Smertenko's plane on the tarmac at Croydon Aerodrome. Professor Johan Smertenko, Vice-president of the American Committee for a Free Palestine, defied the British Home Office ban on his entry to Britain and landed at Croydon Aerodrome, London, from Paris in a privately-chartered single-engined French plane. He said that owing to the intervention of the British authorities no airline would sell him a ticket. Purpose of his visit, he explained, was to wind up personal and organisational affairs and to take possession of personal property for removal to the United States. Smertenko was in Britain last December, but as a result of allegations he made about British conduct in Palestine it was announced by the Home Office that steps would be taken to exclude him in future. January 15, 1947.