After a chance reading of the story of 6 Squadron pilot, Sergeant Ernest Handley on this website (see 6 Squadron Pioneers in the 6 Sqn section) Brian Stafford contacted me and kindly provided me with a photograph of Ernest Handley's headstone at St Nicholas church graveyard at North Coates, near Grimsby. Ernest Handley was killed in a flying accident near the Royal Flying Corps aerodrome at Brooklands, Surrey, but it was not possible to repatriate his body to Queensland, Australia. With his father's family living in North Coates, it was decided to convey his body to that village for burial.

With the exact measurements taken of the position of the original perimeter walls at Hinaidi (Ma'asker Al Raschid RAF Cemetery), earth moving equipment is being used to level the immediate landscape surrounding the cemetery site and to dig the footings prior to the construction of a concrete security wall that will match in size and appearance of the original wall erected by the Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission). I will post more photographs as work progresses.

This is a photograph of a Fokker M.8 (A.1) two-seater observation monoplane (forerunner to the E.III ‘Eindecker’) that landed near St Omer on Sunday the 1st November 1914 and was captured by the crew of a 6 Squadron aircraft before being brought back completely intact to 6 Squadron’s base at St Omer. The German crew had abandoned their aircraft and made their escape into nearby woods. Note the BE2a Serial No: 468 in the background; a 6 Squadron aircraft which lasted another eight months before it was struck off charge due to extensive anti-aircraft shrapnel damage.

This particular BE2c (‘Liverpool’ Serial No: 2126) flew against the odds by remaining in service with 6 Squadron for nine months, from January 1916 to October 1916 – amassing during that time an amazing 225 flying hours without any major incident. Note the rear-facing Lewis gun mounted on the rear edge of the front (observer’s) cockpit.

This is a photograph of one of the earliest Royal Aircraft Factory BE2s to serve with the Royal Flying Corps, taken at an air show before the Great War, either at Aldershot or Farnborough. This particular aircraft, Serial No: 206, set a record (at that time) for longevity when it was wrecked in an accident on Abeele aerodrome and returned to UK on the 2nd September 1915. It had been on charge with 6 squadron three times, including when 6 Squadron was formed in 1914, the most recent allocation lasting almost 9 months. During its long service life, 206 had also served with 2, 4 and 1 Squadrons since it was first flown in England during October 1912. During its time on active service, the aircraft had been completely rebuilt at least three times, with improvements incorporated as and when they became available from the factory.

In answering a query from fellow researcher James Offer regarding a 6 Squadron pilot, Frank Neville Hudson (who served in WW1 but later died in Iraq and was buried at Hinaidi RAF Peace Cemetery (name later changed to Ma'Asker Al Raschid RAF Cemetery), James sent me a of an RAF booklet, entitled "Introduction to Iraq", once belonging to his uncle, Wing Commander Aubrey Rickards, who was the commanding officer of 55 Squadron during the 1930s. The booklet gives an excellent insight into the operations and daily life at the RAF Hinaidi cantonment in the nineteen-thirties and also includes brief histories of some of the RAF squadrons that were based at RAF Hinaidi 'between the wars'. With the kind permission of James, I have included some of the pages on my website under the menu heading, " Hinaidi Cantonment Operations 1935 ".

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.

Kevin Godward kindly forwarded me photographs taken of the burial of his great uncle at the Hinaidi RAF Peace Cemetery (now known as Ma'Asker Al Raschid RAF Cemetery). AC1 David Arthur Henry Oldfield was serving in the RAF at the Aircraft Depot in Baghdad when he became ill (details unknown) and died on the 20th August 1930. The following photographs were taken at the funeral ceremony and later when the headstone was erected. I have included a photograph of David Oldfield in uniform, the photo taken in England.

This photograph recently came to light of the Hinaidi RAF Peace Cemetery (renamed Ma'Asker Al Raschid RAF Cemetery in 1961) and is the earliest known image of that cemetery. The photograph was taken of Plot 3 in the latter part of 1923 (judging from the fact that the latest graves were for Row F), with the camera pointing in a south-easterly direction towards the southern perimeter fence. The grave in the foreground with a propeller for the headstone is for Flying Officer Lionel Hooton MC and Bar of 6 Squadron. For more details, refer to the menu selection of my website that deals with the Ma'Asker RAF Cemetery.

In April 1919, the commanding officer of 6 Squadron, Major George Pirie, received orders to move his squadron from Gerpinnes in Belgium to Mesopotamia where it would support 30 Squadron in its peace-keeping duties over that region. Photographs recently came to light (courtesy of Mark Kent, grandson of Lt Ernest Kent who served with 6 Squadron and took the photographs) that were taken during the redeployment. The photographs give a rare pictorial insight into the processes and risks involved in moving a Royal Air Force squadron from one country to another. Pictured below is a photograph of a 6 Squadron Bristol Fb2 Fighter, taken in present day Iraq around 1920, after the squadron replaced its ageing RE8s with Bristol Fighters. For the full story and more photographs, select the Mesopotamia tab on the 6 Squadron menu.

With the invaluable assistance of the British Embassy in Baghdad, I am pleased to announce that the first phase of the restoration project is about to commence, comprising the erection of a boundary wall and the setting up of a basic maintenance plan. The first step in the process of bringing the cemetery back into the fold was a pivotal and significant event that took place at Hinaidi yesterday (11th November 2020) when the British Embassy’s Defence Attaché in Baghdad, Brigadier Adam McRae, laid a wreath at the foot of the grave of Brigadier-General Sir Gilbert Falkingham Clayton KCMG KBE CB, British High Commissioner to Iraq at the time of his death in 1929. This was probably the first time in more than half a century that Remembrance Day has been commemorated at Hinaidi and hopefully it won’t be the last. Shown below is a photograph that Brigadier McCrae took to mark the occasion. Though the headstone is missing its upper section, it can be seen that some remedial work has already been carried out re the state of the cemetery. I will add photographs in this News section as and when they become available.

Jasmin Soliman, Archivist at the Akkasah Centre for Photography (NYU Abu Dhabi) recently invited me to look at several photograph albums that have been digitised and made available to the general public. The photographers were mostly RAF servicemen who too photographs of their time, mostly in Iraq and Egypt but also Palestine and Aden. The time periods range from 1910 through to the 1940s and the albums contain both interesting and unique photographs, well worth an hour or so of inspection. By pasting the following link in your browser you will be able to choose which album you would like to look at. https://akkasah.org/en/page/frontpage~2Fcollections/photo-albums There are also several photographs of RAF aircraft crashes. Below is an example, the lower photograph featuring a Royal Aircraft Factory RE8 that had turned over on its nose after the pilot tried to force-land in the desert.

Peter Reichelt recently contacted me regarding a photograph he found in his father's collection - a snapshot taken in the nineteen-twenties, while the Hinaidi RAF Peace Cemetery (later renamed the Ma'Asker Al Raschid RAF Cemetery) was still part of the Hinaidi Cantonment, under the protection of the Royal Air Force. The men standing behind Willian Bartlett's headstone are dressed in the uniform of the RAF Armoured Car Companies. On the right in the photograph is the headstone of Flying Officer Ellis Reid of 1 Squadron RAF and the headstone on the left is for Alexander Noble, a private in the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment. Peter has kindly permitted me to include the photograph in the Hinaidi section of my website.

I have added a searchable database to my website containing the name and details of every 6 Squadron man (195 in total) who has died in service since 6 Squadron was formed in January 1914. Here is a graphic that shows the deaths in alphabetical sequence within the groupings WW1, 'Between the wars', WW2 and post-ww2.

On the 18th October 1914, shortly after it had been flown across the channel, BE2 Serial 636 was at Poperinghe for one day, having a Union Jack painted on the underside of the port wing. Before this date, there were no markings on the aircraft to show whether an aircraft was friendly or an enemy, especially difficult for soldiers on the ground when defending their position.

A month ago I received an email from Bill Palmer of the 55 Squadron Association (55 Sqn has the most men buried of any RAF squadron at the Hinaidi RAF Peace Cemetery - 25 graves) after he received a photograph showing two headstones, one for a 55 Squadron pilot and the other for an aircraftsman who was with 6 Squadron. With both men listed as being buried at Hinaidi, it was thought the photograph had been taken at Hinaidi before proper headstones had been erected. However, after lengthy investigation, I concluded that these graves were in fact at Mosul and that the bodies were later exhumed and re-buried at Hinaidi. For the full story, please refer to the Hinaidi RAF Peace Cemetery - Then and Now page of this website.

Peter Burlton of the Habbaniya RAF Association sent me a photograph of a burial ceremony carried out in 1925 at the Hinaidi RAF Peace Cemetery. The grave and headstone of LAC John Bliss from the No 6 Armoured Car Company is marked with two crosses (location Plot 3 Row H Grave 7) and from the location and number of men attending the burial ceremony, the grave (Plot 3 Row I Grave 14) is most likely that of Squadron Leader Jasper Cruikshank, OBE, Officer Commanding No 6 Armoured Car Company (RAF), who died of Typhoid at Hinaidi on the 20th February 1925