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140 Jewish Volunteers from Pre-State Israel Were Killed in Nazi Bombing of British Troopship
(Ha'aretz) Ofer Aderet - On May 1, 1943, the Germans bombed and sunk the British troop transport ship SS Erinpura in the Mediterranean Sea, 30 miles north of Benghazi, Libya, killing 943 soldiers and sailors. Those who perished included 140 volunteers from the pre-state Jewish community, the Yishuv, who served in Transport Company 462 of the British army. The bodies of 136 soldiers were never found. Most of the fallen came to Israel from Europe and were the last remnants of their families who were murdered in the Holocaust. Dorit Perry, director of the nonprofit Giving a Face to the Fallen, said, "At the time they fought against Rommel's armies in the Arab desert, some already knew that their parents, who remained in Europe, were deported and died and that they were the only ones left in their families....Some enlisted in the British army with the clear goal of taking revenge on the Nazis."