Medal Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Immigration Ship Exodus and its Treatment by the British

1987

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From the Shekel, Vol. 2o, No 2, April - June 1987.

America’s “President Warfield” Vessel Became EXODUS-1947 honored In New Israel Commemorative
 
The President Warfield was launched on February 6, 1928 in a Wilmington, Delaware shipyard. It was named after S. Davies Warfield, president of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad and Baltimore Steam Packet Company, uncle of Bessie Wallis Warfield for whom King Edward VIII would later give up his throne. After a career as a pleasure liner sailing between Baltimore and Washington DC, in 1942 the President Warfield became a troopship for the Allied Forces, and two years later served in the invasion of Normandy. It was sold for scrap in July 1947. Two days later Baltimore Jewry collected funds to acquire it for its most famous voyage when it was renamed Exodus 1948 in sigh of Promised Land.
 
World War II had ended. The Holocaust was over. But the travail of European Jewry went on. A year after V-Day, over 100,000 Jews were still being held in Displaced Persons Camps, and Britain was allowing only a trickle (1,500 per month) into Palestine. In desperation, ragged Jewish refugees attempted to run the British blockade illegally in ships chartered by the Haganah.
 
In July 1947, when the “Exodus 1947” arrived off the coast of Haifa with 4,500 refugees aboard, the British Mandate Government forced it to return to its French port of departure. But when the refugees refused to disembark there, the British directed the boat to Hamburg in their occupation zone. In a cruel turn of fate, the passengers were forcibly removed and returned to the soil of their tormentors. The collapsed hopes of the “Exodus 1947” passengers attracted world attention to the inexcusable insensitive behavior of the British rulers of Palestine. This helped influence the decision of the English to give up the Palestine Mandate, and led to the independence of the State of Israel.
 
The vessel remained afloat at Haifa. In 1951 she was established as a floating museum in the harbor of Haifa, but a year later was gutted by fire. Today the valiant old hulk remains on the bottom of Shemen Beach near Haifa.
 
The 1,814 ton ship is featured on (continued)