Heman Shamir

Heman Shamir was born in 1920

Heman Shamir, born Shechtman, was born in Kiev in 1920, the eldest child of Aharon and Tzipora Shechtman. The family later moved to Chicago, where his father ran a Jewish school and Hebrew was spoken at home. In 1932 the family moved to the Land of Israel.

He studied at the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium and then served as a guard at Givat Ada. In 1939 he returned to the United States to study aeronautical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology and to learn to fly.

After qualifying as a civil pilot, he trained other pilots, including Aharon Remez. During World War II he served as a bomber pilot in the US air force in the Pacific. After the war he took part in illegal immigration voyages, married Lorraine in Chicago, and moved with her to the Land of Israel in 1947.

With Remez, he sent a plan for an air force to Israel Galili of the Haganah on October 23, 1947. The plan led to the founding of the Air Service, where he headed the training department. He was later deputy commander of the air force in the War of Independence and a pioneer of Israel Aerospace Industries. He died on December 2, 1973.