Smoky Simon, a man who grabbed life by the wings

Harold “Smoky” Simon passed away this week in Herzliya just short of his 102nd birthday. He left a significant legacy as one of the founders and architects of the Israeli Air Force (IAF), as chairperson of World Machal for many years, a successful Israeli businessman, and a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.

Smoky and his wife, Myra, volunteered in 1948 to help support the fledgling state of Israel. With Smoky’s experience as a navigator in World War II, he became the first chief of operations for the IAF. Myra had served as a meteorologist in the South African Air Force, and she contributed her skills to the IAF in its early days. They arrived and enlisted just days before the outbreak of the War of Independence.

Smoky often recalled one of the first flights he made when the war broke out in May that year when he was tasked with flying a reconnaissance/bombing mission near the Syrian border. He held a 20 pound (9kg) bomb on his lap, and literally chucked it out of the two-man cockpit of the rickety Czechoslovakian-made Avia S-199 Messerschmidt.

Another story he loved to relate was how many of the first pilots in the air force were South African, and because there was no voice encryption in those early days, to hide communication between pilots and control towers from the enemy, they spoke in Afrikaans.

Smoky was born in Johannesburg and at the age of six months, his family moved to Bultfontein in what was then the Orange Free State. His high school days were spent in Winberg because his parents wanted him to be in a larger Jewish community. After matriculating, he moved to Johannesburg, where he studied for a Bachelor of Commerce and was articled to an accounting firm.

After he wrote his final exams and qualified as an accountant, World War II was raging, so he volunteered for the South African Air Force, and was trained locally and in Kenya. Later, he was seconded to the British Air Force in North Africa. He flew several missions as a navigator/bombardier, and ended his first tour of duty in Sicily after the Germans retreated. He returned on leave to South Africa, where met his future wife, Myra. He later served in other bomber squadrons based in Scotland and Ireland before moving back to an air force base in Durban, which is where the war ended for him in August 1945. He was demobilised later that year.

After the war, Smoky set up a small accounting firm in Johannesburg, and one of his first customers was his very good friend, Leon Zimmerman, who had set up an aviation company called Commercial Airlines (Comair).

Smoky recalled that there was tremendous camaraderie amongst Jewish ex-servicemen in Johannesburg and when war clouds loomed over Palestine, he and Myra – they had recently married – plus more than 800 South Africans volunteered to help the about-to-be established Jewish state of Israel. They were known as machalnikim – overseas volunteers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) – and they brought tremendous military experience to the many units they joined.

“South Africa contributed the highest number of machal volunteers per capita of the many Jewish communities who assisted in the War of Independence,” he would proudly say. These were men and women who had fought and survived five years fighting the Germans, yet they were willing to risk their lives again to support Israel. “We felt obligated to help our brethren,’” Smoky was quoted as saying.

His role in defending the nascent state of Israel in the skies was featured in Nancy Spielberg’s 2014 film titled Above and Beyond.

He and Myra returned to South Africa to “build up some financial assets” so that they could make aliya, which they later did in the mid-1960s with their four children, Saul, Dan, Philippa, and Aliza. They built their home in Herzliya Pituach just north of Tel Aviv. Their two sons also became fighter pilots in the IAF, following their father’s example.

Smoky built a successful insurance business in Israel, and was always involved in community affairs including as chairperson of World Machal, which preserved the story and legacy of machal. He was often the guest of the IDF new-soldier intake programme and other organisations like Telfed, where he would relay stories about machal in great detail and with an amazing recall even in his late nineties.

A book titled South Africa’s 800 was published, a large digital archive created online (www.machal.org.il), and an annual service is held at the machal memorial in Latrun.

Above all Smoky was a gentleman and a mensch, and as his children wrote, “The huge hole created by the loss and sorrow is also filled with admiration, respect, and gratitude towards him, the man who was as gracious, thankful, and selfless in his last few days, just as he was throughout his entire life.”                        יהי זכרו ברוך

• Dave Bloom is a personal and community historian and is chief executive of World Machal. He is a former chairperson of Telfed, and was a management executive at Reuters for 25 years.