Friday morning in Jerusalem - visiting the Latrun Armored Corps Museum

On Friday morning, our day began at the Latrun Armored Corps Museum.  This is a military museum featuring the history of Israel's Armored Corps, or tanks.  Israel's Armored Corps plays an important role in the country's history, as one might easily expect with a country that had its War of Independence in 1948, major wars in 1956, 1967, and 1973, and numerous minor wars since then.

In 1948, as the War of Independence was about to begin, Golda Meir (who later became Prime Minister) came to the Jewish community of the United States asking American Jews to contribute money to enable the nascent state to purchase arms and ammunition for the inevitable war which was about to start.  She hoped for $5,000,000 and came back with ten times that much.   That enabled Israel to purchase tanks from other countries.

One of these was the Hotchkiss, from France.  This was not one of the best purchases.  Of the ten that were bought, five never worked.   The others failed one at a time.   The broken tanks were loaded onto flatbed trucks, so that their cannons could still be used as mobile weapons!




Eventually, Israel began making its own tanks.   Their line of Merkava ("Chariot") tanks is considered among the best in the world.  There is a Merkava Mark IV, the top of the line, in the museum.

Ron imagines himself commander of a Merkava Mark IV

Note the "episcopes" which are
similar to periscopes in that they use mirrors
to protect the watcher from danger
but do not rotate 

We also saw the Wall of Remembrance, which lists every member of the Armored Corps who gave their life for their country.  Our guide pointed out the name of Jonathan Netanyahu, older brother of the current Prime Minister, who led the raid at Entebbe which freed dozens of hostages from their Palestinian kidnappers.   Jonathan Netanyahu was the only casualty in an otherwise spectacularly successful operation.

Jonathan Netanyahu's name
is on the third row

 











Finally, our guide Asaf pointed out the location where he was sworn in when he became a member of the Israel Defense Forces.  Here he is beneath his flag:


The museum is on the site of the old Latrun Police Station.   This was built by the British during the British Mandate, and was occupied by the Jordanians at the start of the War of Independence.   The IDF made five separate efforts to dislodge the Jordanian army from this location, but were repulsed each time.   It was a strategic location because it overlooked the main road to Jerusalem coming from the north or from Tel Aviv.  The Israeli's ultimately built a bypass road to enable access to Jerusalem.   It was called the "Burma Road" because it was reminiscent of the "Burma Road" that the Allies used in World War 2 to bring supplies from British India to the friendly forces in China which were fighting the Japanese.  The  plaque below is difficult to read, but tells the story of the Latrun Police Station.