Travis, Moshe
Son of Malka and Binyamin. Was born in 1917 in Egypt where he grew up and studied until the age of sixteen. Then he set out to fulfill his ambition throughout his youth, to immigrate to the Land of Israel in the hope that eventually he could bring the gate of his family. When he came to Israel, he found a difficult economic situation and great unemployment, but he soon found a job because he was not afraid of any work, however difficult it might be. In 1941 he accepted the call of Yishuv institutions and enlisted in the British Army to participate in the war against the Nazis. After his conscription, he married a wife with whom he hoped to establish a home and family in Israel. In the army he was assigned to the 462 Hebrew Transport Company, which was part of the British army’s large defense unit in Al-Almin. In 1943 Allied forces were to invade Sicily and the 462 unit was to be in the invasion forces. Its members were transferred to Egypt, equipped with new weapons and vehicles, and loaded onto a ship that would lead them to Malta, where the forces were concentrated in the invasion. The ship, called “Arinfora,” sailed in a large convoy of Allied ships and on its way, on the 27th of Nissan, 5703 (1.5.1943), was attacked by a group of German bombers and within a few minutes sank deep into the sea. A hundred and forty Jewish soldiers descended with her to the depths, and Moshe among them. He left a wife and a daughter. In the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, a ship-shaped monument was erected in memory of the missing, and next to it is a water pool with the names of the fallen engraved on the bottom. This fallen hero is a “maklan” – a hero whose burial place is unknown.
