Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

September 5, 2019

The Unruly Czech Airplane That Helped Israel Win Its Independence

The mere sight of it terrified the invaders and roused the spirits of the outnumbered defenders.

Near the end of World War II, Czechoslovakia’s Avia Company retooled one of its factories to produce Messerschmitts for the Luftwaffe. Avia kept making fighter planes after the war ended, but, having lost access to the German-made engines, had to redesign the aircraft with different parts, creating the S-199, an awkward hybrid used by the Czech air force. In 1948, with war on the horizon, the Haganah—unable to buy arms from the U.S., Britain, or the Soviet Union—became the only other military to purchase the S-199. Robert Gandt writes:

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