In the late 1940s, as the third decade of British Mandate over Palestine was drawing to a close, many within and outside of Britain were calling to end the Mandate. They were led by opposition leader Winston Churchill, who denounced Britain's costly occupation of Palestine for no economic benefit. Trying to maintain control and civil order, the British enacted the Defence Emergency Regulations in September 1945. These regulations suspended Habeas Corpus and established military courts. They prescribed the death penalty for various offences, including carrying weapons or ammunition illegally and membership in an organization whose members commit these offenses.
May 4th, 1947 saw the Acre Prison break: Etsel (אצ"ל) had engineered a mass escape from Acre Prison, with the aim of freeing 41 Etsel and Lehi prisoners. Some 28 Jews and almost 200 Arabs managed to escape. Nine Jewish fighters were killed. Among the attacking party, three were killed and five were captured. While two of those arrested, Amnon Michaelov and Nachman Zitterbaum, were minors, and thus too young to be executed under British law, the other three, Avshalom Haviv, Yaakov Weiss and Meir Nakar, were not. The Etsel High Command had no doubt that they would be tried and convicted of capital offences, and immediately set out to find British hostages. All of the arrested militants refused to accept British judicial authority. They were tried by a military court and Haviv, Weiss, and Nakar were sentenced to death
The Kidnapping: Several weeks earlier, Etsel had learned about a Jewish refugee from Vienna named Aaron Weinberg, who had fled to Palestine and was working as a clerk at a British military resort camp in north Netanya. This information was already known to the local SHAI (ש"י) (the intelligence arm of the Hagenah) commander, Yehoshua Bar-Ziv. Weinberg, who was a SHAI agent, was entrusted by Bar-Ziv with striking up a relationship with two sergeants from the British Army Intelligence Corps, Clifford Martin, and Mervyn Paice, who used to spend a lot of time in the camp. The sergeants were of interest to SHAI since they were military intelligence the field security unit and worked at the Tulkarm police, which was in charge of the Sharon district. Their mission was to circulate within the local population and pick up information on the Etsel and Lehi and their supporters. They often operated in civilian clothes and were not subject to standing orders intended to prevent abduction attempts. Weinberg was very successful in his task, and occasionally got the sergeants to go out to the Netanya beach. On one of those visits, on the night of Saturday, 4 July, they were noted by an Etsel member sitting in the Gan Vered café who heard them speaking English and who followed them back to the camp. Based on his information, a week later Etsel made arrangements to kidnap them in the hope that they would return to the café.
The abduction operation was led by Benjamin Kaplan. ON 11 July 1947 Weinberg and the intended victims showed up once more at the café. Martin and Paice were in civilian clothes, were unarmed, were outside their camp at hours typically forbidden for British soldiers to be outside camp and were not part of a group of four. Being informed that his intended victims were there, Kaplan posted his men around the coffee shop and along the road leading north to the camp and waited for an opportunity to perform the abduction. Weinberg and the two sergeants did not leave the coffee shop until after midnight. The two sergeants had decided to walk Weinberg home before returning to camp. The abduction car, with Kaplan and three others inside, started after them. It pulled over and the four men emerged, masked, and holding guns, and assaulted their targets. After resistance by one of the sergeants, they were forced into the car and drove off. Later Weinberg was released.
The hostages were taken to the inactive "Feldman" diamond polishing factory in the industrial area on the south side of Netanya and were held in a specially-built underground chamber that had been built in the factory's cellar.
The Hangings
Execution of Haviv, Weiss and Nakar on 29 July 1947, at the break of dawn, Haviv, Weiss and Nakar were executed. Between 4:00 and 5:00, each man was escorted the gallows and hanged. As they approached the gallows, they sang Hatikvah and were joined by other Jewish prisoners. The bodies were left hanging from the gallows for twenty minutes before being cut down and carried away. Haviv, Weiss, and Nakar thereby became the last of the group known as the Olei Hagardom. (The going to the gallows). When news began leaking that the three men were executed the sergeant's fate was decided as well.
Execution of Paice and Martin. With the British and Hagenah on high alert the Etsel decided that the sergeants will be hanged inside the Factory since attempting to move the two alive would be too great a risk. Since the hangings were meant as a 'lesson for all to see', (Etsel wanted the bodies hung up in public) the bodies were to be moved later to an orange grove and hung there.
around 6:00 PM, Paice and Martin were individually taken out of the hatch and hanged.
The next day, early in the morning of 30 July, 1947 a taxi brought from Tel Aviv, so as not to be recognized, arrived at the Factory. They drove east to a eucalyptus grove near the village of Even Yehuda, about four km from Netanya. They hung the bodies from two adjacent trees and pinned notes to them which read:
Two British spies held in underground captivity since July 12 have been tried after the completion of the investigations of their "criminal anti-Hebrew activities" on the following charges:
-
Illegal entry into the Hebrew homeland.
-
Membership of a British criminal terrorist organization known as the Army of Occupation which was responsible for the torture, murder, deportation, and denying the Hebrew people the right to live.
-
Illegal possession of arms.
-
Anti-Jewish spying in civilian clothes.
-
Premeditated hostile designs against the underground.
Found guilty of these charges they have been sentenced to hang and their appeal for clemency dismissed. This is not a reprisal for the execution of three Jews but a "routine judicial fact."
An anti-personnel mine was then set. Most accounts say that this was buried below the bodies, where it would have targeted anyone cutting them down.
-TO THE CACHE:
- It is rumored that some of the sergeants belongings were hanged just nearby...
- From the entrance, head west till the entrance to the playground to your left
- Search on the North side of the path for a tree 612 (silver)
- From tree 612 head north till path junction near 3/14.
- Including 3/14 head east till 5th green.
- from 5th green Head south till the end of asphalt.
- Now head 30 - 34 steps south east, you will arrive near to a tree with a red ribbon [close to a wall].
- Head 29 - 33 steps south from tree with red ribbon.
- To the east above a wall you will see a blue num 15. On floor a black and purple plastic pipe.
- Above you... hanged.... you will see the cache
release the rope in a way so that it will stay on the branch when retrieving the cache