The Israeli ‘Lightning Of The Heavens’ Parachute Badge
In July 2021, paratroopers from Israel, Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, and the UK participated in a commemorative parachute jump at Cerklje Air Base, Slovenia.
The event was part of the “Lightning of the Heavens” delegation, a mission honouring Jewish pre-state paratroopers who parachuted into Nazi-occupied territories during World War II to support the Allies and rescue Hungarian Jews.
The parachute jumps coincided with the 100th anniversary of the birth of Hannah Szenes (Senesh), the first female Jewish paratrooper from pre-state Israel.
The event featured two jumps: on day one, eight Israeli paratroopers jumped from 12,000 feet alongside their European counterparts. The following day, around 100 paratroopers participated in a static-line jump from 1,000 feet. Israel’s delegation featured senior military leaders including the CO Depth Corps, Maj.-Gen. Itai Virov, Parachute Brigade commander Col. Yuval Gez, and Brig.-Gen. Ofer Winter, CO of the 98th Parachute Division, plus serving and reservist commandos and paratroopers.
After landing, participants followed a historic path through forests once home to partisan fighters during the war, continuing to the town of Semič, retracing the route of the original paratroopers.
At its conclusion, participants received a set of commemorative parachute insignia featuring a lightning bolt piercing a cloud superimposed on British styled paratrooper wings. The lightning symbol, central to the delegation’s name, references Hannah Szenes’s iconic poem A Walk to Caesarea, which includes the phrase Barak ha’Shamayim (“lightning of the heavens”).
Hannah Szenes
Hannah Szenes (Sanesh) was born in Budapest on 17 July, 1921 and emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1939 where she joined the Haganah, the paramilitary group that became the foundation for the Israeli Defense Forces. In 1943 she joined the British Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) before being one of around 250 Jewish volunteers from Mandatory Palestine who were recruited by Britain’s MI9 and Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1943. Eventually, 37 were selected for operational deployment.
On March 14, 1944, along with two colleagues she parachuted into Yugoslavia to join a partisan group. After landing, they learned that the Germans had already occupied Hungary. Considering the heightened danger, the men decided to call off the mission.
Undeterred, Szenes continued on alone toward the Hungarian border. At the border, she was arrested by Hungarian gendarmes, who discovered her transmitter, used for communicating with the SOE and other partisans. She was taken to a prison, where she was stripped, tied to a chair, and subjected to three days of whipping and clubbing. The brutal beatings caused her to lose several teeth.
Szenes was transferred to a Budapest prison, where she was repeatedly interrogated and tortured. Despite this, she revealed only her name and steadfastly refused to disclose her communication codes, even when her mother was arrested in an attempt to coerce her. The guards threatened to kill her mother if she did not cooperate, but she refused.
On October 28, 1944, she was tried for treason in Hungary by a court under the fascist Arrow Cross regime. The trial was postponed twice—once for eight days to allow the judges more time to reach a verdict, and again due to the appointment of a new Judge Advocate. On November 7, 1944, she was executed by a firing squad. Szenes continued writing in her diary until her final day. One entry read:
“In the month of July, I shall be twenty-three / I played a number in a game / The dice have rolled. I have lost.”
Her diary was published in Hebrew in 1946. In 1950, her remains were brought to Israel and interred in the cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. In November 2007, her original tombstone was moved to Sdot Yam and placed there in her honour.
