יומנים > יומן - מלא 05/09/1948

Sunday, September 5, 1948

I lay in bed a few days, after I'd caught a cold (or overheated) in Haifa - while visiting the navy.

       - Manpower as of August 26, 1948: in the forces 78,348 (aside from 280 deserters, 103 detainees, 2083 ill and wounded, 806 prisoners, 541 absentees, 2291 ill, in total 84,452). Classified as: staffs of fronts, brigades, and districts 4445 (conscripted 615), standard 1995 (?).

       Palmach staff 1341 (99); brigade battalions 23,875 (1425); standard 36,500; garrison battalions 10,578 (569); standard 18,262; corps 5816 (169) standard 12,711; Air Force 4063 (509) standard 7500; Navy 2179 (164), standard 2500; services and camps 19,828 (2968); standard 18,100; intake 3175 (767); in training camps 642; in transit camps and placement 500; MLB [military labor brigade] 1908 (50).

       (The corps are: artillery, mortars, engineering): artillery 3060 (88 standard), mortars 449 (2), engineering 2307 (29).

       Garrison force: Haifa 1067, Valley 708, Galilee 893, total North 3208, Center 2977, Kiriati 1721, Jerusalem 2129; South 897.

       - After Shkolnik [Levi Eshkol] was elected to the Zionist [Organization] Executive, I consulted with associates on the composition of the Ministry of Defense. They propose Hillel Cohen for the economy [financial matters], Yehudit Simhoni for WC (in the meantime she's volunteered for WC), Shaul [Avigur] for procurement, Yosef Gurion for "Rehabilitation." I requested Ziama [Aran] for Personnel - but he declines. He's prepared to make the institute [school] for Histadrut activists available to the army.

       - In the afternoon a government meeting.

       - In the evening Somers, a congressman from New York, came to see me. Catholic, friend of Peter Bergson [Hillel Kook]. Returns to America tonight. He promised to tell the president [Truman] that Jerusalem needs to be Israeli - this is what the Catholic priests in Jerusalem told him - and that he should provide a loan and bring the Jews of Germany [the displaced persons in the camps there] to the country - as he [Truman] once demanded.