1945 Still commanded by its last wartime commander,
Major General Eric Bols, the division began deployment to Palestine in 1945. The advance party arrived on 15 September, followed by the Tactical Headquarters on 24 September, then the 3rd Parachute Brigade on 3 October, the 6th Airlanding Brigade on 10 October and the 2nd Parachute Brigade on 22 October. After arriving by sea at
Haifa, the newly arrived troops were sent to camps in the
Gaza Subdistrict to acclimatize to the conditions, and to regain their fitness after the long sea journey from England. By the end of the month divisional headquarters was established at
Bir Salim. The 2nd Parachute Brigade at remained at
Gaza, the 3rd Parachute Brigade moved to the
Tel Aviv and
Jaffa region, while the 6th Airlanding Brigade moved to
Samaria. Unhappy that the announcement did not go far enough, the Jewish National Council arranged a twelve-hour strike for the next day. Rioting started in Tel Aviv and the Jewish part of Jerusalem, which resulted in the 3rd Parachute Brigade being deployed to patrol the streets for the following five days. The first operation involving the 6th Airlanding Brigade followed two attacks by the Palmach on
coastguard stations over the night of 24/25 November.
Palestine Police Force dogs tracked the attackers to the settlements of
Rishpon and
Sidna Ali. In the following
cordon and search operation, the police were stoned by the inhabitants, and the soldiers on the cordon had to prevent reinforcements from other settlements reaching the villages. The next day, 26 November, the police were involved in hand-to-hand fighting with the villagers and eventually withdrew, calling on the brigade to enter the settlements and enforce law and order. Leaving some men behind on the cordon to hold back the estimated 3,000 crowd, the remainder of the brigade entered the settlements. Here they carried out several baton charges and for the first time used
tear gas to disperse the crowds. In the cleanup operation, 900 persons were later arrested. Near the end of the year, over the night of 26/27 December, several attacks were carried out by the Irgun on police stations,
Palestine Railways installations and one British Army armoury. The 3rd Parachute Brigade again enforced a night time curfew on Tel Aviv. Then on 29 December, it took part in Operation Pintail, the search of
Ramat Gan, for Irgun members involved in the attacks. The brigade questioned the 1,500 inhabitants, arresting eighty-nine.
1946 The first mission of 1946 was Operation Hebron on 8 January. This time the objective was the cordon and search of the town of
Rishon LeZion by the 3rd Parachute Brigade and the police, during which fifty-five suspects were taken into custody. For the rest of the month, the brigade was involved in several smaller operations. In Operation Pigeon on 30 January, they searched the Shapira district of Tel Aviv. The next action involving the division was over the night of 2/3 April, when units of the Irgun attacked railway installations in the divisional area. While one attack on the
Yibna railway station and police post was in progress, a mobile patrol from the
9th Parachute Battalion arrived, detonating a mine while crossing a bridge. Three of the patrol were wounded, but the others took off after the saboteurs. Reinforcements arrived from the
5th and
6th Parachute Battalions. In the morning, tracks of around thirty men were discovered leading away from the area. A spotter plane later located the men and directed a
section of the
8th Parachute Battalion to intercept them. After a small battle, fourteen of the saboteurs were wounded and twenty-six prisoners taken. In March the 1st Parachute Brigade joined the division. The 6th Airlanding Brigade left the division on 13 April, but remained in Palestine as the 31st Independent Infantry Brigade. This reduced the division's manpower by around twenty-five per cent as the strength of the airlanding brigade had been almost equal to that of two parachute brigades combined. At 20:45 on 25 April, the Lehi carried out an attack on a divisional car park in Tel Aviv. On that night, the car park was guarded by ten men from the 5th Parachute Battalion. The attackers, around thirty men, established a fire base in a house overlooking the car park. The attack began with a bomb thrown into a guard tent. Gunfire was directed at all of the soldiers in the area, then twenty of the attackers stormed the car park. Once inside the compound, they entered the guard tents, killing four unarmed soldiers and looting the rifle racks of weapons. Another two off-duty soldiers, responding to the attack, were killed approaching the car park. In total, seven men from the division were killed. This was the first deliberate attack by any group targeting the British Army, which had not established defences against any form of assault. During the following day seventy suspects were rounded up, but no evidence of their involvement could be found. In response to the attack, the British imposed a road curfew from 18:00 to 06:00 each night and all cafes, restaurants and public entertainment venues in Tel Aviv were closed between 20:00 and 05:00. However this was not enough for some members of the division, who attacked Jewish houses in
Qastina and
Be'er Tuvia, injuring some of the occupants. Those involved were later punished by the British Army. Attacks on the security services had increased to a level that on 19 June all ranks were ordered to be armed at all times on or off duty, and to travel in pairs during the day and in threes at night. Near the end of June the division received orders for
Operation Agatha, the arrest of Jewish leaders "suspected of condoning" or being involved in sabotage or murder of civil and military personnel. Agatha was a nationwide operation involving not only the 6th Airborne Division but the Palestinian Police Force and all other army units in the country. Secondary objectives were to gather intelligence and arrest any members of the Palmach that could be found. Operation Agatha started at 04:15 on 29 June. The 2nd Parachute Brigade was responsible for Tel Aviv, the 1st Parachute Brigade for Jewish settlements around
Ma'abarot and the 3rd Parachute Brigade for those around
Givat Brenner. The operation ended on 1 July after 2,718 suspects had been arrested. Many had no connection to the resistance movements and were instead arrested for harassing the searchers or for refusing to give their names when asked. The 6th Airborne Division alone arrested 636 persons, 135 of them for being suspected Palmach members and ten were Jewish leaders. after the attack The next major incident was on 22 July, when the British administrative and military headquarters located in the
King David Hotel were bombed. No members of the division were directly involved, but the
Royal Engineers of the
9th Airborne Squadron were called in to take charge of the search for survivors and secure the part of the building left standing. Over the next three days they located six survivors and the bodies of ninety-one victims. To assist in the search for those responsible, the 8th and 9th Parachute Battalions moved into Jerusalem on 23 July. The British response to the bombing came on 30 July, when the division carried out
Operation Shark. Believing that the bombers were being sheltered in Tel Aviv, every dwelling and building was searched for members of the Lehi and Irgun, and the population questioned. During the operation, a cordon surrounded the city and a curfew was imposed on its inhabitants. Over four days each brigade questioned around 100,000 people, and 787 were detained for further questioning. During the searches, five arms dumps were found, containing four machine guns, twenty-three mortars, 176 rifles and pistols, and 127,000 round of ammunition. Also found were £50,000 of forged
bearer bonds, forging equipment and a large amount of explosives. The division's next operations were Bream and Eel, searching for arms in
Dorot and
Ruhama, by the
3rd and 8th Parachute Battalions, and the 9th Airborne Squadron Royal Engineers. The two villages were cordoned at dawn on 28 August. Over the next six days the settlements were searched, during which a large quantity of assorted weapons, including heavy machine guns and mortars, were found. Over the remaining months of the year the division carried out patrols of the rail and road networks, which were being mined. Some of the mines killed men from the division attempting to disarm them, until orders were issued to blow the mines up rather than disarm them. Then on 2 December a road mine killed four men from the 2nd Forward Observation Unit (Airborne). A change in command occurred on 13 December when Major General Cassels left the division and was replaced by Eric Bols, now commanding the division for the second time.
1947 Between 29 December 1946 and 3 January the division's brigades carried out seven search operations in Tel Aviv, arresting 191 people. On 2 January several attacks were made on roads in the division's area. One attack wounded eight men of the
4th and 5th Parachute Battalions. Another attack on the same day was carried out by the Lehi against the
1st Parachute Battalion headquarters in Tel Aviv, killing a Jewish policeman and wounding two soldiers and another police officer. Then on 18 January the 6th Airborne and
1st Infantry Division swapped locations, the airborne division now assuming responsibility for the north of the country. Although it remained part of the division, the 2nd Parachute Brigade was withdrawn to England on 24 January. Upon their arrival in the north, the 1st Parachute Brigade assumed responsibility for the
District of Galilee, and the 3rd Parachute Brigade for the
District of Haifa, with division headquarters located in the
Stella Maris Monastery. The 1st Parachute Brigade also took under its command the
Transjordan Frontier Force and a battalion of the
Arab Legion to cover their large area. In the north the division was mainly responsible for the security of the port of
Haifa, the largest in the country, where they protected oil installations, the
Mosul-Haifa oil pipeline and prevented illegal immigrants from landing on the coastline. The evacuation took place from Haifa between 5 and 8 February, under the control of the 8th Parachute Battalion and the
Royal Navy. On 4 May a group of around forty men carried out the
Acre Prison break, releasing forty-one Jews and 214 Arabs. At the same time a mortar attack was carried out on the
2nd Parachute Battalion's camp, as a diversion. The first unit to reach the prison was a
platoon from the
1st Parachute Battalion, 35 minutes later. Other men from the battalion and some divisional units were bathing in the sea a short distance from the prison. A truck load of escaping prisoners opened fire on one unit's
armoured car. The escaping truck then reached an improvised road block set up by some bathers and crashed under fire. The division's bathing party killed four attackers, four Jewish and one Arab escapee, and recaptured thirteen Jews. The bathers had eight men wounded during the short battle. While this was going on, the 1st Parachute Brigade was establishing a cordon around
Acre and the surrounding area but no further escapees were caught. The next attack was on officers from the 9th Parachute Battalion on 28 June. The officers were dining at a restaurant when two men of the Irgun approached and fired machine guns through the windows. One officer was killed outright while several others were wounded. The officers returned fire and the car the gunmen were escaping in crashed; later examination revealed at least one of them had been wounded. On 19 July two police officers on patrol in Haifa were shot in the back and killed. The following day the 3rd Parachute Brigade cordoned the area and imposed a night time curfew, which was not lifted until 30 July. Leadership of the division changed again on 19 August, when Major General
Hugh Stockwell was given command. In October the British
War Office announced the division would be reduced by one brigade. The 3rd Parachute Brigade was disbanded, leaving the 1st Parachute Brigade in Palestine and the 2nd Parachute Brigade in England. The 1st Parachute Brigade assumed responsibility for Haifa and to cover all its commitments the 2nd Battalion
Middlesex Regiment was attached to the brigade. At a meeting on 29 November, the
United Nations General Assembly decided to end the British Mandate on 1 August 1948. Palestine would be partitioned into separate Arab and Jewish states, with Jerusalem becoming an international city. On 13 December trouble came from another quarter, in the town of
Safed, opposite the
Golan Heights. Fighting had started between the Arab and Jewish inhabitants. The police requested help from the army and a company from the 8th Parachute Battalion was assigned the task. Arabs fired at the British unit on 21 December without causing any injuries.
1948 Tension in the Golan Heights area remained high and on 9 January the Jewish settlements of
Dan and
Kfar Szold were attacked by Arab
irregulars from the
Arab Liberation Army, who crossed the border from Syria. The division responded by immediately sending a troop of armoured cars from the
17th/21st Lancers to each village. By the afternoon the 1st Parachute Battalion had joined the battle and air support from the Royal Air Force was called in. The battle ended with the Arabs withdrawing; their casualties are not known. Nine Jews were killed or wounded by the Arabs, the British troops uninjured. To assist in controlling the region, an ad hoc formation called Craforce was established. Under the command of the division's commander, Royal Artillery Brigadier C. H. Colquhoun, were the division's artillery, the 17th/21st Lancers, the 1st Parachute Battalion and the 1st Battalion
Irish Guards. Craforce became involved with breaking up attacks between Arab and Jewish forces. The Arabs did not directly attack the British, but did engage them when British attempted to intervene in an attack on Jewish settlements. In February the Arab Liberation Army, under the command of
Fawzi al-Qawuqji, was estimated to be around 10,000 strong. It was believed around 1,000 volunteers from neighbouring Arab states joined each month. On 18 February it was announced that the 6th Airborne Division would be disbanded when they left Palestine. Gradually the division's units left the country. The division's last units, comprising part of divisional headquarters, the 1st Parachute Battalion and the 1st Airborne Squadron Royal Engineers, departed on 18 May. ==Aftermath==