IOR/R/15/2/651

The file contains copies of correspondence on a range of subjects associated both directly and indirectly with events and the impact of the Second World War. Key correspondents in the file include: the Political Agent at Bahrain (Hugh Weightman; Major Reginald George Evelin William Alban; Edward Birkbeck Wakefield), the Adviser to the Government of Bahrain (Charles Dalrymple Belgrave); the Defence Officer in the Persian Gulf (Major H T Hewitt).

Subjects in the file include:

• correspondence dated October 1939 from officials in the Government of India, on the institution of a War Purposes fund by the Governor-General and Viceroy of India, Victor Alexander John Hope (ff 6-11);
• the detention in June 1940 of Italian prisoners of war on board HMS Falmouth at Jubail, Bahrain (ff 17-19);
• enquiries made by the Government of India in 1940 into desert vehicles used by the Californian Arabian Standard Oil Company (CASOC), with detailed information supplied by CASOC, including: diagrams of tyre profiles; photographs of trucks manufactured by US companies Marmon Herrington and the Autocar Company; statistical data and measurements for trucks (ff 20-25, ff 28-36, ff 41-65);
• enquiries made by the Government of India Supply Development Committee in 1942 into the prevalence in the Gulf of large sharks, as part of an investigation into the possibility of using shark skin in lieu of leather as a wartime measure (ff 80-86);
• preparations against the prospect of enemy attack undertaken in Bahrain during 1942, including: the appropriation of sites for the construction of defensive posts and anti-aircraft batteries (f 88, f 99, f 100, ff 122-125, f 141); the arrival in Bahrain of the No. 57 Indian Garrison Company; the removal of signposts in Bahrain (f 98); camel and horse patrols; artillery practice and manoeuvres (f 116, ff 118-120); protection of cable communications on the island (ff 139-140). A letter from the Political Resident, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Geoffrey Prior, to the Secretary to the Government of India, dated 23 December 1942, gives an overview of the preparations made for the defence of Bahrain (ff 149-151);
• Troop movements in the Gulf in 1942 (ff 103-104);
• 1942 Ministry of State proposals to standardise time in the Middle East and East African Commands (ff 112-113, ff 134-135).