IOR/R/15/2/665

The file comprises copies of correspondence and other papers relating to the recruitment, discipline, and resignation of members of the Bahrain Special Defence Police, who were charged with the security and defence of the Bahrain Petroleum Company’s (BAPCO) refinery and oil fields. The principal correspondents in the file are: the Bahrain Political Agent (Edward Birkbeck Wakefield); the Defence Officer in the Persian Gulf (Major H T Hewitt). The file is a chronological continuation of ‘File 28/1 L I BAPCO refinery guards’ (IOR/R/15/2/664).

The file includes:

• enquiries, initiated by the Defence Officer in May 1942, over the payment of a 20 per cent war bonus to those European police officers recruited from India. Enquires made to India, with replies from the police authorities in Bombay, Madras and Bengal, indicate that there was no war bonus scheme as such, but a number of other allowances mitigating for circumstances arising from war conditions (ff 2-3, f 17, ff 20-25, f 27);
• correspondence dated 1942 relating to a number of resignations from the Bahrain Special Police Force, with arrangements made for their return to India or, in one case, their re-employment with BAPCO (ff 28-31, ff 38-39, f 43, ff 54-58);
• a complaint, brought by the Defence Officer in May 1942, over an alleged incident of disobedience in relation to dress code, against a Special Defence Police Officer. Papers include the Defence Officer’s complaint, a letter from the Officer in question, and the Political Agent’s response to the complaint and his interview with the officer (ff 4-12, f 15);
• correspondence relating to the need to recruit Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) for the Defence Force, particularly in light of most existing officers’ contracts ending in late 1942, and no officers wanting to extend their contracts (ff 13-14, ff 18-19, f 42);
• a balance sheet, prepared by Charles Dalrymple Belgrave, Adviser to the Government of Bahrain, indicating the costs incurred by the Government in maintaining the Special Defence Police in 1942/43, with Belgrave suggesting that BAPCO assist in the sharing of these costs (ff 47-53);
• correspondence dated 1946 relating to the eligibility of former officers serving in the Bahrain Special Defence Police to apply for war medals in response to one officer making such an application ((ff 62-69).