Word: habbania
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...hand while the invasion of Crete gave them a breather on Middle Eastern mainlands. A trek of hundreds of British trucks, armored cars and mechanized guns, and thousands of Indian and Arab levies set out from the Mediterranean coast for Middle Iraq, to relieve the besieged airport of Habbania. The last 400 miles was across waterless, roadless wastes...
...like his first taste of targetry at all. He scrambled out of the car, he said, "faster than I ever got out of anything in my life." In 130-degree heat, which made the metal of motorized units untouchable, the British broke the Iraqi siege of Habbania and drove them right to Feluja on the Euphrates River. There the Iraqi picked positions across the river from the British and dominating the only good bridge leading to Bagdad, 40 miles farther along...
...first 1,200 had passed through and out of Iraq. The British disagreed, charged that El-Gailani himself had violated the treaty by not granting full use of communications and airfields. The British were confined to two fields where they had been established under the treaty for years: Habbania, on the west bank of the Euphrates, 65 miles from Bagdad, a huge airdrome with cantonments for about 5,000 men, but equipped only with small guns and some 50 antique biplanes; and Shaibah, near Basra, basing a bomber squadron and an armored-car section...
...Gailani's answer to the British was to send a concentration of Iraqi troops to the heights threatening Habbania airport, with an ultimatum to the British to cease all operations there. British Ambassador Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, a six-foot-four, big-boned, two-fisted runner, boxer and marksman who has had 35 years' experience in the Near East, replied that the continued presence of the Iraqi concentration at Habbania "might lead to an unfortunate incident...
...Kinahan and other British diplomats had no idea what an understatement "unfortunate incident" was. El-Gailani's reply to Sir Kinahan's warning was to send more troops to the heights, where they dug trenches, placed artillery and opened fire point-blank on the Habbania field. The British, though badly outnumbered, replied. The Iraqi claimed destroying 26 planes on the ground, but other planes took off and bombed the Iraqi guns. The same day the British in Basra warned the Iraqi troops there to withdraw. They agreed to, but did not. The British seized the Basra airport, dock...