Air Power and the Arab World 1909-1955

Volume 9 of the Air Power and the Arab World 1909-1955 mini-series continues the story of the men and machines of the first half century of military aviation in the Arab World. For those Arab nations which had some degree of independence, the political, cultural and economic strains seen during the Second World War continued to have a major impact, not least upon their military forces. In Egypt, newly independent Syria and Lebanon, and to a lesser extent in Iraq, great effort was put into modernizing these forces. Sometimes this achieved success but such efforts nevertheless failed to produce the degree of improvement which had been hoped. In both Egypt and Iraq mistrust of Great Britain may even have deepened while in Palestine the worsening crisis resulted in a full-blown civil war between the Zionist settler community and the indigenous Arab population. The British remained in theoretical control of Palestine, yet it was becoming obvious that a large part of the British government, British military establishment and broader public were desperate to escape from the Palestine Problem. It was also clear that the major Powers which dominated the newly established United Nations Organization had no intention of becoming militarily involved. Then came the official termination of the British mandate over Palestine, the declaration of the State of Israel and the start of official military intervention by the military forces of several Arab states. Volume 9 covers its subject in greater detail than has been done before because the authors had access to previously unpublished official Arab military documents, supplemented by translations of Arabic books and journal articles containing official and personal accounts by those involved. As usual for this mini-series, Volume 9 is abundantly illustrated with photographs from previously unused, or very rarely used, private and official sources.