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30 Sqn D.H.9A at 9700 ft over Peri Magurum.
A friend has alerted me to a thread on the Something Awful forums (thanks, Mike!) One of the users has access to a collection of photos taken by an RAF sergeant who served with 30 Squadron in the early 1920s, which unfortunately looks like it is going to be sold and broken up. But luckily scans of them of them are being posted first, and there are some fantastic pictures of Iraq, Palestine and Egypt, many taken from the air, including several of an air raid carried out against a Kurdish town — air control in action! Naturally, I can’t resist posting some of the best ones here, but there are plenty more on the original thread, including the Holy Land, the Suez Canal, dusky maidens, scorpions, a cross-Africa flight from Cairo to Nigeria, and the promise of more to come. I’ve had to shrink these to fit them onto the page, so click on them to see the full-size version.
This is the Khadimain Mosque in Baghdad, 4 March 1924.
RAF Hinaidi, the main aerodrome in Baghdad.
The extended 30 Sqn family, including wives and children.
A fine study of the D.H.9A, the RAF’s workhorse imperial policing aircraft in the early 1920s, over the Bazian Pass in Kurdistan. The pilot is Flight Lieutenant Kinkead, a First World War fighter ace who was later killed in training for a Schneider Trophy attempt.
Kinkead again, alongside Squadron Leader Robb and Flight Officer French.
And this is what they were all out in Iraq for. A 520 lb bomb being dropped on Sulaimaniyah in Kurdistan, 27 May 1924 …
… and a 230 lb bomb the next morning …
… and the final results. These three photos are all of the same general area, taken from different angles. It doesn’t look particularly devastated, but then the point was not destruction but punishment. It’s interesting that Sulaimaniyah was clearly a fairly substantial town at that time, which contrasts with the impression given by many contemporary accounts that villages and encampments — tents and camels — were the usual targets of police actions.
This would be a good place to mention that a conference on Air Power, Insurgency and the ‘War on Terror’ is being held at RAF Cranwell on 22-3 August 2007 (thanks to Dan Todman for the pointer). It’s not purely a history conference, but they are looking for ‘Historical case studies of air power against insurgencies’, of which the British experience of air control in Iraq would be a prime example. Deadline for abstracts is 1 November.
Update: good news — the album won’t be broken up, nor will it be sold (it might be donated, one day). And here’s one last picture, from one of the later posts:
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22 October 2006 at 2:46 am
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15 October 2006 at 2:02 am
Jonathan Dresner
Fantastic pictures: well done, and chilling. I love the internet.
26 October 2006 at 4:43 am
sglover
Take a close look at the tail insignia in the photo of the DH-9 trio.
26 October 2006 at 11:19 am
Brett Holman
Yeah, I was wondering when someone would notice that! Presumably they are individual identification signs.
28 November 2006 at 5:40 am
DakotaAviator
Absolutely Amazing.
I’m a US soldier and married to a Kurdish woman from Sulaimaniyah and I came across your blog while googling for things about the RAF/Churchill using Mustard on the Kurds in the 1920’s for a paper I’m writing.
Facinating.
29 November 2006 at 2:58 pm
Brett Holman
You probably saw the post (and comments) where we discussed the Churchill/Iraq/gas thing … my conclusion at the moment is that the RAF didn’t use gas there, but the Army may have. Anything you could add would be most appreciated!
Also, I’d love to know if your wife is aware of any folk memories of the RAF bombing of the Kurds? Sadly, of course, her people have more recent tragedies to remember, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it has been forgotten. But you never know.
16 April 2007 at 5:32 am
Ron Stempfer
Fantastic, I have been searching for photos of RAF Hinaidi as I am researching my father-in-law’s RAF History, he was posted there in 1930, I am also looking for more photos of the Barrack areas.
2 January 2008 at 6:59 am
Karzan
This is quote is from the book “Kurdistan in the shadow of history”
“Three planes came the first time and each one dropped a bomb the size of a roll of hard sugar. The next time, they dropped very heavy bombs, and I remember the houses destroyed. some people were killed in the second bombing, but in the third bombing many were killed.
I remember I went to see one of the women, and her hands were cut, and her fingers were not there. Her feet were also cut and her baby was torn, but still she was not died.
During the fourth bombing, I was in the street when the planes came. A piece of wall fell on top of me, and I was pinned under the wall, and a bone in my back was broken. since then I have had a limp.
During the fifth bombing, the British dropped papers announcing the bombing. so Shaikh Mahmud and all the people deserted the town. Those people who backed shaikh Mahmud did not dare to go back to the city. We lived outsides in the villages. I lived with my father in a village close by and did not come back to Sulaimania for one year.
When we came back, out of ten houses, nine were damaged. Not a single shop remained in the market. All were burned”
Interview with Shaikh Fatulla Shaikh Rashid. Living in Sulaimania. 1922
2 January 2008 at 7:03 am
Karzan
Correction: the interview was in October 1992. It is about a bombing of Sulaimania in 1924 also, but I am not sure if it is the same bombing in these pictures. Shaikh Mahmud was a Kurdish Leader at that time fighting for an autonomous Kurdistan. Sulaimania was the center of his Administration.
2 January 2008 at 7:48 pm
Brett Holman
Thanks very much, Karzan! Up till now, everything I’ve seen about air control has been from or else about the British point of view. I’ve never read a Kurdish or other account of what the actual effects were, so this is very valuable.
It’s interesting that the account suggests that it wasn’t until the 5th raid that a warning was dropped. The British set great store in these warnings — it was their defence against charges of inhumanity towards civilians who were, after all, placed in their care (i.e., as a League of Nations mandate). But — unless this was the very first time such warnings were issued, which is possible — this means that the RAF were at best inconsistent about giving out the warnings. On the other hand, it also shows that the warnings were heeded, at least sometimes, so they did work.
Very interesting — I’ll have to look up the book. Thanks again.
3 January 2008 at 4:17 am
Karzan
you can find on the same pages a copy of a column from The Evening Standard,London January 30, 1924 disapproving of the bombings, and a letter (31, January)from the secretary of state for the colonies to the High Commissioner of Iraq mentioning he can’t defend those acts in Parliament and asking him to consider “alternative policy by which actual resort to bomb-dropping would be avoided”. This suggests that the bombing had great affects that it would be a subject of newspapers in London. I should say again that I am not sure if this bombing is the same as the ones with pictures here, they probably had bombed Sulaimania several times.
5 January 2008 at 11:03 pm
Brett Holman
Yes, the subject of air control was certainly controversial from time to time back in Britain, even into the 1930s; at least two former RAF officers criticised it too (L. E. O. Charlton, Philip Mumford). But these are still British viewpoints — which is why I’m pleased to learn something about the Kurdish experience of air control.