Kaplan, Moshe-Alter

Son of Esther and Mordechai. He was born in 1925 in Petach Tikva, where he completed his elementary studies at Netzach Yisrael and then moved to the Talpiot boarding school in Jerusalem. He was an active and lively boy, he was very active in sports and excelled in his activities. After the outbreak of World War II he enlisted in the British Army and was assigned to the 462th Hebrew Transport Company. The company was part of the British defense establishment in El Alamein, on the western border of Egypt. In the ranks of his unit, many battles took place and reached the Tunisian border. At the beginning of 1943, the British Army planned to invade Sicily, and 462 was to be part of the invasion force. Moshe, who was a driver in his unit, was transferred with his friends to Egypt, where they were equipped with new vehicles and weapons. After the procurement phase, about three hundred members of the unit boarded the ship “Arinapura” and sailed from the port of Alexandria towards Malta, from which the force was to launch the invasion. On the way, the ship joined several dozen other vessels, including cargo ships, tankers, escort ships and minesweepers. On the afternoon of the 27th of Nisan, 5703 (May 1, 1943), German planes bombed the convoy. Two bombs hit the “Aryanpora” and drowned it in a few minutes. One hundred and forty of the company’s men, 462, descended to the depths of the ocean, Moshe-Alter among them. He left a father and four sisters. In the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, a ship-shaped monument was erected in memory of those who were missing, and next to it is a water pool with the names of the fallen engraved on the bottom.