Within three hours the Jackson developed engine trouble and had to return to Newport News.
During the next two weeks Bill made three more attempts. The moment the old ship got far from her natural habitat, she rebelled and had to be taken back to port.
Bill told the Aliyah Bet people he had made a mistake. The Jackson simply could not make it. They urged him to check her over in dock for another week and make one last try.
On the fifth attempt the entire crew held its collective breath as the obsolete steamer chugged past Cape Henry into deep waters of the Atlantic-and continued to chug.
Twenty-two days later the Stonewall Jackson wheezed up the Gulf of Lions to the. French harbor of Toulon, which stood forty miles from Marseilles and only twenty miles from the big refugee camp of La Ciotat.
There had been a teamster strike in France, and the British CID who were watching La Ciotat relaxed for a moment, assuming that there would be no movement without trucks. Furthermore, there had been no reports of illegal ships coming from any European ports since the Gates of Zion, Dov’s ship, had landed at Port-de-Bouc several weeks earlier.
The British were caught napping.
They had no advance notice of the Jackson because she had been purchased and fitted in the United States and to date no Aliyah Bet ship had been large enough to navigate the Atlantic. When the Jackson was due to arrive at Toulon the Aliyah Bet went to the head of the French Teamsters’ Union and explained the situation. The Teamsters’ head secretly rounded up drivers and trucks and during the middle of their strike they rushed in and out of La Ciotat transport-ing sixty-five hundred refugees to Toulon-among them Dov Landau.
British CID discovered the secret at the last moment and descended upon Toulon. They passed out enormous bribes to port officials to delay the departure of the Jackson long enough for them to contact London for instructions.
Mossad Aliyah Bet men made counterbribes to the officials to get the ship on the seas, and the Jackson, now renamed the Promised Land, ran the blue and white Star of David to her mast top in open challenge.
Hasty meetings took place at the Admiralty, Chatham House, and Whitehall. The implications of the situation for British policy were clear, and it was obvious that the Promised Land had to be stopped at all costs. The British issued angry threats to the French. British warships waited outside Toulon. The French answered by granting permission to the Promised Land to sail.
The Promised Land set out from Toulon mid the cheers of the refugees aboard her. The instant she passed the three-mile zone she was escorted by two waiting British cruisers, the Apex and Dunston Hill.
For the next three and a half days Bill Fry steered the Promised Land straight for Palestine. Her long thin smokestack puffed and her engines groaned and her decks bulged, and her watchdog cruisers watched.
The Apex and Dunston Hill kept in constant radio contact with the Admiralty in London. As the Promised Land edged to within fifty miles of the Palestine coast, the British broke the rules of illegal blockade. The Apex came close to the steamer and sent a salvo over her ancient bows. The cruiser’s bull horns blasted and her loudspeaker sent a voice over the water: “Illegal ship! Stand by to be boarded!”
Bill Fry bit his cigar. He grabbed a megaphone and stepped onto the bridge. “We are on the high seas,” he shouted. “If you board us here it will be piracy!”
“Sorry, chaps, just following orders. Are you going to accept a boarding party peacefully?”
Bill turned to his Palmach chief who was standing behind him. “Let’s give these bastards a reception.”
The Promised Land turned on full steam in an attempt to sprint away from the cruisers. The Apex moved alongside her, then cut in sharply and her steel bow rammed the ancient steamer amidships. The blow splintered deep into the steamer’s hull over the water line and she shuddered under the impact. The Apex sent out machine-gun fire to drive the refugees off the deck and make it clear for a landing party.
British marines, wearing gas masks and carrying small
arms, poured over the bow of the Promised Land and moved back to the superstructure. Palmachniks unrolled accordions of barbed wire in the path of the British and then loosed a barrage of rocks on them, followed by streams of water from pressure hoses.
The British were swept back to the bow by the attack. They fought off the Palmach with small arms and called for reinforcements. More marines boarded, this time with wire cutters. Another attack mounted toward the superstructure. Again the water hoses pushed them back and again the British returned, under cover of machine-gun fire from the Apex. They reached the barbed wire and cut it in time to receive scalding steam jets from the Palmach. Now the Palmachniks jumped to the attack and drove the British back. They overpowered the marines and threw them into the sea, one by one.
The Apex stopped the attack to fish their men out of the water, and the Promised Land, a huge hole in her side, chugged off once again. The Dunston Hill chased her down and pondered the advisability of another ram. The steamer might well go down with one more blow. It was too dangerous to risk. Instead, the Dunston Hill poured on heavy-caliber machine-gun fire that raked the decks clean of refugees and Palmach. The Dunston Hill’s boarding party came up amidships on ladders. A wild hand-to-hand brawl followed. With flailing clubs and an occasional pistol shot, the British pressed the attack toward the ladder leading up to the captain’s bridge.
Meanwhile, the Apex recovered and raced to the scene again. The two cruisers boxed the steamship in. The Apex party boarded again behind a tear-gas barrage, and with the Dunston Hill marines pressing from the other direction the Palmach was driven back.
Dov Landau was in the fight. He and other refugees were guarding the top of the ladder near the captain’s bridge. They pushed the British down the ladder half a dozen times until the tear gas and, finally, small arms drove them off.
The British had control of the deck now. They reinforced their position and held the refugees and Palmach off at gunpoint while another party stormed into the wheelhouse to gain command of the ship.
Bill Fry and five of his crew greeted the first three men who entered the wheelhouse with pistols and angry fists. Although he was completely cut off, Bill continued fighting until British marines dragged him from the wheelhouse and beat him unconscious with clubs.
After four hours of fighting, with eight of their men dead
and a score wounded, the British gained control of the Promised Land. Fifteen Jews were killed, among them the American captain, Bill Fry.
A general order for secrecy was issued at Haifa harbor in Palestine as the Dunston Hill towed the Promised Land in. The old steamship was listing badly. The entire Haifa dock area was flooded with British troops. The Sixth Airborne Division was there and they were armed to the teeth. But in their attempt at maintaining the secrecy, the British did not know that the Jews had broadcast a full account of the boarding of the Promised Land over their radio.
As the ships approached Haifa Bay, the Jews in Palestine called a general strike. Troops and tanks were required in the dock area to form a barrier between the refugees and Palestine’s angry Jews.
Four British prison ships, Empire Monitor, Empire Renown, Empire Guardian, and the Magna Charta waited to effect an immediate transfer of the refugees from the Promised Land. But the very instant the Chesapeake Bay liner was towed into port, the harbor area and the entire city of Haifa shook under the impact of a mighty blast! The Empire Monitor was blown to pieces! This act was accomplished by Palmach frogmen who swam in and attached a magnetic mine to the ship’s sides.