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Aviation History
1924
1924 - 0673.PDF
OCTOBER 16, 1924 THE AIR MINISTER'S TOUR OF IRAQ LORD THOMSON, Secretary of State for Air, gave a long and glowing account of his week's tour of Egypt and Iraq, in an interview to the press on October 10. Leaving London on September 17, Lord Thomson and his party proceeded by old- fashioned methods to Alexandria, and on the 23rd he inspected the Royal Air Force units at Aboukir and Cairo. Next day, the 24th, they boarded Vickers Vernon aeroplanes and flew to Amman. The aerodrome there has hills on one side and ravines on the other, which makes it difficult for a large aeroplane to land there ; so the Vernons came down at Ziza, which is 18 miles off, and the party transferred into D.H.9a's and flew into Amman. That night Lord Thomson dined with the Amir Abdullah, ruler of Transjordania, and brother of King Ali of the Hedjaz and King Faisul of Iraq. . On Thursday, the 25th, the D.H.9a's took the party back to Ziza, where they boarded their Vernons and flew on for over 500 miles across the desert to Baghdad, making a halt for petrol at Ramadi. Lord Thomson said that he found the comfort of travel in a Vernon simply astonishing. They flew mostly at from 5,000 to 6,000 ft., keeping above the bumps caused by the hot air rising from the desert. It may be remembered that a couple of years ago it was said that if one flew high enough to get above the bumps, the track across the desert, which was merely the track of the wheels of a convoy of cars, became invisible. Now this guiding line has evidently been improved, for Lord Thomson said that it was clearly visible. I have never," said Lord Thomson " seen anything finer in the world than the escort of Vernons which came out to escort us from Ramadi to Baghdad." In all, there were nine Vernons in the air, and the - all landed simultaneously on the aerodrome at Baghdad. September 26 was spent aground, in a round of visits and inspections in the capital. A point which Lord Thomson stressed was that, though he is not a strong man, he felt absolutely no fatigue after travelling by air ; and he would alight quite fresh from his aeroplane, inspect guards of honour and go on to official duties and interviews. Next day the party embarked on D.H.9a's for a tour in the northern province of Mosul. They reached the provincial capital and inspected the local levies and units of the Arab army. In the afternoon the Air Minister met the notables of the city, men of three religious sects—Syrian Christians, Roman Catholics, and Mussulmans. On the 28th they flew on to Zako, the area where there has lately been trouble with the Turks, and then turned up the valley of the river Zab to Amadie, where the Iraq-Turkish frontier is somewhat un defined. The inhabitants there are Syrian Christians. On the return journey, when they had left Zako about half an hour, a flying wire on Lord Thomson's machine broke. He mentioned this with some emphasis because it was the only mishap which occurred throughout the tour. The pilot turned back to Zako (" so as not to risk the neck of a poli tician " said Lord Thomson), and the repair was effected in about a quarter of an hour. Then on they went to Erbil (the Arbela where Alexander the Great finally overthrew Dareius the Persian), and had a chat with the political officer. That was the morning's work. In the afternoon they came out to the west of the hill country and landed at Kirkuk. Here Lord Thomson saw one of the oest mounted cavalry regiments he had ever seen in all his experience as a soldier. It was an Arab regiment commanded by a Col. T. B. B. Lawrence, V.C., late of the 17th Lancers who won his cross in the South African war 24 years ago. The air over the Mosul hills is rather subject to pockets, E E U.S. Airship TC 2 Wrecked Whilst manoeuvring over Langley Field, Virginia, the U.S. Army airship TC 2 met with a curious accident. A bomb it was carrying exploded, tearing a hole in the envelope and causing the airship to fall from a height of 150 ft. The crew of five had not time to escape by means of their para chutes, and fell with the airship, which, owing to the fact that it was filled with helium, did not catch fire. Fortunately there was no loss of life, but all were more or less badly hurt. Capt. D'Oisy Honoured. CAPTAIN PELLETIER D'OISY, and his mechanic, Adjutant Besin, the heroes of the record long-distance flight from Pans to Tokio, were formally received at the Hotel de Ville on Tuesday afternoon in the presence of an enormous crowd of but Lord Thomson, who admitted himself a bad sailor, said that he did not have a moment's discomfort. But when he landed, he did regret the translucent altitude he had left. Coming down into the burning heat of the desert made him rather giddy. On the 29th the party went on to Sulaimanie, near the Persian frontier, and this visit was a particularly impressive incident. Before the War this was a town of some 20.000 inhabitants, lying on the caravan route to Persia, and the home of many rich merchants of Persian extraction. Then the disturbed times came, and the population shrank to 700. The rest -became refugees, and Lord Thomson drew a moving picture of what their sufferings must have been. But when his aeroplane landed there were about 1,500 people on the aerodrome to see it. There an imposing procession was formed, with Lord Thomson on horseback, and they rode round the bazaar for half an hour, until the head of the pro cession caught up its own tail. The reception was quite enthusiastic. After the reception Lord Thomson received three deputa tions in turn—one from the Arab Shaikhs, the second from the Mayor and City Fathers, and the third from the merchants. The Air Minister received them alone except for the unavoidable presence of an interpreter. They asked for no boons, which is rather surprising when Asiatics have got face to face with " The Presence." The tenor of their remarks was gratitude for the restoration of law and order— and that has chiefly been restored by the Royal Air Force. The merchants in particular stressed the fact that they were now free from robbery. Here Lord Thomson digressed to remark with great seriousness that this happy state of affairs had not been brought about by bombing the lawless. Bombing was a rare occurrence, undertaken reluctantly and with careful consideration. When it had to be employed, an aerial bomb was far less undiscriminating than an artillery shell. But the influence of aircraft—" this unknown weapon, this all-seeing eye "—and the swiftness of its action, when action had to be taken, had restored Sulaimanie from defasta- tion to prosperity. The town now boasts 12,000 inhabitants. From Sulaimanie Lord Thomson flew back to Baghdad, and this eventful day closed with a formal dinner given by King Faisul. Some of the places he had visited were all but inaccessible in a motor-car. On September 30 the return journey across the desert was commenced. Lord Thomson described something of the organisation of this airway with its 20 to 30 landing- places and the concrete petrol tanks buried in the sand with just a small dome and a locked metal plate showing above the surface. They stopped at Amman that night, and next dav landed at Ralmeh to enable Lord Thomson to visit Sir Herbert Samuel on the Mount ot Olives, where Lord Thomson had once had his own headquarters. On October 2 a start was made at 4 a.m., the Vernons being escorted by Bristol Fighters. They reached Heliopolis outside Cairo in time for an early lunch, and then flew on to Aboukir, where four Egyptian Ministers were interviewed. " From there," said Lord Thomson, " I returned to a far less peaceful atmo sphere." Throughout the tour the organisation was masterly, and they were never behind their time-table, though sometimes ahead of it. The pilots in every place aroused his greatest admiration, and he also spoke warmly of the mechanics, whose work had made it all possible. He had flown 2,599 miles in eight days, and he had thoroughly enjoyed his whole journey. E E invited guests. After the two airmen had signed the Livre d'Or of the City, the President of the Municipal Council handed D'Oisy the gold medal which Paris presents to those she honours, a replica in silver being bestowed on his mechanic. Boy Scouts and R.A.F. THE secretary of the Boy Scouts' Association desires it to be known, in view of statements which have appeared in some papers recently, that no scheme of affiliation between the Royal Air Force and the Boy Scouts' Association has been arranged. The committee of the association has, however, for a long time endeavoured to interest Boy Scouts in aviation, especially on the civil side, by instituting a badge for this purpose. 673
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