Central District Things to Do

Latrun: Armored Corps Memorial and Tank Museum

by iblatt

The Latrun fortress, a fortified police station used by the British Mandate authorities until 1948 and nicknamed "the monster on the hill", was the site of several bloody battles during Israel's War of Independence. It was handed by the British soldiers to the Jordanian Legion, and repeated attacks by the young Israeli army failed to conquer it. Latrun remained an enclave until the Six Day War of 1967, when it finally passed into Israeli hands.Today the Latrun fortress area has become a memorial site for the Israeli Armored Corps: "Yad La-Shiryon". The large courtyard is full of tanks, over 150 of them, large and small, from different periods. In the exhibition "Armored Corps Then and Now: 1948-2010" you can see the impressive evolution of the tank. Start from the small and "primitive" World War II tanks used by Israeli Army in the 1948 War of Independence, such as the Vickers light...