Arieh Rona

Arieh Rona was born in 1942 in Subotica

Arieh Rona was born in 1942 in Subotica, Yugoslavia. In 1944 he was sent with his mother and grandmother to the Bergen-Belsen camp, and the family reunited after liberation in 1945. The family immigrated to Israel in 1948 and settled in Jerusalem.

In 1957 he entered the naval officers school in Acre and finished it in 1961. He later earned a BA from Tel Aviv University, an MA in management from the US Naval War College in Newport, and a doctorate in history from Bar-Ilan University in 2013.

He commanded a torpedo boat in the Six-Day War and later commanded missile boats, including one brought from Cherbourg in 1969. From 1981 to 1983 he commanded the missile boat flotilla, including during the Lebanon War. From 1985 to 1988 he headed naval intelligence as a brigadier general, then served as IDF attaché in Italy and Czechoslovakia.

In 1994 he became director of the shipping administration at the Ministry of Transport. He worked to require Israeli officers on Israeli merchant ships and set up a sea search and rescue system. He retired in 2009 and has written on naval history and strategy.