Word: gailani
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...sadder than Vichy's eclipse in the Levant might have been the fate of all British Middle East defense had not Syria been taken. Beginning with the Iraq revolt last spring when they used Syrian bases to fly aid to Rashid Ali El-Gailani, the Germans had increasingly filtered into the country. If the Axis had got control of Syria the British Middle East Command might as well have folded its tents and gone home...
...which landed in the desert behind the Iraqi, cutting off their retreat to Bagdad. By week's end, with the help of Curtiss P-40 Tomahawks (fighters) and Martin 1675 (bombers), the British had the situation well enough in hand so that pro-Axis Premier Rashid Ali El-Gailani and his Defense Minister were reported to have requested visas to flee to Turkey. Incidentally, in the first dogfight between a Curtiss P-40 and a Messerschmitt, the German was shot down...
...British were not overly sanguine. They thought El-Gailani's troops might withdraw to the north of Iraq, to the area which makes hot and barren Iraq so worthy of a scrap: the oil fields around Mosul. Last week London reported that strong forces of German airborne troops, complemented with bombers and fighters, had made their way across Syria and were well established in the oil-bearing area...
...British had, besides, sent troops and planes to Iraq. In three weeks of sand-lot holy warfare, they had crushed the Air Force and just about crushed the land forces of the pro-Axis Premier-by-Revolt Rashid Ali El-Gailani. Last week the British reinforced their garrison in Iraq by sending units of the Fleet Air Arm to the top of the Persian Gulf...
...simple then to engineer the El-Gailani revolt. Without firing a shot, Grobba thus won the first skirmish in the Battle of the Middle East. Last week he was out in front, getting the German Army in touch with native soldiers not only of Iraq, but also of Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia...