After a three-year stint in the U.S. Merchant Marines during World War II, Greenfield, a U.S. citizen, was among a crew of volunteers aboard a rickety, decades-old icebreaker that was pressed into service to ferry some 1,500 Jews to Palestine, ruled by Britain. Some 250 American sailors had volunteered to help Jews sail to Palestine aboard 10 surplus World War II vessels purchased with secret donations from Jewish Americans, he said. After picking up passengers from the coasts of Italy and France, Greenfield's ship — the Hatikva — was spotted as it sailed across the Mediterranean and British naval vessels towed it to Haifa port. With leadership from the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary organization in Palestine, detainees transformed the camps into organized communities replete with schools, where languages from all parts of Europe were taught. Greenfield said the explosive device, packed in toothpaste tubes, was made with a chemical compound that Greek Cypriots had helped smuggle into the camp.
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