His connection with Zionism was reinforced while serving in the Royal Scots Greys cavalry, when he was sent to Mandate Palestine to fight with a saber and rifle on horseback.
By STEVE LINDEDerek Bowden at Tel Nof(photo credit: SMOKY SIMON)British-born Tom Derek Bowden, a Christian cavalry officer later known by his nom de guerre of Captain David Appel, was a hero of Israel’s War of Independence. He died in England on June 10 at 97.Handsome and sporting a mustache, he cut a formidable figure among the Machalniks (Volunteers from Abroad) – some 5,000 Jews and non-Jews who came from almost 60 countries to fight for Israel in its hour of need. He wrote Israel’s first parachute training manual and started the first paratroopers’ training school.The seventh of nine children of a prosperous South London family, Appel left school at 15, eager to take part in the war he saw coming. While his family were members of the Church of England, he became close to the Jewish community in London, through its lively parties and ideological debates. A daredevil by nature, he was impressed by Captain Orde Wingate, attending one of his courses on counterterrorism.His connection with Zionism was reinforced while serving in the Royal Scots Greys cavalry, when he was sent to Mandate Palestine to fight with a saber and rifle on horseback. He joined the British Army in 1938, and at the outbreak of World War II he returned to Palestine – this time with a commission and 30,000 horses. His regiment went into Syria when it declared allegiance to Vichy France in 1942, charging the cavalry in what he called “an operatic battle,” complete with swords and swirling red cloaks. He fought under the command of Moshe Dayan, who lost his eye in the battle.Bowden was badly wounded in the leg, and spent three months recovering in a Jerusalem hospital. After his discharge, he recuperated at the home of the Appel family in Tel Aviv, and in a gesture of gratitutde, began to use the name, Captain David Appel.He was captured twice by the Germans during the Second World War, and escaped twice, but he was also imprisoned for a month in Bergen-Belsen, where he witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust.Upon his return to England after the war ended, he resigned his commission and went to Yugoslavia, where he started a paratroopers’ school. While he was there, he heard about Israel’s Declaration of Independence and traveled via Cyprus to Haifa.He first joined the 7th Brigade, fighting in the Latrun area and in Galilee. Then he joined the English-speaking Machalniks of the “B” Company of the 72nd Battalion Infantry – and became a legend.In 1949, after the armistice, he was asked by Chaim Laskov, a founder of the IDF, to start a paratrooper school in Tel Nof. Helped by his Jewish secretary, Eva (Chava) Heilbronner, who had served as a nurse, he wrote Israel’s first training manual, consulting scholars for Hebrew translations of new technical terms. As commander of Israel’s first parachute regiment, Bowden brought surplus parachutes from England and said he made four jumps “before breakfast every day.”He left Israel in 1950, after marrying Eva. They had four children, but were later divorced. Years later, speaking to his South African-born Machal mate Harold “Smoky” Simon in the garden of his Norfolk farm house, “he recalled without rancor the chaos, lack of organization, and the Israeli propensity for holding endless meetings.”In his garden, Simon says, there stood a light airplane, while inside the house were faded photographs and memorabilia – and a tattered first edition of the Hebrew training manual.“When I think of Derek, I picture him with his pipe and in a picture with Ben-Gurion,” says Simon, 98, the chairman of World Machal who served as chief of air operations in the War of Independence. “Derek, the man who exudes confidence and knows what he is talking about.”
