Thread: Major Roy Farran, DSO, MC

Yes, but what I was trying to tell you was that nothing on those pages actually tells us anything relevant. The pages may well point to offline (and unavailable online) evidence. It's up to you to persuade, not up to us to do your research.

Yes, but what I was trying to tell you was that nothing on those pages actually tells us anything relevant. The pages may well point to offline (and unavailable online) evidence. It's up to you to persuade, not up to us to do your research.

So it can be helpful for TangoFowerAlpha who started this thread.

Originally Posted by TangoFowerAlpha

I`m trying to establish if the transcript, or other record, of the court martial of Major Roy Farran exists and, if so, where.

Major Farran was a much decorated WW2 cavalry and SAS officer tried in Palestine (I believe in 1947?) for implication in the death of a member of the Stern Gang after the King David Hotel bomb.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Originally Posted by mora

Originally Posted by gallowglass

On a minor point of historical accuracy, the Stern Gang made overtures to the Third Reich with a view to an anti-British alliance. Doubtless this too is 'justifiable'.

Lehi was a tiny fringe organiation (500 members at most), which hoped it could make a deal with the Nazis to save Europe's Jews by getting them to Palestine. As the 'final solution' was not adopted by the Nazis until 1942, they were not behaving wholly irrationally.

Israel also negotiated costly with Arab terrorist organization to free its citizens, by paying them all sort of things. What's your point? Not to turn the world on its head and accuse them to assist the killing of the Jews. That's is odious cant.

As you say mora, the Stern Gang/Lehi were a "tiny fringe organisation"....as are most terrorist groups (the PIRA are estimated to have had no more than 50-100 'full-time' volunteers); numbers in terrorist groups mean little, as such groups have an effect quite out of proportion to their actual size (which in terms of simple survival is usually small). Yes, the Final Solution did not begin until 1942, but as you well know, Jews had been persecuted and killed in the Third Reich since 1933, and mass killings of Jews had taken place since the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. At a stretch, the Stern Gang were not behaving 'irrationally' (at least in terms of their own outlook), but they were guilty of either immoral opportunism - did they honestly believe that they could deal with the Nazis? - or stunning naïveté.

Don't try and shift the focus of my words by dragging in Israel's sometime negotiation with Arab terrorists (which, as far as I have been able to gather, has not been that often - and quite rightly too), and thereby hope to portray me as someone who would acquiesce at the killing of Jews - that is morally dishonest and shows an aversion to actually addressing my points. "[T]urning the world on its head" is precisely what would have happened had a Nazi/Stern Gang alliance actually come about - while a successful alliance may have saved some Jews, in the long run the Allies would have lost the war, and the Nazis would have been free to fully implement the Final Solution. The IRA adhere to a similar form of thinking - it's called "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity", and it's why they sided with Imperial Germany, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, East Germany, Gaddafi's Libya...spot a pattern?

At a stretch, the Stern Gang were not behaving 'irrationally' (at least in terms of their own outlook), but they were guilty of either immoral opportunism - did they honestly believe that they could deal with the Nazis? - or stunning naïveté.

Here you don't know the real history, sadly. The Germans agree! the british refused!. Hence the ferocious attacks on british after the holocaust revealed.

A (non-public) statement handed to the American Ambassador in London in December 1943, when there appeared a possibility of securing the departure of seventy thousand Jews from Romania. The Ambassador was informed that 'the Foreign Office are concerned with the difficulties of disposing of any considerable number of Jews should they be rescued from enemy-occupied territory'.

Irgun/Lehi took it as refusing deliberately to save the Jews ( not to anger the Arab/oil interests )

Originally Posted by mora

At a stretch, the Stern Gang were not behaving 'irrationally' (at least in terms of their own outlook), but they were guilty of either immoral opportunism - did they honestly believe that they could deal with the Nazis? - or stunning naïveté.

Here you don't know the real history, sadly. The Germans agree! the british refused!. Hence the ferocious attacks on british after the holocaust revealed.

You're going to have to explain that one to me mora - "[t]he Germans agree! the british refused!" - do I take it that you mean that the Nazis 'agreed' to the Stern Gang's proposals (a view somewhat contradicted by the following):

http://www.jewishreference.com/polit...stzionism.html

In 1940 and 1941, NMO (Stern Gang/Lehi) proposed intervening in the Second World War on the side of Nazi Germany[1] to attain their help in expelling Britain from Mandate Palestine and to offer their assistance in "evacuating" the Jews of Europe arguing that "common interests could exist between the establishment of a new order in Europe in conformity with the German concept, and the true national aspirations of the Jewish people as they are embodied by the NMO." Late in 1940, the NMO representative Naftali Lubenchik was sent to Beirut where he met the German official Werner Otto von Hentig and delivered a letter from NMO offering to "actively take part in the war on Germany's side" in return for German support for "the establishment of the historic Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, bound by a treaty with the German Reich". Von Hentig forwarded the letter to the German embassy in Ankara, but there is no record of any official response. Lehi tried to establish contact with the Germans again in December 1941, also apparently without success.

A diplomat forwarding a letter does not indicate 'agreement', and as shown in the above passage, nothing came of the Stern Gang's approach.

So if I have this right, the fact that - as you see it - the Nazis 'agreed' to the Stern Gang's 'pact with the Devil' proposal (for that is what it was) places them, and the Stern Gang's activities, on a higher moral plane than the British...if so, then this only proves my earlier reference to 'revolutionary morality'.

Here is a source where Shamir ( Lehi leader and future Israel's PM) explains Stern's motives

Nicholas Bethell interviewed him for his 1979 book, The Palestine Triangle. Shamir told him that he had been against making approaches to Italy. I didn’t think it would do any good. But Stern had good memories of his work in Poland before the war. He had got many Jews to Palestine by exploiting the anti-Semitism of Polish officials. He thought it might work in Italy. At least he felt he had to try. Shamir still approves of the Revisionists’ dealings with the Polish anti-Semites, and told Bethell that “It was a political agreement. They helped us for anti-Semitic reasons. We explained to them, ‘If you want to get rid of the Jews, you must help the Zionist movement.’�

The Sternists had always thought that anti- Semitism was justified and inevitable and could never be fought. They were firmly convinced that Nazism was the wave of the future. As Zionists, they believed that “’tis indeed an ill-wind that blows no one any good�, and they sought to put Nazism’s wind in their sails. They tried to justify their singular position in a series of illegal radio broadcasts:

There is a difference between a persecutor and an enemy. Persecutors have risen against Israel in all generations and in all periods of our diaspora, starting with Haman and ending with Hitler ... The source of all our woes is our remaining in exile, and the absence of a homeland and statehood. Therefore, our enemy is the foreigner, the ruler of our land who blocks the return of the people to it. The enemy are the British who conquered the land with our help and who remain here by our leave, and who betrayed us and placed our brethren in Europe in the hands of the persecutor.



Official Zionist version

The “Blood for Goods� Deal

Source: Encyclopedia of the Holocaust and Yad Vashem.

MAY 1944

Himmler's secret agents proposed to the Allies to trade Jews for trucks, other commodities, or money. Jewish Agency Receives Offer to Trade Jews for Trucks (May 26, 1944).

On April 25, 1944, as a desperate measure to increase the supply of goods into the country, the Nazis offered to permit one million Jews to leave Hungary in exchange for goods obtained outside of Hungary. Included in this deal was a request for 10,000 trucks for civilian use or for use along the eastern front.

Adolf Eichmann and the upper echelons of the SS, including Heinrich Himmler approved this proposal which would allow the Jews to leave Hungary for any Allied occupied country, with the exception of Palestine. (The Nazis had promised the Grand Muflti Hajj Amin Al-Husseini that he would prevent Jewish immigration to Palestine).

The Nazis chose Joel Brand, a member of the Relief and Rescue Committee of Budapest (also known as the Va'ada) to assist them in negotiations with world Jewish leaders and the Allied governments. Also chosen to manage negotiations with the Allies was Andor Grosz, a minor intelligence agent and employee of both the Va'ada and the SS at different times. Grosz was supposed to lead a different set of discussions: A separate German truce with the Western allies. Brand was a decoy to distract the allies from Grosz's more important mission.

The offer was not seriously considered because the Allies believed it to be a trick and did not want to negotiate with the Nazis. The British press stirred up opposition to the proposal, calling the "monstrous offer" to exchange goods for Jews blackmail.


Jews For Sale? Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933-1945 by Yehuda Bauer.

New Haven, Conn. and London: Yale University Press, 1994.

The Transfer Agreement (1933-40), the Evian Conference (July 193, negotiations in Slovakia (1942-43), and the "trucks for blood" parleys in Hungary (1944) are the best known examples of efforts to save Jews from Nazi persecution.

The pre-Final Solution relations between the Jews and their tormentors as the product of a temporarily shared community of interests. Until 1942, the Nazi solution to the Jewish question was emigration with extensive expropriation or outright expulsion. The desperation of many German Jews to emigrate created the basis for the complex Transfer Agreement. But negotiations between Nazis and Jews also continued after the solution of the Jewish question had evolved into systematic extermination.

The results of these efforts, most notably in Slovakia and Hungary, were not inconsiderable. Nonetheless, actors in these events and a number of later historians were convinced that many more lives could have been saved, and even that under the right conditions, the Nazis would have been willing to stop the Final Solution. They have cast the blame for failure far and wide, charging other participants, the Zionists, the Red Cross, and the West with callous betrayal.

Jewish motives for dealing with the Nazis were obvious. They attempted to stave off catastrophe and to save what could be saved. Nazi motives were more puzzling. At most, Heinrich Himmler was willing to exchange some Jews if palpable advantages for the Third Reich were the result. This tactic, for which Himmler had the oral backing of Hitler, came into greater play as Germany's military fortunes began to decline.

Excerpt from interview with Professor Yehuda Bauer

Director of the International Center for Holocaust Studies of Yad Vashem

January 18, 1998, Yad Vashem Jerusalem

Q- Were there chances of rescuing Jews by negotiations that were missed
because of this attitude?

B - The question of negotiating with the Nazis to rescue Jews is an extremely complicated issue. The Jews were caught in a trap. The Allies couldn't accept the German demands, because the Germans wanted a separate peace with the Western Allies, and this was out of the question. The Allies couldn't have supplied the Nazis in 1944 with thousands of trucks to help them fight against the Soviet Allies of the West. In other words, these were impossible situations.

What they could have done was to drag out the negotiations more than they did, to promise the Nazis to talk on condition that the Nazis stopped the murder. They didn't do that; had they done so, they might have had trouble with their Soviet Allies. The Soviets were completely oblivious of any Jewish issue whatsoever, and completely refused to negotiate with the Germans, although they did maintain some kind of contact with the Germans behind the West's back.

This fear was quite strong, especially among the Americans. In such a situation, the only thing that might have helped was what Moshe Shertok (later Sharett), at that time the head of the political department in the Jewish Agency, had suggested to the Western Allies: Talk to them, promise them whatever they want, but don't give it to them; drag it out until the war is over.That was very wise advice, but they didn't listen. Yes, possibilities may have been missed, but in a situation where the trap was almost completely closed.


Q- Why wasn't that done?

B- There were a number of reasons. There was an element of antisemitism, especially of course in the foreign offices of the two Western powers. I don't think that this element was really crucial, even though it certainly contributed.

What was crucial was the fact that the Allies were afraid that if their struggle were in some way identified with the rescue of Jewish people, they would be accused by their own home constituency of fighting for the Jews and not for themselves. This may have been true for the United States, where antisemitism increased during the Second World War. But I don't think it was true for Britain, where antisemitism decreased during the war.

This was the perception of the leaders of the Western Allies. The Jews were an unpopular minority who were pestering them to help, and the Allies decided that their purpose was to win the war, and anything that diverted them from that was bad. They completely ignored the fact that there was no contradiction between pursuing the war and helping the few thousands that could have been helped (or the tens of thousands that could have been helped by the steps that I outlined before).

The Western Allies themselves said that they were fighting against the most inhumane regime that had ever disfigured the face of this earth. By not helping the Jews, they ignored their own purposes. So in the end, it is a moral issue. And on the moral front, I think the Western Allies failed as far as the Jews were concerned.

Originally Posted by Awol

Originally Posted by mora

Farran resigned from the Army on his return to England but the affair had a sequel. In 1948 a parcel sent to his home was opened by his brother, Rex, who was killed when the package exploded.

that's justice not the law

And with those five words you lose any credibility you may have had.

A perfect way to answer 'mora's rambles, short and to the point.
Incidentally, she had started a thread on 'Militaly History' about the death of Major Farran titled ''Roy Farran - war hero in France, war criminal in Israel''. After a frenzy of edits she just called it 'removed'.
Apparently, if you kill a terrorist you become a 'war criminal' but if terrorists kill a totally innocent person with a letter bomb they remain 'freedom fighters - and founding fathers of Israel.

Originally Posted by mora

The enemy are the British who conquered the land with our help and who remain here by our leave, and who betrayed us and placed our brethren in Europe in the hands of the persecutor.

Wonder why we even bothered with the N. African campaign then.

Maybe we should have just let Rommel go all the way to Egypt and Palestine then?

You would not even be here Mora, if it hadnt been for us.

Slightly off from the later posts but I had the pleasure of knowing - albeit it not closely - Roy Farran.

After my time as a lowly STAB - I emigrated to Calgary in '91 and stayed there 'til my missus said 'time to go home' in '96(I was GUTTED). Several summers I worked landscaping and the first summer I came across Maj Farran as we had the contract to look after his gardens at his home out of town.

I knew of him (by reputation) from my STAB days but not that he was in Canada. Met the old boy and recognised his face and the name and asked if he was THE Roy Farran. He was a little cagey at first but relaxed when we exchanged credentials. He was an interesting and very switched on guy. Always alert I believe he always had in the back of his mind that some Israeli group or other might try something.

He made his money selling off land he'd bought for farming when Calgary was a small cowtown. Much of south west Calgary is on land he once owned.

I refuse to believe he ever acted outside the normal rules of engagement. He would have known that that would be counter-productive.

D_B

It must have been fascintaing to have met Farran d_b.

I posted on the Blair Mayne thread that a new book concerning his time in Palestine has recently been published:

Major Farran's Hat: Murder, Scandal and Britain’s War Against Jewish Terrorism 1945-1948

http://www.rbooks.co.uk/product.aspx?id=0434018449

Mora is just another terrorist supporting cnut like KevinB really. These scum have nothing to offer anyone, but their attempts to justify the mass murder committed by their heroes.

The other thing they have in common is that both of them had massive amounts of help from our "friends" the Yanks.

Mora you are full of shite,

The British did not co-operate with the Irgun (Correct) however the Irgun were not NOT the Israeli people,

The British did co-operate with Hagenah. Hagenah were WERE the Israeli people.

Hagenah DID NOT Co-operate with Irgun (in general, specifics may differ) because they believed that Irgun were blood thirsty murderous terrorists. In fact the Gurion family was split when Irgun was condemned by mainstream Israel resulting in tensions between Irgun and Hagenah.

Hagenah were trained by the British, post war Hagenah conducted disruption operations on installations. Hagenah became the IDF.

You have adopted a stupid line of argument much alligned with the American/Irish republicans who believe the IRA is Ireland. Irgun is not Israel.

Originally Posted by gallowglass

It must have been fascintaing to have met Farran d_b.

I posted on the Blair Mayne thread that a new book concerning his time in Palestine has recently been published:

Major Farran's Hat: Murder, Scandal and Britain’s War Against Jewish Terrorism 1945-1948

http://www.rbooks.co.uk/product.aspx?id=0434018449

It was indeed a pleasure and a privalige. I've also met a couple of other 'notables' and was struck by their mild demeanour and modest ways. There was no mistaking the steely resolve in their eyes when talking about certain things and you knew straight away that (much like my parents ) they were never to be crossed regardless of how old they were. Proper role models.

Major Farran and I talked mostly about Calgary as I was a fresh-faced newly landed imigrant. He was a 50 year veteran of the area. My interests were more of how Calgary had changed since the war. Occassionally we talked of the war but in general terms. He never big timed and only talked about the better times and the characters he'd known. He wasn't a man to live in the past.

D_B

His surviving family members came over from Canada to present his medals to SASRA in September'07. They are a really nice bunch of folks. The day co-incided with a church service, arranged for the dedication of the SASRA standard at a Church of Scotland venue in London followed by a good social afternoon.

He's got quite a collection of gongs. What a player.

Accidentally today there was a new *snip*...

More Revzioinst crap removed.

Couldn't stay away could you Mora.