Quarter to Eight - Story of Motty Hod

Documentary film about Mordechai (Motti) Hod (Fein) (1926-2003), the seventh Commander-in-Chief of the Israeli Airforce. Hod was born in Kibbutz Degania. In 1944, at the height of the Second World War, Hod volunteered to serve in the British Army in a transportation unit that assisted the Jewish Brigade on the Italian front. In 1946, Hod joined the "Palmach", (the special strike force of the "Haganah"), and was sent to Europe by the "Haganah" to aid in "illegal immigration" operations (the transportation of holocaust survivors to Palestine by sea in violation of British policies which had virtually closed Palestine to Jewish immigration since 1939). Hod took private flying lessons in Rome, and in May, 1948, was sent to Czechoslovakia to learn how to be a combat pilot. In 1949, Hod graduated from the first pilot's course held by the Israel Airforce. He went on to spend the next twenty years as a high-ranking officer in the Israeli Airforce, serving during the Six-Day War and the War of Attrition. Hod was the General Manager of "El Al Israel Airlines" between 1977-79, and served as the Director of the Israel Aerospace Industries from 1987-1993. In 1995, Hod received a doctorate in Business Administration. He passed away on 29.6.2003. In spring 2007, a monument was erected in his memory in the Galilee. The film contains personal photographs, interviews with Hod, friends and colleagues, including Ariel Sharon and Ezer Weizmann. In January 2003, the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, sent an e-mail to Hod while in the "Columbia" space shuttle. In the e-mail, Ramon revealed that he had been inspired to be a pilot in the Israeli Airforce by Motti Hod's example.