24th and 25th February, 1948 - The Aftermath of the Ben Yehuda Street bombings...

Tuesday, 24^th February, 1948

Since Sunday we have all been confined to barracks except when on duty.  The camp defences have all been strengthened against possible and likely attack.  The blowing up of the three and four storey buildings of Ben Yahudi Street on Sunday are now definitely put down to have been done by British persons.

Today, although not afraid of the Jewish threats to shoot all British personnel they can, we thought it wise to forsake the Haganah road block.  We stayed in the P.W.D. shops themselves so that the Jews had no chance of shooting at us.  On returning off duty we also thought it wise to not cross the road in full view of the Jews but to walk the five minutes walk through the R.A.F. zone and up the other side road in the Arab area

Wednesday, 25^th February, 1948

Yesterday morning went quietly so this morning we walked directly to the Workshops.  The Haganah have reinforced their road block with some of the rubble from Ben Yahudi Street and have dragged huge blocks of ferrous concrete rubble in front of it to stop a sudden charge onto the block.

Typical Haganah road block in Mamilla district of Jerusalem
source: http://tonyseed.wordpress.com/
2012/05/13/nabka-day-2012-israels-buffoon-the-un-nakba/

Every night now there are fierce gun battles fought though I think a great deal of the firing is at an enemy that cannot be seen.

Last night so I have been told one or two shots were fired from the Jaffa Road area.  These were probably not aimed at anything in particular but the “trigger happy” boys on H.Q. saw this as their signal and eleven bren-guns poured bullets into the empty Jaffa Road.  There was no target just any window or vehicle parked on the road.  Senseless foolhardiness by over enthusiastic anti semetists.

22nd and 23rd February, 1948 - More guard duties and more explosions

Sunday, 22^nd February, 1948

We started yet another week’s duty on the Public Works Departments Workshops today.  We started our duties at 6am.  A sergeant is now on duty with three B/Cs on this Static.  Two B/S stay on the Haganah Road Block while the other B/C stays at the entrance to the P.W.D. itself.  The sergeant wanders between the two positions.

The Sergeant on with us this morning is knew (sic) and so I showed him which workshops were which.  He said to me “You can sit down now until the workers begin to arrive.”  I was half was into the act of sitting down when there was a terrific explosion.  It shook the whole building, breaking panes of glass.  It flashed into my mind that the Arabs had blown up the Haganah road block the explosion seemed so near.  In fact the explosion was in Ben Yahudi Street a short distance

Car Bombing in Ben Yehuda Street
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
File:Ben_Yehuda_1948_-_2.jpg

away.  It almost demolished the street killing about 50 Jews.  I saw the initial cloud rise up when the explosion occurred and the smoke drift up afterwards when fire broke out.

Monday, 23^rd February, 1948

This morning we decided to abandon the Haganah road block after the deeds of the last evening.  The Jews having found out that Britishers were involved in the blowing up of the shopping centre announced that in future all British Personnel found in Jewish Areas would be shot.  They immediately put this policy into practice last evening.  They opened fire on British Police who after handing over Mutashpha Police Station [1] to the Jews were moving out of that Station.  They killed seven troops and wounded a Padre.  There was intense firing in the H.Q. quarter last evening also.

This morning at about 11am all the Arabs and Jews except four office staff walked out of the P.W.D. Workshops.  The watchmen handed us the keys and said they would not be back for two days.  They are all frightened of the recent events and intend to wait for two days to see how things turn.

[1] I cannot find any reference to a Mutashpha Street Police Station so I imagine Dad must have the spelling wrong.