The Sergeants Affair: A Tragic Episode in the British Mandate of Palestine

In July 1947, during the turbulent final years of the British Mandate in
Palestine, a shocking incident known as the “Sergeants Affair” unfolded,
leaving a lasting mark on the region’s history. The abduction and murder
of two British Army Intelligence Corps non-commissioned officers,
Sergeants Clifford Martin and Mervyn Paice, by the Jewish underground
group Irgun was a brutal act of retaliation that escalated tensions,
sparked outrage, and contributed to Britain’s eventual withdrawal from
Palestine. This article explores the context, events, and consequences
of this tragic episode, drawing on historical accounts to provide a
balanced perspective.

Historical Context: The Jewish Insurgency in Palestine

By the mid-1940s, Palestine was a powder keg of competing national
aspirations. The British, tasked with administering the region under the
League of Nations mandate, faced growing resistance from both Jewish and
Arab communities. The Jewish population, driven by the horrors of the
Holocaust and restricted immigration policies, sought to establish a
homeland, while Arabs opposed the creation of a Jewish state. Jewish
paramilitary groups, including the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi, engaged in
increasingly militant actions against British forces, whom they viewed
as obstructing their goals.

The Irgun, led by Menachem Begin (later Israel’s sixth Prime Minister),
was particularly aggressive, employing tactics ranging from bombings to
kidnappings to pressure the British. One such strategy involved
abducting British personnel as leverage to prevent the execution of
captured Jewish fighters. This approach had previously succeeded in
securing commuted sentences, but the events of July 1947 would prove far
more devastating.

The Abduction: A Calculated Operation

On July 11, 1947, Sergeants Clifford Martin and Mervyn Paice, both 20
years old and serving with the 252 Field Security Section of the British
Army Intelligence Corps, were kidnapped in Netanya, a coastal town in
Palestine.
The two sergeants were off-duty, unarmed, and in civilian clothes,
having spent the evening at a café with Aaron Weinberg, a Jewish refugee
and clerk at a British military resort camp. Unbeknownst to them,
Weinberg was a double agent working for both the Haganah’s intelligence
arm (SHAI) and the Irgun, which had identified the sergeants as targets
due to their role in gathering intelligence on Jewish underground
activities.

The abduction was meticulously planned but not without flaws. Led by
Benjamin Kaplan, a recently freed Irgun member from the Acre Prison
break, the operation relied on a local Irgun recruit, Yosef Meller, who
used his recognizable black taxi cab with changed license plates. The
sergeants, unaware of the danger, were ambushed as they left the café
and taken to a secret underground cell beneath a diamond-polishing plant
in Netanya. There, they were held in cramped, air-tight conditions,
sustained by bottled oxygen for 18 days.

The Irgun’s motive was clear: to use the sergeants as bargaining chips
to halt the execution of three Irgun militants—Avshalom Haviv, Meir
Nakar, and Yaakov Weiss—who had been captured during the Acre Prison
break in May 1947. The three had been convicted of illegal arms
possession and intent to cause harm, and their death sentences were
confirmed by British authorities on July 8. The Irgun issued a public
threat: if the executions proceeded, Martin and Paice would be hanged in
retaliation.

Failed Appeals and Escalating Tensions

As news of the abduction spread, efforts to secure the sergeants’
release intensified. On July 17, British MPs Richard Crossman and
Maurice Edelman publicly appealed for their freedom, joined by other
prominent figures and private citizens. Mervyn Paice’s father wrote a
heartfelt letter to Menachem Begin, pleading for his son’s life. The
letter reached Begin through an Irgun-affiliated postal worker, but
Begin responded coldly via a radio broadcast on the Irgun’s station, Kol
Tsion HaLokhemet, stating, “You must appeal to your government that
thirsts for oil and blood.”

Meanwhile, the British launched a massive manhunt, with assistance from
the Haganah, which opposed the Irgun’s actions. Despite two police
searches of the diamond-polishing plant, the sergeants remained
undetected in their hidden cell. The Haganah, aware of Weinberg’s role,
attempted to mislead the Irgun by feeding false information about the
sergeants’ location, but these efforts failed.

On July 27, the Palestinian Broadcasting Company announced that Haviv,
Weiss, and Nakar would be executed on July 29. The British authorities,
determined to assert control, proceeded with the hangings despite the
Irgun’s threats. The three Irgun fighters, aged 21 to 23, were executed
one by one at Acre Prison, reportedly singing the Jewish anthem Hatikvah
as they faced the gallows.
They became part of a group revered by some as Olei Hagardom (“those
hanged at the gallows”), martyrs of the Jewish resistance.

The Murders and Their Grisly Aftermath

Enraged by the executions, Menachem Begin ordered the immediate killing
of Martin and Paice. On the evening of July 29, the two sergeants were
hanged with piano wire in the diamond-polishing plant, a slow and
agonizing death. Their bodies were then transported to a eucalyptus
grove near Netanya, where they were suspended from trees, their faces
wrapped in bandages and their shirts partially removed. The Irgun added
a cruel twist: a contact mine was planted beneath Martin’s body, rigged
to explode when cut down. The group anonymously informed Tel Aviv
newspapers of the bodies’ location, ensuring maximum publicity.

On July 30, British soldiers, accompanied by journalists and Jewish
representatives, discovered the bodies. The scene was horrific: the
sergeants’ blackened, bloodied corpses swung from the trees, with Irgun
communiqués pinned to them accusing the men of “anti-Jewish crimes.”
Captain D.H. Galatti, after checking the area, began cutting down
Martin’s body using a knife attached to a pole. When the body fell, the
mine detonated, obliterating Martin’s corpse, mutilating Paice’s, and
wounding Galatti in the face and shoulder. The gruesome images captured
by the press shocked the world.

Global Condemnation and Violent Reprisals

The Sergeants Affair provoked widespread condemnation. In Britain, The
Times declared, “It is difficult to estimate the damage that will be
done to the Jewish cause not only in this country but throughout the
world by the cold-blooded murder of the two British soldiers.” The
Manchester Guardian called it one of the worst crimes in the history of
political terrorism, comparing it to Nazi atrocities. Anglo-Jewish
leaders, including editor John Shaftesley, denounced the Irgun’s actions
as a “crime” and pleaded for British society not to retaliate against
Jewish communities.

Their pleas went unheeded. On July 31, British troops and policemen in
Tel Aviv went on a rampage, attacking Jewish shops, overturning cars,
and assaulting civilians, resulting in five Jewish deaths and numerous
injuries. In Britain, the murders triggered antisemitic riots during the
August bank holiday weekend, with Jewish businesses and synagogues
vandalized in cities like Liverpool, London, and Glasgow. Signs reading
“Jewish murderers” and “Hitler was right” appeared, reflecting a surge
in anti-Jewish sentiment.

In Palestine, Netanya residents, fearing British reprisals, stockpiled
food and some fled the city. The Irgun, unrepentant, boasted of the
murders in its press, declaring, “We recognize no one-sided laws of
war.” The Haganah, while opposed to the Irgun’s tactics, was unable to
prevent the escalating violence.

Legacy and Historical Significance

The Sergeants Affair had profound consequences. The murders, combined
with the antisemitic backlash in Britain, intensified pressure on the
British government to reconsider its role in Palestine. Two months
later, in September 1947, Britain announced its intention to withdraw
from the Mandate, paving the way for the United Nations’ partition plan
and the establishment of Israel in May 1948. Some historians argue that
the affair was a tipping point, demonstrating the untenability of
Britain’s position in the face of relentless insurgency.

For the Jewish community, the incident was deeply divisive. While the
Irgun viewed the executions as a necessary act of resistance against
British oppression, the broader Jewish leadership, including the Haganah
and Yishuv representatives, condemned the murders as counterproductive
and morally reprehensible. The affair also inspired literary
reflections, such as Elie Wiesel’s 1960 novel Dawn, which fictionalizes
the moral dilemmas faced by an Irgun executioner.

For the families of Martin and Paice, the loss was immeasurable. Both
sergeants were buried on August 1, 1947, in the Ramleh War Cemetery in
Ramla, Israel, where their headstones remain. Paice, the son of Harry
and Rose Paice of Stoke Bishop, Bristol, was remembered in a memorial
event in 2017 organized by the Forgotten British Heroes Campaign. A
“sergeants’ forest” was established near Netanya as a memorial grove,
still standing today.

Critical Reflection

The Sergeants Affair is a stark reminder of the complexities of colonial
conflicts, where cycles of violence and retribution spiral out of
control. The Irgun’s actions, while rooted in their struggle for Jewish
self-determination, were widely seen as crossing a moral line,
alienating potential allies and fueling antisemitism. Conversely, the
British response, including extrajudicial reprisals in Tel Aviv,
highlighted the challenges of maintaining order in a deeply polarized
environment.

It’s worth noting that some narratives surrounding the affair remain
contested. For instance, a 2017 Quora post claims that Israel never paid
reparations for the murders, as the Irgun operated independently of the
Yishuv leadership, which itself attempted to rescue the sergeants.
However, this claim lacks primary source verification and should be
treated cautiously. Similarly, posts on X describing the sergeants as
“tortured” or “strangled with piano wire” reflect strong sentiment but
may exaggerate details not consistently supported by primary accounts.

Ultimately, the Sergeants Affair encapsulates the tragedy of a conflict
where young men—whether British soldiers or Jewish militants—became
pawns in a larger struggle. Clifford Martin and Mervyn Paice, caught in
the crossfire of ideology and vengeance, paid the ultimate price, their
deaths echoing as a somber chapter in the path to Israel’s independence.