslovakia, where they are given Nazi surplus flight uniforms to wear. They cut the swastikas off, and begin training in the strange planes. The Czech pilots call these planes “Mules,” because they would just as soon kick you to death as let you ride in them. The Messerschmitt Mules are regular Me-109 fighters, the most famous German fighters of WW II, but the factory that made their engines was destroyed by sabotage, so they have big Junkers bomber engines grafted onto them. These engines are too heavy and also underpowered for a fighter. Also, the bomber engines produce tremendous torque, or twisting action, so the planes are constantly wanting to twist out of control, especially on takeoff and landing. A pilot can be doing a perfect landing, but if he guns the engine to get a touch more speed, the plane can suddenly flip upside down. The mechanics quietly mention that the planes, because of cobbled-together gun systems, have a tendency to shoot off their own propellers. Coly arrives in one of the C-46’s, bringing some other pilot candidates but alas, no food.

Lou almost dies in his first solo flight, because when you are rolling on the ground before takeoff, the nose is pointed upward and you can’t see anything except the sky. The plane twists around 180 degrees and he winds up racing at a hundred miles an hour right between the hangars, then jumping into the sky and clipping the trees. The planes are so deadly that even veteran fighter pilots can barely handle them, so they give up on the idea of transport plane pilots being able to learn to fly the Mules. The Israel Air Force is going to remain just the four pilots for awhile.

The Soviets are in the process of taking over the country, so they are now behind the Iron Curtain. There is little to eat, and the food is horrible beyond belief – stinky sausages of mystery meat and even stinkier boiled cabbage. One day the farm girls who work in their hotel disappear and are replaced with good-looking women who speak English, act seductive toward the pilots, and are extremely curious about what the pilots are up to.

Now it is May 14th, and each pilot has several hours of training in the Messerschmitt Mules, out of the 70 hours planned. They sit around the radio and listen as Ben-Gurion announces the foundation of the state of Israel. They can hear explosions in the background as Arabs bombard the city. Lou, Eddie, Ezer and Modi look at each other and say, “We have to get back to Israel. Now.” Their Czech flight instructors try to talk them out of it, saying, “That is insane. You have barely begun your familiarization training. This plane will kill you.”

They decide to get back, but how? The Mules are short-range fighters with a maximum range of 400 miles. Israel is 1300 miles away. They can’t fly the planes in a series of hops because they would be impounded the first time they land for fuel. One of the American mechanics once heard about transporting a fighter inside of a cargo plane, and after trying all day, they finally figure out how to stuff the Mules into the C-46’s, of which they have several. They fly all day and land in Tel Aviv at night. The pilots are astonished to see concentration camp survivors run out of the darkness and begin to manhandle the Messerschmitts and parts out of the transport planes.

They manage to get four of the Messerschmitt Mules to the airbase near Tel Aviv by May 20th, where the process of re-assembling them begins. Two Czech mechanics have been persuaded to come do the work and train Israelis in how to maintain the planes, and they work in a hangar. Lou, Eddie, Modi and Ezer hide in a trench as Egyptian Spitfires fly over the airbase, strafing and bombing. One of the two hangars at the base is blown up, but not the one with the four Mules being assembled. Close up, the planes look as threatening as a Volkswagen Bug. They are rickety-looking, big mosquitoes. The fate of Israel is hanging on those?

The four pilots sit in a hut, and Lou says, “Now that we are an air force, we need to have an insignia and a name.” Lou had been in several squadrons in the Marine Corps, and they always had sassy names such as Bats, Green Lizards, Satan’s Kittens, Black Aces, Iron Angels, Hoot Owls, or Smokin’ Tigers. Modi proposes the name, “Scorpions.”

Lou says, “When was the last time we fought these guys? It was in Biblical times. God sent plagues of frogs and locusts to convince the Egyptians to let the Jews go in peace. It took ten plagues, but it was only the last plague, when God sent the Angel of Death to take their firstborn, that worked. So let’s call our squadron the Angels of Death. The pilots all agreed, that’s the name. And we will be the 101 Squadron of the Israel Air Force. A signpainter was fetched from a nearby village to paint the Star of David on the Nazi-surplus fighters, and also the logo of the Death Angels – angelic wings extending from a skull wearing aviator’s goggles.

Finally the four planes are assembled. But Egyptian Spitfires are ranging freely over all Israel, so they dare not take a test flight. Israel has these four secret fighters. The Egyptians have 45 new-model Spitfires at an airbase, El Arish. Lou knows that their best hope is to attack at dawn, and bomb and strafe the Spitfires when they are on the ground. That is the only way 4 planes have a chance against 45. It is now late in the afternoon, the planes are ready, and the pilots are making plans for the dawn raid. Lou is selected as the flight leader, since he is the only one who has flown in combat, and the only one who has trained in ground attack and dive bombing.

A jeep races up, and out jumps a commander of the southern front. He says, the entire Egyptian army of 12,000 men is stalled just ten miles south of here. Commandos managed to damage a crucial bridge and the Egyptians have tanks and armored cars, so they are parked on the other side of the bridge. Once they repair the bridge, they can take Tel Aviv in a day. We have nothing to stop them except for several hundred lightly-armed troops. You have to go now, attack them now. Or else there won’t be an Israel in a couple of days. Lou says, “Where are they?” The commander points south and says, “That way. You can’t miss them. It’s a whole division, clustered in a town.”

Lou and the other pilots look at each other, knowing what it means that they are throwing away their chance at the surprise raid on the Egyptian airfield. Lou says, “Ok, a plan is only as good as it is flexible,” and they prepare to take off immediately. Lou has flown hundreds of combat missions, this is his day job, but Ezer, Eddie and Modi haven’t, and as he looks at them he realizes they are terrified. He makes his face a mask of calmness and acts as if it is all normal.

The mechanics help the pilots step into the planes and strap in, then stand back and watch. Lou orders the hangar doors opened, and then, against all aviation practice, orders the engines started inside the hangars. They can’t risk being pushed by hand outside and being caught on the ground my marauding Egyptian Spitfires. All four planes start up, taxi out, and take off.

Almost immediately, they see the Egyptian army below them, thousands of troops and hundreds of vehicles parked bumper-to-bumper on a narrow road through a village. The Egyptians have been told that the Jews have no air force, and they see no signs of an army. They are confident and arrogant, looking forward to raping, pillaging and murdering an entire city of civilians.

This is what the Marines trained Lou to do – he attended the best dive-bombing school in the world. He leads the Angels of Death over the Egyptians, turns his plane upside down, and dives right for the heart of the army, releasing his bombs at the densest cluster of vehicles just near the bridge. Ezer, Modi, and Eddie follow, and they wreak terrible havoc on the Egyptians. Fuel trucks and ammo carriers create secondary explosions, and suddenly the narrow streets between adobe walls are traps. It is as if the Wrath of God is smiting them. Again and again the Angels of Death zoom overhead, strafing with cannon fire and machine guns. Each plane attacks from all four points of the compass, until their guns jam. The Egyptians are firing back, with rifles, machine guns and anti-aircraft artillery, and Ezer is horrified to see Eddie’s plane get hit and burst into flames.

Ezer lands, then Modi crash-lands, damaging his plane beyond repair. Then Lou lands. They all stand on the runway, looking sadly toward the south, as the sun sets, hoping against hope that Eddie will come straggling in. They are all struck with grief. In the first mission of the 101 squadron, they lost 25% of their pilots and 50% of their planes.

They have no idea of the success of their raid. From the air, they had no idea of the effect they caused. For all they know, they just hit a hornet’s nest and dozens of angry Spitfire pilots and armored cars are about to hit back. As the sun goes down, a darkness of spirit settles over the little airbase. They hear explosions and artillery shells for hours. The Egyptians may be annihilating the few defenders, and preparing for their assault on Tel Aviv with renewed ferocity.

That night, C-46’s start to come in from Czechoslovakia, carrying the other part of the weapons deal – rifles, machine guns, and ammo. The Israeli troops have mostly pistols, not even one per person, with which to hold off the well-equipped Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, and Iraquis. Things are looking up. The planes are unloaded in a hurry by an amazing collection of refugees from many countries in Europe, and the Mideast. They are speaking a dozen different languages as they grab boxes and crates and load them into waiting trucks. The guns are rushed off to the troops defending Tel Aviv, and the planes immediately take off for Czechoslovakia to pick up another load. These rifles and machine guns are incredibly important, for now the troops on the ground have at least a modicum of equipment with which to withstand the assault of an army.

Meanwhile, the few hundred troops facing the Egyptians are using the cover of darkness to conduct harassing attacks. They are using up their limited supply of ammo, and their sticks of construction dynamite, to simulate the activity of a much larger force. Some of these two hundred fighting for Israel are American veterans of World War II, soldiers who fought the Japanese in the islands and jungles of the Pacific, or the Germans in Europe. These veterans know what it is to look at the horizon and see it covered with thousands upon thousands of enemy troops. They know how to set traps, ambushes, deceptions, and create illusions.

Among them is a Navajo Indian, Tex Slade. Tex was in the US Army, and faced tremendous prejudice because of being a Navajo. The only person he met in the Army who he felt treated him with proper respect was an officer by the name of Grossman. Thus it was that Tex found out that there was such a thing a Jew. Tex took a vow to help Jews if ever the opportunity arose, and when he found out that they wanted a homeland, he came to help them. Each of the two hundred fighters preparing to sacrifice their lives that night to protect Tel Aviv that night had a story. A London-born Jew of Iraqui descent, Vidal Sassoon, was there in the desert. Others from Australia, the Belgian Congo, South Africa. They kept up the pressure, in spite of the apparent hopelessness of being outnumbered fifty to one.

At midnight, a motorcycle messenger races to the airbase. An encrypted radio message has been intercepted, from the commander of the Egyptian Army to headquarters back in Cairo: “We are under heavy air attack and cannot continue the advance on Tel Aviv. We are dispersing and digging in.”

In the morning, Ezer, Modi and Lou walk along the dirt landing strip. Ezer says, “At least for today, Israel is still here.”

With this crucial first victory, the whole tide of the war changes. Word flashes around the world, the Jews are holding their own. The Arab invasion has halted. Israel has proven that it can defend itself, and thus gains the respect of the other nations of the world and establishes its independence. More volunteers come to Israel, several thousand from dozens of countries. More Messerschmitt Mules come, and more pilots graduate from the training program in Czechoslovakia. Within a few weeks, the British pressure the Czechs to shut down the program, but the Israelis now have over twenty of Mules, although they are constantly crashing on takeoff or landing and killing their pilots.

Several days later, Lou is flying a lone patrol in the skies over Israel, and feels at peace with the force of destiny that pulled him to be at this spot, at this moment, and fulfill his destiny. He is satisfied that the refugees, himself included, now have a fighting chance to make a home for themselves in the world.

When he lands, Lou sees a young boy – maybe 12 or 13, who could have survived the death camps. The boy is running along the street, being a boy, and he smiles at Lou wearing his pilot’s uniform. Lou knows he has done what he can to protect the children.

Lou walks on the beach in Tel Aviv, and feels strangely at peace – an emotion he has hardly known in his life.




© 2006 Lorin Roche feel free to email me