The Jerusalem Post Newspaper
October 25, 2001
HEADLINE: IDF identifies bodies of pilots missing since '53
By Arieh O'Sullivan
JERUSALEM (October 25) - A special air force team, aided by the
Antiquities Authority and the IDF's Unit for Locating Missing Soldiers,
has finally identified the remains of two aviators who crashed at sea 48
years ago in their British-built Mosquito bomber.
The two had flown out in August 1953, in search of another Mosquito which
had crashed at sea. The second Mosquito also crashed. Despite searches,
neither the plane nor the bodies of the two aviators, pilot Lt. Eliezer
Reisner and navigator Lt. Yehuda Katz, were found.
In 1986, an amateur diver found the remnants of an engine which turned out
to belong to the lost Mosquito. It still took years for the IDF to recover
the bodies, and only yesterday did OC Manpower Maj.-Gen. Gil Regev and OC
Chaplaincy Corps Brig.-Gen. Israel Weiss give their final confirmation
that the remains were of Katz and Reisner.
The two will be buried together in a grave on Mount Herzl and their names
removed from the wall of servicemen missing in action.
Katz had belonged to the pre-state Etzel and had been sentenced to death
by the British. Incarcerated in Acre Prison, he managed to escape and join
the fledgling air force. His surviving son was killed in action in an IDF
operation in Lebanon in 1971.
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Pilot Lt. Eliezer Reisner and Navigator Lt. Yehuda Katz
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