“Af-Al-Pi-Chen”
Illegal Immigration Ship
at
The Clandestine Immigration and Israel Navy Museum
In
our
September issue, we told you about our visit to the Clandestine
Immigration and Israel Navy Museum — and how one of the
museum’s
biggest attractions was unfortunately closed for renovations. We
promised we’d
go back once it reopened… and we did!
(If
you missed our original
article, you can read it here.)
So
now
we can finally share the fascinating story behind this remarkable ship
— with
photos below, of course.
Meet
LCT 147 (later renamed Af Al Pi Chen),
an amphibious assault
vessel originally built in 1941 to land tanks, vehicles, and troops
directly
onto beachheads. She first saw action during the Invasion
of North
Africa in June 1943, and after the war was briefly transferred
to the
Italian Navy before being sold into commercial service.
But
in
1947, her story took a dramatic turn when she was acquired by the Mossad
LeAliyah Bet
— the organization that defied the strict British immigration quotas of
the
time. Between 1934 and 1948, 116 ships brought more than 122,000 Jews
to
Israel, most of them after WWII. The Af Al Pi Chen set sail
just weeks
after the famous Exodus
1947 voyage. Her new name —“In spite of everything” — honored
that
spirit of determination.
On
September 17, 1947, she departed Formia, Italy carrying 434
Holocaust
survivors, crowded together on a ship never meant for that many
souls. As
she neared Palestine, a British aircraft spotted her, and four Royal
Navy
destroyers closed in. In the chaos that followed, Af Al Pi Chen
was even
rammed by one of the destroyers. Eventually she was overtaken and towed
to
Haifa, and her passengers were sent to internment camps in Cyprus. Most
of the
passengers finally reached Israel in 1948.
When
the State of Israel was established in June 1948, the new Israeli Navy
gathered
every ship it could find — including the Af Al Pi Chen. She
served as a
training vessel during the War of Independence, and in 1956 was
assigned one
last role during Operation
Musketeer: delivering tanks to the Gaza coast. Her engines
weren’t even
working at that point — the plan was to push her with a tugboat — but
the IDF
captured the area before she arrived, and the landing was cancelled.
The
Af
Al Pi Chen was decommissioned in 1958, and a decade later, became
the
iconic centerpiece of the museum in Haifa. That’s the very ship we were
finally
able to explore on our return visit.
A
fun
and interesting fact:
The
ship is referred to in documents as LCT 147, but the markings on her
hull
clearly read TLC 147. Both are correct!
The
British Navy changed its naming conventions during WWII:
·
TLC
= Tank Landing Craft
(the original term when she was built)
·
LCT
= Landing Craft,
Tank (the later standardized version)
A
small change — but a
nice little piece of naval trivia for history lovers ☺️.
