ON a small hill that overlooks extensive kibbutz-owned banana plantations and field crops adjacent to the eastern shores of Lake Kinneret, sits an impressive memorial to two Turkish airmen who, in 1914, when the region was part of the Ottoman Empire, undertook an incredibly daring mission.
They had taken off from Istanbul in the flimsiest of flying machines intending to deliver Ottoman mail to Jerusalem — for the first time — and then continue on to Egypt.
However, both airmen tragically lost their lives on February 8, 1914, casualties of the notoriously devastating late afternoon easterly winds that often kick up in winter over the Kinneret in this region of the lake that lies in the shadows of the southern slopes of the Golan Heights at a crucial point where the present day borders of Syria, Jordan and Israel meet.
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