Israel The Abduction And Murder Of Sergeants Clifford Martin And Mervyn Paice
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.