Shipbucket

Royal Iraqi Air Force Enters Combat

With war with Britain not being expected, most Iraqi army units emplaced overlooking RAF Habbaniya thought they were only on a training exercise, the RIrAF was likewise unprepared for combat and played no part in the initial action. As the morning progressed though Iraqi aircraft entered the fray over RAF Habbaniya both attacking the base and intercepting the swarming RAF light bombers.
By noon the aerial melee reached a confusing crescendo with RAF Hawker Audax and Harts and Gloster Gladiators finding themselves in close combat with Iraqi Douglas 8A and Breda Ba.65bis bombers in wheeling combat. The Iraqi aircraft were fighter-bombers, and were a generation more advanced than the British aircraft, and so their pilots engaged in air-air combat once they’d delivered their warloads over the British base.



From the ground the silver aircraft all appeared the same, with only the British Gladiators freshly transferred from RAF Khormaksar in Aden being camouflaged, and Iraqi gunners were not able to differentiate friend from foe, firing at any aircraft they could.
While the RAF aircraft were flying continuous sorties for their own survival and under fire even while on the ground, the Iraqi aircraft only flew two sorties for the day. Both sides took losses in the air, and the RAF also took losses on the ground.

Further Iraqi Actions

While the actions at RAF Habbaniya were the focus of Iraqi attention at the start of the conflict, it was not the only action. Knowing that oil was the driving motive for Britain’s continuing presence in the country, orders were passed from Baghdad to cut off the supply of Iraqi oil from the Baba Gurgur oilfields. The oil pipeline from Kirkuk to Haifa in Mandatory Palestine was shut down, although the similar pipeline to French Tripoli in Lebanon remained unimpeded. With its vital economic importance to Iraq the air force bases at Kirkuk and Mosul had always maintained a sizeable presence to protect the pipeline from tribal raiders. With the arrival of the new Italian supplied aircraft, and their Italian-trained Iraqi crews, the venerable Gloster Gladiators and Hawker Audaxes had been supplemented by Messerschmitt Bf109’s.
The British Petroleum facility at Fort Rutbah, near the Transjordanian border in western Iraq had been taken over by the Iraqi Desert Police on the 31st, and the British engineers stationed there arrested. Hoisting the Iraqi flag over the fort, they effectively cut the main access road from Transjordan and Mandatory Syria to Baghdad. To assist the Desert Police in their fortification of the Fort, a supply of arms and ammunition were sent to Ar-Rutbah by air force light transports from Baghdad.



The pre-dawn British aerial attack on the plateau above RAF Habbaniya had caught the Iraqi troops unprepared, particularly as many had been preparing for dawn prayers on the Friday morning. When news of the start of hostilities reached Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who was in exile in Baghdad, he issued a fatwa against the British.

Bombing Of Shaibah

By the morning of the 2nd the RIrAF was ready and prepared for action to an extent that they had not been the day before, and the freshly Italian-trained squadrons with their new equipment entered combat. With the British garrison at Habbaniya being tied down the Italian advisors planned for their proteges to instead strike at the remote bomber base at Shaibah.
Meanwhile at RAF Shaibah, the airworthy Wellington’s of 70 Squadron departed before dawn on a mission to strike the RIrAF’s Al-Rasheed air base in an attempt to cripple the Iraqi air force. The Vincent’s of 244 Squadron likewise took to the air as the sun rose to patrol over Basra, scouting for any Iraqi army movements. RAF Shaibah was now a major British hub with large army and naval presences, but still no field or anti-aircraft artillery had yet arrived, and so far the Iraqi military had not made moves on Basra.
The Iraqi strike force also became airborne at dawn, formed up and followed the Euphrates to the south towards Basra. The Wellingtons meanwhile were following the Tigris in their flight to the north, and so the formations passed each other unnoticed. With the damaged Wellington’s arranged in the open for repair, the Iraqi Blenheims lined up on the obvious targets. Recognising the inbound aircraft as Blenheims and expecting the arrival of more RAF aircraft, no action was taken at Shaibah until they overflew the maintenance apron and started bombing. With the first Wellington burning, the repair crews ran for cover.



With no anti-aircraft defences, there was little that could be done to deter the attack, and the Blenheims made the most of their opportunity, but pressed the attack solely on the obvious target of the Wellington’s, unaware that they were already crippled and not active combat aircraft. Facing no opposition, the Iraqi modified Hurricanes broke from their top-cover role and swooped in to also add their gunfire into the destruction of the maintenance facility. As suddenly as they arrived the Iraqi aircraft disengaged and reformed to return to Baghdad.
The Wellington bombers, having struck the Iraqi airfield at Baghdad, returned to RAF Shaibah tracking towards the smoke plume from the burning aircraft. Although the damage was significant to the battle-damaged Wellingtons, the rest of the base had been largely ignored by the attackers, and so the arrivals were unaffected in their landing. Within hours the Blenheim Mk.IV’s of 203 Squadron arrived at the battered airfield from Aden, shortly followed by additional Wellington bombers detached from 37 Squadron in Palestine.

Bombing of Bahrain

With the British attack on the encircling force at Habbaniya the Italian military advisors were able to activate one of the many plans they had prepared to escalate a potential conflict with Britain: the bombing of British oil installations at Bahrain and at Dhahran in Saudi Arabia.
Early in the pre-dawn of 2nd, the six Iraqi Savoia-Marchetti SM.79B bombers also fuelled and armed with their smaller compatriots. But instead of heading towards Basra with their formation, the SM.79B’s departed, unescorted, into the deserts to the southwest. Completely bypassing the British forces in Iraq, the bombers flew unnoticed and unmolested down through Saudi Arabia, barely in sight of the Persian Gulf.



After having flown for hours over the unchanging Arabian desert, the bomber flight finally saw the distinctive smudges of industrial activity on the featureless terrain. The location of the oil installations were obvious from above, and the bomber force split into two components to conduct their runs over the two facilities. On the ground the first indication of the attack was the gentle buzz of overflying aircraft, assumed to be just RAF bombers in transit, but then the calm of the Saturday morning was shattered by the whistle of bombs and the crump of explosions within the refineries.
The Iraqi bomb placement was good in both raids, and fire control teams were forced to battle for several days to completely extinguish the blazes. The overflying bombers disappeared northwards over the Gulf, before turning west to eventually re-establish their homeward track over the Saudi desert.
Unseen until overhead, the Iraqi aircraft were not positively identified during their bombing runs, and as British action reports were relayed no confirmation could be given over the nationality or types of the attackers, although the British Chief Administrator Charles Belgrave suspected the aircraft were Persian. In consequence British defences all through the region were ordered to be beefed up, and additional RAF and anti-aircraft defences required at all British positions. But that was a process of weeks or months, and would have no bearing on the immediacy of the battles in Iraq, even as the Iraqis were very soon identified as the attackers.

RAF Habbaniya

The first day’s battle had been hard on RAF Habbaniya, and the next was no different. The pilot group were not seasoned veterans, but rather flight instructors and mostly Greek and Arab students, and had flown continuous combat sorties from dawn into the night, under fire even while on the ground and during rearming and refuelling. While they had successfully pounded the Iraqi positions, 22 aircraft were written off and 10 pilots had been killed. The addition of Wellington bombers from RAF Shaibah with their greater bombload had been appreciated, but in the tiny combat space of the plateau their contribution had perhaps been more of a distraction to the other RAF pilots who had to avoid their larger comrades. After that initial sortie the Wellingtons found themselves better deployed to attacks on the RIrAF bases in an attempt to keep the Iraqi aircraft out of the battle for Habbaniya.
At dawn the Douglas DC-2’s of 31 Squadron landed at RAF Habbaniya with ammunition and supplies. The departing leg was to evacuate the remainder of the women and children and wounded, but using the exposed main airstrip. To provide distractions, diversionary attacks were mounted by British ground forces, with No. 8 (Kurdish) Company Iraq Levies sallying forth to put pressure on the Iraqi positions. The Rolls Royce armoured cars joined the fray, racing alongside the departing aircraft providing covering fire into the Iraqi positions.



The Iraqi forces responded to the British ground moves with an assault of their own. After the British forces had pulled back into their perimeter the Iraqi forces mounted their own armoured thrust against the base. Both the Crossley armoured cars and Carro Veloce CV-35 tankettes pushed towards the base, but were fought off without loses by the aggressive action of No. 4 (Assyrian) Company Iraq Levies.
Overhead the wheeling battles continued as the RAF contingent continued their offensive with their slowly dwindling force, but found themselves supplemented by the arrival of 4 Bristol Blenheim IVf fighters from 203 Squadron to bolster their defences. The Iraqi air force had also started to feel the pinch, with their own losses over Habbaniya now being compounded by the British attacks on their airfields.

* Replaced damaged picture link *

3rd August 1941

The bombing raids on the 2nd had come as surprises to both the British and Iraqis, with neither expecting the other to strike at their bases so readily. The RAF had not expected any sizeable aerial resistance, and now treated the Iraqi bomber threat more seriously, and so prepared to mount a sustained assault on the Iraqi airbases, now to protect themselves as well as relieve the pressure on RAF Habbaniya.
Pre-dawn, the Wellingtons again departed from RAF Shaibah to strike the main Iraqi Al-Rasheed air base. But the departure was not in secret, as Iraqis observers in Basra had front row seats to the departure of the bombers. Before the last aircraft was airborne, and before they had entered formation, the number of bombers heading towards Baghdad was already being passed to the Iraqi squadrons. Scrambling in preparation, the LVT-1 fighters and Breda BA.65bis fighter-bombers positioned themselves over Baghdad.
The British bombers had arranged their arrival for dawn, allowing visual acquisition of Al-Rasheed for medium level bombing. Spotted early the Iraqi pilots followed their training and dived in from above and to the right of the Wellington formation, the reverse of a naval “crossing the T”, striking broadside with as much up-sun cover as possible with the rising sun on the horizon.



With no fighter cover and without beam guns, the Wellingtons were exposed to the attack, and 2 aircraft fell to the Iraqi guns as the LVT-1’s raced through the British formation. The element of surprise caught the bombers on the backfoot, but even the familiar shape of the Hurricane proved of no defence to the attackers though, as the combat reflexes of the RAF aircrews took over, recognising all fighters as enemies. The bombers pressed home their attack under fire and struck Al-Rasheed as planned, losing a third Wellington as the LVT-1’s continued to press home their attacks. The air battle was not one-sided though as the Breda’s also attempted to add their firepower into the fight. Outclassed even by the Wellingtons the British gunners were able to shoot down one of the Breda’s to reclaim some aerial success.
The defenders had only managed to blunt the attack, which was not a noticeable effect to the damage crews attempting to fight the fires caused by the British bombs, but it was the only raid mounted that day as the losses incurred lead to a reconsideration of future unescorted attacks.
That afternoon Rashid Ali took to the radio to broadcast to the nation. He expressed his thanks for ‘the complete order and discipline the Iraqi people had preserved’, describing massive British losses and painting a picture of the pending surrender of Habbaniya. This was followed by later broadcasts calling for an uprising of all Moslems to join the battle against the “British tyrants”.

Exported Rogozarski DB-powered Hurricanes! That is super cool AU idea.

_________________
Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

Hi, Hood. Is for putting the things even: after all in the real life, the Spanish Buchon was a Bf-109 with Merlin !

Yugoslav air force fitted a Hurricane with a DB.601 on 1940. So quite believable !

missmatching famous WWII fighters and their engines always results great AU designs, great work.

_________________
Shipbucket mainsite, aka "The Archive"
New AU project "Aravala"