top of page

Compagnia ebraica RASC650 dal sito www.jwmww2.org

Company 650, 650 General Transport Coy. R.A.S.C. Was the last Hebrew transport company to be established in the fall of 1942. Its commander was a British Jew named Major Charkham, and his deputy was Shmuel Ne'eman (who was also the Hagana commander) who replaced him in April 1944.

 

The unit was parked in Palestine and carried convoys from Haifa to Iraq. In these convoys, emissaries of Mossad L'Aliya Bet, Haganah and Hehalutz were smuggled to Iraq, as well as a wireless transmitter to Enzo Sereni, who served as Mossad emissary from Baghdad and served the pioneering underground in Iraq until the War of Independence. On their way back to Palestine, the company convoys smuggled immigrants from Iraq, most of them Jewish deserters from the Free Polish Army commanded by General Anders, who came from the Soviet Union through Iran and Iraq to Palestine and Egypt and then to the Italian front. In September 1943 the company went to Italy and took part in the landing of the Allies at the head of the coast in Salerno.

 

It was the second transport unit that landed in Salerno, and in its early days dealt primarily with leading the Corps of the 10th Corps to and from the front line. Another part of the unit was transporting ammunition and other supplies from the Salerno unloading seaports to more forward bunches. With the retreat of the Germans to the Volturno line north of Naples, and the stabilization of the front there, the unit's tasks changed. Company 650 was now engaged in a routine evacuation of the ants and occasionally transporting bridge materials to engineering units of the fifth camp.

 

In the spring offensive of May-June none of the Hebrew transport units participated, except for part of the company 650 commanded by Ne'eman, who landed at the head of the beach in Anzio, south of Rome, and took part in the battles that took place there.

 

Before the attack on the Gothic line, the company was promoted northward. The unit's operatives divided the liberated areas in Italy in terms of responsibility for locating Jews and providing them with initial aid. The company took over the Florence-Livorno area. Toward the end of 1944, the company arrived in the wake of the Allied summer offensive. Where she worked mainly with the help of the engineering units in the transportation of fortification materials and bridging equipment and in routine local functions. The commander of the unit, Shmuel Ne'eman, completed his post and was replaced by another Jewish officer, Eddy Kahanov, who was one of the veteran officers of the Israeli army. In April 1945, following the Allied last summer offensive, the unit was operated as part of the 86th transport column.

 

At the beginning of the progress she was transferred to Florence. After the conquest of Bologna, she moved to this city, and her trucks operated throughout the Po valley and northern Italy. From time to time convoys were sent to the south, bringing supplies directly to the port of Naples. In August 1944 the company was integrated into the transport of soldiers of the Eighth Camp to and from Austria. In Bologna, the company adopted the training farm in Nonantola and was responsible

 

Maintenance and training. The company operated in early 1946 in central and northern Italy and its base in Bologna. In February she was transferred to Capua in southern Italy. As one of the young Hebrew units, it absorbed remnants of veteran units that had been dismantled, as well as soldiers from Palestine who were transferred to it after serving in British units. In June 1946 the company was disbanded.

bottom of page