 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Palyam" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(June 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Palyam (Hebrew:פלי"ם, an abbreviation ofPlugat HaYam (פלוגת הים),lit. 'Sea Company') was the marines of thePalmach.
Palyam was set up in April 1945 as the Palmach's tenth company (Pluga Yud) which originated from the Palmach's Naval Platoon.[1] The Company's first commander was Abraham Zakai. It belonged to the Fourth Battalion which was the Palmach's Staff Battalion, attached to the Palmach's Staff Battalion (the 4th Battalion).
The division was in charge of amphibious warfare, beach reconnaissance, close-quarters combat, maritime security, naval boarding, providing security at naval base or shore stations, raiding with small unit tactics, screening, and underwater demolition. The majority of their activities were related to the escorting of ships ofAliyah Bet, immigration ships (66 of them in all) bringing Jewish refugees from Europe by boat, despite the BritishWhite Paper of 1939 limitingJewish immigration intoMandate Palestine.
From August 1945 to May 1948, approximately seventy Palyamniks escorted close to 70,000 immigrants in 66 sea voyages, fromSweden in the north toAlgeria in the south,France in the west toRomania in the east. They also escorted the arms ships that brought vital arms during the war.
On the eve of the1948 Arab-Israeli War, Palyam consisted of approximately four hundred marines, eighty of them were graduates of the marine officers course which was held in the Marine School near theTechnion, and seventy of them graduates of the ship commanders course at kibbutzSdot Yam.[clarification needed]
Headquarters of Palyam was located in kibbutz Sdot Yam, but the unit had installations in kibbutzNeve Yam,Ma'abarot,Giv'at HaShlosha,Shefayim andYagur.
On March 17, 1948, the Naval Service (the precursor of theIsraeli Sea Corps) was formed, and the Palyam were ordered to join. Many of the Palyam members formed the core personnel and command of the Naval Service. In fact, most ship commanders during the first years of the Navy, and up to 1975, most of the Navy's commander-in-chiefs, were Palyam veterans.
Palyam members who specialized in maritime sabotage formedShayetet 13, the IDF Naval Commando unit.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
