IOR/R/15/2/897

The file comprises correspondence in response to various reports of arms smuggling in around the Arabian Peninsula. The principal correspondents in the file are the Political Agent at Bahrain (Lieutenant-Colonel Arnold Crawshaw Galloway), the Political Officer on the Trucial Coast (Captain Raymond Clive Murphy; Captain Hugh Dunstan Rance), the Residency Agent at Sharjah (Jasim ibn Muhammad Kadmari), and the British Consular Agent at Lingah (sometimes spelt Lingeh) [Bandar-e Lengeh], D J Stephens.

The file includes correspondence concerning:

• reports of arms and ammunition smuggling from Dubai into the Iranian coast, including several reports from the British Consular Agent at Lingah (for example, ff 15, f 17, and f 23), which were forwarded to the Political Agent at Bahrain, and in turn onwards to the Political Officer on the Trucial Coast or the Residency Agency at Sharjah who reported their investigations into the accuracy of the claims back to the Political Agent;
• the theft in October 1944 of ammunition from stores at RAF Sharjah, the implication of the RAF Levies in the theft, and the status of RAF investigations and courts martial (ff 6-25);
• reports of large quantities of SAA (small arms ammunition) dumped by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in shallow waters at Ras al Hadd, and subsequently recovered by the local population and sold to local sheikhs (ff 29-30);
• British officials’ efforts in 1946 to track the movements of a vessel carrying arms from Mukalla [Al-Mukallā] to Dubai via Muscat (ff 52-57 and ff 61-64);
• an allegation of arms dealing between the Āl Thānī of Qatar and the Āl Mana of Bahrain, in correspondence exchanged between the Political Agent at Bahrain and the Adviser to the Government of Bahrain (Charles Dalrymple-Belgrave) (ff 65-69);
• the theft of Government rifles from the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) Station Manager’s office at Sharjah, in early 1947 (ff 79-80 and f 82);
• a compensation claim from a nakhuda who was commissioned to transport ammunition for the Royal Navy during the war, and who was subsequently robbed of his cargo and possessions (ff 85-88 and ff 93-97).