Photographic memories from WWI – part 3

Photo album obtained by late archeologist Pesach Bar-Adon contains large number of images of Land of Israel 90 years ago. This week we present a documentation of the first use of airplanes in the country, alongside landscapes from that era. Third story in series

Nadav Man|Published: 03.08.08 , 15:29

Two weeks ago we began a series of articles on the photo album obtained by archeologist Pesach Bar-Adon (1907-1985) from an unknown source.

The photos, which feature the events of World War I, reveal that the original album owner was the member of a medical staff.

World War I brought along the first use of airplanes and armored vehicles in the battlefields. The first pilots to arrive in the Land of Israel were Frenchmen, including Jules Vedrin who landed in the fields of Mikveh Israel on December 28, 1913, and took off to Cairo.

In this week's images, we can see machines flying over the Land of Israel for the first time and landscapes from across the country.

1. The first who arrived in Jerusalem were the Frenchmen Bounier and Bernier , who flew one plane and landed near the Jerusalem railway station on the last day of 1913. The event was celebrated in Jerusalem, and police were forced to push back the large number of curious people who showed up to observe the miracle.

2. The Ottomans also trained pilots before the war. The first to try and fly to Jerusalem were the Ottoman pilots Fatahi and Zadek, who left Damascus on February 27, 1914. However, due to strong winds in the Golan Heights, their plane crashed over Lake Kinneret and they were killed. A monument in their memory is located at the crash site near Kibbutz Haon.

The other two who attempted to reach Jerusalem were Osman Nuri and Ismail Haki. They left Beirut on March 9, 1914, and landed on the beach near the neighborhood of Menashiya in Jaffa.

In the photo: Pilots Nuri and Ismail are seen with the large crowd that came to greet them. Even Jerusalem's dignitaries arrived in Jaffa for the occasion. Jerusalem Mayor Hussein al-Husseini can be seen on the right, dressed in a black coat and white scarf.

Nuri was killed several days later as the plane attempted to take off near Tel Aviv's old cemetery and crashed into rocks on the beach. They never made it to Jerusalem (from Dov Gavish's book "Man-Made Birds on Our Horizon: First Flights over Palestine").