Bread, Bullets, and a Tanning Salon – How Israel Won the War

Outside of Tel Aviv is the site where a kibbutz once stood. Among the very spartan concrete buildings that once housed the workers is a small courtyard between the laundry and bakery that served the kibbutz. Beneath the courtyard with laundrey on clotheslines blowing in the breeze, 25 meters below is a factory.

Before Israeli independence the British mission to create a homeland for the Jews turned very wrong. The British in the wake of Hiter’s wrath after WW II were denying the Jews who had survived, entry into the holy land. The British troops denied the Jews in Israel weapons to defend themselves but did nothing to stop the weapons in the hands of the Arabs. The Jews knowing they were building a state, had to arm themselves secretly in order to be able to defend themselves from the invading hordes soon to invade them when they declared statehood.

So when the Israelis were building the kibbutz and landscaping the foundation with a bulldozer they built the underground bunker with intent to manufacture bullets. The construction took 3 weeks. (non union labor) The Ayalon Institute looked like a Kibbutz but it was one of many such underground weapons facilities. The location was close to a British railway depot.

As many as 42 workers labored underground from 1945 to 1948 beneath the laundry and the bakery, producing 14,000 9mm bullets per day for their sten guns, many which were also manufactured secretly.

When the British soldiers visited, the work shut down to avoid detection. The kibbutz workers responded by bringing the soldiers warm beer. They asked for cold beer; the hosts at the kibbutz suggested that if they would let them know when they were coming they would be glad to ice a few beers for them. That was the early warning system.

After working around the brass slivers of scrap from the shell casings they were careful to have the shoes cleaned thoroughly to avoid the smallest chance of a small piece of brass scrap attracting attention. There was one more problem; they were supposed to be farmers and laboring all day in the sun. Working underground it would be readily obvious that their pale skin would indicate otherwise.

So this enterprising group created probably one of the first known tanning salons in the hot underground factory; builiding a special light in a closet.

The Israelis have an ingenuity that is very American; there is nothing they can not do or overcome. Their commitment is their survival. The combination of ingenuity and commitment is how nations are formed and how Israel won that war, and the wars that followed.

Today the Ayalon Institute Museum near Tel Aviv has restored the underground bullet factory and reminds us how nations are built.