SIGINT aircraft with a plethora of antennae to eavesdrop on Israel's neighbours.

In 1937 LOT opened a service to Palestine. The flying time from Warsaw to the new airport at Lydda (Lod, now Ben Gurion Airport) was 13 hours, but the trip took 28 hours with an overnight stop in Bucharest. The other stops were Lwów and Cernăuți (now Lviv and Chernivtsi, both in Ukraine), Sofia, Thessaloniki, Athens and Rhodes. Photo from: Library of Congress

One of three Taylorcrafts bought in New York in 1938 and shipped to Palestine for use by PFS at Lydda (Lod, now Ben Gurion Airport). Registration was read from other pictures. Aircraft eventually served in Israeli air force. Photo from: Library of Congress

Fascinating overview of a graduation ceremony at Lydda (now Ben Gurion Airport) for the first Jewish pilots trained by PFS. The airliners are DH.89 Dragon Rapide SU-ABQ, HP.42 G-AAUE, AW.15 Atalanta G-ABTJ and VQ-PAF, a Fokker F.XVIII, ex PH-AIQ and OK-AIQ. The old Fokker was to be used by Hevra Avirit (Commercial Aviation Company) to transport fish from Aqaba, but written of on 13 January 1939, before the photo date, after a bad landing following a display flight. Photo from: Library of Congress

VQ-P is for Mandatory Palestine. Photo taken at Lydda airfield, today Ben Gurion Airport. The airport opened in 1936 but was 'still anything but complete' in early 1938. Indeed the photo is probably from 1937 or 1938 as VQ-PAB was not registered until March 1937. Photo from: Library of Congress

Major Gumbly, the airport boss, 'with his private flying machine' at the new Lydda airfield in Mandatory Palestine. G-ADHH registered in May 1935. Brought under Palestine registry as VQ-PAO in March 1940. Later SU-ADA. Photo from: Library of Congress