Cherbourg Project

The Cherbourg Project (or Boats of Cherbourg) was an Israeli military operation that took place on 24 December 1969 and involved the escape of five remaining armed Sa'ar 3 class boats from the French port of Cherbourg (Cherbourg-Octeville since 2000, Cherbourg-en-Cotentin since 2016). The boats had been paid for by the Israeli government but had not been delivered due to the French arms embargo in 1969. The whole operation was planned by the Israeli Navy, and was codenamed Operation Noa, after the daughter of Captain Binyamin "Bini" Telem.

Background

The Israeli naval command had reached the conclusion by the early 1960s that their old Second World War-era destroyers, frigates and corvettes were obsolete and new ships and vessels were needed. A survey was undertaken and the West German shipyard of Lürssen was recommended. The shipyard was asked to design a new generation of small missile boat platforms and to modify the suggested wooden ''Jaguar''-class torpedo boats according to Israeli Navy requirements. Due to Arab League pressure on the West German government, this plan was not continued and a new builder was sought. The Israeli Navy survey recommended that the Cherbourg-based CMN shipyard owned by Félix Amiot would build the boats, based upon the Israeli requirements. The boats were constructed by the French and the MTU engines were German-designed. The project received the codename "Autumn".

Crews were sent to France in early 1965. The technical team was headed by Commander Haim Schachal. The administrative and operational side was headed by then- Captain Binyamin (Bini) Telem, who later became the Israeli Navy's commander in chief during the Yom Kippur war.

The deal was entered into during the "Golden Age" of Franco-Israeli relations. Prior to the Six-Day War in 1967, France had been Israel's closest ally. In the wake of Israel's victory, relations began to worsen. In 1968, Israeli paratroopers commanded by then-Colonel Raphael Eitan (who later became IDF chief of staff), carried out a raid on Beirut airport during operations against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In response, French President Charles de Gaulle ordered a full arms embargo on Israel.

The problem of the Cherbourg boats was left aside. President de Gaulle was irritated by what he considered an Israeli lack of respect for Franco-Israeli agreements and he was eager to reinforce France's relations with the Arab world. The resignation of de Gaulle and the election of Georges Pompidou to be the president of France inspired hope among the Israelis. The Israeli government assumed that Pompidou would lift the embargo, but were proved wrong.

While the embargo was ordered, construction of the boats continued according to the original plan; and while the Israeli naval mission was in Cherbourg, controlling the project, Israeli crews were aboard the completed boats and the whole project was fully paid for by Israel.

The build-up of the Egyptian Navy with Soviet assistance during the 1960s and their procurement of new missile boats such as the ''Osa'' and ''Komar'' classes had, by the early days of the War of Attrition, changed the balance of power in the Mediterranean theatre in favour of Arab navies and away from the Israeli Navy. There was by now an urgent need for a new generation of vessels for the Israeli Navy. Israel had been developing seaborne surface-to-surface missiles, but the new vessels they would be launched from were now being built at Cherbourg. Their delivery was considered a high priority by the Israeli Navy.

The loss of the destroyer INS ''Eilat'' during an attack by ''Komar''-class missile boats in October 1967 and the accidental loss of the submarine INS ''Dakar'' in 1968, as well as the general ageing of the Israeli fleet, brought naval planners to the conclusion that the boats had to be taken from France by deception.

The operation

Preparations

The plan to take the boats was formulated by retired Rear Admiral Mordechai "Mokka" Limon, formerly the Israeli Navy's commander in chief, who was the head of the Israel Defense Forces mission in Paris. Limon's affiliation with the Rothschild family provided him with important connections in France with the French government, and more widely in Europe as well.

During that period, several events worked in favor of the Israelis. In 1967, the seventh boat of the twelve boats ordered, INS ''Mivtach'' (Reliance), was completed and launched. A telecom from Israeli Navy command informed the Israelis in Cherbourg that the embargo was expected to escalate, and the boats would have to sail immediately to Haifa during sea trials, ignoring the French protocols for leaving port. This angered the French, and they ordered the Israeli Navy and the other boats to leave the French harbour, and dock instead at the commercial port, which was unguarded.

The boats were transferred to a front company called Starboat, registered in Panama, allegedly a Norwegian oil drill company. The front company was Limon's idea, aided by his connections with Mila Brenner (1921–1999), a retired naval officer with a rank of commander and the co-owner of the Israel-based Maritime Fruit Carriers Company, a company that operated cargo ships transporting fruit. Milla Brenner knew the Norwegian businessman Martin Siem, who was able to provide assistance.

The front company feigned interest in the boats as potential survey ships for searching for oil, and declared that the boats' specifications met their needs. To add to the deception Limon pretended to have "tough negotiations" with Starboat. The terms agreed were that the boats would be transferred to Starboat and would be crewed by members of the Israeli Navy due to their experience with the boats. The boats were sold and transferred legally by the government of Israel to the front company with the approval of Michel Debré, the French Defense Minister.

The next stage of the operation was to build a day-to-day routine with the aim of ultimately misleading the French at Cherbourg. Israeli skeleton crews took over the boats and maintained a routine of short voyages, heading north into the Atlantic. The skeleton crews were secretly reinforced by 80 Israeli officers, ratings and sailors in civilian clothes who arrived in groups of two at different destinations throughout Europe as tourists, and then travelled to Cherbourg. It was feared that sending them all to Cherbourg at once would alert French intelligence. They were ordered to keep moving between hotels, and not to stay in any one hotel for more than one night. The crews travelled on Israeli passports so that in the event they were caught, they could not be charged with passport fraud. By 23 December, all crews had arrived, and were scattered around the city. Mossad director-general Meir Amit considered the risk to the operation to be very high, recalling "it just needed one suspicious French policeman to ask why so many Jews were coming to Cherbourg for Christmas and the whole operation could be blown."

Prior to the escape, the boats had to be fuelled with a large amount of diesel and stocked with enough food to sustain an eight-day voyage. Stocking and fuelling this amount all at once could have alerted observers to the fact that a long voyage was planned. Commander Rinat, the head of operations, instead ordered the boats to be gradually fuelled using a small 5-ton tank truck. A quarter of a million litres of fuel was smuggled in drums and hidden belowdecks. By 24 December, the boats had been fully fuelled and stored. The supply officer bought fresh and dry food from local grocery stores to stock on the boats. To prevent arousing suspicion, the supplies were purchased in small quantities each time.

Since sudden engine noise during the night of the escape would alert the French, the operation's commander, Captain Hadar Kimhi, ordered the boats' engines to be regularly started at nights, causing the inhabitants of Cherbourg to become accustomed to the noise. The local police visited the boats in response to inhabitants' complaints, and received the explanations that the electrical supply from the shore was not enough to warm the boats during the cold days of December. The boats received an authorization from the electrical company and police to operate their engines at night. The noise was loud with twenty Maybach main engines running.

Meanwhile, the ZIM navigation company Europe Lines were approached to help in providing fuel, once the boats had left Cherbourg. Assistance was provided by Edmond Wilhelm Brillant, a retired navy officer and a naval architect. He designated MV ''Lea'' to provide fuel at Gibraltar and MV ''Nahariya'' as a backup in the Bay of Biscay (both general cargo ships that were available at that time). The main difficulty at this stage of the plan was the conversion of MV ''Lea'' into a fuelling ship carrying 200,000 litres of light diesel fuel. This was solved by conversion of the ballast tank in the ship's bow and bottom into a fuel tank. The pump system was converted to operate as both a fire fighting and fuelling pump. Special high pressure hoses were used and a fuelling drill was developed prior sailing to the rendezvous point near Gibraltar. According to international maritime regulations, MV ''Lea'' could not sail since safety regulations banned ships from carrying fuel in the bow as fuel vapour may cause an explosion. This issue was solved by Brillant with the aid of Kirstine shipyards and a Lloyd's Register surveyor. Additionally, a special filter was needed to make sure no dirt from tanks would contaminate the boat's tanks and engines. This filter was improvised by Brillant. It was capable of fuelling five boats, but only two at a time were fuelled at the ship's stern. The overall conversion and drill took twelve hours. Other Zim divisions provided the ''Dan'', a Ro-Ro ship sister of MV ''Nili'', which would provide fuel near Lampedusa. The captain of MV ''Dan'' was Yosef Dror, a retired navy commander and Shayetet 13 commando frogman. In this case, tanker trailers were loaded in the ship's garage. These Zim ships sailed with additional crew made up of members of the Israeli Navy.

Escape

The boats were to escape on Christmas Eve. On the eve of the escape, the skeleton crews continued to maintain the boats, while the 80 crews who came to reinforce them hid belowdecks. The Israelis feared that the boats could sink while sailing through the Bay of Biscay in severe winter conditions. The group had a meteorologist assigned to them, who monitored all British, French and Spanish weather forecasts. Despite a forecast predicting rain from the south-west, the crews were ordered to sail out at 20:30. By 19:30, all crews were aboard. There was a force 9 storm on the night of the escape, and after the weather worsened, the departure time was extended to 22:30, but the escape was again delayed by worsening weather. Captain Hadar Kimhi received urgent coded messages from Israel ordering him to set sail despite the weather, but he decided to wait. At midnight, the meteorologist picked up a BBC
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