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IRAQ – 70 Squadron, Royal Air Force
Three photograph albums. Iraq: 1937-1939.
Large collection of important photographs depicting RAF activity in Iraq during the late 1930s, demonstrating British imperial power by use of 'Air Control'. This policy, promoted by Hugh Trenchard, Chief of the Air Staff, was designed to maintain the RAF as the independent third service of the British armed forces, enforcing British imperial rule economically through the use of air power. The current collection of photographs centres around the activities of 70 Squadron, providing heavy transport facilities, air ambulances and operating airmail routes between Cairo and Baghdad. Images include: an armoured car with a mounted machine gun at Hinaidi; air-conditioned desert-buses belonging to Nairn Transport Co going from Baghdad to Damascus, and the Flying Boat ‘Ceres’ on Lake Habaniyah. The dangers of the operations are evident in the photos of a crash of the Flying Boat ‘Calpurnia’ in Lake Habaniyah with the loss of five lives, the crash of Jonah Kyte No. 3 while landing and the ‘Vincent’ of the 55 Squadron going up up in flames in Simel. The album captures well the cultural and military diversity of Iraq at the time. Not only are there bombers from the French Air Force on visit in both Dhibban and Habbaniya, there are also photos of Iraqi ‘Gladiator’ aircraft, Jewish women in Baghdad and the Kurdish population spread across central Iraq. A 500 year old church in Haiz is complemented by a photo of a priest with a 700 year old Bible. The photographer, being a foreigner abroad, gives the albums their healthy dose of tourist sites such as Alexandria (Egypt), the landscapes of Ser Amadia (while in a Summer Training Camp) and Ctesiphon Arch (530 AD). Aerial shots add bird's-eye views of The Golden Mosque of Khadimain (Baghdad), the crossing of the Suez Canal and the Maude Bridge over the Tigris. The international and geopolitical importance of the photographs is further underlined in their documentation of the first Hinaidi-Singapore flight on 18 January 1937.
3 albums, oblong quarto, thus: 1. 121 original photographs ranging from small (70 x 100mm) to medium (111 x 170mm) and large (170 x 235mm), mounted on 18 leaves (230 x 315mm); 2. 178 original photographs ranging from small (70 x 50mm) to medium (95 x 140mm) and large (160 x 220mm), mounted on 24 leaves (195 x 280mm); 3. 72 original photographs ranging from small (65 x 90mm) to medium (120 x 185mm) and large (160 x 220mm), mounted on 14 leaves (220 x 315mm), (1 loose photograph creased at edge, 6 photographs loosely inserted, 1 swimming certificate loosely inserted). Most photographs with manuscript captions beneath in white chinagraph pencil. Contemporary card covers, cord ties (extremities lightly rubbed).