There was no time for school - Uzi from 14 began working in a kibbutz metal workshop, where he not only worked in the repair of tractors and agricultural equipment - there, in secret from the British authorities, made weapons for Jewish combat units, including the most popular submachine gun STEN. Uzi Gal got an important experience of making small arms with his own hands.

In 1942, the Uzi joined in the Palmach. The detachments of the Palmachs (an abbreviation of the Hebrew words "strike companies") played an important role in the war for the creation of a Jewish state. Thousands of Jewish boys and girls voluntarily joined them in order to bring the hour of the creation of the state of Israel closer in arms. In Israel, there is the expression "generation Palmach" - so called young volunteers of those years who are ready to give their own lives for the ideals of Zionism and the Jewish state. The ideology of Palmach was largely pro-communist and pro-Soviet the Soviet Union and the Red Army were an example for young Zionists.

Uzi became a gunsmith in the detachment "Givat Haim". It was there in the rare free moments Uzi began to develop his submachine gun, glorified the name of its designer.

With the details of his submachine gun, Uzi Gal was captured by a British patrol at the end of 1943. The sentence of the British military tribunal was harsh - Uzi Gal was sentenced to seven years in prison for carrying weapons.

Originally Posted By KitBuilder:
Didn't Uzial Gal and some of his buddies get busted for making illegal Sten SMGs prior to him designing the UZI? If I'm not mistaken, that's how/why the future Israeli government became supportive of him developing weapons in the first place. I think he was a teenager at the time.

I see nothing on Wikipedia about that, but I believe I read that years ago.

(That's assuming this is an Israeli-ish Sten, which it may not even be.)