In the spring of 1948, Israeli agents of Haganah, the main Jew­ish under­ground in Pales­tine, bought the car­go ship S.S. Kefa­los. Pur­chased in the Unit­ed States and reg­is­tered in Pana­ma to a fic­ti­tious com­pa­ny, the ship had a dar­ing plan: to car­ry arms col­lect­ed in Mex­i­co to Israel. In June, the Kefa­los sailed from New York to Tampi­co under false pre­tens­es. Arms, both bought from the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment and smug­gled in from the Unit­ed States, were loaded, and the ship depart­ed from Tampi­co in August. Once at sea, it quick­ly changed its name and appear­ance to sneak past Gibral­tar and U.N. Observers in Tel Aviv. The secret mis­sion was car­ried out through vital coop­er­a­tion between two appar­ent­ly odd bed­fel­lows: Jews (Israeli, Euro­pean, Amer­i­can, and Mex­i­can) and a crew of main­ly Spanish/​Basque exiles from Franco’s dic­ta­tor­ship. After deliv­er­ing the arms, Israeli author­i­ties decid­ed to repur­pose the Kefa­los to res­cue refugee Jews from the Balka­ns. After a lay­over in Naples, two voy­ages were made from Bakar (mod­ern-day Croa­t­ia) to Haifa in late 1948, assist­ing over 7,700 refugees.