[Miami Herald] Diana Moskovitz - Charles Winters was a Protestant from Boston who served 18 months in prison for his help flying weapons to the Jews in Palestine, fighting for what would later become Israel. Winters received no money for his clandestine work. Now, nearly 25 years after his father's death, his son is working on a presidential pardon for his father. After World War II, Charles Winters got into the airplane business, buying decommissioned military cargo airplanes and using them for shipping products like fruit. In 1948, three of his planes took off from Miami for Puerto Rico on flights meant to mimic a typical produce run. The planes did stop in Puerto Rico. But they kept going, first to the Azores, then to Czechoslovakia, where they picked up weapons. Then they flew into Palestine, dropping off the weapons and the airplanes. Months later, someone turned Winters in. Charles Winters died in 1984 at 71. His son Jimmy was 19. ''When he died, the funeral parlor was full of Israeli flags and blue and white flowers. This Israeli official came to escort my mom back to Israel for a ceremony there,'' Jimmy said. "And I thought, 'Wow, this is big time.' At that point, I realized how important he was to the Israeli community.''
2008-09-05 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive