The following article was written by Sisay, the main author and operator of the website.

This article was made with great help and input from my personal friend and fellow Israeli tank enthusiast @plovejet

1. Young Nation Struggles
2. From Italy to Israel
3. Not First, nor Second
4. Modifications
5. Operational Service and Post War Sightings
6. Origin of the name
7. My Great Grandpa: From Holocaust Survivor to Warrior

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Young Nation Struggles

By June 28th, 1948, Israel had already operated a multitude of tanks: French Renault R35 tanks captured from Syria, Mark 3 & 4 Cromwells stolen from the British, an American M4A2 Sherman from a bribed British soldier, and ten Hotchkiss H39 tanks bought from France. However, the Cromwell Mark 4 had its cannon blown by faulty ammunition, the R35 tanks broke down and the H39 tanks weren’t in good mechanical condition, which later led to three of them breaking down from engine failure. To make matters worse, there was a lack of spare replacement parts for the current tanks in service and far from enough parts to fix the currently broken tanks. Even then, they were still seen as inferior to Arab armor.

Type of tank	Amount operated
R35	2
M4A2	1
Cromwell Mk3	1
Cromwell Mk4	1
H39	10
M4 105 Re-gunned to 75 mm M3	2

Thus, Yerocham Kafkafi, a technical officer of the 8th Brigade and an ex-British Army technician during World War Two, wrote that there was a severe lack of parts for Yitzchak Sade, commander of the 8th Brigade. At this point, the IDF only had about ten tanks in operational service compared to the estimated 100 tanks of the combined Arab armies. Given this glaring disadvantage, the IDF was happy to invest in new armor, especially after the failed attempt to buy 38 U.S. M5A1 light tanks in March of the same year.

From Italy to Israel

So on the 12th of August, 1948, Kafkafi was told he would be going to Italy to buy 36 tanks. He inspected 120 Shermans in different Italian scrap yards full of leftover vehicles of American and British origin from World War Two.

Eventually, he located and purchased 30 M4 105 VVSS Sherman tanks of British origin, he purchased them for 2,200 USD each (27,692 Dollars in 2023), making them the cheapest tanks purchased during the War of Independence. The tanks were brought to Israel by sea in three different shipments.

Date of arrival at Haifa port	Amount of Shermans
17.11.1948	10
24.11.1948	12
3.1.1949	8

However, during their time in the scrapyards, the tanks had been disabled after a hole had been drilled in each of their cannons. This led to the need to replace the defective cannons. Only two of these Shermans were successfully retrofitted: Tamar and Ruth II. This also led to the short-lived Krupp Sherman tanks.

Not First, nor Second

Ruth II was the second and last tank to be fully repaired from this purchase during the war, however, it was the third Sherman to enter the IDF, as the aforementioned M4A2 entered service beforehand. That tank, originally named Meir, was bought by the Haganah (one of the three militias which fought for Israel’s independence and later formed part of the IDF) on the day of Israel’s independence from a bribed British soldier in Wadi Oren. The tank was originally destined to be thrown down the Wadi after being somewhat disabled to not allow either the Arabs or the Jews to use it. 

However, with an undisclosed amount of cash, it was put on an Israeli Diamond-T tank transporter and sent to Tel Aviv where it would be tested. Multiple issues were found: the cannon didn’t fire, the turret didn’t traverse, the engine couldn’t run for prolonged periods, and the radio and other internal components were missing. After scavenging the scrapyards and taking parts from plane engines, the tank was fully repaired, except for the cannon, for which no replacement was found. As a stopgap solution, a Hispano-Suiza 404 20mm autocannon was installed inside a metal tube in place of the cannon. By this point, the tank was named Meir, after the newborn son of one of the mechanics who fixed it. Eventually, three M3 75mm cannons (the standard cannon for most Sherman tanks during WWII) were purchased, so the stopgap cannon of the Meir was soon replaced, and the two remaining cannons were installed on two of the M4 105 Shermans which had come from Italy. The first one to get a cannon was named Tamar (which got a full article of its own already). The second was Ruth II, and they all fought under the 82nd Battalion.

Meir would change her name to Mania in the later stages of the war where she was knocked out by an anti-tank mine during the push north towards Al-Arish. The only tanks then left in Israeli service were the Cromwell Mark 3 number 211, Tamar, and Ruth II. The lack of lighter tanks was supplemented by a large amount of captured armored cars, mainly Humber Mark 4 Armored Cars and Marmon-Herrington Mark 4 Fords, along with a number of 6 Pounder armed and 20mm autocannon armed half-tracks. There was also Ada: the fourth Israeli Sherman, which lacked a cannon so it was used similarly to a tractor, sometimes towing captured Egyptian tanks.

Modifications

Unlike her sister Tamar, Ruth II didn’t receive any major modifications. Instead, Ruth II only got two minor modifications: it was the first of all Israeli Shermans to receive a storage box on the transmission cover, something that would be taken off around late 1950. Secondly, Ruth II got a special Israeli-made rear storage box, possibly due to a lack of the original British rear storage boxes. This most likely stayed on Ruth II until much later than the transmission cover box. Furthermore, Ruth II used a Chrysler-type sprocket, while the Tamar used a plain type sprocket, and the M34 mantlet, at least until sometime in 1950 when it along with every other M34 equipped Sherman (only three were equipped with M34 mantlets) was replaced with the M34A1 mantlet. Also, around October 1950, Ruth II was observed with the tracks on backward.

Operational Service and Post War Sightings

Ruth II saw combat until the end of Operation Horev, with the last photos of Ruth II during the war showing it fighting alongside Tamar on the fifth of January, 1949. They didn’t see combat in Operation Uvda, and after the war, Ruth II got the IDF number 12484. This is easily provable as Sherman number 12484 shows all the characteristics of Ruth II, and has both the Chrysler-type sprocket and the M34 mantlet, a combination exclusive to 12484. Ruth II would see service until the early 50s. After 1952, Ruth II fails to show up in any archival footage. It is unclear whether or not it survived Operation Kadesh in 1956, and it’s also possible it was turned into an M-50 Degem Alef, rendering it unidentifiable, unless the old number was retained, which is unlikely. Another strange detail in Ruth II’s story is the fact that even though it entered service after the Tamar, it received a lower IDF number. The Tamar got IDF number 12503 while Ruth II got 12484, while multiple other Shermans have been observed with numbers in between the two.

Origin of the name

Ruth II’s namesake is a bit hazy; one theory suggests it derives from either another tank of the unit, Cromwell 211, which was called Ruth or the six-pounder half-track which was in the same battalion and was named Ruth as well. There was also a Universal Carrier captured from Egypt named Ruth, but it most likely doesn’t have anything to do with Ruth II. However, it is also possible the crew operated another tank during World War Two called Ruth, as many of the 1948 tankers were tankers in World War Two as well, but no evidence of this claim has been discovered.

My Great Grandpa: From Holocaust Survivor to Warrior

I was always told how my great grandpa Berto fought in Operation Kadesh, and how he was a part of the first tanker’s course in the IDF. I didn’t think much of it until a couple of years ago when I started getting into Israeli armor, and I started asking my family more about him. I couldn’t ask him directly as he, unfortunately, passed away in 2017. His story begins in the Bulgarian village of Pazardzhik in 1927. Pazardzhik was a small village in southern Bulgaria next to the Maritsa River. During the Holocaust, Bulgarian Jews were fairly unaffected, thanks to the fierce will of the Bulgarian government to protect its Jews. However, due to the fact they were still an Axis ally and were very much pressured by Hitler, about 11,000 Jews of the occupied provinces of Pirot, northern Greece, and Macedonia were sent to Vienna by train where the Nazis sent them to extermination camps. Furthermore, all 25,000 Jews living in Bulgaria’s capital, Sophia, were moved to towns around Bulgaria, which included my great-grandma. All Jews were forced to wear the yellow star; as such, my great-grandpa Berto wore one too. Because he was in a small village that wasn’t in the occupied provinces, he was largely unaffected by the atrocities during the war, and the Holocaust thankfully went over his head. By the end of the war, 49,000 Jews were in Bulgaria, and Zionist youth movements such as “HaChalootz” and “HaShoomer HaTza’ir” started to gain momentum. That, along with the new communist government which supported Israel and allowed Jews to leave for the new state gave a lot of opportunities for Bulgarian Jews to go to Mandatory Palestine, and when the State of Israel gained independence on the 14th of May, 1948, a huge wave of Bulgarian Jews came to Israel by ship. This allowed 11,000 Jews to come to Israel from 1946 until Israeli independence.

My great-grandpa came to Israel in 1948 shortly after independence was announced, and since he was around 21, he was supposed to serve in the war. However, his cousin, who was a Lechi fighter and cared deeply for Berto, got injured in combat and had been told that Berto would be coming. He didn’t want him to perish in the war, so he wrote in his ID that my great-grandpa was born in 1932, making him 5 years younger,16, and ineligible for the draft. Additionally, he was given a Hebrew name, Avraham Philosof. However, he always referred to himself as Berto, as he disliked his new Hebrew name. He was sent to live in the Ben Shemen Kibbutz, which he didn’t agree with and he would get secret jobs and keep the money for himself, going directly against the communist ideology of a kibbutz. On either the 18th or 22nd of January, 1950 (the exact date is hazy), when he was ‘legally’ 18 he was conscripted.

Berto was then assigned to the 7th Brigade, 82nd Battalion and sent to the first tanker’s course, where he would learn how to be a loader for the Sherman Degem Alef, the original designation for Shermans armed with an M3 75mm cannon) He also learned how to drive the tank, in case the original driver was incapacitated. He served in his tank from 1950 to 1952.

After his initial service, he was moved to reserve duty, and assigned to the 7th Brigade’s reserve unit, The 27th Brigade. At one point during his reserve service, he wanted to visit his wife, my great-grandma who is still alive at 93 years old, she gave me most details on my great-grandpa. He and another comrade of his took their half-track and drove it to Yahud. When they got there, my great-grandpa exited the half-track and told his friend to go park it in the field. When his friend was parking the half-track, he accidentally drove over a stone wall, and the half-track flipped. The IDF was rushed to the area with armored cars to turn the half-track back on its tracks and wheels, and the IDF officers who questioned the two were furious. When they asked how they got to Yahud, my great-grandpa simply replied that they made a navigational mistake while driving.

In 1956 he was called to action and fought in Rafah and eventually captured Al-Arish, the same city the 82nd Battalion failed to fully conquer in 1948. During the battles, he was in a half-track, under the 79th Battalion of the brigade. When he came back home. He brought with him what was described as a captured Sten gun dripping with tank oil. I find it unlikely it was a Sten as my family described it, but instead, a Port Said submachine gun, a version of the M/45 Carl Gustaf produced under license in Egypt. It was fairly common for Israeli soldiers to take captured small arms with them and sometimes use them, but due to the horrid smell of the oil, my great-grandma forced him to throw it away. Instead of throwing it away, he gave it to a friend of his who lived in a kibbutz where he hid it in his closet. As it later turned out, my great-grandpa received PTSD from Operation Kadesh, unlike what many people think, PTSD doesn’t necessarily come out right after battle, sometimes it lingers within a person with no symptoms for months, years, or sometimes decades. My great-grandpa’s PTSD only came out in the last couple of weeks of his life. I distinctly remember him sitting in a nursing home, looking outside the window over a sandy field, and him frighteningly screaming, “We’re in enemy territory! We have to get out!”. Since his passing, his room has stayed almost like a time capsule, being almost untouched since he left. One day I searched for photos of him during his military service, and I found about 20 undated photos. Thanks to these photos, I can confirm my great grandpa’s Sherman tank was the legendary Ruth II.