The contents of a photograph album was sent to me by Sian Sumners, grand daughter of Wing Commander Philip Harry Perkins, who served as a pilot in WW1 and after the war as a doctor at RAF Hinaidi. He was a keen photographer in his spare time and took many photos, including the one shown below of the funeral for Brigadier General Sir Gilbert Falkingham Clayton KCMG KBE CB, High Commissioner to Iraq at the time of his death in September 1929. This and the other images shown on the Ma'Asker / Hinaidi Old Burial Photos page of my website are remarkable in that they show the thousands of Iraqis who lined the road leading to the RAF Hinaidi Cemetery (Ma'Asker Al Raschid), such was the respect they had for Sir Gilbert, a man who was instrumental in putting Iraq on the map.

The latest satellite imagery on Google Earth clearly shows the new wall built around the western half of the Hinaidi RAF Peace Cemetery (name later changed to M'Asker Al Raschid Cemetery or more simply the Rasheed Cemetery, Baghdad. Attached are two images, the first a 3-D satellite view of the cemetery, overlaid with the official CWGC cemetery plan and marked with the 16 graves of 6 Squadron men and the second a 2-D image of the same area, showing the great accuracy of the new wall when compared with the original cemetery wall.

This morning I was contacted by yet another descendent (10 as at the 18th January 2023) of a man who had died in service ‘between the wars’ in Iraq but whose manner of death and final resting place had not been passed on to his relatives in England. In this particular instance it was the niece of one AC1 Thomas Arthur Cemery of 70 Squadron RAF, who died from Typhoid on the 27th March 1930 and was buried at Ma’Asker in Plot 1 Row A Grave 3. Until she came across his name on my website, Judith Cemery was under the impression from her late father that her uncle had died from Typhoid whilst serving on a ship of the British Navy and his body buried at sea. After searching my records, I was able to confirm that her uncle had indeed been buried at Ma’Asker as well as provide her with a photograph of his damaged headstone (see below). What I was unable to do, however, was to provide Judith with a satisfactory answer as to why not more was being done to honour the dead at Ma’asker by restoring the cemetery to its former condition as a matter of urgency, especially as less than nine miles away, those who had died ‘between the wars’ and been fortunate enough to have been buried at Baghdad North Gate Cemetery instead of Ma’Asker lay in a well-tended cemetery instead of a former Iraqi rubbish dump. I wonder many more families must I disappoint before I can demonstrate to them that real progress is being made in restoring the Ma’Asker al Rashchid RAF Cemetery?

Prior to the commencement of Stage 2 of the restoration of the Ma'Asker Al Raschid Cemetery (formerly known as the Hinaidi RAF Peace Cemetery) where the cemetery grounds will be levelled and prepared, with the 22 headstones that remain more or less intact place along one of the cemetery's new perimeter walls, exploratory excavation has been carried out to locate the concrete foundation footings in order to gauge the condition of the graves and also to confirm the exact dimensions of that part of the cemetery grounds used for the 299 burials. Attached to this post is a satellite image showing the location of the concrete footings and an overlay of the official Commonwealth War Graves cemetery plan on top of the satellite image, the latter image showing that very few (if any) graves have been affected by the rough track that diagonally crossed the unused eastern section of the cemetery. Above these images are recent photos taken of the latest excavations at the Rasheed (Al Raschid) cemetery.

After the annual Remembrance Day ceremony carried out by British Embassy staff at the Baghdad North Gate Cemetery on the morning of Friday 11th November 2022, wreaths were laid in the afternoon at the Ma'Asker RAF Cemetery (formerly the Hinaidi RAF Peace Cemetery) in a small gathering to mark the first anniversary of the cemetery's re-dedication.

In the course of my research into the early days of 6 and 8 Squadrons Royal Flying Corps I was given three photographs by the late Richard Price, great nephew of Lt Graham Price, a 6 Squadron observer. The photo with the propeller blade ‘marker’ shows the grave of Sergeant Benjamin Frederick Barnard (a fitter/rigger with 8 Squadron) who was killed by a spinning propellor whilst starting a BE2c on the 15th August 1915 at the Squadron’s base at Marieux. He was buried at Louvencourt Military Cemetery, about 4 miles ESE of the aerodrome, in Plot 1, Row C, Grave 1. 8 Squadron squadron had only arrived that day at Marieux, having moved up from its previous base at Vert Galand aerodrome. I have attached copies of the three photographs, taken shortly after the death of Sgt Barnard. I have also attached smaller images with comments to show the relative positions when compared with the present-day CWGC cemetery layout.

The February 1935 edition of The Aeroplane carried a one-page feature on 6 Squadron's 'coming of age' dinner at London's Mayfair hotel, attended by past and present officers of the squadron as well as the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshall Sir Edward Ellington and guest of honour Brigadier-General John Becke, who as a major formed 6 Squadron back in January 1914. The story also included a photograph of an old scrap of paper, purportedly evidence that a pilot from 6 Squadron was the first member of the Royal Flying Corps (or any other air force for that matter) to successfully communicate a message from an aircraft to an artillery battery on the ground. The message, scrawled in pencil, read " You hit them We must go home No petrol " and the citation beneath the photograph read, "This message was dropped, in a streamer, by a pilot of No. 6 Squadron on October 20, 1914, on 87th Battery R.F.A., 12th Brigade, 6th Division, when they were stationed near the village of Ennettiers, about three miles West or Sou' West of Lille, and near the Bois Grenier. They had been engaging a German battery on the outskirts of Lille." No doubt, the existence of said scrap of paper and its detailed provenance was sufficient to convince those who saw it that 6 Squadron did indeed hold this distinction and until now it has stood the test of time. However, upon closer examination, there is a question of doubt over this claim as a number of anomalies have come to light regarding the description, viz: On the 20th October 1914, there was only one reconnaissance flight made by 6 Squadron, with the intended reconnaissance area around Courtrai and Menen, well to the north of Lille. In the event, the weather was so bad the mission was aborted and the aircraft did not make it back to Poperinghe until the evening. The following day, 6 Squadron was moved to St Omer and did not patrol the Lille region until the 25th October 1914 - see attached entries from Lt J Tennant's personal diary and the page from 6 Squadron's War Diary From research into the history of the RFA, 87th Battery was transferred from 12 Brigade to 38 Brigade on the 10th October 1914, ten days before the event. I have asked an expert to corroborate this, as well as the date the battery was sited at the specified location. In examining the photograph of the message it is clear that the writing has been enhanced, as the flow of the letters is uninterrupted over the numerous creases in the paper. The fact that this has not been mentioned is of concern. If anyone has any information that would help prove or disprove the veracity of the message, I would be very grateful to hear about it.

The first day of the Battle of Messines was a difficult day for 6 Squadron, with two aircraft destroyed, four officers killed, one taken as POW and three badly injured. The exact fate of one of the pilots who gave his life on that day, Lt Arthur Phillippo, has remained a mystery until last month (July 2022), when I read on a WW1 forum that the WW1 medals and bronze Memorial Death Plaque of a fellow 6 Squadron pilot, Capt Sydney Philip Smith, had been sold at an eBay auction for 8,000 pounds in 2016. Included in that particular lot were two letters, the contents of which have shed light on the circumstances leading up to the death of Phillippo, more than a century later. The official records show that Lt Arthur Phillippo and his observer, Lt Frank V Durkin, left Abeele aerodrome at 3:50 pm on the 7th June 1917, bound for a photo reconnaissance mission. Flying to the west of Ypres in strong and gusty winds their RE8 (Serial A4210) was attacked by four Albatros fighters. After a brief battle, observers at an English battery near Kruisstraat reported that the RE8 went into a spin and crashed in enemy territory east of the village of Hollebeke, over Vlammertinge. Frank Durkin survived the crash but was taken as prisoner of war and held in captivity until the 14th December 1918 when he was repatriated to England. Both men were initially reported as MIA, but Phillippo’s status was eventually accepted as KIA when the Germans reported that he had been buried at what later became known as the Menen Communal Cemetery, ten miles east of Hollebeke. As to exactly how Phillippo met his death was not divulged. The link between Capt ‘Phil’ Smith and Lt Phillippo is that they both flew with Lt Durkin on operations when they served with 6 Squadron, though Smith was shipped back to England with severe bullet wounds to his right foot in May 1917, one month prior to Phillippo’s death. Smith recuperated for ten months before he was fit enough to return to active duty in France, this time as a fighter pilot in 46 Squadron, flying a Sopwith Camel. While recovering in England, Smith received a reply to a letter he had written to his old friend ‘Vivian’ Durkin, who was being held in the Holzminden POW camp in Germany. In the letter, written in January 1918, Durkin asks for cigarettes and takes the opportunity of explaining exactly what had happened that fateful day in June 1917 when he and Phillippo were shot down. The letter from Durkin was included with Smith’s letter to his parents when he wrote to them in March 1918 and both letters remained in the possession of the Smith family along with ‘Phil’ Smith’s other personal effects until sold off at auction. Sadly, the letter from Smith would be the last his parents would receive from him as it was written only eleven days before he was shot down in flames during a low patrol near Villers-Bretonneux - by none other than Baron von Richthofen flying a Fokker DR1. Though Smith’s death was eventually acknowledged by the British authorities, his body was never found and his name is honoured on the Arras Flying Services Memorial. It is ironic that after almost a year recuperating from what was classified as a ‘severe’ injury, enough to put a lesser man out of the war, Phil Smith would lose his life only one month after returning to active duty. The two letters provide an insight into the life of an operational pilot during WW1 and I have attached below images of the originals as well as copies of the text. I have also attached a photograph of the crashed RE8 flown by Durkin and Phillippo. Note that the propeller was not spinning when the aircraft hit the ground. Lager No. 728, Holzminden. January 23rd 1918 Dear old Smith, Heaps of thanks for your letter of Dec 6th 1917. I was awfully delighted to get it, and to know how you were. Well now as to explaining things. I don’t quite know how to put things, as we have to be very careful what we say. Phillippo & I had just finished our job, when he said “how many photos have I taken”? So I looked at indicator when “tut-tut-tut,” could not see them at first, (meanwhile Galipot was turning and diving all over the shop) then 3 enemy machines came into sight, all three must have had a pot at us, because I heard them hit all over the show. Then they buzzed off. So I turned and shouted, “they’ve gone,” by this time the buzz was spinning, nothing happened, so I repeated, this time poor old Galipot had fallen right forward. So I stuck my stick in and grabbed the “cotton-reel” shut-off engine and shoved stick forward. She came out of it beautifully, when all of a sudden crash, went into spinning again and nothing that I did would alter it. Then I happened to catch sight of elevator wire flapping behind in the wind. Of course all was over, so I thought. Remember nothing more till someone was hauling me out of machine. The tail was completely broken off. They took me to a dressing station and sometime after Galipot came in on a stretcher with an awful wound in his left leg and altogether looking ghastly. The only words he said to me were “Hullo old chap how are you”? Then he lost consciousness. We stayed there about an hour, and were moved to another bigger d.s. [dressing station] on a horse ambulance. Galipot was removed to a motor ambulance, and that is the last I saw or heard of him. A German orderly came back to where I was and said “my friends leg was kaput” meaning amputated. As for myself I was twisted inside and left leg nearly crushed. Have made enquiries about him but have heard nothing whatever neither has Mrs Phillippo. I fear the worst. I don’t think there is anything you can send me thanks. Oh yes, some cigarettes. It is really awfully good of you. Cheero. Best of luck and better luck than we had. Yrs. Sincerely, F. Vivian Durkin 26/3/18 Dear Mother and Dad I really have got an excuse for not having written before as there’s quite a war on at present; and the weather being so extraordinarily fine has meant us being up in the air all day long. I’ve more or less settled down at 46 (not H6) is a crack Sqdn. with a priceless lot of fellows. I’ve had more thrills in the last week than I ever had in the whole 10 months with 6, as this is a most extraordinary battle. Afraid I can’t give you any details but I’m keeping a faithful record in my log book. The number of Huns one sees massed behind their lines is really amazing – just like a swarm of flies crawling along the ground as far as you can see. That’s the impression you get from the air, and its absolute sheer weight of numbers that has made us withdraw, but their casualties from our bombs and machine gun fire from the air above must be enormous, as they’re so thick, you can’t help hitting them. (I hope the Censor won’t object to all this information.) I received boots – breeches but am badly in need of that leather coat. Afraid the ferry pilot idea is impracticable, as even if it gets to France unless its flown direct to the Sqd. which it never is, it would stick at same depot for weeks. So the M.F.O. [Military Forwarding Office] is the only way. Got a letter from Durkin the observer prisoner in January, in which he asks if I can send him some cigarettes. Could you send 500 each of Turkish and Virginia (3 Castles)? I enclose letter – he had a wonderful escape apparently. Patrol just going up, so goodbye. Yr. lovg. Son Phil Love to Evelyn

I recently worked on an enquiry regarding the role of flying observers during WW1 and the topic widened to the growth of the RFC/RAF and its size at the end of WW1. I’ve often wondered at the overly large number of aircraft and men cited on various internet sites (even the RAF) when they simply don’t "pass the pub test". I may be missing something obvious but here is my reasoning. The oft-quoted ‘official’ figures are 291,000 men, 22,647 aircraft and 400 squadrons (equating presumably to 200 operational and 200 training). If I use a complement of 250 men per squadron (the largest number of men I’ve found serving on any operational squadron during the war – and a two-seater squadron to boot) and use that figure for each of the 400 squadrons, that equates to 100,000, leaving almost 200,000 men unaccounted for who presumably worked in administrative roles within the RAF by the end of WW1. A bit of an overkill methinks if the 291,000 figure is correct. Now for the 22,647 aircraft. At the time of the Armistice, many operational squadrons had been cut back severely from the norm of 18 aircraft on charge. But let’s be generous and assume that every squadron (operational and training) had 18 aircraft. Multiplying that number by 400 yields a total of 7,200 aircraft, leaving an unaccounted figure of 15,447 aircraft that were presumably standing idle in aircraft depots or straight off the production line waiting to be delivered (though the latter number would not be great as orders were being cancelled right, left and centre towards the end of 1918). Totalling the military serial numbers for all aircraft produced during hostilities (as per the ‘British Military Aircraft Serials’ by Bruce Roberston), approximately 73,000 aircraft came off the many production lines. Comparing this figure with the 22,647 aircraft remaining at the end of the war, does this mean that 31% of all aircraft built between 1914 and 1918 survived the war. I think not. I have shown my findings to Trevor Henshaw, author of the well-respected ‘The Sky Their Battlefield’ and he provided the following comment which adds weight to the hypothesis that the official figures are over-optimistic: “The only DEFINITE figure I can give you is that at the Armistice the RAF/IF were mustering 1874 aircraft amongst their squadrons on the Western Front. The idea that there were 200 Operational Squadrons by, I presume, War's end, is so totally wrong. I would make it about 145 Squadrons and Flights - not including Training Units - but several of these 145 or so were barely operational by War's end.” Can anyone reading this post tell me where I have gone wrong in my calculations?

Three years in the making, restoration work at the Ma'Asker Al Raschid RAF Cemetery (formerly known at the Hinaidi RAF Peace Cemetery) commenced on September 29, 2021. Once the perimeter of the cemetery has been accurately mapped as per the official CWGC plan of 1964, construction of a concrete block wall will be carried out by local contractors, under the auspices of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and funded by the British Ministry of Defence. Pictured is the measuring of the western perimeter boundary.

This 2019 satellite image of the Ma'Asker Al Raschid RAF Cemetery (formerly the Hinaidi RAF Peace Cemetery and now known simply as the Rasheed Cemetery) has been overlaid with the outline of the 1964 Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) official plan of the cemetery, complete with grave allocation of the 299 burials. This photograph will be useful in Phase 2 of the restoration, as it shows the exact position of the headstone concrete bases, upon which the existing and replacement headstones will be erected.

Anyone interested in WW1 aviation would know of the extraordinary adventures and inventiveness of Wing Commander Louis Strange DSO, OBE, MC, DFC and Bar, a man who served in the RFC/RAF in both world wars with great distinction. However, few would be aware that in his early air force years, Louis invented more than a fixed pole mounting for a Lewis machine gun. Below is a photograph of the BE2c (Serial 1748) that the newly promoted Captain Strange flew for two months after he was posted to 6 Squadron at Abeele as a flight commander in February 1915. It was to this BE2c he added a rudimentary bomb rack of his own design and flew solo (a dangerous but necessary requirement to compensate for the weight of the four 20 lb bombs attached beneath the aircraft) to Courtrai station on the evening of the 10th March 1915. His mission was to bomb a troop train full of soldiers on their way to reinforce the German defences at the village of Neuve-Chapelle. To do this, Louis had first to negotiate a path through the German anti-aircraft guns defending the station before descending to a height of 150 feet in order to silence the sentries with a well-aimed hand grenade. He then dropped his bombs on the train and station buildings, causing 75 casualties and putting Courtrai station out of action for three days. This dangerous but successful mission earned Louis Strange a Military Cross and was later acknowledged as being the first pre-planned bombing mission ever carried out by the Royal Flying Corps – another ‘first’ for 6 Squadron.

I recently received this photograph showing a group of RAF Corporals standing in front of a sign that read "Hinaidi East". With an approximate date of 1943, this is a conundrum as the British handed over RAF Hinaidi to the Iraqi Government in 1937.

On the 7th June 1928 at RAF Hinaidi, the hangar containing 70 Squadron’s ‘A’ Flight bombers caught fire, with four Vickers Victorias (Serials J8226, J8227, J7923 and J7847) destroyed in the blaze as well as equipment and five Lion replacement engines. Amazingly I have found no record of injuries or death. The cause of the fire was eventually put down to a mechanic forgetting to turn off the petrol cock on one of the bombers before disconnecting the petrol pipe and the spilt petrol was ignited from a spark generated off a tool being used by another airman in the hangar. The main part of the airfield is behind and to the right of the burning hangar in the photo and the smoke would have severely hampered flying operations at Hinaidi until the fire was extinguished. Permission to reproduce this photograph was kindly given by Mike Greene.

Though not associated with WW1, I recently needed to research the map gridding system used by the Allies in Africa during WW2. Named the British North-West African Grid, it was not dissimilar to the gridding system used by the British Army and Royal Flying Corps / Royal Air Force on the Western Front. As I found it difficult to discover anything on the British NW African Grid, I thought it would be worthwhile adding the topic as a News item on my website. If anyone would like more information, please send me a message via the 'Contact' page The map of Tunisia, for example, was overlaid with a grid of squares, each square measuring 1 Km x 1 Km (1 square km). Every 10,000 squares (a ’super’ square measuring 100 x 100 kms) was allocated a letter (once again, similar to the WW1 system) so that any location within an individual lettered area could be identified to an accuracy of 1000 metres. By dividing the sides of each 1 Km square into ten equal divisions, the accuracy of any location within a lettered area would then be improved to +/- 100 metres. With the grid reference for the centre of any lettered area being the same, viz. 500500, the Sheet Number or Letter identifier would be essential in pinpointing the exact location. So far so good. It all got a little messy when it came down to making the military maps of Tunisia. Latitudinally was simple as each lettered square was divided into five maps (or sheets), with each map covering 20 km north/south - see below in the diagram I have created, overlaying the 90 Sheet numbers with their respective lettered ’super’ square. In their wisdom the British government wanted each map to be wider than its height, requiring each lettered area to be longitudinally divided into three maps, with each map covering 33 km west/east. Not only that, the lettered squares were offset so that the outer maps crossed over into the adjoining lettered area. As an example I have attached the following images that show the location of map reference P 74 961 162

On the first day of the Battle of Messines, 7th June 1917, 6 Squadron experienced the highest number of flying casualties for any single day of the First World War, a statistic never matched in the 103 years since the squadron’s formation in 1914. Over a few short hours, four men were killed, three were injured and one was taken prisoner of war. The crew of an aircraft lost that day (RE8 Serial: A3214) were reported as 'Killed in Action', though their bodies were never returned to the Squadron for burial at Lijssent hoek Military Cemetery, as was often the case. Instead, the final resting place of Sergeant Louis Gray (pilot) became the Aeroplane Cemetery on the road between Ypres and Zonnebeke and that of 2nd Lt Morrice Halliday (Gray's observer), several kilometres to the north at the Poelcappelle Military Cemetery, both cemeteries a long way from the site of the crash in “no-man’s land” near Hill 60. With the help of CWGC's recent release of grave registration documents and other official records, I can now reveal exactly what happened to the two airmen. Sometime after the RE8 of Sergeant Gray and Lieutenant Halliday was brought down in flames by German anti-aircraft fire, the bodies of the two men were retrieved by the allies and their aircraft destroyed by shellfire to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. At that time, Lt Halliday's body was unable to be identified and he was buried in a makeshift graveyard by the side of the road along with the bodies of six soldiers. The location was 500 metres to the east of the village of Zillebeke on the road leading to Sanctuary Wood (Map Grid Ref: 28.I.23.c.85.60). Only one of the soldiers was identified and none of the graves bore headstones. It is unclear where Sergeant Gray was buried, though it would have been close to the village of Zillebeke, also in a makeshift graveyard. With some 26,000 allied casualties sustained during the first day of the Battle of Messines, the administration of burying the dead would have been given second priority. The bodies of the two men remained undisturbed until after the war, when the Imperial War Graves Commission determined that the remains of the fallen should not be repatriated to the UK but instead honoured where they fell in properly designed cemeteries, each grave identified with a standardised headstone, no matter the rank of the serviceman. A department was formed in the name of 'Concentration of Graves (Exhumation and Reburials)', whose task it was to exhume the remains from informal roadside burial grounds and small cemeteries and rebury them in existing or newly-created cemeteries. In addition, every effort would be taken to identify those bodies initially designated as an 'Unknown Soldier'. In accordance with the new directive, on the 14th June 1920, the bodies of sixteen British soldiers (9 ‘unknown’ and 7 identified) as well as 1 Royal Flying Corps sergeant were exhumed from a number of small burial grounds around Zillebeke and reburied collectively in the Aeroplane Cemetery, located to the north-east of Ypres on the N332 road to Zonnebeke (Map Grid Ref: 28.I.05.b.2.8). Sergeant Louis Gray was identified as the Royal Flying Corps sergeant. At the same time, twenty bodies from the Bedford House Cemetery (Enclosure No 5) and twenty-three from the Lock 8 Cemetery (Map Grid Ref: 28.I.26.c - approximately 2.5 kilometres south-west of Zillebeke) were also exhumed and concentrated into the Aeroplane Cemetery. Three years later, on the 31st October 1923, the body of 2nd Lt Halliday and the six soldiers who were buried with him at the informal cemetery east of Zillebeke, were exhumed and transported to the cemetery at Poelkapelle. After further investigations, the identities of four of the seven bodies were determined, including that of Lt Morrice Halliday, and the men were re-buried with appropriate headstones. The mystery has been solved.

For the first time in decades, a Remembrance Day service was held on-site at the Al Rasheed cemetery (first named the Hinaidi RAF Cemetery and later the Ma'Asker Al Raschid RAF Cemetery) on the 11th November 2021, with wreaths laid by Air Marshall Martin Sampson CDE DSO (the current DSAME) and Brigadier Adam McRae MBE (British Defence Attache to Iraq) on behalf of No 1 Squadron and No 6 Squadron respectively. Wreaths for the six other Royal Air Force squadrons with men buried at Hinaidi were later laid at the Remembrance Service carried out at the British Embassy. For more details on either event, contact me.