Zionist Parachutists

Zionist Parachutists -  Between 1943 and 1945, the British army Special Operations Executive, in collaboration with the Jewish Agency, sent about 37 specially trained volunteer commandos, mainly  Kibbutz and Palmach members into German occupied Europe and Axis satellite states. The Jewish Agency   had requested organization of such a force beginning in 1942, but the British only consented to implement the plan in 1943.. The  Jewish Agency had envisioned hundreds of air-borne commandos, but the British trained only about 110 and ultimately only about 37 were parachuted into Europe or infiltrated by other means. By the time the British had approved the scheme and implemented it, it was too late to save most of European Jewry, which had been exterminated in the Holocaust.  Most of those selected for training had come on  Aliya (immigration to Palestine) from the countries they were infiltrating and had intimate knowledge of the area.

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