Cherbourg Project
 |
The Boats of Cherbourg (Template:Lang-he) was an Israeli military operation took plase at Christmas eve in 1969 involving the escape of five class 3 missile boats from the the Cherbourg harbor France. The boats had been paid for by the Israeli government but had not been delivered due to the French arms embargo in 1969. The whole operation was planned by the Israeli-Navy. Operation code name was "Operation-Noa" after the name the daughter of Captain Binyamin(Bini) Telem.[1]
Background
The Israeli Naval brass came to the conclusion by the early 1960 that the age of old WW2 destroyers, frigates and corvettes is ending and new platforms are needed. An early survey was made and a German shipyard of Lürssen brothers was recommended. The shipyard was asked to design a new generation of small missile boat platform and to modify the suggested wooden Jaguar class torpedo boats according to Israeli Navy requirements. However, due to Arab League pressure on the German government, this plan was not continued and a new avenue was found. The Israeli navy survey located the Cherbourg shipyards of Félix Amiot as the one that will build the boats based upon the German planning and design. Boats's and engines were German construction was French.Project received the code name "Fall" (Autumn).
Navy mission crews were sent to France in early 1965. The technical team was headed by Commander Haim Schachal[1]. The administrative and team seamanship was headed by captain Binyamin (Bini) Telem (later on Rear Admiral and navy commander in chief in Yom Kippur war).
This time was near the end of the "golden age" between Israel and France. After the Six Days War the relations between Israel and France started to chill. The French president Charles De Gaulle limited the weapons export to Israel.In 1968 Israeli paratroopers commanded by Colonel Raphael Eitan (Raful, who became later on the IDF chief of staff with a rank of Lt. General), raid on the Beirut air port during their war against the PLO terror activities. As a result the French president Charles De Gaulle ordered a weapons embargo for any contract with Israel even those that were ordered and paid by a contract.
With his moratorium declaration Charles De Gaulle cancelled the export license to Israel. However, he was afraid to cancel working license of the shipyards due to recession and unemployment riots that started in Paris. The French president did not want to escalate the situation by adding additional unemployment and feared the public opinion and the spread of the riots throughout France.
The resignation of Charles De Gaulle and the election of Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou to be the president of France gave some hope to the Israelis. Israeli Government assumed that Pompidou's close relation with the Rothschild family would cancel the embargo. They found out this was not to happen.
The French government faced an odd situation. In one hand they ordered a weapons embargo for Israel , on the other hand they continued in construction of the boats according to plan while Israeli navy mission is in Cherbourg and control the project and Israeli crews are on board of completed boats and the whole project was completely paid by Israel.
The loss of the destroyer INS Eilat in October 1967 and the loss of the submarine INS Dakar in 1968, as well as the aging of the Israeli navy fleet, led to the conclusion that the boats has to be taken from France by deception.
The Operation
The plot to take the boats was formulated by the retired Rear Admiral Mordechai 'Mokka' Limon, formerly of the Israeli Navy commander in chief , who was the head of the Israel Defence Forces mission in Paris, France.Limon's affiliation with the Rothschild family provided him a lot of connections in France with the French government and Europe as well.
During that period several events worked in favor of the Israelis. In 1967 boat number 7 INS Mivtach (Haven) ,of the overall 12 boats that were ordered, was completed and launched. A telecom from Israeli navy command informed that soon the embargo is going to escalate and the ship has to sale immediately to Haifa during its see trials skipping any French protocol of port exiting. This created a rage by the French that odered the Israeli navy and the other boats to leave the French navy harbor and harbor at the commercial port which has no guard at all.
The boats were transferred to a front company called Starboat registered in Panama. This company was a Norwegian company for oil drills. Limon's idea, aided by his connections with Milla Brenner, a retired naval commander, the owner of the "Maritime Fruit Carriers" company for fruits freight ships in Israel with Martin Siem from Norway. The front company people were Mossad members lead by Benyamin Vered one of the highest ranking commanders of the Mossad.
The front company was interested on the boats as survey ships for oil search , and the boats specifications remarkably met their needs. Mokka had a "tough negotiations " with Starboat. The terms were that the boats will be transferred to Starboat and the crew will members be from the Israeli Navy due to their experience with the boats. The boats were sold and transferred legally by the government of Israel to the front company with the approval of Michel Debré, the French minister of defence. This was the first part of the deception plan.
The next stage of the operation was misleading by a day to day routine. The Israelis maintained a routine of short voyages into the Atlantic to the north direction.Prior to the operation the Israeli crews were reinforced. Small groups of officers, ratings and sailors began to arrive to different destinations in France as tourists. The crews started to buy fresh and dry supplies from local grocery stores in small quantities each time in order to prevent the exposure of their plot.They purchased food in local stores in small groups to avoid attention, since Cherbourg was a small town and the men were known there
Prior the escape the boats had to be fuelled with large amount of fuel. This operation would immediately expose that a long voyage is planned. This was solved by Commander Rinat head of operations who ordered gradual fueling of the boats using a small 5 tons tanker track. This way the boats were fully loaded and ready at Christmas eve.
Since the sudden engine noise during night time of the escape would alert the French, the commander of the operation Captain Hadar Kimhi ordered often start the boats' engines at nights, causing the inhabitants of Cherbourg to become accustomed to the noise. The local police came due to complaints of inhabitants and they were explained that the shore electrical supply is not enough to warm the ship during the cold days of December. The boats received an authorization from the electrical company and police to operate engines at night. The noise was loud as 20 Maybach main engines were running.
Meanwhile ZIM navigation company Europe Lines were approached to help in providing fuel, once the boats had left Cherbourg. Help to the Navy was provided by Edmond Wilhelm Brillant, a retired navy officer and a naval architect . He designed MV Lea [2] to provide fuel at the Gibraltar and MV Natanya as a backup in the Bay of Biscay (both general cargo ships that were available at that time ). The main difficulty of this stage was the conversion of MV Lea to a fueling ship. This was solved by conversion of the ballast tank in the ship's bow into a fuel tank. The pumps system was converted to operate as both fire fighting and fueling pump. Special hoses with high bouncy were used and a fueling drill was made prior sailing to the rendezvous point near the Gibraltar. According to international maritime MV Lea could not sail since safety regulation ban to have fuel in the ship's bow since that in an accident fuel vapor might cause an explosion. This issue was solved by Brillant with the aid of Kirstine shipyards and Lloyd's Register surveyor . The overall conversion and drill took 12 hours. Other division in Zim provided the Dan a Ro-Ro ship sister of MV Nili [3] that provided fuel near Crete. In this case tanker trailers were loaded in the ship's garage. Zim ships saild with additional crew of the Israeli navy.
During fueling by MV Lea at the Gibraltar one of the Israeli navy crew members mistakenly provided water to INS Hetz (Arrow). This was a problem as they feared the water were sea water with salt that could not be drained and might damage the engines. This was solved by Commander Rinat by asking the crew to taste the fuel and indicate if it I salty or not. It was found that water could be drained contamination was not of sea water.
The weather at theescape day was a storm at the degree of 9 according Beaufort scale and after the report of the BBC about some storm relax it was decided to leave port as it was a go or not-go at all. Under cover of darkness between the 24th to the 25th of December Captain Hadar Kimhi gave the order to sail at 2AM.
The French did not notice the escape and this was found out by a reporter who used to come to the port and saw that all the boats are missing. He immediately reported it to the BBC almost 12 hours after escape and the French learned about it from BBC news.
French outraged and the French minister of defense Michel Debré ordered the French chief of staff to order and air strike and sank the boats. French chief of staff refused to obey and replied hew would resign rather obeying such an order. The French prime minister Jacques Chaban-Delmas cancelled the order and prevented further escalation. Although the French government was furious, they realized that there was little they could do, since the boats were already on the high seas when they found out. French Foreign Minister Maurice Schumann warned that if the boats showed up in Israel, "the consequences will be very grave indeed".
The voyage of 3,145 nautical miles started at the English Channel and was ended at the Kishon Shipyard port [4] in Haifa bay in December the 31st
When the boats approached the Israeli coast, they were given an escort of Israeli Air Force Fighter planes. The boats were met with public jubilation when they arrived in Israel.
Navy commander in chief during the operation was Rear Admiral Avraham Botzer (Cheetah). The commanding officer of the operation was Captain Hadar Kimhi, with Commander Ezra Kedm Krishinski, nicknamed Karish (Shark) as his deputy (later on Commodore and commander of the Red Sea theater ). The boats were:
- INS Suffa (Storm), skipper Lt. Ronna Arie
- INS Ga'ash (Volcano), skipper Lt. Gil Koren
- INS Herev (Sword), skipper Lt. Commander Gaddi Ben Zeev
- INS Hanit (Spear), skipper Lt. Commander Haim Shaked
- INS Hetz (Arrow), skipper Commander Moshe Tabak
Two young officers in the operation whom later on became the navy commanders in chief were Alex - Tal and Michael – Ram.
The boats' names while being operated by the oil drilling company were Starboat 1,2,3,4,5. The boats would join the fleet of already acquired INS Sa'ar to form the Sa'ar 3-class missile boats.
The French government ordered the deportation of Mordechai Mokka Limon from France and considered him as “persona non grata “. It was said then that the French president stated “Ido no like tea with Lemon and Mokka coffee”.
The Cherbourg affair together with the Mossad activity of stealing the Mirage 3 plans, which were used as a baseline for the design of IAF Kfir by the IAI were the last accord of French Israeli cooperation and a beginning of new era. The era of Israeli American arms supplies and support. IAF began to be equipped by US aircrafts. US Navy started to train the Israeli Navy high command and having naval cooperation.
Missile Boats Flotilla
The boats of Cherbourg were unarmed platforms when arrived Israel. They were absorbed in the navy and loaded with Gabriel missiles and ECM and EW systems of MABAT and RFAEL[5]. Absorption in the navy was commanded by Commodore Yehoshua Lahave Schneidemesser ( who was also in his past a volunteer from Hagana to the Royal Navy during WW2) head of Navy – Equipment and Platforms. Flotilla buildup was done by captain Hadar Kimhi that was promoted later on to Commodore commanding the Naval base of Haifa . New concepts of sea missile warfare was developed by the navy and new ECM/EW techniques were developed with the leadership of Captain Herut Zemach[6] who was awarded for his efforts with the Israel Defense Prize. New generation of missile boats. All was developed in Haifa Shipyards under the leadership of Haim Schachal, that time chief engineer of the Israel Shipyards[7]. Two boats were launched few months before Yom Kippur War, INS Reshef (Flame, Spark) ) and INS Keshet (Bow) Sa'ar 4 class missile boat. For his leadership Schachal was awarded with the Israel Defense Prize. Israeli Navy had won the sea battles with Egyptian and Syrian navies with zero casualties and losses all of these placed the Israeli Navy as a world pioneer in modern sea missile warfare which bear fruits in the Yom Kippur war in 1973.
Videos and Recordings
References
Retrofits for Noa Operation
-
Manifold filter distributing 5 outlets to fuel 5 missile boats installed in MV Lea
-
Fueling system of MV Lea -
Backup ship MV Natanya
-
Internal message sent by ZIM Chief Operation Officer Mr. Hovars notifying about the letter of Rear Admiral Avraham Botzer warding ZIM for its contribution on operation Noa -
The letter of Awards from Rear Admiral Avraham Botzer to Zim Navigation Company Chief Engineer Alexander Zviren and Naval Architect Edmond Wilhelm Brillant -
Escape route of Cherbourg boats to Israel
- Articles needing cleanup from April 2010
- Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field from April 2010
- Wikipedia pages needing cleanup from April 2010
- Conflicts in 1969
- Operations involving Israeli special forces
- 1969 in France
- 1969 in Israel
- 1969 in international relations
- Israeli Navy
- Missile boats of the Israeli Navy
- Naval operations and battles