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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Fantastic pictures: well done, and chilling. I love the internet.
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Pingback from Vidi « Archaeoastronomy on 22 October 2006 at 2:46 am
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Take a close look at the tail insignia in the photo of the DH-9 trio.
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Yeah, I was wondering when someone would notice that! Presumably they are individual identification signs.
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Pingback from Airminded · Me on Orac on Dawkins on Harris on 12 November 2006 at 3:00 am
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 -
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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If British airforce dropped bombs on Sulaimanyah in 1924, then why should I blame the others for doing the same mistake. It seems the British army who first oppend the road to others to bombard the Kurdish people.
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I’m not sure that I understand your point, but in any case I don’t agree that such a mistake excuses anyone else from making the same mistake.
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Great Blog, I just cant beleive the atrocities the Kurdish people have been through and are currently experiencing, after all the British have done to the kurdish people, the kurds are beeing harrased and expeled from the UK without a single person mentioning what they have done. Anyway its great. !!
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Bombing Sulimania city/1922 ,that was the way for the Britain Colonization powr at any time,and it was beging to how devided kurdistan in future,that was happend after second warwarled 1946/on four peaces, for 4 nationnalist country Turksh,Sirya,Persien and Iraq. Bliv me brass tacks and facts show that treason willnot be forever aginst kurds, the real map must be fixed so far, fourty million KORDS with no ID is not easy for 21 Contry in Middle East , noway for that.
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the chilling phrase ‘policing the empire’ is still used without irony at the raf museum in hendon, london. there is no reference to the thousands of civilian deaths inflicted by our aerial constables.
even the wwII bombs on display are merely for ‘dehousing’ enemy civilians. not sure how we can still get away with using vintage euphemisms.
incidentally does anyone think the Sulaimaniyah bombing photograph is doctored? the smoke looks superimposed, perhaps to give the impression of a ’surgical’ police action. -
No, I didn’t find that the RAF Museum really confronted such things head-on; much easier to talk about the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. Still, maybe one shouldn’t expect too much of a museum so closely tied to one service.
The photos don’t look doctored to me. It’s hard to see why they would be — they weren’t for publication. (I can’t actually recall seeing photos like this which were published at the time, which is why I found these so striking.)
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that’s true, it’s just sad that we let them get away with it – our docklands museum doesn’t shy away from the suffering caused by britain’s slave trade, and there would be an outcry if it did.
i think it might also be a disservice to the aircrews of bomber command – many of them were unhappy about the targeting of civilians and their views also get swept under the historical carpet.
harris himself was fed up with the air ministry’s pretence that they were targeting military/industrial targets only. a frank depiction of the full picture wouldn’t leave the bomber crews in that postwar limbo of the political establishment’s selfserving amnesia.i’m not sure re photo – that long column of smoke looks like a bit of photoshop v.1924. fascinating either way.
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Certainly Harris wouldn’t have stood for euphemisms at Hendon! Do you really think there were substantial numbers of Bomber Command aircrew who opposed area bombing in any way? I haven’t seen much evidence for that, but I don’t know that anyone has really looked.
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i guess most of that kind of evidence would never have reached paper, and it’s too late to find out how much internalised ‘opposition’ there was. there are some example’s of aircrews’ misgivings in ch8 of ‘bomber boys’ (patrick bishop).
eg ‘It must have been hell on earth for the poor devils down below. Mass murder. Whole families wiped out no doubt. I could not help but think when the bombs left the a/c what a terrible thing I am doing. It must be wrong.’ (Johnny Jones, 1945)
i’m doing some research for a documentary about sven lindqvist’s ‘a history of bombing’. have you come across any archive film footage of the raf in the 1920’s? i can’t seem to find much out there.
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Interesting, thanks. Haven’t read that one though I did like Fighter Boys.
I think the best bet for the 1920s would be newsreels of the annual RAF Pageant at Hendon. There might also be some of the (also annual) air defence exercises held (I think) from the late 1920s? They were certainly widely reported in print media.
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thank you, i’ll follow those up. great blog btw.
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