Transcript for The Palestine Police during the British Mandate (1920-1948)

A film by Frank BARAT

I'm Gerald Green

80 years old now

formely served in Palestine Police Force

went straight from school

in the Palestine Police Force.

So I joined it when I was 17 years of age

I enjoyed every minute of being there

despite the fact I was twice wounded

once very badly wounded

but I enjoyed every minute of it

It was a part of English history

serving in an old mandated territory...

Palestine and seeing the birth of a new nation, Israel

because I stayed on with about a 150 volunteers

in what was the Haifa Police Force.

We went into Palestine, never left it

and Israel never entered it

but we left Israel.

And that was in June when we left Israel,

we were there after the mandate finished.

There was 2 training schools for Palestine Police recruits.

We were all trained out there.

One was Mount Scopus in Jerusalem

and the other was Jenin.

Thank the Lord I was trained in Jenin

because it was a wonderful, beautiful part of the country,

we were in the foothills of the mountains,

and we were along the end of the Israeli plain

We could look accross and see Nazareth, many miles away

and most mornings we could see Mount Hermon in Syria

covered with ice, over 12,000 feet high, used to look down on us.

I enrolled because I so badly wanted to be a pilot.

At the end of the war, in 1946,

the RAF didn't want any more pilots.

They were throwing them out of the airforce.

I had no hope in hell of being a pilot.

So, a woman who worked with my father

married a Palestine police officer

and he introduced me to the Palestine Police Force.

I saw happen that my father

had served with Major Raymond Cafferata

many years previously

I think in the WWI with Major Raymond Cafferata

and he became a very famous Palestine police officer...

Raymond Cafferata highly decorated.

We were all enrolled as British constables

the lowest form of life

really as British constables. We were full time members of course

and the Palestine Police Force

was somewhere about 4,000 Britishs strong.

It had about 2,000 Arabs and 2,000 Jews in it.

Some of the Arabs and the Jews were

temporary auditional constables, part-timers.

We had to learn... when we trained at the training school

we were given the option, we had to learn a language.

nearly everybody went for Arabic.

I knew very little about the country at all,

I hadn't a clue about it really

except that everybody said it was a lovely climate

which it was, probably one of the world's best climate

there were no vicious animal there

nothing to sting you or bite you

a very lovely place to be.

Palestine was not a British colony

Palestine was a mandated territory.

After the WWI, the League of Nations was formed

not the United Nations, the League of Nations was formed

and Britain was given the job of looking after Palestine.

France was given the job of looking after Syria and Lebanon.

And we were guardians of it

but Britain and France had to pour money into it

I mean Britain introduced the railway there, the roads

it was a wonderful set up what was done...

I mean up until 1938, Britain did a lot there:

railways, roads, electricity, everything.

It was a public work department

Well, we interacted very well particularly in Jenin

which was of course an Arab stronghold, very famous city Jenin

and we got on very well with them.

We used to go shopping there

and all that sort of thing

and the same in Haifa.

Haifa was an Arab-Jewish city

very modern, particularly the Kingsway area,

built with a German architect, beautifully tree lined boulevards

and that was a very beautiful place to be

and Hadar Carmel which was a beautiful shopping center

that was a Jewish area Hadar Carmel, Mount Carmel

the Arabs lived in the Kingsway area

and in the Eastern part of Haifa.

There was a feeling there which was slowly getting worse.

The Jewish were the minority, population of what was then Palestine

was about 1.2 million.

And outside of that, when you think it was the end of the war,

Britain didn't know what to do with their troops.

They all put them into Palestine

and you had a ratio, I believe of about 11 of the local population,

Arab and Jew to one Brit.

So, it wasn't a very safe place to be

because there were a lot of Brits about

and if the terrorists wanted to do some damage

they could... It was a Jewish... the Stern gang.

al Lehi Zedal.

In fact, one of the leaders went on to become Prime Minister of Israel.

Begin terrible terrorist.

Most of those terrorists

were thrown out from their original countries

like Poland, Germany and places like that.

They were gangsters really

infiltrated into Palestine

under the Jewish flag, so to speak.

And ran riot with the place, they were targetting mainly the British

and the Arabs but mainly the British.

The Jews wanted us out.

In 1938, there was an uprising by the Arabs.

That was called the war of the black triangle,

that was Tulkarm, Jenin and Nablus.

The Arabs started an uprising because they could fear

that the Jewish immigration was beginning to take over,

getting into position.

Frank Barat: How did people react after the King David bombing in July 1946?

Really really bad

I think it got even worse after King David.

I mean at Ramat Gan when they tried to Dov Gruner, great terrorist

he tried to break into Ramat Gan police station,

well he did break into it to a point

but one of our Dearl sergeants at Jenin,

Dearl Dick Wainwright

he'd been in the black watch regiment in the war

he was a ballistic expert, expert with a gun.

He used to take us on the range.

At Jenin, they used to put a swimming trunk on

for us to go to the coast swimming.

And he always went on it because he used to go through Ramat Gan

and he wanted to get off Ramat Gan

to see his friend in the police station there.

Jolly good job he got off that truck that day

because he ended up capturing Dov Gruner

and because he captured Dov Gruner he was never ever allowed to transfer to Jenin,

the Arab training school.

Dov Gruner was the first terrorist they hung.

I was about to go on... take my armoured car

6 o'clock in the morning,

with my two colleagues, we had a three-man crew,

Wallis operator and the car commander, me as the driver,

we had four GMC armoured cars in Haifa

I was about to go to Jerusalem that morning, 6 o'clock.

As I walked accross the yard to go to my car, I can't remember much more,

I woke up in hospital.

And one of the Arabs in the compound

picked me up, took me outside to a passing Arab taxi,

and the Arab taxi took me to hospital,

where Dr. Sami Khoury was happening to be working

and he's of course saved my life.

And Dr. Sami Khoury, as a result of his great work,

was brought to Palestine because police force had no doctors of our own

we had a consultant doctor

who happened to be home, in England, on holiday,

Dr. Thompson, really well known,

he happened to be home on holiday,

and Sami operated on me.

His qualification were such that it wouldn't be recognized in England

but he did a hell of a good job

and because of that, he was brought to England

by some medical people he met in the forces.

And he qualified actually in Beirut you see,

he was brought here, he qualified here as a fellow at the Royal College of surgeons

within eighteen months,

he went to America and got the equivalent qualification,

and then he couldn't get back to Palestine

he's Palestinian, Israel wouldn't let him in

he went to Jordan

and him and his wife were working in the camps

Frank Barat : the refugee camps?

In the refugee camps, yes.

And one morning, King Hussein found him

he said "you can't be here!"

we have a hospital in Amman, they set it up,

the Palestine hospital in Amman.

And it's still there today, it does have 45 beds

well, it has expanded a bit now

it's got a few beds for the poor and needy

but the rest of the beds are for fee-paying people.

Haifa, I suppose two-third were Arab

and about a third, Jew.

You see, there were only about 300,000 Jews

in the whole of Palestine

out of that 1.2 million.

That's 300,000 maybe 250,000.

Well, Haifa was a big city of course

and there was about a third Jewish there

to two-thirds Arabs.

That was the ratio.

But sadly, towards the end,

Britain didn't really do the job of policing it properly,

looking after the mandate, because we should have carried on

right up to the day, the 14th, 15th of May

when Israel has formed, doing our job.

But the G.O.C in Haifa

I can't remember his name now...

he obviously sided with the Jews

because he gave instructions in the last three months,

that we were not to get involved in any activity whatever, in Haifa,

and the Jews drived the Arabs out.

I can't remember his name

and he was criticized for it

so much so that somebody out there, it must have been somebody serving

got a message to Ernest Bevan

he was the Foreign Secretary

and said this is not right what is going on in Haifa.

The officer in command in Haifa is not doing his job.

And Bevan immediately ordered that General Montgomery,

it was the GOC of the British forces,

to London to ask what's going on?

And Montmogery had an argument with that Bevan

and Bevan said "You don't know what's happening there, you see, I do!"

And, we should never let the Jews drive the Arabs out of Haifa.

I would go so far as to say that the Palestine Police Force

was 95% at least very pro-Arab,

95% very pro-Arab, the Palestine Police Force, that's the British section.

The Arabs were lovely people

simple people, honest and nice people.

Nice people the Arabs, lovely to get on with them.

The Palestine police commander were alright and very much so

superintendent Paddy Meahan who was in charge of Haifa,

he was very angry that the Arabs were being driven out of Haifa.

He didn't like it at all.

The name of that General in Haifa was Sir Hugh Stockwell.

And so, Sir Hugh Stockwell had a lot to answer for.

Many people think that Hugh Stockwell was either bribed by the Israelis

or genuinely didn't want the troops to be hurt or injured.

So we'll never know but there is a big question mark over that Hugh Stockwell.

If he had only given the command, nothing would have happened in Haifa

if they had been allowed to do the job to the end, the situation would have been different.

It was very sad when we moved out to the trade school near the airport

about 3 miles ahead of Haifa,

we saw all these poor Arabs, hundreds and hundreds of them

cars with chairs on them, all children and women, convoys of people

leaving Haifa, they go up to Lebanon. Very sad.

We could not do a thing. No..

because it was not a British colony,

mandate a territory.

Britain was only the guardian of the place

see, that was the tragedy,

if it had been a colony it would all have been different

and if Montgomerry had only listened properly to Ernest Bevan as he should have done,

things might have been different,

because Hugh Stockwell was not the right man in charge of Haifa.

Really I suppose it was all a wasted effort.

Sadly.

When you think of what Britain pulled into it.

They built railway engines there, they had railway workshops,

they built many things there,

made all the electricity,

did all the roads and things, when you think.

The Palestine Police force had about

nearly seven hundred vehicles all told

on their strenghth, when you think we blew them all up

to pieces so the Jews could not get them

all the armoured cars we had, GMC armoured cars as safe as anything.

We blew them to pieces

It was an experience, we were part of history.

That's what it was.

We were part of history