The Altalena, former landing ship tank USS LST-138,[3] organized by Hillel Kook (a.k.a., Peter Bergson) purchased by Irgun members Gershon Hakim, Abraham Stavsky, and Victor Ben-Nachum, was originally intended to reach Israel on 15 May 1948, loaded with fighters and military equipment.

[4][5] Deputy Chief of Staff General Henri Coudraux, who was involved in the operation, told a 1949 inquiry that France had "reached a secret agreement with the Irgun, which promised it advantages if it were to come into power [in Israel]."

"[4][5] According to Begin biographer Daniel Gordis, organizational matters took longer than expected, and the sailing was postponed for several weeks.

[6] The Irgun headquarters in Paris did their best to keep the Altalena's preparations for departure a secret, but it was difficult to conceal the movement of 940 men and the loading of a large quantity of arms and ammunition.

These precautionary measures proved fruitless, however, and the following day the BBC reported that the Altalena had sailed from Port-de-Bouc, France, in the direction of Israel with 940 Jewish volunteers and a large quantity of weapons on board.

Menachem Begin decided therefore to postpone the arrival of the ship, and Irgun staff secretary, Zippora Levi-Kessel sent a wireless message to the Altalena to stay put and await orders.

A similar cable was sent to Shmuel Katz (member of the General Headquarters), who was then in Paris, but the ship had already departed the day before the message arrived.

In his diary for 16 June, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the provisional government, wrote: Yisrael [Galili] and Skolnik [Levi Eshkol] met yesterday with Begin.

They should be disembarked at an unknown shore.Galili informed Begin of Ben-Gurion's consent to the landing of the ship, adding a request that it be done as quickly as possible.

[8] Ben-Gurion agreed to Begin's initial request that 20 percent of the weapons be dispatched to the Irgun's Jerusalem Battalion, which was still fighting independently.

The Altalena reached Kfar Vitkin in the late afternoon of Sunday, 20 June, greeted by Menachem Begin and a group of Irgun members on shore.

Irgun sympathizers from the nearby town of Netanya and residents of the fishing village of Mikhmoret gathered on the beach to help unload the cargo.

Implementation was assigned to the Alexandroni Brigade commanded by Dan Even [he] (Epstein), which the following day surrounded the Kfar Vitkin area in two regiments equipped with armor and artillery.

I wish to inform you that the entire area is surrounded by fully armed military units and armored cars, and all roads are blocked.

[6] In order to prevent further bloodshed, the residents of Kfar Vitkin initiated negotiations between Yaakov Meridor (Begin's deputy) and Dan Even which ended in a general ceasefire and the transfer of the weapons on shore to the local IDF commander.

According to the book Altalena by journalist and political analyst Shlomo Nakdimon [he], Ben-Gurion instructed the Israeli Air Force to sink the ship on the high seas, long before it approached the shore.

The first gunner ordered to shell the ship, a Red Army veteran named Yosef Aksen, refused, saying he was willing to be executed for insubordination and this would be "the best thing he did in his life."

[13] Then Hillel Daleski, a recent immigrant from South Africa, initially protested, telling Shmuel Admon, the commander of the IDF Artillery Corps, that "I didn't come to the Land of Israel to fight against Jews."

[16] Menachem Begin, hoping to avert civil war, ordered his men not to shoot back, and the ship raised the white flag.

Begin biographer Daniel Gordis[19] writes that although Captain Fein flew the white flag of surrender, automatic fire continued to be directed at the unarmed survivors swimming in the water.

Most were released several weeks later, with the exception of five senior commanders (Moshe Hason, Eliyahu Lankin, Yaakov Meridor, Bezalel Amitzur, and Hillel Kook), who were detained for more than two months, until 27 August, 1948.

Proponents of Ben-Gurion's actions praised them as essential to establishing the government's authority and discouraging factionalism and formation of rival armies.

Years later, on the eve of the Six-Day War, in June 1967 (when Levi Eshkol was prime minister), Menachem Begin joined a delegation which visited Sde Boker to ask David Ben-Gurion to return and accept the premiership again.

[24] In 2012, the wreckage of the Altalena was discovered by marine experts hired by the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in a search effort that the Israeli government helped to fund.

The Altalena was eventually found sitting on the seabed several kilometers off the coast of Rishon LeZion at a depth of about 300 metres (1,000 ft).

[25][26] The first memorial to the sixteen Irgun fighters and three IDF soldiers killed in the Altalena sinking was erected in the Nahalat Yitzhak Cemetery in Givatayim in 1998.

Speaker of the Knesset at the time and subsequently president of Israel Reuven Rivlin said at the ceremony that the Altalena Affair was an unatonable crime.