Warner Bros, Aaron Sorkin to tell story of ‘father’ of IAF

Two Hollywood institutions — the Warner Bros. film studio and award-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin — are teaming up to make a movie about American World War II veteran Al Schwimmer, who went on to help found the Israeli Air Force by smuggling fighter jets into Palestine in 1948.

According to reports on US entertainment sites, the film will be based in part on an article by David Kushner published in Business Insider earlier this year, titled “America’s greatest gift to Israel,” a reference to a description of Schwimmer by Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion.

In 1948, with fewer than a handful of trained pilots, no combat planes and an arms embargo by the US and the rest of the world, Israel depended for its survival to a large extent on a vast international smuggling operation of arms and aircraft, and on the skills of foreign volunteers tested in the air battles of World War II.

Schwimmer, a Jewish New Yorker, bought a fleet of some 30 American bombers and cargo planes at war surplus prices and recruited US combat veterans to ferry them overseas under the guise of a fictitious Panamanian airline, always staying one step ahead of the FBI and a hostile US State Department.

The Czech government supplemented Schwimmer’s efforts by selling knockoffs of the German wartime Messerschmitt fighter planes, whose unexpected appearance brought to an abrupt halt an Egyptian army that was marching on Tel Aviv.

According to Kushner’s article, Schwimmer was assisted in his efforts by “a diverse and unlikely gang of volunteers, including Bugsy Siegel’s publicist, the mobster Meyer Lansky, Pee-wee Herman’s father, and Frank Sinatra.”

Al Schwimmer’s men in front of a C-46 plane with Panama markings. (Courtesy of Boaz Dvir via JTA)

Deadline reported that Sorkin, known for hits including “The West Wing” and “The Social Network,” will write and possibly direct the upcoming film.

Schwimmer, who for obvious reasons never used his given birth name of Adolph, was stripped of his American citizenship in 1950 for violating the US Neutrality Act.

The following year, he was running an aircraft maintenance company in Burbank, California, when at Ben Gurion’s urging he returned to Israel to establish a company building and servicing commercial and military planes. By the time Schwimmer retired in 1988, his company, Israel Aerospace Industries, was the largest in Israel and valued at $1 billion.

In the 1980s, he was also a special adviser to then-prime minister Shimon Peres. In that capacity, he served as an intermediary between the US and Iran during the hostage crisis.

A 2015 documentary titled “A Wing and a Prayer” by Israeli filmmaker Boaz Dvir also covered Schwimmer’s story, including interviews with the man himself and some of the surviving IAF troops.

JTA contributed to this report.