This British Soldier Was Lucky in 1946

As I dealt with the King David operation previously (which means lower down on this blog page), I thought this reminisce was relevant:-

So I went to the Arab part of Jaffa and booked into a wee small hotel and then phoned my wife to be and told her where I was and told her that the wedding was at 11.00 am the next morning at the District Commissioner's office.

So the wedding went off alright I had a lovely armed guard surrounding the Commissioner's Office, the Ghurkha Rifles, so I was quite safe in there.

After the wedding we had a quick reception with her foster parents. I asked them where was a safe place to go and they said because of the troubles they thought the King David Hotel in Jerusalem would be a very safe place because it was owned by American Jews and they didn't think the terrorists would touch it.

We made our way to the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and when I got there the first two floors had been taken over by the Army as Headquarters but the rest of the hotel was a hotel. So I booked in, the wedding was on the 10 July 1946 and I booked into the King David Hotel on 10 July 1946

now I had told my CO Major Crabtree where I would be if he needed me, he had a good idea what I intended doing, and he said if there was anything urgent that cropped up he would phone me and if he phoned me, come back immediately.

Well on the 13 July he phoned me and said I was down for an urgent duty and that I would have to come back immediately, so I arranged to be checked out, I went back to Egypt and my wife who had now been demobbed and was living and working in Tel Aviv went back there.

About a week later the hotel was blown sky high by Jewish terrorists and there were 91 people killed so in actual fact that phone call probably saved both our lives. The most amazing thing I find hard to understand was the leader of the gang that blew up the King David Hotel was called BEGIN who later became the first Prime Minister of Israel, so it makes you think.