Aden

In August 1935, my father was posted to his first squadron, No 12 (B), which was preparing to ship out to Aden, at the southern end of the Red Sea.¹ The European powers were manoeuvring to further their global interests and ambitions, at the expense of the local powers and their subjects.

The Abyssinian Crisis

The Italians were about to invade Ethiopia (more frequently known as Abysinnia then), the only remaining independent state in East Africa. Mussolini had been massing air and ground troops in Eritrea and Italian Somaliland since April. Eleven RAF squadrons, over a quarter of the home-based force, were moved from the UK to reinforce British bases in Arabia, Egypt, Malta, and Sudan. Italy’s intentions were clear, but Britain and France were in no mood for war — and they naively hoped that Italy would be an ally against the rising power of Germany. This left the League of Nations spineless and gave Il Duce a free hand. Italian troops crossed the frontier in force on the 3rd of October.²

The Italian conquest and colonization was brutal, including the use of banned chemical weapons and repeated, vicious massacres — but the British government said little and did nothing. They had no intention of protecting Ethiopia. An officer with 41 Squadron, remembering these events over 50 years later, was asked if he was concerned about the possibility of war with the Italians while he was in Aden: “I don’t think for a moment I gave it a thought. I never thought there was going to be any question of war.” ⁴ And a Sergeant Pilot recalls cordial contact with the Italians during a patrol of the British Somaliland/Ethiopia border: “We even entertained the Italian commander, the local Italian army group — but of course we weren’t at war with the Italians, and we weren’t at war with the Abyssinians, so we were quite entitled to do that sort of thing.” ⁵ The purpose of the reinforcements was no doubt to deter the Italians from expanding their ambitions, but principally to reassure (or threaten) everyone in the region with a show of strength.

Britain’s interests were by no means limited to the immediate region, because the region itself was of such strategic importance. The power which controlled the Horn of Africa also controlled the supply lines between the Mediterranean and India, and the oil fields of the Persian Gulf. Aden was at the intersection of these interests.

“Aden, which is the only British fortified port between Malta (2,300 miles) and Bombay (1,600 miles) is of great importance as a link in the chain of Imperial harbours and bases along this most important sea route. It is a fortified fuelling port on a volcanic peninsula, about 100 miles east from the entrance to the Red Sea . . . The promontory of barren rocks on which it is situated, five miles long and three miles wide, is connected with the mainland by a narrow isthmus of sand . . . Its chief defects are due to climate. Almost completely destitute of trees or water, it has a climate with an average range of temperature from 76 to 91 in the shade . . . ” ⁶

The Journey Out

No 12(B) Squadron, along with 41(F) Squadron, embarked on the SS Cameronia at Liverpool on the 4th of October 1935, with their planes in crates, for the 16-day voyage. The journey was probably hellish. The other ranks (that is, non-officers) traveled on the lower decks. This account by a junior RAF officer traveling to Iraq on a troopship in the late 1920s, describes what it was like down there:

“Hammocks were slung cheek by jowl, bumping into each other, and there was a constant smell of sea-sick and unwashed bodies which you could cut with a knife. It must have taken a strong stomach to survive weeks of living in such an atmosphere and the poor airmen had all my sympathies.” ⁷

This was my father’s first overseas trip, so he must have been excited. But no doubt he would have heard the conventional wisdom in the service about Aden, as expressed by this RAF Sergeant:
“I’d seen service in Egypt, Iraq and India, but Aden was undoubtedly the bottom of the pile as far as postings went. In the late 1920s when I arrived there, Khormaksar [the main base in Aden] was something of a Hell-hole as far as living and working conditions were concerned. Servicing our aircraft out in the open sunlight, sweating like pigs non-stop, then returning to our billets with nothing but damned great wooden fans to cool us off—all they did really was circulate the hot air and stir up the dust—was no picnic.” ⁸

And this opinion, by a senior officer, who knew many rough overseas bases:
“I remember Aden as a dyed-in-the-wool dump in the desert. The landing ground — they were never called airstrips or aerodromes then — was just a patch of sand. The squadron’s quarters were rough and ready. Heavens, but it was hot!” ⁹

12 Squadron in Aden

No. 12 Squadron was equipped with Hawker Harts, sleek, two-seater open-cockpit biplanes. At that time, they were relatively up-to-date — they’d been introduced five years before — but aeroplane technology was advancing very rapidly, and they were soon to be superseded. Nevertheless, they remained in service, especially in the overseas squadrons, well into the Second World War. My father was to get to know this type very well. I assume his principal duties with 12 Squadron were connected to his trade as an armourer (so concerned with maintenance of the guns, and ammunition and bomb supplies), but later most of his early flying hours were on the Hart.

The Squadron was in Aden less than ten months, and moved repeatedly during that time. Soon after 12 and 41 Squadrons’ arrival, it became clear that Khormaksar was too small to house them in addition to the resident 8(B) Squadron. On the 19th of November, only a month after arriving, 12 Squadron was relocated to Robat, and 41 Squadron to Sheikh Othman.

Robat, five miles inland, had much more limited facilities, with very basic barracks, and no hangars for the planes. Four months later, in late March, they moved back to Khormaksar, to allow for substantial upgrading of Robat. And then back again to Robat in late May. Finally, on the 7th of August, they returned to Khormaksar to dismantle the planes for shipping home.¹⁰

Between moves, the Squadron occupied itself with liaison exercises with the Royal Navy, mail runs to outlying stations, and occasional more ambitious assignments: a punitive dive-bombing operation against the village of Al Asala, and a two-day trip for four aircraft across the Red Sea to British Somaliland. The RAF squadron permanently based in Aden, No 8, regularly patrolled the Abyssinia/British Somaliland border during the Crisis, as this Sergeant Pilot recalls:

The squadrons also provided air escorts for various dignitaries. On the 22nd of April 1936, 12 and 41 Squadrons escorted the retiring Viceroy of India, Viscount Willingdon, as he left Aden on the SS Strathmore. Willingdon had imprisoned Gandhi along with 80,000 other activists during his tenure. The wheels were beginning to come off the imperial charabanc, but no one at my father’s level would have had an inkling. As one RAF NCO with 203(FB) Squadron (transferred to Aden from Iraq for the duration of the Abyssinian Crisis), commented 50 years later: “We were, remember, still the British Empire — the British were the lords and masters everywhere we went.” ¹² In late July, in their final action before crating up their planes, all four squadrons (8, 12, 41, and 203) flew several “demonstration” flights over inland tribes as a show of force.

My Father in Aden

What was my father doing during these ten hot months? Servicing the weaponry for the aircraft, packing and unpacking tools and equipment, and doing his best to exhibit the “pluck, reliability, alertness, steadiness, keenness and energy” required to be chosen for pilot training. That would no doubt include volunteering at every opportunity to fly in the air gunner’s seat.

By now, the expansion of the RAF in response to Germany’s rapid rearmament was well under way, and squadrons were actively looking for likely Sergeant Pilot-candidates. Ex-apprentices had priority. The temporary concentration of forces in Aden, with a senior officer in charge (Air Vice-Marshal Leslie Gossage), made it fertile ground. Here’s how this happened the year before to a near-contemporary, Joe Northrop, who had completed the Halton apprenticeship two years before my father, and was then stationed in Egypt:

“It so happened that the Flight Sergeant had been passed the Engineering file asking for suitable applicants who could be recommended for pilot training on the grounds of age, service experience and keenness. He was about to send in a nil return when he suddenly remembered that he had me on his strength. Sticking his head out of the office window nearest the workhouse he yelled for me and I went over still holding the conrod I was fitting in my hand. “Would you be at all interested in applying for a flying course?” he asked, to which I replied, “Yes please, Flight”, and my name was added on the spot. I could hardly believe that what I had dreamed of and worked towards for so long had been achieved so easily now.” ¹³

Joe then had two interviews, the second with the Air Officer Commanding Middle East Headquarters, took the required medical exam, and about five months later was on a training course back in the UK.

My father’s timeline was similar. His official record of service notes that he was “Recommended training Airman Pilot — March 1936.” He most likely interviewed some weeks before that, and surely knew about this recommendation long before he left Aden in August 1936 — in which case, like Joe, he must have “walked on air”!¹⁴ But he didn’t start his flying course until January 1937, four months after getting back to the UK.

Returning Home

The Italians had marched into Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, on the 5th of May, and the Emperor Haile Selassie left for exile. The League of Nations ended its sanctions against Italy, such as they were, in July. The Squadron left Aden for home on the troopship Somersetshire on the 11th of August 1936. The Italians were left to continue their brutal suppression of the ongoing Ethiopian resistance.

My father had a large album with a photo on the first page of a Hawker Hart with, printed on the photo, “Places I Have Visited in and around Aden.”  When I was young, I assumed (incorrectly, of course) that he was the pilot in the photo. Two of the photos from the album are on this page. From looking at a couple of websites which show exactly the same images, I’ve concluded that the album must have been largely the creation of some entrepreneur in the town, in collaboration with an equally entrepreneurial RAF partner. Merchants in Aden were used to catering to the appetite for souvenirs from the many boat passengers stopping off on their way to and from India, and this was a golden opportunity because two full squadrons (12 and 41) were leaving at the same time–over a hundred customers!

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Notes:
Special thanks to Steve Brew, Honorary Historian for 41 (F) Squadron, for generously providing a wealth of archival information about the 1935 deployment to Aden and related topics.

1. The most common interwar RAF squadron designations were: AC for Army Cooperation, B for Bomber, FB for Flying Boat, and F for Fighter. Bomber squadrons predominated overseas, because of the emphasis on “air control” of local populations, whereas there was an equal number of fighter and bomber squadrons in the UK, because of the emphasis on defence.
2. For a summary of RAF operations in response to Italy’s , see Chaz Bowyer, RAF Operations 1918-1938, London: William Kimber, 1988, pp. 238-239. (Bowyer notes that the moving of the eleven squadrons overseas, and thereby the stripping of the UK air defenses, was secret, presumably so as not to alarm the folk at home — but, while it may not have been broadcast, people in and around the RAF stations and the ports must have known very well.) For the disposition of RAF squadrons at home and overseas, see John James, The Paladins, London: Macdonald, 1990, p. 249. For details of RAF activities in Aden at this time, see https://peterpickering.wixsite.com/aden/41f-12b-squadrons, accessed 9 October 2020.
3. Map image from https://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/africamaps.htm, accessed 6 October 2020. Original source unknown.
4. Duncan Wilson-MacDonald, Oral History, Reel 1, 09:30-09:37, Imperial War Museum, London. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80012625, accessed 19 October 2020. This was Wilson-MacDonald’s first posting. He went on to a distinguished war career, leading squadrons in the Battle of Britain and elsewhere, and earning the DSO and DFC.
5. Ernest Folley, Interview, Reel 5, 20:16 to 20:33, Imperial War Museum, London. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80004659, accessed 20 October 2020. Folley was at Halton 1927 to 1930, and then at Henlow. This was his first posting after completing his flying training at Abu Sueir in Egypt.
6. Major D.H. Cole, MBE, Imperial Military Geography, 9th edition, London: Sifton Praed, 1937, p.121.
7. Bowyer, op. cit., p. 276.
8. Sergeant Eric Wilkinson, quoted in Bowyer, op. cit., p. 125.
9. Air Commodore the Hon. E.L. Howard-Williams, MC (whose pseudonym in print was “HW”) served in the Royal Flying Corps (the RAF’s antecedent), in the First World War, was an Engineering Officer/Instructor at Henlow when my father was there, and held senior positions in the RAF in Iraq and elsewhere. Quoted in Bowyer, op.cit., p. 125. Bowyer does not give further citation details.
10. Details of Squadron moves from http://www.rafcommands.com/archive/06294.php, accessed 14 October 2020, and https://peterpickering.wixsite.com/aden/41f-12b-squadrons, accessed October 9 2020.
11. Ernest Folley, op. cit., Reel 5, 09:50 to 11:30.
12. Herbert John Almond, Interview, Reel 7, 16:35, Imperial War Museum, London. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80004577, accessed 18 October 2020. Almond overlapped at Halton with my father. He graduated in 1932.
13. Wing Commander Joe Northrop, DSO, DFC, AFC, Joe: The Autobiography of a Trenchard Brat, Worcester: Square One Publications, 1993, pp. 61-62.
14. Joe Northrop, op.cit., p. 62.
15. From http://www.markham.dk/philip/wifred%20markham%201931%20to%201939_3_mr%20(1).pdf, accessed 11 October 2020. This site records the early life, including pre-war service in the RAF, of Wilfred Markham. He was a wireless operator, and was also stationed in Aden during the Abyssinian Emergency, with 203 (FB) squadron. The site was built by Wilfred’s son Philip.