195 STILL AT LARGE IN ACRE JAIL BREAK

Few Arab, No Jewish Fugitives Return to Palestine Prison—Wall Found Unbreached

By Clifton Daniel, Special to The New York Times

195 STILL AT LARGE IN ACRE JAIL BREAK — The New York Times, 7 May 1947 — The New York Times · 7 May 1947

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JERUSALEM, May 6—A few of the Arab prisoners liberated Sunday when terrorists blew open the Acre Central Prison were straggling back to captivity today, but according to the latest official count, 166 Arabs were still at large and twenty-one Jews seemed to have made a clean getaway. [It was officially announced Tuesday night that 166 Arab and twenty-nine Jewish convicts remained at large, The Associated Press reported.

Other sources said troops and police staged a surprise search in Nathanya, halfway between Tel Aviv and Haifa, for the Jewish fugitives.] Government sources would not confirm rumors that among the prisoners who had escaped were two of the top field commanders of Irgun Zvai Leumi, underground organization that had engineered the jail break.

An Arab under a life sentence telephoned to prison authorities that he would return. Another was seized in Haifa, where he had gone by train from Acre. Sixteen Arabs had been reincarcerated by noon. Eleven were recaptured at the time of the prison break, two of them wounded. Searches Unveil Nothing None of the Jews who made good their escape on Sunday have been found.

The British Army’s meticulous searches in three Jewish settlements in the vicinity of Acre yielded nothing. Nothing has been said about disciplinary action against the security forces who let more than 200 prisoners slip through their fingers in one of the greatest prison breaks in history. An official investigation is proceeding.

The Jewish press piled on adjectives — “criminal, suicidal, costly, useless, futile and distorted heroism”—to condemn the terrorist attack, but the newspapers expressed amazement at the ineffectuality of the governing forces. More than forty-eight hours after the attack the press could get no solid figure on the number of dead.

Contradictory sets of government figures left the impression yesterday that the total was sixteen. Tonight the actual count seemed to be fifteen. One wounded Jewish prisoner died tonight. Story Pieced Together It was only tonight that the Government issued anything like a complete and coherent account of how the prison delivery had actually been accomplished.

This confirmed unofficial reports that the attackers had blown out prison windows, not a prison wall, as yesterday’s communiqué had said. According to tonight’s official report, Jewish prisoners brandished previously prepared kerosene torches to facilitate their escape.

The kerosene had been obtained from cooking stoves allowed to “special treatment” prisoners. Members of the Jewish community of Jerusalem, who had found bitter cause to complain recently of mistreatment by British troops, were urged by the city’s military commander to report immediately and fully any case of military misconduct.

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"195 STILL AT LARGE IN ACRE JAIL BREAK," The New York Times, 7 May 1947. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1947-064. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1947-064