Word: perim
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With its own private Drang Nach Osten (Drive to the East) already pushed from Ethiopia through British Somaliland, hammering at the island of Perim in the Red Sea and the port of Haifa on the Mediterranean, Italy took a running jump last week, landed at the far edge of the Middle East. Out across the sands of Arabia to the Persian Gulf it sent a squadron of heavy bombers, driving at the oil depots and refineries of the Bahrein Archipelago...
...clear the rear. This gave the Italians a strong clutch on the Red Sea's mouth and western coast. In order further to dominate that sea, through which British supplies and reinforcements were still running last week, the Italians were preparing to hop on to Britain's Perim Island, in the narrow Straits of Bab el Mandeb. An all-out dive-bombing assault would make Perim practically untenable. This week the Italians staged their first big bombing attack on the island...
...worst that could happen would be everything at once: invasion of Britain, a Spanish-based blow at Gibraltar, a German-supported Blitzkrieg across Egypt to the Suez Canal, an Italian drive down the Nile, turbulence in the Balkans and a diversion through Turkey, blasts here and there at Perim, Dakar, perhaps at Singapore with the help of the eager little Japanese...
...only use Italy has for such a land is to threaten Britain's hold on the southern entrance to the Red Sea and the route to the Orient, a hold otherwise confined to the port of Aden across the Gulf and the island of Perim in the strait called Bab el Mandeb ("gate to the mandate"). To defend Somaliland, Britain had the Camel Corps, originally formed by British Marine officers to hunt Mohammed bin Abdullah, the "Mad Mullah" who for 20 years (1900-20) carried on a religious revolt until R. A. F. bombing planes drove him into Ethiopia...
...strait there is too wide to be blocked and the barren island of Perim, whence pirates once took toll, although in British hands, does not control it so much as the nearby ports. Along the Red Sea's African Coast the Italians held Assab, Massaua and got Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden when France surrendered. The nearest British base was Aden across the Gulf...