IOR/R/15/2/277

The volume’s contents concern the establishment of companies of levy corps to protect Royal Air Force (RAF) bases in the Gulf. The main correspondents in the file are the Political Agent at Bahrain (Edward Birkbeck Wakefield until October 1943, Major Tom Hickinbotham from October 1943 to March 1945), the Adviser to the Government of Bahrain (Charles Dalrymple Belgrave), the Political Officer on the Trucial Coast (Captain Maurice O’Connor Tandy from October 1943 to April 1944, Reginald Michael Hadow from May 1944 to October 1944, and Captain Richard Ernest Bird from October 1944 to April 1945), and various RAF and Air Ministry officials.

The majority of the correspondence relates to the establishment, accommodation and maintenance of levies at the RAF aerodromes at Bahrain, Sharjah and Dubai, although security measures for other bases along both the Arab and Persian coasts of the Gulf are also discussed. The correspondence details specific issues including: difficulties in recruiting native guards in Sharjah and Dubai; the pearling debts of Bahrain levies, and arrangements for a portion of their wages to pay off their debts; dress and headgear for levies at Sharjah; incidents of theft by levies, in particular of arms and ammunition; facilities for the detention and imprisonment of levies found guilty of theft and other criminal offences; instances of desertion, with particular reference to desertions and the subsequent mutiny of levies at the RAF base at Jask, leading to the decision taken by Air Headquarters in Iraq to immediately disband all native levy corps and to replace them with ‘Assyrian’ levies, probably from Iraq.