Shlomo Shamir
Shlomo Shamir was the third Commander of the Israeli Navy, and the first Israeli Navy Commander to receive the rank of Aluf. He was the third Commander of the Israeli Air Force.
Early life
Shlomo Shamir was born Shlomo Rabinowitch, in Berdychiv, Russian Empire. He was taken to Mandatory Palestine in 1925.World War II
In 1929 he joined the Haganah and was instrumental in smuggling weapons and illegal Jewish immigrants into Palestine during the time of the British Mandate and the White Paper of 1939. In 1940 he received his pilot license, and in the same year he joined the British Army's infantry in order to fight the Nazis. In 1944 upon the establishment of the Jewish Brigade he was appointed Internal Commander of the Brigade on behalf of the Haganah and the Jewish Institutions in Palestine. He organized efforts to search for Holocaust survivors and bring them to Israel. This included a mission to find Enzo Sereni, an Italian Jewish leader who went missing during a mission to rescue Jews from Europe. In 1946 he was discharged from the British military with the rank of major.War of Independence
In 1948 he was ordered by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to establish the Israeli 7th Armored Brigade in the fight to conquer Latrun so as to open the road to Jerusalem. He commanded over creating the Burma Road. He recruited Mickey Marcus to join the Israel Defense Force. At the end of the 1947–1949 Palestine war he was offered to be appointed as the Chief of the General Staff, but he refused. Instead he served other capacities, eventually becoming the second Commander of the Israeli Navy in December 1949.Israeli Navy and Air Force
He helped build the small Israeli Navy by purchasing a new corvette and advanced torpedo boats. In 1950, he was replaced as Commander of the Israeli Navy by Mordechai Limon and became the third Commander of the Israeli Air Force. Under his leadership, the Israeli Air Defense Network was created, and the Hatzor Israeli Air Force Base built. In August 1951, he handed command of the Air Force over to Haim Laskov and retired from the Israel Defence Forces.Civilian career
In civilian life, Shamir established Israel's phosphate mines and headed the Israel Land Authority. He received a master's degree in Social Sciences from Tel Aviv University and is a graduate of Harvard University AMP Program of 1970.On 19 May 2009 Shamir died in Tel Aviv at the age of 93, leaving his daughter Yael, two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
In 2014 his memoirs were collected and turned into an autobiography released in Hebrew called Three Miracles and a Hebrew Flag in the British Army. It was translated into English with new annotations and photograph in 2025 as Dance of the Fire: The Jewish Brigade in WW2: Facts, Myths, Appraisal and edited by his daughter.
Publications
"Dance of the Fire: The Jewish Brigade in WW2: Facts, Myths, Appraisal", Unicorn Publishing Group, 2025, "...בכל מחיר - לירושלים", תל אביב: הוצאת מערכות ומשרד הביטחון - ההוצאה לאור, תשנ"ד-1994."שלושה נסים ודגל עברי בצבא הבריטי", תל אביב: הוצאה לאור תשע"ד-2014, 343 עמ', מסת"ב 978-965-555-748-0- הימאים עשו עלי רושם עז, 'מערכות ים' ל"ז-ל"ח, קובץ העשור לחיל הים, יולי 1958, עמ' 21.חיל מוצא את יעודו, ימים עלי ימים - מערכות חיל הים, מפקדת חיל הים, ספטמבר 1974, עמ' 15.