The Power of Knowledge - HEMED

A fuse would be attached to a propeller, which would not rotate when the ship was anchored. Upon sailing, the propeller would rotate and after a predetermined number of rotations, it would ignite the detonator, which would activate the explosives in the mine.

At that time we did not have remote communication tools with which to initiate the explosion.

A time bomb was also ruled out, as we did not have any information concerning the sailing time. I discussed the matter with Berdichevsky, a young mechanical engineer, and finally found a solution.

We were asked to design a fuse that would initiate an explosion when the ship was on the high sea far from port.

HEMED scientists designed helmets with infrared lamps, which Ben-Nun and his associate wore. The rescue team could detect the light and select them from the swimming Egyptian sailors. This is an excellent example that demonstrates that when HEMED was asked to solve a critical problem, it found a creative solution.

Another problem faced the Israeli Navy. An Egyptian ship loaded with weapons was supposed to sail from Italy to Egypt. Israeli intelligence planned to destroy the ship by attaching a magnetic limpet mine to its bottom.

An Egyptian battleship, The King Farouk, anchored near Gaza, and the Israeli Navy planned to attack it with a torpedo. Yohai Ben-Nun (who in the 1960s became commander of Israel’s naval forces as a rear admiral) volunteered to fire the torpedo. He was certain that the Egyptian vessel would be hit and that its sailors would jump overboard. If this h

According to Asher Asher, Israel Pelach developed an infrared lamp to illuminate targets at night (42).

Uzi Sharon was a pioneer in the development of a propelled weapon. As early as 1947, he was asked to design a torpedo to damage British destroyers that were taking part in expelling “illegal” Jewish immigrants.”