THE JEWISH COMMANDOS OF THE S.I.G.

(Author's note - the initials MT in the text refer to an interview conducted with one of the last - and perhaps the only - survivor of the SIG, 10428 Acting Sgt. Maurice "Monju" Tiefenbrunner aka Tiffen, formerly also of the 51st Middle East Commando and SAS, who gave first hand account of some of the incidents described below. The interview took place on July 6th 1997 at the home of his daughter Judy in Edgware, London, and other information came in letters exchanged with Maurice from his home in Jeruslaem, Israel).

BEGINNINGS PAGE 1

The British Forces in the Second World War spawned many effective and daring "special" or unconventional units. Some were very well known, such as the Army Commandos, the SAS (Special Air Service), and the LRDG (Long Range Desert Group). But among the most ambitious and mysterious were the Jewish Commandos of the SIG.

Charles Messenger (1) describes how Col Terence Airey - who ran G(R) Branch (formerly Military Intelligence Research at the War Office in London) wrote in March 1942 that part of the recently disbanded No 51 Middle East (Jewish) Commando - consisting of many German speaking Palestinian Jews - was to be formed into "a Special German Group as a sub-unit of M E Commando....... with the cover name 'Special Interrogation Group', to be used for infiltration behind the German lines in the Western Desert, under 8th Army....the strength of the Special Group would be approximately that of a platoon". The letter (2) continued, " The personnel are fluent German linguists...mainly Palestinian (Jews) of German origin. Many of them have had war experience with 51 Commando.....it is essential they be provided with transport; a) one German Staff car b) Two 15cwt. Trucks". A second letter added, "...this issue (of transport) is of high operational importance".

The SIG were a sub-group of D Squadron 1st Special Service Regiment. Some were also recruited directly from the Palmach, the strike arm of the Jewish/Israeli underground army, Haganah (3) and "Etzel" (The Irgun), a semi-legal Jewish underground group, two of whose members included Dov Cohen, Bernard Lowenthal (3i) and Israel Carmi (who was later an officer in the Jewish Brigade and the Israeli Army (MT). Another comrade remembered by Tiffen was Karl Kahane/Cahanna (3a); all four survived the war. Two others were Dolph Zeintner and Philip Kogel, but neither saw action according to Tiffen.

The SIG's true strength has never been known, though it was probably about 38 according to Tiffen, 20 according to Ariyeh Shai (see below, and in letter and Israeli newspaper article sent by him to the author in May 1999) . Other recruits came from Jews in the Free Czech Forces (about eight), the French Foreign Legion (two?) and German Speaking French Jewish troops (MT). Maurice Tiffen recalls their first training base as being at Geneifa near Suez. Having returned from Eritrea with the 51st Middle East Commando, Maurice and comrades were visited by a British Captain looking for German speakers, whom he knew he would find at Geneifa. In fact document WO 218 159 at the PRO contains part of the War Diary of the 51st Commando and a cryptic entry by the CO for March 17th 1942 describes the arrival at Burgh el Arab "of a Capt Buck, to select German speaking personnel with a view to certain work".

The British Commanding Officer of the SIG, who had served with the Punjabis, had once been wounded and captured by the Germans in North Africa at Gazala and escaped using an Afrika Korps uniform. Surprised by how easy it was - speaking German - to pass unmolested through Axis lines, he had the idea of the SIG. His name was indeed Capt Herbert Cecil A Buck, MC ,3/1 Punjabis & Scots Guards, and Oxford scholar who, like his Palestinian Jews, spoke fluent German.

Authors to this day have been unable to agree on what SIG actually stood for. Peter Smith (4) calls them the "Special Identification Group" - as does Eric Morris (5) - but in his index Morris also refers to them as the "Special Intelligence Group"!

Whatever their true title, Ariyeh Shai aka Sheinik/Sheikin (MT), a Jewish veteran of 51 Commando and of SIG (5A), was an early volunteer and described his training:...."situated somewhere at the far end of an isolated group of desert encampments....we received no promises. Capt. Buck had warned that lives would depend on our ability to wear our disguises faultlessly, to learn to perfection the slang prevalent among the soldiers of the Afrika Korps, and to drill in accordance with all the German methods. 'If your true identity is found out', said Buck, 'there is no hope for you'. Contacts with other British units were nil" in order that they live, eat drill, speak and behave like Germans.

At about this time, a young British officer, Reverend Isaac "Harry" Levy, who was Senior Jewish Chaplain to the 8th Army, travelling west from Mersa on his duties (6), "had been told that a somewhat unusual outfit was to be found in the vicinity of a vague map reference. Picking our way through a fairly clearly marked minefield (7), my driver and I ultimately discovered...a special Commando unit undergoing intensive training. Except for the CO, all were Palestinian Jewish volunteers. I met the men in a shed which was crammed full of German uniforms and equipment. I learned to my intense surprise and profound admiration that this unit was destined to be taken behind enemy lines for special Commando operations and sabotage.....All their activities were conducted in German, daily orders were published in that language and often in the dead of night a man would be suddenly awakened and he had to speak in German. None must be caught by surprise. These men knew the risks were they to fall into enemy hands....denied the status of POW, they would be shot out of hand. The most painfully distressing aspect of my encounter with these superbly brave men was the confidential information transmitted to me by several of them".

(In conversation with the author in April 1997, Isaac Levy, Honorary Chaplain to the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women till his retirement in July 1999, described how "the camp was even more off the beaten track than the norm to be expected in the Western Desert; at first I thought they were prisoners of war. On seeing my Jewish Chaplains badges, however, they spoke freely to me about their concerns").

"They were convinced that one member of their group was untrustworthy, possibly a German who had been living in Palestine before the war and was a fifth columnist, and not Jewish. They wished me to notify the CO which I duly did, but he assured me their doubts were unfounded. It subsequently transpired that the mens' suspicions were justified" (see below).

In fact two "real" Germans, Walter Essner (or Esser) and Herbert Brueckner, had been conscripted from a POW camp to train the SIG. Brueckner was big, brash and fair haired in his twenties (MT); Essner quiet and good-natured in his 30's ( MT) (8). They were former members of the French Foreign Legion before the war, professing to be German anti-Nazis. They had been captured in Nov. 1941 (9) serving in the 361st Regiment of the Afrika Corp and recruited by the British "Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre" (CSDIC) as "double agents". But they were not trusted by the Jewish members of SIG, who opposed the idea of the 2 actually going into action with them; but Buck insisted and the orders were obeyed (MT and see below).

Each day the SIG were awakened by "Kompagnie anfsteher! ("Company get up!) followed by 20 minutes strenuous PT (10) and trained all hours of the day and night with German weapons, questioned suddenly on their German "identities" and taken to the mess room goose-stepping and even learned German marching songs and who and when to salute (MT)! The strenuous training welded them into a team - handling explosives, desert navigation, unarmed combat - all skills required by a special raiding force. They were also all expert mechanics and drivers of German vehicles (11).

Some of their earlier exploits included using captured German vehicles and going behind German lines near Bardia and setting up roadblocks. Dressed as German military police they stopped and questioned German transports, gathering crucial intelligence. On other forays unspecified by author Gordon Landsborough (12) they would carry out sabotage behind the German lines in German uniforms or simply pull in at German camps, speak to troops and gather information. On one occasion, Tiffen even lined up to draw pay from a German field cashier; he explained how he was nervous but so caught up in his trained role as a German soldier, that he hardly had time to dwell on the danger of what he was doing! On other occasions he and other SIG mingled with German POW's to gather intelligence and learn how they behaved (MT).