Shlomo Erell

Shlomo Erell was born in 1920 in Łódź

Erell was born Shlomo Engel in Łódź, Poland, to Haim and Frida Engel. The family moved to Mandatory Palestine and settled in Petah Tikva, but his father died in a car accident and his mother moved to Tel Aviv. He studied at Geula High School, joined Betar and founded a short-lived anti-British group called Brit Noar Hameri.

He attended the Betar naval school in Civitavecchia, Italy, and then worked as a sailor on an Italian rescue ship. After returning he was arrested by the British and held in Acre Prison for six months. He was released on condition that he leave the country and went to work in Antwerp and at a Belgian shipyard.

In World War II he sailed with the British Merchant Navy in Atlantic convoys. In January 1941 a German submarine torpedoed his ship, and he spent 9 days in a lifeboat before rescue. From 1944 he directed naval cargo for the Palestine Potash Company at the Dead Sea.

He joined the Israeli Navy in May 1948 and held several naval commands and posts as a military attaché in Europe. He helped bring modified Jaguar-class boats from Germany that became Israel's missile boats. As Navy commander from 1966 he led the Navy in the Six-Day War, and the sinking of INS Eilat and the loss of INS Dakar occurred during his term.

He retired from the IDF in 1968, joined the Likud and advised Israeli officials on naval affairs. He died in 2018.