in the Clouds above Baghdad. By Lt.-Col. J. E. Tennant.
Cecil Palmer. 15s. net)--Colonel Tennant has written a spirited account of his experiences with the Air Force in Meso- potamia from August, 1916, to the spring of 191S, and has illustrated it with photographs and some useful sketch-maps. He explains the difficulties with which the airmen had to con- tend--especially sickness due to the heat and flies of Bears, and an inadequate supply of relatively old-fashioned machines. Nevertheless, the small force did wonders, both in the rout of the Turks at Kut and before Baghdad and in the later opera- tions. Two passages in the book are noteworthy. One is the description of how the author was shot down by the Turks on the eve of the action at Khan Baghdadi, March 26th, 1918, and how he was rescued from captivity by the armoured cars which pursued the fugitives for ninety miles up the Euphrates—one of the most picturesque exploit.) in the war. The other is the account of General Maude's first attempt to occupy Ramadi, up the Euphrates, in July, 1917, when the shade temperature hr Baghdad itself was 120degrees. In the column attempting to advance across the desert, " the men were dropping wholesale with heat-stroke, almost all, the officers of the Dorset Regiment had succumbed " ; the aeroplanes were useless, the gunners could not see their objectives, and the enterprise had to be aban- doned. " There is no time to waste in heat-stroke ; a man fit and well will be suddenly seized and, if he is not better, is dead. In two or three hours." Colonel Tennant's picture of the terrible heat of a Mesopotamian July helps to explain the incident of last month near Hatay in which the Manchesters suffered.
Previous page
