צי הסוחר בישראלי

Israel Navy ships history since 1948

The origins of Israeli Navy lay at the end of 1920s with the founding of the Yarkon and Zvulun marine sports clubs. In 1938, encouraged by the Jewish agency, Dr. Shlomo Bardin founded the Marine High School in Bosmat, the Tecnions Junior Technical College. 1943 witnessed the founding of the Palyam, the naval branch of the Palmach, whose training was undertaken at the maritime school.
Jewish merchant marine started and they had the SS Tel-Aviv, and cargo ships such as the Atid.
In 1942 1,100 Haganah volunteers joined the Royal Navy, mostly in technical roles (12 of them were officers by the nomination agreement of the Jewish Agency with the Royal Navy). A few reached sea service and combat service. Two of them served with the Fleet Air Arm (FAA), one of which was Edmond Wilhelm Brillant. With the end of the Second World War, Palyam members took part in clandestine immigration activities, bringing Europe's Jews to Palestine, as well as commando actions against Royal Navy deportation ships. Royal Navy volunteers, meanwhile, rejoined the Hagana.
During the last months of British Mandate in Palestine, the former Royal Navy volunteers started working on the captured clandestine immigration ships (known as the Fleet of Shadows) in Haifa harbor, salvaged a few and pressed them into service. These were to become the Navy's first ships and saw service in the 1948 Israeli War of Indepedence.
With the founding of the IDF in early 1948, the Israeli Navy was therefore formed from a core of the following personnel:^[1][2]

• Royal Navy Volunteers with the technical skills and discipline acquired from the Royal Navy, though with no active sea service and experience on Royal Navy Ships.
• Palyam members who had led the clandestine and immigration effort, but had no sea background in navigation or leading a ship into a battle. The captains of clandestine and immigration ships were Greek and Italian, while Palyam personnel were commanding the ship under instructions from the Haganah. Ike Aharonowitch, captain of the Exodus and a Jew, was the exception rather than the rule.
• Merchant Marine captains and chief engineers, possessing navigation skills but lacking combat skills.
• Jewish volunteers^[3][4] from the US Navy and Royal Navy, such as Commander Paul Shulman ^[5] of the USN, and Commanders Solomon and Allen Burk of the Royal Navy. These, however, were often discriminated against and their experience wasted by a navy command that was based on the Palmach and its various branches. This resulted in odd situations where unskilled officers from the Palyam were in command of far more experienced naval officers.

To make matters worse, Palyam personnel often resisted efforts to instill order, discipline and rank in the newly formed service. Mess rooms were initially shared by both officers and enlisted men. Ships possessed a captain with nautical skills, but also a commanding officer regarded as political. This would cause a great deal of debate between veterans of the Palyam, Royal Navy volunteers from the Haganah and USN Machal volunteers about what form the Navy should take.^[1][2][6] Commander Allen Burk is reputed to have said, out of despair, "You cannot make naval officers from cowboys".^[2]
The Israeli Navy suffered from a lack of professional command during its early days.^[1] Gershon Zak, head of the IDF "Sea Service", was a teacher and bureaucrat without any relevant experience. Having never been recruited into the IDF, Zak was a civilian and had no official rank. The early days of the Israeli Navy were therefore characterized by political infighting, as many groups and individuals jockeyed for power. Palyam politics blocked the nomination of Paul Shulman (a USN Jewish Officer with a rank of Commander who volunteered to the Israeli Navy) as Navy-Commander in Chief and he resigned in 1949. The first Navy-Commander in Chief awarded the rank of Aluf was Shlomo Shamir.^[1]
The conclusion of the 1948 war afforded the navy the time to build up its strength. Beginning in the early 1950s the navy purchased Frigates, Torpedo Boats, Destroyers and eventually Submarines. The material build-up was accompanied by the training of Israeli Navy officers in Royal Navy academies in the UK and Malta, as well as in France.
Three distinct periods characterize the history of the Israeli Navy:

• Foundation and early days
• The destroyers' age
• The missile boats era, beginning in 1965 and bearing fruit during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.^[7][8]

Until 1967 the Naval Headquarters were located at Stella-Marris, on the slopes of Mount Carmel, Haifa. After the Six-Day War it was relocated to the Kirya in Tel Aviv, next to IDF Headquarters.