After flying more than forty combat missions against the Japanese in World War II, Jewish New Yorker Stan Andrews arrived in Israel in 1948, shortly after the new state was declared. He was one of the first volunteer fighter pilots who would contribute to the formation of the Israel Air Force.
Fighting Back, the story of Stan Andrews, was originally published in 2022. It has now been reissued with a new Introduction in light of the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023.
Andrews, who in 1942 at age nineteen changed his last name from Anekstein, explained to his family that he did so because enlisting in the US military with an identifiably Jewish name could keep him from his ambition — becoming a fighter pilot. His name change was an early indication of his discomfort with his Jewishness. It also exposed him to antisemitic remarks that he might not have heard had others known he was Jewish.
After the war, with the future of Palestine in the news, Andrews became convinced that the Jews ought to have a state. At the same time, he did not consider himself a Zionist and was not religious. What galvanized him was antisemitism. As he wrote to a friend, “Merely admitting or even proclaiming loudly one’s Jewishness these days is not enough, however. For one of the few times in history, there seems to be a definite opportunity to get in a few licks in the fight.… If, then, we can fight back, just once, I intend to do it.”
The accomplishments of the IAF are legendary, but at that time, the country did not have even one fighter plane. The Egyptian air force dominated the skies. Andrews and his friend Bob Vickman, along with several other American pilots, went to Czechoslovakia for rudimentary training. Andrews and Vickman landed in Israel in June 1948, to war on multiple fronts. It was a war neither survived.
In a conversational writing style, and benefitting from Stan’s letters, the authors relate Andrews’s story, detailing missions, battles, and episodes as the War of Independence progressed. As Andrews wrote to his parents with Israel’s victory approaching, “In a lot of ways it is very inspiring — and very satisfying, too, to see the things that Jews, who have been scorned for ages, have accomplished here.” One of those accomplishments was the establishment of the Israel Air Force, and Stan Andrews played a crucial role in that.
