Ruth Gruber, an American journalist with close ties to the refugee situation was witness to the incident that became world-famous from Leon Uris' book Exodus
While in Jerusalem, [Gruber] learned that a former American pleasure boat, renamed the Exodus 1947, had attempted to deliver 4,500 Jewish refugees — including 600 children, mostly orphans — but was attacked by five British destroyers and a cruiser. Gruber left immediately for Haifa and witnessed the Exodus entering the harbor, looking, as Gruber wrote, "like a matchbox splintered by a nutcracker."
During the "battle," the British rammed the Exodus and stormed it with guns, tear gas and truncheons. Gruber noted that the crew, mostly Jews from America and Palestine, fought back with potatoes, sticks and cans of kosher meat. The Exodus’s second officer, Bill Bernstein of San Francisco, was clubbed to death trying to prevent a British soldier from entering the wheelhouse. Two orphans were killed, one shot in the face point blank after he tossed an orange at a soldier.
When she learned that the prisoners from the Exodus were being transferred to Cyprus, she flew there overnight. While she waited for the Exodus detainees, she photographed earlier Jewish prisoners living behind barbed wire in steaming hot tents with almost no water or sanitary facilities. "You had to smell Cyprus to believe it," she cabled the New York Herald.
The British changed plans and sent the Exodus prisoners to Port de Bouc in southern France, where they had first embarked. Gruber rushed there from Cyprus. When the prison ships arrived, the prisoners refused to disembark. After 18 days in which the refugees endured the blistering heat, the British decided to ship the Jews back to Germany. World press reaction reflected outrage. While hundreds of journalists descended on Port de Bouc, only Gruber was allowed by the British to accompany the DP’s back to Germany.
Aboard the prison ship Runnymeade Park, Gruber photographed the refugees defiantly raising a Union Jack on which they had painted a swastika. Her photo became Life Magazine’s "Picture of the Week." Crushed together on the sweltering ship, making their way back to Germany, the refugees sang "Hatikvah," the Hebrew song of hope, soon to become Israel's National Anthem.
Gruber’s book Exodus 1947 about the DP’s endurance would later provide Leon Uris with material for his book and screenplay, Exodus, which helped turn American public opinion in favor of Israel.
Ruth Gruber turns 104 today.