Yosef Alon

Yosef Alon (Hebrew: יוסף (ג'ו) אלון), born Josef Plaček (July 25, 1929 – July 1, 1973), was an Israeli Air Force officer and military attache to the U.S. who was mysteriously shot and killed in the driveway of his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Alon was born Josef Plaček on kibbutz Ein Harod to Czechoslovakian parents. When he was two, his family returned to Czechoslovakia. On the eve of World War II, Alon's father sent his 10-year-old son to the United Kingdom as part of the Kindertransport program. Most of his family was wiped out during the Holocaust. Following the war, he returned to Czechoslovakia and attempted to start a career as a jeweler. In 1947, he volunteered for the first pilots' course in the Sherut Avir, the Haganah's nascent air corps. Soon afterward, he moved back to Mandate Palestine, changed his name to Yosef Alon, and upon Israeli independence in 1948, was among the founding members of the Israeli Air Force.

Alon fought in the Israeli War of Independence as a fighter pilot and early member of the nascent Israeli Air Force, and would go on to complete 75 missions. When Israel formed its first Mirage fighter jet squadron, Alon was assigned its commander. In 1970, then a colonel, Alon was chosen to be the assistant air and naval attache at Israel's Embassy in Washington, DC. Installed in what should have been a three-year assignment, Alon advocated strongly on Israeli arms procurement, especially regarding the F-4 Phantom.

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