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PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL CHATFIELD, Keith Chatfield, Guardsman, Grenadier Guards. Autograph manuscript diary, Palestine, the Transjordan and Cyprus, 14 June 1947 - 30 June 1948 , two volumes, 8vo (210 x 130 & 200 x 130mm) . Original leather; original cloth. A YOUNG GUARDSMAN WITNESSES THE BIRTH OF THE ISRAELI STATE. Opening from his sickbed, tracking the manufacture of a pair of slippers and reporting on England's Test scores, 19-year-old Guardsman Chatfield's diary takes a sharp turn soon after his transfer to battalion headquarters at Nathanya [Netanya] at the end of June 1947, charting the breakdown in Arab-Jewish-British relations in Mandatory Palestine. On the 12 July, he reports 'Two chaps kidnapped in Nathanya' [the beginning of the Sergeants affair]: after the British army hang three Irgun militants later that month 'I.Z.L. [Irgun Zeva'l Le'umi] say that they will start attacks never known before. Also that they will hang those two sgts', as came to pass. Chatfield's conviction that retaliation for their killing was inevitable proves correct: the very next day, 'troops had opened fire in Tel-a-Viv on a bus and killed five people. Not that you can blame them'. Over the following year he records the increasingly frequent incidents involving the British forces in the struggle between the Arabs and Jews as he is transferred around Palestine and the Transjordan, including attacks on convoys, executions, and raids on trains and banks, causing the loss of life on all sides. In Tel Aviv in January 1948, he is given 'orders to use the P.I.A.T. [anti-tank weapon] on houses with snipers in and to 'shoot to kill' anyone who we see sniping'. Here, one sniper base-house is blown up by Haganah, before the British destroy another two, also encountering sniping from the mosque. On another occasion, the Irgun threaten to kill any British soldier entering Nathanya, yet soon after, a large-scale Arab attack on a Jewish settlement necessitates the British calling 'on the Airborne who stopped it with six 17 pounders'. Caught in the middle of a bloody internecine conflict, Chatfield still maintains a record of early drill sessions - 'what a life' - learning to ride a motorbike and sustaining sunburn - 'I'm as red as a lobster' - as he turns 20, '(feeling old)', noting that when heavy firing is 'only between Jews and Arabs ... we don't worry'. On 22 April 1948 he bears witness to the abandonment of Haifa by the Arabs - 'this evening they signed an unconditional surrender with the Jews' - and the following month, after wondering what will happen as the British Mandate in Palestine ends, records the Jewish proclamation of the State of Israel.